How did YOU find the World of the Wheel ?

[Lynchgrinch]

I appologise if there is already something like this, but i haven't been able to find it.

 

How did you discover the World of the Wheel?

 

Personaly, i was introduced to it by my cousins Ex-husband, who is a mega fantasy geek...about 9 years ago. I read tGH up to aCoS because he never had a copy of tEoTW that was alive and readable! Crazy to think i was reading all this when i was 9! i probably took abou 5% of everything i read in!

 

Anyhoo, they got devorced, (megasadtimes), and SOMEHOW, being young i forgot about the Wheel...

 

Until one fatefull night.......mwahahah i've always wanted to say that

 

For some reason one night about 3-4 years later i remembered the phrases "The Dragon Reborn" and "The Horn of Valere". i couldn't get them out of my head and all i could remember was that they belonged to this awesome series that i couldn't remember the name of. I could rember vaguely the epic front cover of The Dragon Reborn, with rand holding callandor in the stone of tear. And feeling all fuzzy inside like the way you get goosebumps when you here an epic peice of music or a truely inspiring story.

 

I had to recall these books!

 

So...I ran downstairs at about 1 in the morning to google these phrases i remembered, and i got a wikipedia entry for "The Wheel of Time" and did a bit of looking about.

 

The Next day I had to do some work with a friend of the family, gardening/manual labor stuff. i got my pay at the end of the day...about £35, enough to buy the first 3 WoT books in the local book shop...so i did.

 

 

I finished every individual book up to tPoD in a day each, thats how immersed i was!

 

anyhoo, the rest is history...and here i am, 18 and addicted to WoT!

 

So is your WoT conversion as epic and as vivid as mine? or was it something mundane and boring?

 

Let us know!

[soccerscott]

I typed in Google "something better than the shitty writing of Terry Goodkind" Litterally. I found some stuff on other book series and did rock paper sissors against myself over WoT, Shanara, and Ice and Fire. Good stuff eh? I know not the epic find you were hoping for...but it's one to write home to mom about.

 

OH and just so everyone know...APPARENTLY paper beats rock. Knew I should have just bought the damned Shanara series... ::indestinct grumbling about rocks::

[Oliver]

I own a comic book store in Philadelphia (south philly comics) and we started selling used books sci-fi, fantasy etc... A customer sold us EotW and told me I should read it. That was four months ago. Since then I have read every book and am starting my second reading of tGS. My wife calls herself a Wheel of Time Widow.

[NetSlider]

I typed in Google "something better than the shitty writing of Terry Goodkind" Litterally. I found some stuff on other book series and did rock paper sissors against myself over WoT, Shanara, and Ice and Fire. Good stuff eh? I know not the epic find you were hoping for...but it's one to write home to mom about.

 

OH and just so everyone know...APPARENTLY paper beats rock. Knew I should have just bought the damned Shanara series... ::indestinct grumbling about rocks::

 

I like Shannara too. Especially newer stuff. Ice and Fire and haven't even touched. I keep on hearing about it but it feels kind of wrong - I want to finish my affair with WOT first and than move on to new things I guess

[nojnomad]

Like all the good things in my life, my wife found it first... 14 years ago... Some how she got her hands on a paper back version that was only the first half of the first book. She was trying to read it and was getting annoyed that I was trying to question her about this new book. I never did read that copy... As usual I was displaying my lack of superior intelligence.

Several years later... I was complaining to a friend of ours about how short the LOTR series was and how much I would have enjoyed having more character development. She gave me the first 5 books in the series while complaining that the author was terrible and could never seem to finish the series and she was board with it. I eagerly relieved her of those and had read every book in the series inside of 2 years. This includes rereading every previous book before I read the new material. At that point I was left with the rest of the "poor smuck crowd" that was heavily addicted to the series with no hope of rehab. I have probably read the first 5 books 10 times and each successive book one less time... I have even read the last book twice already.

 

This is without a doubt the best book series ever!!! Mind, this comes from a guy who has read the entire 7 book trilogy of the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy 8 times...

