How did you discover the WoT series?

[Toman Zahere]

I work in a public library, so of course I see a lot of books. I'd come across the WoT books while shelving but hadn't thought too much about as I wasn't really into reading fantasy. One of my co-workers is really into fantasy and I knew that he really enjoyed the series.

 

Now where coming into the year before the Lord of the Rings movies come out and I thought I should give the books a go before seeing the movie. As it turned out I loved them and this had wetted my appetite for fantasy.

 

Scroll forward a bit and the cut in half version of the EotW crosses my desk. This looks interesting I thought to myself but do I really want to read a series thats 10 books long. Decided to read it and there was no going back. Read the first 4 books from the library and then decided I'd have to purchase my own copies. Now I'm like everyone else and I can't wait for the conclusion.

[Maverick]

i had read LOTR by tolkien and was a little disappointed i'd grown attached to the charachters and at the end of the novel i tohught that there could have been more.

 

so i tried to find the biggest fantasy series there was. WOT caught my eye and i picked them all up about 4 months back and i'm on book 8 now. cant put them down. love them so many charachters and plots.

 

perfect

[ronoc/booms]

well, considering tati was only born a few weeks before EotW was released it took me a while to get around to reading it. i was at school the year before last, in the library. i was rereading LotR for the third time, but my teacher forced me to get one anyway. trying to look smart i went to the biggest book i could find, which happened to be LoC. deciding it would be hard to convice my teacher that i was going to start the series half way thruogh i picked up EotW instead. i don't know about the american covers but on the european covers, there's a quote from a reviewer mentioning tolkien. i took this as a good omen. after returning to class we were forced to read our books. never missing the oppertunity before in my life to read, i start dragonmount. as the class ended, i continued reading, and by the end of the day, after being told by several teachers to "put that damn book away", i had read 5 chapters. i never stopped and am currenty rereading for the first time and am just starting PoD.

[ono-neko]

A friend forced EotW down my throat. After banging the book on me literally for months, I gave in and read the book... That's how I got hooked with WoT series, and now I am more obsessed about WoT than him... I guess he just created a WoT maniac off of me... :D

[Inara]

whoa, dejavu

that is exactly what happened to me

i have never looked back

[alCal]

I told a friend that Harry Potter was the best fantasy series, and.. well, he told me it wasn't in a very convincing way by shouting at me :lol:. I didn't think vey much about it, but when another friend of mine started reading EoTW and mentioned the series, I got interested. The shouting guy gave me the first two books for my birthday, and since then (2001 or 2002) I've been an addict.

[Child Olaf]

Jeez, reading this makes me feel old...

 

I was in college when EoTw came out. I was really into Stephen King at the time, so I ignored it. I kept seeing the newest installments come out over the years, but I ways always in the middle of another series or too caught up in a different author to pick one up. About three years ago I was in a bookstore looking for something to read on an upcoming business trip to Denmark. It's a 9 hour flight and the home office is in the middle of nowhere, so there's really only two things to do when there - drink beer or read. The beer is very good but very expensive, so I try to read more than drink. I picked up two books, one of which was EoTW because it was thick and on sale. I think the paperback was $2.99 or something. I read the other book first and started EoTW about mid-week. I barely slept and completely forgot about the beer as I read it one and a half times before I got home. I hit the bookstore on the way home from the airport to get the next book and have read little else since then. I've got two small children at home, so I don't get to read as much as I would like. But I'm currently on my second full read through. Not sure what I'm going to do when I finish KoD this time...

[Ad]

I disovered The Wheel of Time five years ago. I was in a bookstore looking for a new book to read when a gigantic paperback caught my eye. It was, as you might have guessed, the Dutch translation of The Eye of the World, Het Oog van de Wereld. I decided not to buy the book, because of its rather steep price, but to try the library.

That night, after my visit to the library, I opened the book and read the first few chapters. I remember being so overcome with emotion when I reached the part where Rand reached Emond's Field, that I decided to put the book away. It was too much.

A few weeks after that I bought the book and read it just the same.

[Athanacropolis]

I was in the 7th grade (1994) when, during one of my family's frequent trips to a big bookstore in Dover, New Hampshire, Stroudwater Books I think (we lived in Central N.H. at the time...not much there) I saw EotW and had remembered a friend reading it back in the 6th grade. So my mom and dad, being awesome people, bought me books one through five (LoC was published in paperbackby then, I'm pretty sure, but the told me to wait on it). I was hooked ever since.

 

My brother is an avid reader, and like me he enjoys Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkien, but he's resisted my attempts to get him into "The Wheel of Time" so far...I keep harping on him!

