I'm reading The Hobbit to my kids right now (a chapter or partial chapter each night at bedtime).  They are enjoying it, and I am too.  I read it many years ago, but I had forgotten most of the plot.  It is interesting to see how huge a debt the fantasy genre owes to Tolkein.  I see many things in The Hobbit (and I'm sure also in Lord of the Rings) that clearly influenced later fantasy books (including The Wheel of Time) as well as the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game (and probably other RPGs too).

I'm also reading The Brothers Karamazov (on my own, not to the kids), but it is going slowly.  I have found it very slow and boring so far, but I am only about 150 pages into the book, and I am sticking with it in the hope that it gets better.

I would love for the Forsaken to have been a little more evil. I know it has been mentioned but it's something I agree with fully. The only really evil one in the group seemed to be Semirhage. Rahvin was a womanizer, Graendel liked to put compulsion on people. Balthamal/Aran'Gar/Halima liked to give Egwene headaches and killed 2 people. Demandred did nothing exceptionally evil that we know about, Maseena did very little except torture some darkfriends, Moghedian committed a couple of tortures again of darkfriends. Asmodean did nothing... 

 

I would have expected a bit more of them than a couple murders, tortures, compulsions. I would liked to have seen something a bit more serious on a larger scale.

This is a good point.  I think maybe they came across as more evil than you give them credit for, but several of them seemed to be obsessed with various worldy goods (power, comfort/leisure, sex, etc.) much more than being purely evil.  But then I think in a way that is the point -- that many people on the side of evil are not 100% evil.  Sometimes they are just looking out for the best situation for themselves.

would have liked a bit more added to the epilouge at the end. a quick summary on the main characters and such!!

I would have liked that too.  Though there could be too much of a good thing.  If the epilogue were too much longer, it might feel anti-climactic.

I wonder if the upcoming WoT encyclopedia will contain notes on outcomes of various characters, beyond what is revealed in the books.  (However, they can't include that information unless RJ had it in his notes.)

(Spoilers for the last two books follow.)

I would ask for one of three changes:

(1)  I would want greater reassurance that the future of Randland does not go the way of Aviendha's vision -- her vision of a world in which the Seanchan defeat the White Tower, send the Black Tower into hiding, essentially take over the world, and crush the Aiel.  Or at least that it does not have to go that way.  

I would like to know that there is at least a decent chance that everything that Rand, Egwene, and so many others have worked to build does not eventually get either destroyed or assimilated into the Seanchan empire.  Perhaps that chance is already there, but I got a real sense of inevitability from Aviendha's vision, which was reinforced by certain other events (such as the loss of Egwene's leadership for the White Tower).  I don't want a "happily ever after" ending, but I just want an ending that is somewhat less bleak than Aviendha's vision.

or 

(2)  I would want to change the ending so that Rand kills the Dark One, breaks the Wheel from its circular motion, and sets a new course of history which is linear rather than circular.  Or at least provide a better rationalization for why he does not kill the Dark One.  The reason given just didn't work for me.

or 

(3) Re-write the last battle to fix various problems, such as the fact that everyone talks about how great a general Mat is, but we see very little evidence of this in the tactics that he uses, or in the results that he obtains.

In fact, it would actually be pretty cool if someone could set up a voting mechanism, where people could vote chapter by chapter on the 1 to 5 scale that I mentioned (or some similar scale).  Then a potential reader (or re-reader) could get crowd-sourced guidance on which chapters to read, and which chapters could be skipped.  (Though of course, I assume that most readers would still choose to read the entire series.  This would be only for those readers who want a shorter version.)

If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it, here is my suggested scale:

5 - Must read

4 - Highly recommend reading

3 - Recommend reading

2 - Read if you have time, but could be skipped

1 - Recommend skipping

(For what it's worth, I probably wouldn't have very many "1" votes on this scale, but I would have a few.  I am pretty sure that most of my votes would fall in the 3 to 5 range.)

I think it's a good idea in theory, but that it wouldn't work well in practice.  No matter who does the abridgement, people will think that parts were taken out that should have been left in (and probably vice versa).  Also, there are two approaches that could be taken:  (1) Select some entire scenes to remove, but leave the remaining scenes intact, or (2) modify the existing text in some scenes to make the scene shorter (e.g., cut down on descriptions).  I would not be happy if anyone tried the second approach, unless perhaps it was Harriet.

