How did YOU find the World of the Wheel ?

[fborch]

Picked up the first one in the mid nineties (in a horrible norwegian translation) I might add. Quickly went to the english version, and I can probably contribute my love for the English language in a large part is due to Wheel of Time. Remember the first couple of books i read in english (was probably 13-14 at the time) I had to sit there with a dictionary, looking up the more difficult words. I believe TDR was the first book I ever read in english. And now I almost never read books in another language.

[Celes Chere]

I started reading the WoT series a few years ago when my boyfriend, who had been a fan since childhood, recommended them to me. At first I thought they were alright, a little bit of a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings (a small band of village lads are spirited away from the Shire... erm, the Two Rivers, by a she-wizard and her ranger, in the dead of night pursued by dark creatures!) but still a good read. That perception changed pretty quickly once I finished TEotW and started on TGH. =P Way more fun to read that LotR! Besides, I liked that it was such a lengthy series, because I figured it would be some long-lasting entertainment. Now, I've read the entire series so far a few times over, way surpassing my boyfriend who stopped midway through book nine. Can't wait to grab a copy of ToM on Tuesday!

[Kestrel]

It was early 1992. I was on a six-week overseas deployment (military) and was poking around the base exchange looking for something to read. I couldn't afford hardbacks very often. I found The Great Hunt on the paperback rack. Unfortunately it was a very small book rack, and they didn't have the first or third books in stock. I bought it, thinking:

 

"Cool, a decent-looking Trilogy. When I get back home I can get the first book and read these. The second book is already in paperback, so the third book - the conclusion - should be in paperback soon."

 

Wrong. Oh, the third book was in paperback soon enough, but it sure wasn't the conclusion of a trilogy.

 

When I finally got the first book and started reading I found myself thinking:

 

"Mmmm. Compared to Tolkien, the plot line of this story is moving along verrryyyy slowly......"

 

Got that part right.

[Guest david.bmc]

In 2008 i was travelling around europe for three months, needed some books to take with me so I went to a book store I saw the wheel of time and it caught my eye, it was a large book so would take a while to read and I liked fantasy, after reading the first book in less than a week I spent ages going around trying to find copies of the others in english, eventually found an english bookstore in switzerland and got 2 and 3, got bok four in Germany, I had to leave the first three books at random youth hostels in Europe, so hopefully some other random traveller picked them up. When I got back to australia used up last of money getting as many of them as I could.

So I'm a relative newbie only had to wait for new books twice now, I didn't realise that it wasnt finished when i first found them, never thought a book series could go on for more than 11 books.

[Tritlo]

I stumbled on it.

s

While on holiday in Norway, I needed something to read for our trip to a summer house. I went to the bookstore in the town I was staying in (Jessheim), and looked for the english books section. I finally found it behind some shelves, and there on the one shelf, the first 8 WoT books stood. I read the back of the EotW and decided that, well, if there are 8 books out, this must be good, and I can at least give the first one a shot. And then I was hooked. I finished EotW in 2 days, and as soon as we were back home from the summer house, I went and bought tGH and tDR. And thus I first got introduced to WoT.

[Diederichos]

Back when I lived out east I used to go to a huge chain of bookstores because they had a section dedicated to comic books and manga and I'd just go there to just read like a library(the security guard was a pretty nice guy). Eventually started drifting to other sections and I was drawn to the fantasy section. I went through Drizzt do'Urden stuff and then like a week or so before to the city I still live in, I found the series of WoT books on the bottom stack of one of the shelves in the store. AFter I moved, I used to go often to a mall right by downtown in a city I knew nothing off just to get the second and third and so on books. I'd like to think that WoT's opened my eyes to the wider world that is out there and drew me out of my cultural bubble. This was in the summer of 02, goddamn, I just realized it's been over 8 years now. Without a doubt one of the few things I've been so fanatic about for such a long period of time,.

[Shimmer]

I was 11 and my friend recommended the series to me in the school library. The librarian said that the story line was too prolonged and that she didn't like it (*shock*) but I borrowed tEotW anyway. Within 4 months time I had read up to KoD and it has been 3 years to date since I became a WoT fan and every year I go through (the much loved) the ritual of reading through the entire series in preparation for the next release but of course from 2012, I'll be able to read through the ENTIRE epic series that is WoT!

[Moon Sedai]

The saddest thing for me is that had I not picked up the series when I did, I doubt I would have gotten in to the series at all.

The whole time I had my initial read-through of the series, my husband [at the time he was my finacee] had already returned home from the Army while I was still in the Army.

He hates the WoT!