 

I haven't read the forums for a while, though, because I'm re-reading the series before I finally get to KoD (I'm 100 pages into tPoD now) and I've already seen some spoilers! Argh! But this website is awesome!

[Dashiva]

About five years ago i was at my buddies house and tEotW was laying about and it always caught my eye. i used to pick it all the time and look at cover, until he told me to read the prologue. after reading dragonmount i was stunned. then i was even more stunned when he told me the first chapter is about 3000 years later. i kept reading all day and was hooked. i just finished the series for the 4 time (KoD for the first) and cant wait for aMoL, but i dont want it to end.

[flexxx]

I was plowing through David Eddings' books when i was aobut 10, this was in 1998. Being a kid I thought those Eddings books were so totally cool and awesome and nothing would ever be better than them.

 

And I knew there was this other big fantasy thing called Wheel of Time, but I tohught it seemed bad becuase it had (at the time) sometihng like 18 books (swedish WoT books are split in two), so I tohught it seemed like really cheap litterature and stuck to Eddings. But eventually I had read all of the Belgariad and Malloreon and what not, so when i was in a bookstore near my summer house one time in the summer and needed sometihng to read, I asked them to order Farornas Väg (the first part of The Eye of the World) for me. A few days later I picked it up, started reading in the car on they way back, and I was caught. I Spent the reaminder of that year reading WoT I think, cause I know I finished De Nio Månarnas Dotter (part two of Winter's Heart) the next summer.

 

When Crossroads of Twilight came out like a year later I bought it in english, too anxious to wait for a translation. But alas, too much time had passed and at my young age I had problems remembering what was going on in the story as well as keeping up with the quite advanced laguage of the book. so I read aobut 1/4 and then put it down. :/

 

Fast forward to this christmas, I open my presents and I find the fairly new Knife of Dreams! My mother bought it for me knowing I like fantasy. So I tohught wow, I have to read this, but! I dont remmeber jack shit about what happened in the series. So I started re-reading the whole thing, and having reache dthe impressive age of 18 (!), I can finally grasp what the series is all about, I'm enjoying it more than ever.

 

I just finished reading Svarta Tornet (Lord of Chaos pt.2), so I'm getting closer and closer toKnife of Dreams. And that's how it is. If anyone cares.

[Andrew B.]

A couple years back I had finished the Malloreon by David Eddings and was looking for something else to read. I went to a church activity and me a guitar player who was also a Eddings fan. He was on Fires of Heaven at the time and told me Wot was really good. He is a slow reader, like reads a book then takes like a month break before he gets to buying the next one, so I finished the sereis (up to Crossroads of Twighlight) before him :D Really he is quiet a slow reader, i think he just got Knife of Dreams

[Justin]

I was 21 when first I read Eye of the World (2001). At the time, I loathed reading and never actualy read any book past the first chapter. I was living with my uncle and he wouldn't shut up about these books. So, to keep him quiet I borrowed The eye of the world and started to read it, and soon enough I found myself picking up all the available books in the series. Basicaly, The eye of the world was the first book that I had read straight thru without stoping. At least, it's the first book that I could recall reading. Ever since I have read all the books multiple times and at least once thru every 6 months.

The only other books I've read are: Song of Ice and Fire (George r.r. Martin), and RJ's Conan Chronicals and Further Chronicals. I can't seem to put them down.

[dagwall]

I very much like to pick one author and read most of their books then find another author to read. Well I've read most Heinlein, Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, Crichton, and some James Patterson oh and Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Talking to others with a love of Card and his Ender's Game series I was told to check out Wheel of Time by RJ. Learing that it had 11 big books in it was great to me. I love stories that keep going, always want to know what happens next.

 

Only disappointment is that I thought the series was done with when I started. It gets so frustrating waiting for the next book to come out. As I had to do with King's Dark Tower series (great books). Still waiting on the last two books in the Ender series (or rather the parallel novels could be called the Bean series).

 

So I got the first WoT book for Christmas this year, didn't really start reading until late january and found the story slow to start. Simply from the sheer number of characters and everything happening without really understanding. The story just kinda jumps right in and you don't really understand until you learn more of the "world." But I was soon hooked and now at a loss waiting for the last book to come out.

 

hehe though I have sucked my Mom and my brother into the series.

