What age did you start reading WoT, and what was the 1st book you had to wait on?

[tkarrde421]

For me I was 19 and the first book I waited on was Crown of Swords.

 

I remember when my best friend compelled me to read the first book, and I remember not being that thrilled with the story at first.  Even with the Winternight action, I still wasn't hooked, and I wondered why my friend had led me astray in this Lord of the Rings ripoff.  Then they arrived at Baerlon, which kinda felt like Bree... compounding my frustration.  Then they arrive at Shadar Logoth, and the fellowship is forced to split up... and THAT was when the story finally clicked with me.  I was suddenly engulfed in the fantasy storytelling genius of RJ.  The inner monologues of each of the characters drew me in, and even if I didn't like some of the characters, I FELT like I understood where they were coming from.  When he described Nynaeve's braid-pulling and growing-frustration with the Aes Sedai, I felt like I was right there experiencing it with her!

 

Anyway, I was just curious what everyone else's entry point into the series was.  For me, this series has been a touchstone with my teenage years.  So much has happened in my life between when I started to read the series, and when I finally finished it that it's refreshing to go back to a place before my life got complicated.  I know it sounds corny, but the characters became like long-lost friends that I would rediscover every time a new book was released.  For 15 years I had that feeling that I was only a few months away from learning new things about my "friends".  So it's not hyperbole to say that Jordan's death hurt me more than any other death I had experienced in my actual lifetime.  I was glad that Sanderson took up the mantle and did a passable job of finishing the story.  But am I alone in the feeling the sense of loss when finishing AMoL?

[HighWiredSith]

Either Shadows Rising or Lord of Chaos had just been released in hardcover.  I purchased a bundle of Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, and The Dragon Reborn in paperback for like ten bucks, on sale.  By the time I got to Lord of Chaos, A Crown of Swords was just about to be released but hadn't yet.  This was before the internet so the only way I knew was by asking someone at the bookstore.  After that I would buy the hardcovers as they were released and eventually back filled my collection.  There really wasn't a lot of fantasy in the 80's and 90's.  I remember the SciFi/Fantasy section being decidedly more SciFi than Fantasy back then.  You had Terry Brooks, Michael Moorcock, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Ursula K. Leguin, among others but nothing compared to the stuff out today.  Seems like a new "epic" fantasy series hits the shelves every month.  Wheel of Time felt very new and epic and different back then.   

Edited January 9, 2019 by HighWiredSith
misspelling Ursula!

[wotfan4472]

I started reading the series when I was 13, and never looked back. I consider the characters friends as well. You are not alone in feeling the loss of not seeing where the characters any more in new stories. As for The Wheel Of Time, it brought Epic High Fantasy back from death in the 80's, and turned it into the powerhouse book genre it is today. It is as influential as Watchmen is for comics.

Edited January 10, 2019 by wotfan4472

[MrMatrim]

I started reading the series either right before or right after my 16th birthday.  I was at the local library during the summer of 1992 and ran into an acquaintance from one of my classes the previous year.  We both apparently liked fantasy books so we obviously discussed recent reads and favorites.  He went to the rack and put The Eye of the World in my hand and was gushing about how much he liked it, and how the words just flowed.  I saw the library had books 2 on the rack, and book 3 was on the new release shelf, so I thought it was a trilogy and had just been finished. (Well, not so much.......)

 

So the first book I had to wait for was The Shadow Rising, though only for a few months.

[TheSociopath]

I started when I was 14. For the next couple of years I would reread the series every couple of months to get more of the world. I kept counting until reread number 13, when I stopped bothering. 

I, fortunately, never had to wait for any of the books. 

As far as a sense of loss when the series ended goes, I always feel that acutely.

 

[Songstress]

I came to WoT late in the game - I had read some fantasy in my teens and 20s but for a long time most of what I read was more in the mystery/thriller genre, with a splash of Stephen King.

 

After my husband died far too young, I was kind of sunk in a depression for a couple of years (and wasn't working at the time), and I'd been playing World of Warcraft obsessively so I decided to read all the Warcraft lore novels I could get my hands on, and then asked my guildmates for suggestions about what to read next.  A Song of Ice and Fire was highly recommended, so I devoured those books shortly before the news came out that HBO was considering a TV show based on the series.  

 

My best friend and I were talking one day, and I was geeking out about ASoIaF, giving her a bit of the rundown about the story, and describing the connection between the Stark kids and the direwolves, and she said it reminded her of the scene in Eye of the World where Perrin learns he can talk to wolves.

 

So of course I had to read Eye of the World.  And then everything else available.  I think I finished The Gathering Storm right about the time Towers of Midnight was released, so the only book I had to wait for was AMoL.

[Illian Tear]

I started when I was 14. Read the first 5 in 2 months during the spring. The next 5 during the summer. And the last 4 during winter.

I don't feel to bad about it ending because I feel like its like the Dark Tower: it never ends and will continue after the book's end.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Illian Tear

[haycraftd]

I started it when I was 14, I think.  RJ had written up through WH--the first novel I had to wait on was CoT.  I was in eighth grade when I began and I remember finishing it in my ninth.  I immediately opened up EotW again and reread it all, though--the WoT was my LIFE throughout high school.  When a MoL came out, it was difficult to realise it was over actually.  The series is brilliant.  

 

@Illian Tear: "The wind blew southward, through knotted forests, over shimmering plains and towards lands unexplored. This wind, it was not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was AN ending."

Edited January 19, 2019 by haycraftd

[Paladin Paul]

I was 19. Luickily Great Hunt was already out so I had to wait a little forThe Dragon Reborn.  Then it seems like the next three or four were only a year apart. Then the wait got longer and longer.

[MauricXe]

I was either 12 or 13.

 

I read the series off and on but never caught up. I think I stopped reading in the middle of The Shadow Rising. I didn't dislike the series, I just found other things to do heh. For awhile, I thought Crown of Sword's was the final book!

 

I remember purchasing A Gathering Storm....but I still had not finished Book 4. I spoiled one or two plotlines after catching a few words in the book flap (dust jacket). 

 

One summer, my power went out for about a week. I looked around for something to do and it dawned on me that I've been several years behind on my WoT reading heh.

 

If I remember correctly, the first book I waited on was KoD.

[Apple151]

I want to say first book 11-12-13 or so. Can't remember waiting on any.