Any original fans left?

[Guest astinus4]

Hi, I'm just curious to find out how many of you are "original" wot fans? By that I mean people who've been following the series from the very beginning - ie 1990! I started in the late nineties (POD was the first book I had to wait for). Sadly the friends who recommended it to me have fallen off the wagon.

[Amadine]

I picked up WoT in about 1992 i think... found it in my high school library. Been addicted reading ever since.

[Phelix]

Well, I began reading when I was in the fifth grade, age 10, in 1996. I got the first three books in a book swap at school, then badgered my family into buying the new ones as they came out until I earned my own money and could buy them myself.

 

A Crown of Swords came out right after I got the first three... I got caught up pretty quick... and then got to wait for PoD. So yeah... I'm guessing I count as "original."

[Finnssss22]

Very early 90's for me too but a couple books from the very beginning, I was like 21 or 22.

[LTArmstrong1]

I started this series in the fall of 1991. I picked it up because TDR had just came out. RJ had come to my local SF&F bookstore in Houston to sign for the TDR Tour. I started the series because I thought that it was a Trilogy, and that the last book was finished (boy was I wrong). I have been hooked from the first page. I posted on the early newsgroup "rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan" starting in 1995. I have every 1st Edition Hardback (several signed). So I guess you could say that I am one of the "original" fans.

[b3arz3rg3r]

'95, my father bought the first books for me as a christmas present when I was ten to get me interested in reading books.

[AvroChris]

I hardly count as original - I got into the series around when Crossroads of Twilight came out. I'd actually forgotten when I first started reading but Crossroads of Twilight is the first book I have in hardback, which means the first one I had to wait for (I'm not one for holding out for the cheaper paperback!). So I guess I started reading around 2002ish. I would have been 12 :P

[Randolph Carter]

Fall 1990 / Spring 1991 for me - freshman year of college.

I had seen the trade and regular paperback copies of EOTW in bookstores for a few months, and picked one up to see what the fuss was about.

 

A few months later TGH came out in trade paperback.

 

I lurked/posted on both newsgroups - the already mentioned rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan and I think the other one was alt.fan.jordan

 

And yes, I still have my first copy of EOTW.

[Mr Hindley]

Count me as an original also - my brother bought me a paperback copy of EotW for Christmas, pretty sure that was the year it came out (and yep, still got it.) I would have been about 15 at the time - if you'd told me then that at 36 I'd still be waiting for the last book..!

[somathus]

Sounds like we started at pretty much the same time. I was turned on to it by three different people (I take a lot of convincing sometimes). While they don't come here, they are all still really into it.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

i am old as well. wish i could replace myself the way i can replace worn out copies of EOTW. i started reading it a couple months after it came out. i didn't think it would take this long to finish. but i was afraid, after about book 3, that either the author or i wouldn't make it to the end.

[Kestrel]

It was February 1992. I was traveling and found TGH on the paperback rack in a convenience store. I remember thinking it looked like it had the makings of another good Trilogy so I bought it and set it aside until I got home.

 

I figured that if Book #2 was in paperback [i.e., at a price I could afford], Book #1 was also in paperback back home, and Book #3 was probably already out and would be in paperback soon.

 

A Trilogy. Hah!

 

Twenty years and thirteen volumes later......

[TheNextMovement]

It was 1992. There was a street in my town where someone put out a box with a sign that said "Free books". My mom was in the hospital at the time recovering from having an appendectomy. My father decided to stop at the free book box because my mom loves to read and we were going to grab her a few books. I happened to see EotW in the box in soft cover, thought the cover was interesting, and started reading. I was lucky enough that a friend of mine had the series all the way up until Crown of Swords 4 years later when I was 14. Then the long wait PoD started. I actually only read the series one time through until a few years ago where I re-read Eye of the World. I planned on reading the entire series again but got sidetracked by finishing up college. For x-mas a good friend of mine bought me the whole series and I'm on my official second read through now. I'm up to LoC and hoping to get to ToM by the time the last book comes out.

[Orderofolde]

Hi, I'm just curious to find out how many of you are "original" wot fans? By that I mean people who've been following the series from the very beginning - ie 1990! I started in the late nineties (POD was the first book I had to wait for). Sadly the friends who recommended it to me have fallen off the wagon.

