My immediate thought after completing The Eye of the World, Book One of The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan is how closely many of the characters and places equate to ones from The Lord of the Rings. Rand is Frodo, Moiraine is Gandalf, Emond’s Field is the Shire, Trollocs are Orcs, Myrddraal are the Nazgûl, Ba’alzamon is Sauron, and I could go on. But putting aside the obvious and I’m sure intentional influence of The Lord of the Rings, The Eye of the World holds its own as a rather good fantasy novel. The similarities to The Lord of the Rings do not become immediately apparent while reading the book and only seem more similar when thinking about the book in hindsight. These similarities in no way distract from the enjoyment of the book.

The pacing of the narrative fit very well within the 800 pages of the book. There was never a time where the story felt as if it dragged. Critical plot elements of the story and character details are spread out enough to keep it interesting, and the action in the story and peril the characters faced never seemed to stop. The most enjoyable part of the book occurrs near the middle, when the characters ended up being split into three different groups and the adventures of two of the main characters took on a Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer type of feel.

Even though I enjoyed this book and do plan on reading the next book in The Wheel of Time series at some point, The Eye of the World lacks that particular je ne sais quoi which separates a good book from a truly great book. Two aspects of the book prevent it from being great. First is the over use of the supernatural within the story. Once the reader begins to realize that anything can happen, no matter how fantastic it is, it makes the story seem less realistic. Second, the characters never quite make that leap to the point where the reader deeply and truly cares about them. I don’t think there was ever a point where if a character had died, I would have had a strong reaction. Despite these two shortcomings, The Eye of the World is a very enjoyable book.

Rating: 8 out of 10.