Maybe a better idea is for someone to create a fan abridgement -- not a new edition of the books, but just a reading guide.  Each chapter of each book (or even each scene within a chapter) could be rated on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is "must read" and 1 is "recommend skipping."  For the parts that are skipped, the reader could read a chapter summary (such as on www.encyclopaedia-wot.org).

If I ever re-read the series again, I plan to follow my own abridged version, skipping certain parts that I found boring and slow on my last re-read (especially Elayne's political maneuvering to regain the throne of Andor).

I have took a recent break from longer books, and re-read three Agatha Christie mystery novels that I hadn't read in many years:  The ABC Murders, N or M?, and Murder on the Orient Express.  None of them were nearly as good as I remembered them being -- in particular N or M? had not aged well for me -- but they were still enjoyable.

Right now I am just about to finish reading A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, and I am loving it.  It has a great story, and some great commentary on the human condition.  It does have some flaws, but its good points more than make up for them.

I also recently read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, which I had never read before, even though it is a classic.  This book was a bit of a chore to get through at times, but it was a well-told story with some very likeable and memorable characters, and I was impressed with how the various plot threads all tied together in the end.  My biggest complaint was that the main character himself isn't particularly likeable during much of the book, but that didn't stop me from enjoying most of the story.  And now I will finally know what people are talking about when they refer to characters like Pip or Miss Havisham. 

Finished AMOL last week. VERY mixed feelings about the book. Some bits were great, some bits were meh, some were disappointing. Other bits were just plain bad writing as far as I'm concerned. Some of my issues:

 

The book often crossed the line between mysterious/vague and just plain unfinished/pointless (Nakomi!)

 

Not enough Forsaken!

 

Not enough focus on the deaths of side characters.

 

What was the point of Fain and whatever he turned into? Seriously, he appears with zombie army kills a few things then dies so easily in a very un-epic manner.

 

Rand just goes off by himself, leaving his three "wives" and letting everyone else think he's dead... I'd rather he'd died. This just made him seem like a massive jerk with no idea what love really is.

 

No explanation for body swap?

Wow, I feel like I could have written this post myself.  I agree with you on every point.  To me, Fain's death felt like "Oops, here we are at the end of the book and we forgot to do anything with Fain -- I guess we'll have him appear at Shayol Ghul and then spend a short paragraph on Mat killing him."

Having said that, I am very grateful to Harriet, Brandon, Maria, and Alan for getting the series finished (and to Robert Jordan for leaving them the necessary notes and for giving them permission to finish it).  While I am not completely happy with the ending, the fact is that I probably wouldn't have been completely happy with the ending even if RJ had lived to finish the series.  But I am very grateful to have the ending, rather than leaving the series unfinished.

 

I agree with you that the text is open to interpretation.  But based

on what little we do know (Rand's attitude of wanting to wander around

and see the world, and no explicit thought of raising his kids), I see

no indication that Rand plans to be a father to his children.  Yes, I

could be wrong, but to me the text seems to imply that Rand wants to

live a life that just isn't compatible with being there for his kids.

I would take the scene with Elayne prior to TB where he is really upset because he believes he will die and won't be able to see his children grow up as evidence to the contrary.

OK, point taken.  I did recall that scene with Elayne, but to me it seemed that Rand had changed his mind at the end, and wanted to live life as a wanderer rather than settling down with Elayne (or Min, or Aviendha) to raise his children.  Though honestly, I guess I can't really see a way that Rand could be a conventional father to his children, because of two problems:

(1)  He is involved with three different women, and all three of them have important responsibilities that they can't just back out of, so it's not as if they could all move in together somewhere.  (Maybe buy a farm in the Two Rivers and start a polygamous commune!)    At best, he would have to choose one of the three women exclusively (for example, stay with Elayne and help to raise his children by her), or he would have to divide his time among the three.  But it would be difficult for him to be a good father to any of the children if he is gone two thirds of the time.

