The Wheel of Time, Halfway Through

The Eye of the World Cover Art, from here 

The Wheel of Time is a 14-book epic fantasy series that was on my list for a long time. A friend gifted me the first nine books, so I've been making my way through them over the past year, having just finished book seven this week. Here are these first seven volumes, with links to my reviews and ratings for each:

The Eye of the World- A

The Great Hunt- A

The Dragon Reborn- A

The Shadow Rising- A-

The Fires of Heaven- A-

Lord of Chaos- B+

A Crown of Swords- B+

My ratings indicate a mild but steady downward slope in quality. The first three were the best, and also the fastest-moving. The pacing has slowed and become uneven in the last four (I was warned this would happen). That said, I'm still enjoying the series, and even after 5,921 pages, I look forward to seeing how the remaining story will unfold (and I'm told the pace picks up again).

At a high level, here is the good and bad of the series.

Good:

• Compelling story
• Interesting characters with differing abilities or strengths
• Nice world/history development, with intriguing elements and the impression of depth I find so appealing
• Balanced power struggles and mysterious motives within and between the 'good guys' and 'bad guys'
• Multiple perspectives revealing the faults, doubts and internal struggles of the main characters (even some evil ones)
• No graphic depictions of sex, violence, and language
• Limited knowledge. The characters (good and bad) don't know about events outside their immediate situation, and act with the best knowledge they have. I like that- some novels have heroes whose intuition is suspicuously complete and correct. You don't have that here.

Bad:

• Uneven story/character development (in the last four books).
• The story can 'plod along' for hundreds of pages, then have rapid plot progression appear out of nowhere. 
• Over-reliance on certain focus and phrases. I've gotten used to it, but it's mildly annoying that Jordan always focuses on the same aspects of clothing, same descriptions of characters, same phrases to describe certain things, etc. 
• Sheer number of characters combined with inadequate appendices to keep track of them all
• The appendix in each book is appreciated but not updated- nobody I looked up was in there. The main characters have entries, but they're the least necessary.
• Difficulty in understanding "the One Power" and the limits of those who use it. This is similar to the problem I have with the Force in Star Wars. The power-wielding characters alternate between shockingly strong abilities and standard weaknesses. They can move mountains, then get easily surprised or overpowered. It seems inconsistent.

Final thoughts:

All things considered, this is a fun series. I read an installment every ten books or so, so my retention from one to the next isn't always the best, but the Internet can help fill in the blanks (like this refresher site). At my current pace, I'd finish in early 2022.