 

Even though I was an avid reader as a kid, I seriously can't believe the number of people here who picked up the series at ages 10, 11, 14.

Awesome!

 

 

[Hold On To The Night]

Picked up the first one in the mid nineties (in a horrible norwegian translation) I might add. Quickly went to the english version, and I can probably contribute my love for the English language in a large part is due to Wheel of Time. Remember the first couple of books i read in english (was probably 13-14 at the time) I had to sit there with a dictionary, looking up the more difficult words. I believe TDR was the first book I ever read in english. And now I almost never read books in another language.

 

That translation really was terrible wasn't it? Especially when they got Lanfear saying something like "I know of only two swords more powerful than this one that a man can use." Got me really wondering when the other mighty swords were going to come into play. Until I read tEotW again in English quite a while later and realized it was the translation that was bad...

 

I was really into fantasy when i was about 10 years old, 2002 that is, and was looking for something to read in the library. I read the back of tEotW and tGH and thought to myself that I had to read this. Then I noticed the length of the series and put it off. The next time i visited the library I was planing on borrowing them but they only had them in English at the time. I didn't think I was capable of reading 800+ pages in English and put it off again. Until 2004 I think, I'm not sure.

 

I was hooked at once when I started reading. Well, maybe not the prologue, I didn't really grasp that, but still. But the Norwegian publisher had of course split the books into two or three parts each and I confused book one part two with book two part one and got a really big jump from Caemlyn to Fal Dara and got really confused. Yet the books were too addictive for me to give up and so I completed the rest of tGH even though I was really wondering what was going on. When I realized I had skipped half a book I read that half at once and got a lot wiser.

 

Seriously, I hated that they split the books like they did. And gave the parts lousy and sometimes spoilerish titles. Like "The Tower falls". I very nearly stopped reading when I saw that.

 

Even though the translations got somewhat better after the Eye, I switched to English as soon as I felt comfortable with it. And I am not going back.

[Guest]

i was introduced to the series by a few friends of mine that recommended it. I remember that Winters Heart just came out in paperback, so i had 9 whole books to plow through, i guess i was pretty lucky not having to wait in between all those. Even Crossroads of Twilight came out before i was done with em all. Basicly ive only had to wait for KoD and TGS and ToM so far :D

[aunt_pol]

Wow ye are makin' me feel old! Some time in 2000 I was at a bit of a loose end, having just finished the Belgariad and the Malloreon. Boyf was mooching around a second hand bookstore, liked the covers of TEOTW and TGH, and bought 1-8 for me, pretty much in one go. I read them, thought they were ok, no great shakes. Another friend, far deeper into geekiness, insisted I just wasn't getting it: go back and read them again. So I did. I got WH fairly soon, then - not sure how much time had passed between my first and second reads? - so have only had to wait for CoT onward. Have read 1-9 10+ times, with a few less for subsequent books.

I too have found so much in the books - so many situations, one of Lini's sayings fits, and often I find myself framing my reaction to something almost through a WoT lens, so to speak. It's also helped me clarify what to focus on in my writing, almost negatively so: I've found myself so frustrated with WoT characters not saying what I want them to say, that my own characters are probably excessively outspoken and honest! But I can write a far better PoV now...

Like some of you, I'm now spoiled for unfinished series. I wouldn't entertain Harry Potter at all until they were all out, and I'm avoiding ASOIAF for the same reason. Traumatised! Can't wait for tues morning... only 33 hours away now, pretty much...

[Vordreller]

Friend of mine in highschool read it. Recommended it. Decided to give it a swing.

[Ihasavowel]

I was another one who mistook it for a trilogy, and was trying to avoid unfinished series. I got tEotW because I had a gift voucher to spend and figured I could use the voucher, and if I liked it, buy the other two the next pay day.

 

The third book had been out long enough to be in the small softcover format, and the fourth was not out yet (obviously), but off the top of my head, I cannot recall the year. 1992/3/4?

[Bowden]

tEotW was in a box of random books my aunt gave me when I was 14. Been hooked ever since!

[Mulk]

1992, I'd gone to college and met a guy who introduced me to The Eye of the World. I think TSR had just come out in hardcover at the time. There wasn't a ton of fiction that really interested me at that point. I'd read all of the Terry Brooks stuff, the Thomas Covenant books, and I had LOTR and Narnia memorized so I was kinda needing something new. About 150 or 200 pages into TEOTW I was fairly well hooked and TGH set the hook firmly.