(2)  It would surely look suspicious if Rand openly marries or spends time with Elayne, Aviendha, and/or Min, because he now has a new body.  This would especially be suspicious if he stays with all three of them, and people begin to wonder why all three of Rand's loves have taken up with the same man.  It would also be especially suspicious if anyone recognized him as Moridin!

 

 

 

Second, the epilogue was awful and completely unsatisfying. Rand goes from Dragon Reborn to deadbeat dad? All that great stuff when he was fighting the dark one about accepting everyone's sacrifices, that everyone was fighting the same fight and not just taking part in Rand's fight, just to have him walk away at the end like it really was just his fight that's now over? All his obligations are now void because he won the fight against the dark one fulfilling his roll as the Dragon (and only his roll as the Dragon), even those to his children? I'm sorry I just can't buy it. I'm so glad that we got everything up to that point to finish the story, but I just can't accept that ending as legitimate.

I agree on the deadbeat dad issue.  That is one thing that didn't occur to me right away, but which bothers me more and more as I take time to reflect on the ending.

Thing is that is your own personnel intepretation of what Rand will do. There is no indication whatsoever that he will just permanently ignore his children and never be a father to them.

I agree with you that the text is open to interpretation.  But based on what little we do know (Rand's attitude of wanting to wander around and see the world, and no explicit thought of raising his kids), I see no indication that Rand plans to be a father to his children.  Yes, I could be wrong, but to me the text seems to imply that Rand wants to live a life that just isn't compatible with being there for his kids.

Second, the epilogue was awful and completely unsatisfying.  Rand goes from Dragon Reborn to deadbeat dad? All that great stuff when he was fighting the dark one about accepting everyone's sacrifices, that everyone was fighting the same fight and not just taking part in Rand's fight, just to have him walk away at the end like it really was just his fight that's now over?  All his obligations are now void because he won the fight against the dark one fulfilling his roll as the Dragon (and only his roll as the Dragon), even those to his children?  I'm sorry I just can't buy it.  I'm so glad that we got everything up to that point to finish the story, but I just can't accept that ending as legitimate.

I agree on the deadbeat dad issue.  That is one thing that didn't occur to me right away, but which bothers me more and more as I take time to reflect on the ending.

Just finished AMOL (finally). Wish I had more free time to read. I loved it and thought it was a superb ending. Just a couple thoughts.

 

#1. I think people oftentimes confuse a bad ending with that melancholy feeling and sense of loss when a good book series ends. I thought the ending was perfect, and liked how the living character's plotlines were left open. It would have been impossible to give closure to all the different character's plotlines. I also was glad Rand lived and rode off into the sunset. He deserved a just reward for everything he went through.

 

#2. To anyone who says Brandon botched the ending, I got the impression before AMOL was released that a significant amount of the end was already written by RJ. I also remembered reading that his notes were very detailed about how everything was to end. So I'm pretty sure the ending was exactly how RJ planned. Furthermore, due to the change in writing style from beginning to end, I surmise that BS wrote the majority of the first half of AMOL, and RJ wrote the majority of the second half.

I can't speak for others, but my complaints about the ending are not intended to be directed at Brandon.  I know that RJ wrote most of the epilogue, and possibly all or part of several of the preceding chapters as well.  When I complain about the ending, I really just mean to point out what I see as shortcomings of the story itself, not shortcomings of either of the authors.

#3. Does anyone know where to find a list of Min's viewings so we can compare what was fulfilled and what wasn't?

Here you go:

http://wotfaq.dragonmount.com/node/166

It isn't updated for the most recent books, but it's a good place to start.

#4. I'm quite confident that the ALL CAPS voice that Rand hears before entering SG is also the THE VOICE in tEotW. I'm sure it is the Creator. Everyone keeps bringing up that the Creator is supposed to not have any involvement in the world, but I distinctly remember Terez or someone pulling a quote out of the annuls where someone asked RJ about the Creator's involvement and RJ responded by asking said person what made them think the Creator wasn't interested or involved with the affairs of the world. Can anyone find this for me?

I agree with you, and I really have no doubts about this either.  I can't see any other explanation that fits.