[Tom Sawyer]

Ex-girlfriend introduced me to the books while we were dating. Crappy-assed relationship with a crazy woman not worth my time, but she did have good taste in books.

[ghoullio]

I was probably 10 or 11 and i rode my bike to the library down the road from my house. I was wanting a new book to read but didn't know what I was looking for. I found myself in the scifi fantasy section and saw a book called "Merlin". I judge books by their cover and thought that this would be a good book. Then the blue spine of EotW caught my eye and I put Merlin back. The cover of Lan and Moiraine intrigued me so I took it home. It took me a month to finish, but i went to the library every day that summer and read TGH and TDR and was hooked. Fro then on, I waited for each release and am currently on my third rereading of the series. I got away from it after WH, i thought the story was lagging. I picked it back up again with KoD and TGS within the past two months, so I'm back on board and anxious to see the rest of the story...

[Lironah]

I was staying with a friend of my dad's and pretty thirsty for books since I didn't have a library card there. I read just about everything in the house that I could find, and the last one I picked up was The Eye of the World. I remember typing up every one of Min's viewings and all the other prophecies I found, focusing on every fascinating little detail.

 

Unfortunately, my "cousin" saw me reading the book and that got him interested in it too; I'm afraid we got in a fight over who should get to read it first (me who was leaving any day or him who had left it on the shelf for a year or more...yeah, I won that one). But much to my relief, the library in my new hometown had not only TEotW, but 4 more books in the series, and book 6 had just come out in paperback. I spent the next 2 weeks reading WoT and eating Starbursts (anything else would have required me to stop reading) on a mattress on the floor of my new house.

 

Since then, WoT has had an impact on just about everything I've done; from discovering the internet to getting an A on a History class report to learning swordsmanship and getting involved in D&D - consequently meeting the man I married.

 

That was epic enough for them to pick me as a Storm Leader last year, at any rate.

[Thor]

It was 10 years ago, I just recently read the lord of the rings. I went into a book store, went to the fantasy section and just bagged the first 6 books without looking much or ever heard of it before.

[Guest Jtizz]

I just joined DM today despite reading threads very often and thought this would make a perfect first post, unfortunately I don't really have a exciting story about how I discovered WOT. I was a freshman in high school and we had to read a book every quarter and write a book report. After finishing the first book I chose (The Shinning by Stephen King) in a few days and not being required to read another for a few weeks I decided to go to the school library and and pick the "biggest" book I could find. I doubt TEOTW was the biggest but it was the one that caught my attention and the rest is history I guess. As a side note I have bought a LOT of copies of TEOTW (not because the covers keep falling off) but I often give it out as a gift and I have successfully gotten a hand-full of people hooked.

Later nice to meet you all.

[Gor]

The books' covers drew me in at the bookstore....no really, honest!

[Sid]

The books' covers drew me in at the bookstore....no really, honest!

This is true for me as well. Actually, it was The Path of Daggers cover (which had just been released) that really drew my eye. Still my favorite one. So, I bought TEotW and started reading when I found out it was the first in the series. The cover drew me in, but it's the content that wouldn't let go, and still hasn't.

 

Damnit, I'm going to be near useless for the next couple weeks for waiting...

[Coldiron]

I actually got the original Eye of the World in large paperback when it was released in 1990. I was 14 years old and had just had an appendectomy. My mother took me to a local book store to get any book, since I was going to be resting for a while. I saw The Eye of the World on the front table and something told me to get it. I've been buying the hardback of each book ever since. I have re-read the series going on 5 times now, and actually had my wife mail them to me when I was in Iraq in 2004 for the 4th read through. Those books are some of my most treasured possessions...

[FainsLeftFoot]

I received the book from my mom way back in highschool, for Christmas. It was sort of funny, I was reading the Hobbit after reading the trilogy and kept commenting on what a good book it was(to me at least). So my mom trying to be "cool" went out and bought me Eotw and said "here look I found another hobbit book". Well the mistake was she thought TOR stood for The Other Rings. But ever since then I have enjoyed the series greatly. So...my mom bought it for me :P

[Lironah]

I actually got the original Eye of the World in large paperback when it was released in 1990.