I consider myself original though I wasn't there for the first book. It was the start of Junior year and I found a coverless hardback of A Crown of Swords being put out on a thrift store bookshelf and took it home and to school as I usually burned through a novel 1-2 days. I liked the first page so I bought it, though I'd never read fantasy before. The next day at school I pulled it out in English class as I'd burned through the assignment and a friend sitting near me excitedly started asking me all these questions, and at my blank face, he snatched the book with a loud, "No! You have to read the first one! I'll bring it tomorrow!" And so he took my book and gave me The Eye of the World, and before the weekend I was reading The Great Hunt. Many months years later I went from my welding job to the local book store smelly and dirty that by chance I learned RJ would be at with the release of Winter's Heart, got two signed copies and dropped it off at my friend's house as he was away at College for him. Now I await the sppectacular conclusion.

[BLKNIGHT18]

I started when TEOTW was first in paperback, I was around 13 y/o

[Pygmalion79]

My sister started with the 1st edition of EotW, I started in 1992 when the Dragon Reborn was out. I was 13. I picked up EotW just to check it out and bought the other two as quickly as I could. Like many others, I assumed that it was a trilogy. I don't remember the point when I realized that it wasn't, but it was clear from the end of TDR that it was going to be pretty long. I assumed at the time that it would about 7 books ... wrong again! The first book I had to wait for was The Shadow Rising, and I still remember the joy of receiving it. I think that it remains my favorite in the series because of those associations.

[capuga]

I started around 1994ish after The Dragon Reborn came out. I picked the WoT because I was looking for a completed series and I thought it was only a trilogy. Whoops!

[Elan Tedronai]

my story with WOT is the most craziest. I dare anyone to have one as loopy as mine. Here goes. It's 1997. I am in my cousin's house. He says yo check out this book. And he proceeds to hand me one of the fatest books i have ever seen. I am like what's this. He says it's fantasy book. Try it man. you will like it. It had no front or back cover. and it looked like pages were missing. It looked completely torn and fragile. He also introduced me to the shannara series and i loved it so i said no probs. I ask him where did he get it. He says the folks who lived in the house prior to him left in store room and he found it there by chance one day cleaning it. He then gives me advice. 'It's a bit slow in the beginning'. i say who cares, slow starting books do not worry me.

 

so i go home and i start reading the book. After reading the first few chapters i am like hmph, this is all a bit weird. 11 chapters later and i was thinking 'slow? this is not slow. This is bloody confusing. I am halfway in the book and by this time i tearing my head out. I have no idea what the hell is going on. I was sitting there and thinking, what on earth did my cousin just give me?

 

So i stop reading it for a week. Then i said, hmph lets try reading from the beginning again. It might make more sense this time. 3 days later and still it made no sense. i ain't reading this anymore i thought. so i proceed to take it back to my cousin. He says so do u like it? i laughed and said it was one of the worst books i have ever read. It was confusing and i could not be arsed to read it anymore. he laughs and says he read it to the end and it makes a bit of sense. But i wasn't having it. He then says man i need to clean the store room could you help me? i say no worries. we were cleaning his store room and we find alot of trinkets and other stuff. There was alot of papers lying around. I was shiftting through the papers and i was like damn look at this and my cousin was like what? I recognise some of these names on these pages. There's rand here there's the aiel there. So we spent the entire afternoon rummaging through. And then we came across this paper. It was thick. It had colour on it and it was in the midst of the papers we were looking through. And it looked like a cover for a book. I clear the dust of it and it read 'Fires of heaven' Book 5 of WOT. I was like Damn, no bloody wonder....

 

Years later i am still wondering who the hell was that moron who dared throw such a book in a storeroom with lots of missing pages?

[Cybertrolloc]

Dickety-nine-nine-dickety...yeesh, 20 years.

[TheBeerPatriot]

Started reading the series in January 1992 right after Dragon Reborn came out, so Shadow Rising was my first hardcover of the series. It still amazes me that I've been reading this series for 19 years. I can't think of any other series that can claim such a longevity mark.

[wipe]

I've also been following since the early 90's. Started with an English assignment in junior High (or what equals in the Norwegian school system). Been hooked ever since. Later got both of my brothers and a lot of friends involved as well. I do appreciate it drawing to a conclusion soon. I'll be over 35 when the series conclude and my wife certainly isn't impressed with me... Been stupid,started on the way of kings as well, hope to see the end of the Stormlight saga before I turn 60 . WoT Has been a great ride though, I don't regret for one minute that I stuck with it.

[Wantanswers]

I started with tEotW about 20 years ago and I will be about 70, when aMoL will be published. That makes me an old fan in two ways.

[Canis Rufus]

Started the series right after I joined the Navy I was 18 I am now 34 so I think I am an orginal.

[CosmicBob]

I read it originally, at least the huge trade paperback edition. If there was a 1st Hardcover edition, I missed it. So I consider myself a more or less "original" fan.

[Xader]

I was started on it about ten years ago. Seems like an eternity.