 

The biggest part of the reason I don't remember exact dates/etc about other books, particularly LOTR and Narnia, has a great deal to do with the fact that I was something like 6 years old when I first picked those up and didn't know what a big deal a good story was. I didn't finish LOTR back then; I came back to it when I was 11 or 12 and devoured it and the Silmarillion.

 

WoT is definitely the best recent fantasy I've read. George Martin just ain't my cup of tea, the Dark Tower series put me off with its non-ending, and so on. I honestly think Jordan got lost trying to figure out how to get from where he was at TDR and TSR to the end he had in mind and that annoyed me no small amount, but I loved the story and the characters so much I kept coming back to them.

[Guest svirfneblin]

I remember the first time I was exposed to the wheel of time. I was 12, and my mother was reading through the series. I read over her shoulder the section where the white tower splits, and thought it was interesting. A few months later, it was summer vacation time and my mother had just checked a crown of swords out of the library, and since I had a lot of time on my hands, I got the eye of the world from the library and started reading. One month later, I was done and waiting on the path of daggers, which came out a few months later.

 

As a side note, my local library had a summer reading program where kids could come and compete by grade level to see who read the most over the summer. That was the summer they switched from using number of books to number of pages as the measurement standard...wheel of time helped a lot there.

[Sid]

As a side note, my local library had a summer reading program where kids could come and compete by grade level to see who read the most over the summer. That was the summer they switched from using number of books to number of pages as the measurement standard...wheel of time helped a lot there.

That's pretty hilarious. *THUNK* ok here's 5000 pages done...

[smileyman]

It was the summer of 1991. I was spending it at my grandma's house (which I did every summer back then), and I headed to the library to look at some books to read. I'd been a fantasy fan for awhile, so headed to that section and just browsed through the titles, when I saw a copy of The Great Hunt. The cover intrigued me so I checked it out and read it first (The Eye of the World was checked out). I can remember being confused about references to Children of the Light and wondering why kids would want to kill these women. I've been hooked ever since and waiting for the new releases ever since.

 

I started getting involved online in 1998 with the usenet group rec.arts.sf.writen.robert-jordan (some of the old guys might remember that) and was a fairly regular participant there for years.

 

Now I'm here. It's a bit hard to believe that the series is almost done--I've been reading and following it for almost 20 years now.

[SylvanFox]

I used to see the books in the bookstores once in a great while, the huge hardcover ones you don't see anymore. I always figured I'd read it one day. It was a very long time, though, before I did. I was in the library and I saw one of the books, and I remembered seeing them before and concluded that they ran in a series. I picked up the book and read the series list to see which one came first, and then I checked out EotW.

 

This was only about 2 1/2 years ago. The first few books, I read with some space between, but once I finished the fifth (just a month or two ago), I started buying them in chunks. Right now I'm almost finished with WH and the next three are on their way in the mail.

[alligator]

I started reading around 2002/3, when I was eleven or twelve. A good friend was reading EotW in class and she recommended it... I think she shortly gave up on the series, but the books have stuck with me since! Before that I had mostly only been into historical fiction and YA fantasy. WoT seriously shaped my teenage years and got me hooked on the epic genre.

[AliasKelly]

I received The Eye of the World as a Christmas gift in either '94 or '95 - not quite sure. I had finished it within two days, naturally, and all but ran to the bookstore to get the remainder of the books available at that time - The Great Hunt through Lord of Chaos.

 

WARNING: Don't open this spoiler if you haven't read through Lord of Chaos!

 

I still remember how I felt getting close to the end of Lord of Chaos - Rand was in Tower Aes Sedai hands, tortured non-stop, and I was tortured as I watched the diminishing pages in my right hand! Please don't leave him in the box! Get him out of there before the next book! Whew - thankfully Robert Jordan didn't disappoint me.

 

 

Die hard fan ever since and thank you Brandon Sanderson for taking on such a difficult job and performing it so admirably.

[Aye said I]

I discovered WoT through unusual means.

 

As I'm in the UK, much US fantasy is shunned by UK publishers/bookstores - unless there's a film/tv tie-in. I'd have probably discovered it eventually, but most of the SciFi/Fantasy shelves are taken up with several hundred slightly different LotR editions plus the various History of Middle Earth volumes etc, Swathes of Pratchett, half a shelf of Robert Rankin and some Philip K Dick and Asimov. Not to mention Tw*l*ght I have to confess that I tend to prefer SciFi rather than Fantasy, though Tolkien and Pratchett have been high on my favourites list.