 

Oooh, so jealous! Back when I had the money for such things, not a single bookstore in town carried books 1-5 in hardcover. Even my book 8(?) is a smaller hardcover my mom found through her book club.

[thatbwoydc]

Back in 2002 I was working for a used bookstore chain called Half Price Books. I was into sci-fi and fantasy, and one of my fellow employees told me I should check out Terry Goodkind. I did, and while it was somewhat entertaining, I wasn't a big fan. I was at a coffee shop reading one of them, and someone asked me if I had ever read Wheel of Time. I said no, and they told me I should check it out and that Goodkind ripped off a lot of elements from Robert Jordan. I bought myself a copy of Eye of the World using my employee discount for a dollar, and I've been hooked ever since.

[restausn]

I was at the US Navy Electronics "A" school in Orlando Fl in October 1990. One of the other sailors in school with me suggested EotW to me and I was at first intrigued, then engrossed, and now obsessed, and what's more, my fever for the Wheel of Time has only gotten more intense as the years have gone by...I finished TGS in one sitting, about 14 hours.. the second time took 3 sittings over 2 days. I expect that it will be the same for ToM.. It's so close now!!!

[Jillain Sanche]

Every year I make time to pick up a couple of authors I have not read before both in fantasy and in scifi.

 

Two years ago, in the barn behind the Woodstock Library during one of their great used book sales, I picked up one of the Shannara books, one of the Goodkind books and The Eye of the World.

I got hooked on Robert Jordan, and have just completed my second read of the series to date waiting for ToM.

 

Shannara is okay, readable! But I despise Goodkind; he's a misogynist. As well, Goodkind's use of other authors' (Jordan, Tolkien, et al) plot elements is done so badly. The wizard for example, he's almost a parody.

At least with the Shannara books, the characters themselves are unique to that author; he does have his own way of telling the story which allows you to overlook the mining of Tolkien for plot elements.

[Isgrimner]

In about 1989 I was giving a classmate grief (not mean spirited, just general ribbing between friends) for reading the Hobbit for fun. I was like, "there's a movie (the cartoon) why are you reading that when you don't have to?" The teacher overheard us and she decided The Hobbitt was the next book we were to read in class and it hooked me. Not content with the Hobbitt and The Lord of the Rings I started reading all kinds of the usual fantasy fare that was available at the time, 1989-1991 Eddings, Brooks, etc.

 

I think in the fall (autumn for those not in the US) of '91 I saw the Eye of the World in the paperback section at our local supermarket. The cover looked neat (still my favorite of DKS) so I told my mom that EOTW could be what my 5 year old sister could get me for Christmas. I got it and was hooked. Luckily for me The Great Hunt was just released in trade paperback form (don't think the first two were origianlly released in hard cover) anyway, that was the last of the "no wait between books" for me, as I have been suffering the long wait between books ever since. Of course I hooked my mom and dad on the books, and many others over the past 18-19 years.

 

I was in boot camp/basic training for the Navy when Lord of Chaos came out. During my last week when they finally let us go out off the base, I bought that sucker and it barely fit in the tiny personal lockers we had. Read it whenever I had a tiny chance.

[Mighty Chin]

I was sitting in a Movie Theatre with some friends waiting for Point Break to start, 1991 was the year, my god has it been that long. I noticed a very attractive girl in front of me reading the paperback of The Great Hunt. I was intrigued by the cover but more-so the fact that an attractive woman was reading a Fantasy novel. I asked her if the book was good and she couldn't wait to talk about it. She said her Boyfriend (ugh!) turned her onto it and that it was an amazing read, she gushed when speaking about it. She told me it was a series and that this was the second book but the Third was already out and the fourth was apparently on the way. As she continued her boyfriend returned from the Snack Bar and he proceeded to add his unwanted opinion.

