There will be spoilers below. Enjoy.

The second book in the Wheel of Time series, The Great Hunt, was fantastic and fun. Much better than the first. The first one showed me a fantasy novel universe that was believable yet soaked in imagination. The second book kept up the image but the flow of information – character depth, the amount of characters, traveling and lands visited, and the structure of magic – wasn’t as overwhelming and confusing for me as the first book (click here for my review of the first book, The Eye of the World). The second book flowed better than the first. The flow of the sentences and paragraphs fit well together, seamless. The flow of the traveling and different groups of characters all going on different divergent adventures, but meeting in the end, was delightful and satisfying when they met up. And flow keeps my attention, keeps my eyes on the pages, and keeps me reading.

The characters internal monologue, especially the main character, Rand, was spaced out and pieced together in such a way that, even though as the reader I caught on to what was happening to him, quicker than he did, it was a joy to watch him finally realize what others, like Moraine and Ba’alzamon, knew to be true but Rand did not want to accept. That is, that he is Lews Therin, the Dragon Reborn.

I also found that, since the main characters left Edmonds Field, and have been away from home a long time, I found myself also wanting them to make it back home. The way the author describes it in the first book and the way the characters remind themselves of the good times back in the Two Rivers, has kept me invested in the story. That reminds me of Rand’s father, Tam. He taught Rand to use the ‘void.’ Which I believe is a way for Rand to calm his mind, and then was used to help him channel the One Power when needed. Rand often times didn’t want to believe he was the reincarnation of Lews Therin, and would say, ‘I’m Rand al’Thor son of Tam al’Thor from the Two Rivers.’ I like how he loves his family and home. Keeps me interested in the main character. Rand doesn’t want to be the ‘chosen one’ or used by the Aes Sedai, and just wants to be a sheep herder on a farm. I like that character trait, not cocky and arrogant. That is left for Lan the Warder. Although Lan is bad ass so that’s cool with me.

I’m only two books into a fourteen book series so I have no idea where this story could go or what could happen to the main characters. I will make one prediction though: since Rand can’t channel the One Power in an Ogier stedding, and Rand doesn’t want to channel and potentially hurt the people he loves, I predict that in the end he will live out his life in a stedding and hopefully get married and live a long life. If anyone reading this has finished the series and knows how this all ends are either laughing at me or saying how amazing I am with guessing that. We’ll just have to wait and see. It took me about two months to finish two of the Wheel of time books, so sometime early next year you and I will find out if I was right.

If I had to guess, most people my age don’t read for fun these days. Our attention spans have been butchered by social media scrolling and apps and content consumption. Myself included. I got a good feeling of how connected I was to social media during my short Twitter hiatus, let’s just say it was a lot. Taking the time to read these Wheel of Time books is a great way to regain some of my attention span back. Just had a thought, maybe I should find an inexpensive copy of the Wheel of Time series in paperback form. It could help with cutting down my screen-time as I have been reading it in iBooks on my iPhone. We’ll see.

Anyways, I never thought I would be into a high fantasy novel at 36 years old, but here we are. And I’m enjoying the read.

Book Review of Eye of the World (Wheel of Time Book 1)