R.e. Elayne, I think this has been discussed earlier in this thread (or elsewhere).  I think the general consensus (but could be very wrong!) was that yes, it was a pretty bizarre choice, picking the ruler of Andor and Cairhien above the other nations, and that it would have made more sense to have an older or more experienced ruler, or even better, someone with proper military experience to act as commander.  Everyone accepting a pregnant teenager as the overall commander of the LB seems almost like some Mary-Sue-ish fanfiction.  However, I think some credit was given to Elayne in that she actually did a reasonable job, stepping back and being more of a facilitator to allow the generals to do what they needed to do (perhaps quite a good thematic end point for her arc given that she was originally the peace maker between bickering Nynaeve and Egwene?).

 

Sharan male channelers are killed at the age of 21 (or earlier if they show signs of channeling).  Can't remember whether the male channelers with Demandred were due to him changing the way things were done in Shara in preparation for the LB, or if they are some of the red-veiled Aiel channelers.

I'd also add that Elayne is in a fairly unique position of being genuinely trusted by both Eg and Rand.  We know from Moiraines role how important it was that they work together and Elayne is possibly the only person, other than perhaps Moiraine or Nyn that are trusted by both and they were both needed elsewhere, I guess Mat and Perrin as well (maybe, I'm not sure Eg really trusted them, I think she saw them as 'on Rands' side). 

Thanks for the replies, and I largely agree with the points about Elayne from both of you.  Yes, in the real world, an 18-year-old (?) woman (or man) is not likely to be given supreme command of the combined armies of multiple nations.  (St. Joan of Arc does come to mind, but she really has no other historical parallel that I can think of.)  But Elayne did turn out to be a good choice.  As mentioned, she is trusted by both Rand and Egwene.  Also she had already proven herself as a good leader in claiming the crowns of Andor and Cairhein.  And by the end of AMoL, we can see that she did a good job in the supreme commander role.  But still it stretched credulity for me that no one even mentioned that the pregnancy might be an impediment to her duties, or conversely that her duties might have an adverse effect on her pregnancy.  Oh well, it's only a book. 

That being said, having the focus on individual battlefields was probably a mistake. I was really hoping for a global war feel, where the enemy attacked from all over the place, and crises popped up all over the place with the theaters being similar to what was described about the War of Shadow, where the battlefronts were always changing, gateways like the one that surprised the Aes Sedai in Kandor popping up to completely change the idea that you could engage an enemy on one front to prevent their movements.

I was expecting the Last Battle to be more like that too.  I expected it to be very chaotic with Trollocs rampaging far and wide over much of Randland, and with channelers using gateways to attack unpredictably in many locations.  The bad thing, from a plot perspective, is that that would have taken the large armies mostly out of the battles. 

However, the way the book was actually written, I think the battles had the opposite problem.  Namely, the battles were too much about the armies and not enough about channelers.  The channelers seemed to be an afterthought to the battle planning, especially on the side of the Light -- as if the idea was "let's use battle tactics that work without channelers, and then add channelers as a special kind of weapon that can allow us to tweak those plans just a little bit, without radically changing how we plan the battle." 

With a few exceptions, it seems that the Light generals used channelers only for two purposes (1) to combat enemy channelers and (2) to kill large numbers of Trollocs.  Yes, there were a few clever uses of channelers, like the gateways in the sky to view the battlefield, and firing the dragons through gateways, but I thought that overall the use of channelers lacked imagination.

Like many other WoT fans, I was very surprised by Egwene's death.  I found her death very disappointing in terms of the future of the White Tower, because of the many great reforms that she instituted or suggested, such as accepting older novices, maintaining ties with other channeling groups (Windfinders, Wise Ones, etc.), and allowing Aes Sedai to remove the oaths and retire as part of the Kin.  It seemed to me that she would be a great leader to take the Aes Sedai into the Fourth Age, and I thought that that was exactly how she was being set up by RJ.

One thing besides Egwene's death that bothered me about her story arc was that we didn't get to see her and Gawyn getting married.  After all of the build-up of Egwene's and Gawyn's feelings for each other, and their potential future together -- a build-up which spanned, what, maybe half the series at least? -- we just got a casual mention that, oh, yeah, by the way, Gawyn is Egwene's husband now -- they got married three days ago.  I found that to be very anti-climactic.  Not that I would have wanted to read a big mushy wedding scene (much less a mushy honeymoon scene!), but I thought the story called for more than just a casual mention that they are married now.