[loosehead]

i was desperate for a new book because i had just finished the Pullman/Tolkien/Potter Series' and

 

i found the first three in a used book store and havent looked back

[Daetirion]

tricky one

 

if i remember i'd just finished Gemmell's Echoes of the Great Song, and wanted something a bit different but that would last me a long time

 

then i looked at the shelf below and it was start to finish Wheel of Time

 

worth a try, wasnt it

[Llewin]

I noticed Eye of the World numerous times when I was in middle school and was already an avid fantasy reader... The cover art grabbed me but it was a big book and I already had favorite authors (Piers Anthony and Terry Brooks) who always had a new book coming out...

 

In the course of my reading everything Piers Anthony wrote I got around to his Autobiography in which he mentions that he is reading a book by Robert Jordan called The Eye of the World to do a review on it. I didnt make the connection!

 

However a few years after that I picked up the Eye of the World because I was ready for something new and saw the Piers Anthony review, which was a very nice review, and that hooked me... "IF he likes it it must be good." basically...

 

Ironically I find Piers Anthony's writing to be ... less than inspiring ... now *shrug* go figure.

[thegreatbabu]

i got EotW about a year after it came out as a christmas present from mom and dad. i was in eighth grade and a voracious reader at the time(i had blitzed through my local libraries whole fantasy section). i was hooked from the start. i've read every current book in the series at least five times(literally), and in most cases more than that. i need to buy new copies of the first five books because mine have all fallen apart from over-reading.

[Catmanndu]

I was on a deployment in 1994. I had read every book I had brought with me (20 or so) and was looking for something new. I was looking through the box of books that just came in and was on the mess decks. I opened one of the boxes that hadn't been opened and found EotW. It look "knighty" to me, but it was the only fantasy book to be found so I took it to read. After that I picked up the rest. The thing that makes me made as all heck about this series is the time between the First edition release (hard back) and the mass market edition (paperback).

 

The below out of my books which are all first edition mass markets (or paperbacks)

TEotW FE Feb 90, FMME Nov 1990 - 10 months

TGH FE Nov 90, FMME Oct 91 - 11 months

TDR FE Nov 91, FMME Oct 92 - 11 months

TSR FE Nov 92, FMME Oct 93 - 11 months

TFH FE Nov 93, FIMME Mar 94, FMME Oct 94 - 11 months (FIMME - international paperback release)

LoC FE Nov 94, FIMME Mar 95, FMME Nov 95 - 12 months

ACoS FE Jun 96, FIMME Feb 97, FMME Nov 97 - 18 months

TPoD - FE Oct 98, FIMME Apr 99, FMME Dec 99 - 14 months

WH - FE Nov 00, FIMME Sep 01, FMME Jan 02 - 14 months

CoT - FE Jan 03, FIMME Oct 03, FMME Dec 03 - 12 months

NS - FE Jan 04, FIMME Oct 04, FMME Jun 05 - 18 months

 

Now KoD is out in hardback, all my books are paperback or MME's. How long do I have to wait?!?!? It has been 3 years since I read anything to do with the actual storyline. NS was a lite snack in 05. I forget who was doing what to whom, with whom, and where and why.

[infamous]

A teacher suggested it to me in middle school. I didn't even read much at that time.

[Guest Fire Lord]

I was an assidous reader from the age of twelve or thirteen, though I mostly read S.F. A year ago, I was in some sort of hospital, and I borrowed Part 2 of the Great Hunt (New threads in the Pattern.) from a fellow patient just to kill time, and it was probably the best thing I've ever done. It was my first fantasy read.

At first, I was frustrated, not knowing who Rand was, and who the hell was this Ingtar he kept wishing for to come. But by the time I finished reading, the book had me tight in its grip; I was captivated by Rand's destiny.

I badgered the guy who had lent me the book until he got fed up and brought me From the Two Rivers. From then on, like the say, I never looked back. I recently picked up the first book of A song of Ice and Fire, and it was good, but then I put that series on hold so I could re-read the Wheel of Time.

[nighteyes]

Three years ago I found eight books for sale for only two pound, now I love a bargain and that was one I couldn't pass up even though I'd never heard of them before. I was very lucky as it was the first eight of the wheel of time brand new never been read. 8)

[Gurney]

I was killing time at the book store looking for something new to read. I saw the WoT books, and bought em cause I wanted a series that would take longer than a week to read. Now I'm on my fourth reread.

[vikingdriver]

Completely by accident. I was driving cross country and tired of listening to the radio so at a truckstop I found some books on CD and hello the largest of the selection was and by chance The eye of the World hehe imagine the luck of getting book one. Got hooked on the story and sought out books two to read when I got to Washington State.

[ForsakenMoghedien]

I was a huge Linkin Park fan, and i heard an interview with them and a question was put to them asking what kind of books they read and one of the band members said The Wheel of Time, so i bought Book 1 and have been hooked ever since!