 

I'm embarrased to admit that on sourcing an mp3 of a Pratchett audiobook I'd had stolen from my car, there were download bittorent links to a large number of SciFi/Fantasy collections, WoT included. I saw the filesize and brief description and asked myself "what's this Wheel of Time? I've never heard of it before." At this point, the longest Audiobooks I'd listened to were LotR, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy and Battlefield Earth.

 

I was intrigued, particularly by the sheer size of WoT - somwhere in the region of 19 Gb of audio at that point, which was enough to recommend the series itself, purely because if a series is absolutely rubbish, there's no way any publisher would continue to publish books. (the exception, which proves the rule, as it were, is of course L Wrong Cupboard's 'Mission Earth' series of so-bad-it's-a-train-wreck SciFi.) Anyway, the size and scope of the Audiobooks, coupled with the fact that here was a major Fantasy series that actually WAS available on Audio (Owning as I do, the complete Fry narrated Harry Potters, the Rob Inglis Hobbit/LotR, and numerous other unabridged audiobooks including, Robert Rankin, Pratchett, John Wyndham and Tom Holt) was enough to send me on a fact-finding mission - google, wikipedia etc and ultimately lurking here (and wotmania before it disappeared) to find out more about what WoT was about. Suffice to say I soon got all the UK Orbit paperbacks with the lovely large numbers on the spine, the wheel/serpent motif on the front and around an inch wide of Daryll Sweet illustration on the rear from NS up to KoD. (I'll get tGS soon, and TofM when it goes to PB. I couldn't stand having non-matching editions on my shelf...)

 

After sampling a couple of chapters and discovering that the narration was pretty good, I purchased the Audible Downloads of all the books pretty quickly, (and have just added TofM to my Audible Library) and although I'd love to own CD versions, I expect that probably won't happen due to lack of funds. In any case, I've been using my audible player on my Nokia N95 hooked up in my car when driving, or on headphones when out walking or any time else I can find time (cooking, washing up...)

 

My first attempt at the series got me to halfway through TGH. The second, to 2/3rds through TFoH. I'm on my third attempt and so far almost at the point I got to last time. (I think the Rand/Aviendha Chapters 31 & 32 of tFoH [the Far snows and a short spear] are some of RJ's finest writing of the series.} The first run through tEotW was, for me, marred by my brain shouting "too many Tolkien parallels", but I found that it was much less obvious on the second and third listenings. I've stopped twice because I keep losing momentum, but am doing my utmost to get through the series to the end of TofM just in time for another marathon straight through the series, which I hope to time perfectly so that I'm finishing TofM for the second time around March 2012, in time to pick up aMoL. This attempt to co-incide with TofM didn't work out so well. I started this run around mid June, at roughly an hour a day.

 

If it hadn't been for the link, which I can state categorically was responsible, (or at least the catalyst) I may not have discovered the rich and intricate weaving of the pattern that is Wheel of Time. So whilst I can't really condone the way I discovered it, I'm glad that I DID discover it. Once WoT books were on my radar, I did finally notice them on the shelves of some of the larger bookstores. the smaller ones had a copy of 2, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11, or other similar random selections of the series. I had to go to quite a few before I managed to find a copy of tEotW... And there's nothing finer than the sight of around 3 feet of WoT paperbacks sitting neatly on a shelf.

[chriss]

I grew up a huge fan of Tolkien, my father introduced me to The Hobbit in Elementary school, LOTR in Middle School and I found The Silmarilion in High School. I read the Trilogy about once a year for years. Then a couple years ago a dear friend recommended WoT to me at a roleplaying session. I was looking for a fantasy series with more magic/power, along with a generous dose of bad ass swordsmen. Having studied kendo and iaido, I wanted something with a fair amount of swordplay. Anyway, I picked up the series a year ago and can't wait for aMoL. I know I haven't been reading and rereading the series for 20 years like some of you guys/girls-but I absolutely love these books. I can't name a favorite character, they're all so great. I've had so many actual laugh out loud/celebratory UUUUUHHHHH!!! Take that!!! moments(Battle of Dumai's Wells comes to mind). It has enriched my life and inspired so many things in my own stories/games.

[Whatsie]

I started off by reading tGH, which I got out at my school library.

 

Me too! I was a bit confused at first, but once I realized it was the SECOND book I read the first and I have been hooked ever since. I got lucky in that tPoD had just come out in paperback, so I had over half the series already available to me.

 

Sent from my Droid X using Tapatalk

[honeybadger]

my older sister is a major book reader and she got hooked on this series about 8 years ago. after she read it my big bro read it. then they both both told me " keith these books be totally wicked, you should read them " and then i was like " whatevyo, fine."( this was not a real re-enactment.....mostly) been a WoT enthusiast ever since