 

Regardless once the movie ended I walked across the street to the Granville Book Store and picked up The Eye of the World. Got home and started to read it in bed and could not put it down. Got to Baerlon and had to close my eyes. That book was finished before lunch the next day. I immediately went and picked up The Great Hunt and the Hardcover cover of The Dragon Reborn.

 

I must have re-read those three books a half a dozen times before The Shadow Rising was released.

 

I ended up buying a paperback of the Dragon Reborn since I noticed that I had re-read the Hardcover so many times it was starting to fray. I think I've read that one more than all of them. When it got to Book Five Lord of Chaos I lent all my Paperbacks to someone and they literally dropped off the face of the earth right after. I was lost! I had to make a decision to either rebuy them all again or pay the extra money for the Hardcovers. I knew I had to go the Hardcover route. 6 weeks and $150.00 later I was restocked!

[SkeletorOnCrack]

Summer job at the beach on Long Island around '94. This guy Tom that I worked with turned me on to the series to pass the long hours of sitting in the booth. He's probably lurking on here somewhere but I lost touch with him long ago. He introduced me to WOT, I introduced him to pot. I'd call it about even.

[cap10kirk]

I was there at the beginning. 1990 or 91. I'm not sure. I was attending Southern Illinois University at the time. I was on break from school at the time when tEotW caught my eye. I got hooked. Funny thing is I left that book on the train. I was about 3/4 into the book, at the time. Boy was I pissed. I immediately bought a new one. I love this series. But, mother's milk in a cup, I can't help myself in questioning the 20 years. 20 bloody years!!? And it's still not finished? RJ created a masterpiece, pure and simple. But twenty bloody years?? Light.

[hotpocket2006]

About 7 months ago I walked into my local Barnes & Noble and went straight to the scifi/fanatsy section like I normally do, and started going up and down the rows seeing if a certain book would speak to me. See I've been waiting for my friend, George, to finish this other major series, A Song of Ice and Fire, so I needed something to hold me over until he finished this book. Anyway, before I go off on a rant about waiting so long for a book that was promised a long time ago, I picked up a couple of different books off of the shelf that interested me.

 

At first I was not going to get the WoT. I was so disillusioned with series that weren't finished yet that I was going to stay away from all books that were in a series that wasn't finished yet. Anyway, needless to say that didn't happen. I went home with the first two books in the series and another book Name of the Wind book 1 in the Kingkiller Chronicles, and was hooked on both. The deciding factor for me really was the fact that WoT was like 500 books long. I'm a speed reader, I can read like 3-4 good sized books in a week (at least) so I wanted something that was going to last awhile.

 

And there you have it. My epic story of how I go into the Wheel of Time.

[Mighty Chin]

I know 20 years! Blood and Bloody Ashes I'm old!

[Baletickle_to_da_face!]

I've never been a fan of hardcore Fantasy. Always been more of a fan of horror/suspense with some sci/fi thrown in there. Was reading Stephen King from about the time I was 7 or so. Around the time of my freshman year my friend and brother in law to be turned me on to the Dark Tower series. Which I read and reread, but unfortunately stalled after book 4. Which itself had come out a long while after book 3, which had been almost a decade after book 2 if I remember right. Point is I didn't know how long it was going to take for another book, so I was looking for something else. Pretty random luck really, I was discussing the DT series with a guy after class one day and he started bringing up the WoT series. The thing I remember most about the conversation is him talking about "The Dragon Reborn" and I was like, "Bah, that's exactly why I don't like Fantasy...all the Dragons and Dwarves and crap"

 

I really can't remember how he convinced me to start the series, but after a little adjustement(even Jordan's early, fast paced books are heavy on description compared to King's style) I was quite hooked. Some of my favorite memories of the series are reading TEotW and the Great Hunt by candlelight in my room with soft music playing in the background. Really set a mood for those early books.

 

TGS really reinvigorated my love of the series last year. Had ignored it for almost the entirety of the '00's. After book 4 I felt Jordan's writing became stiff and almost entirely dependant on plot. It was like a breath of fresh air to see how Brandon handled TGS. Brought back a bit of the magical feel of the first 4 books to me.