One more thing on Egwene:  What was the point of Leilwin shadowing Egwene throughout the book, and eventually becoming her Warder for all of about two pages?  Was there some significance to this that I missed?

I just read through the first several pages and the last several pages of this thread.  Some great points have been made here.  Some I was aware of already (such as seemingly poor battle tactics), while others I hadn't really thought about though I was dimly aware that something didn't seem right (like the missing channelers, the overall numbers being off, and the missing or less-effective-than-usual Aiel warriors).

On the "Mat" thread, I already mentioned my biggest complaint about the battles in AMoL, which is that Mat did not come across as a great general at all in this book, even though he is supposed to be quite possibly the Light's greatest general at the time of the Last Battle.

Here are some other observations and questions that I had on the battles and tactics:

• Were the other Waygates secured (besides the one in Caemlyn)?  At the big meeting early in the book at the field of Merrilor, why didn't any of the characters at least mention the other Waygates -- even if just to say "yes, they are secured" or to ask "are they secured?"  It seems to me that every city was potentially in danger of suffering the fate of Caemlyn, yet none of the characters mentioned this.  (I seem to recall Rand sending an Ogier and an Asha'man to secure the Waygates several books ago, though I am fuzzy on the details.  But did they do a good enough job of securing the Waygates?)

• Does it really make sense to put Elayne, who I gather is at least six months pregnant in AMoL, in charge of the combined armies of the Light?  What if she goes into labor?  What if she overexerts herself and miscarries?  She is confident the babies will be fine because of Min's viewing, but wouldn't other characters at least express some concern?

• I thought that the Sharans always killed their male channelers, after using them for breeding (if I remember correctly from the big white book).  So then where did Demandred's Sharan forces get so many male channelers?  I guess maybe Demandred had been busy for quite a while recruiting and training Sharan men who could learn to channel?

• What was with all the people confronting Demandred one on one?  First it was Gawyn, then Galad, then finally Lan got the job done, nearly at the cost of his own life.  How about a coordinated plan to take Demandred out -- one that involves multiple channelers and whatever other forces are necessary?  Why didn't Mat make a plan to take him out?  He had the extra foxhead medallion, access to gateways, and lots of Aes Sedai, Asha'man, and damane.  And yet he just left Demandred there to outsmart him and to wipe out large segments of Mat's forces with balefire.

I actually finished the book maybe two or three weeks ago, but I am only now finding time to post some thoughts, so this thread seems like a good place to start.  I have much that I want to say and discuss, but I will try to give my overall thoughts here, and then look for other threads where I can get more into specifics.  I don't mind if no one replies to my thoughts here, since I am sure I am saying things that have been said already.  Look at this as my chance to vent a bit, though replies are welcome if you want.

First of all, I don't mean to be too negative toward either RJ or BS.  I am in complete awe of RJ for the complexity of the series, for his brilliant foreshadowing, for his world and his characters that seem so very real.  And I think that Brandon did an admirable job of taking the series to completion.  I think that he had a Herculean task of trying to take a series that had gone in dozens of different directions, and trying to corral it back to a coherent ending -- and overall he accomplished that task.  Apart from my complaints about Brandon's writing style and some timeline issues in ToM, I think that Brandon did a terrific job on both TGS and ToM.  Both of those books did what they needed to do, wrapping up plot lines, moving us toward the ending, and doing it in a way that made both of those books very exciting with lots of memorable scenes, and with deeply satisfying endings to both books.

But as I consider AMoL, I would say that I enjoyed reading most of AMoL, and there were some memorable scenes, but overall it left me with mixed feelings.  On the one hand, it was wonderful finally to read the ending to a series that I started reading in 1995, and about which I have been reading internet theories and speculation since probably 1996.  But on the other hand, I found the ending deeply dissatisfying for a number of reasons.  Here are the top three reasons that the ending left me a bit cold and dissatisfied:

• Rand didn't kill the Dark One, even though he could have!!!  Rand made a terrible choice here, in my humble opinion.  I don't buy the idea that men and women could never conceive of doing evil if the Dark One were destroyed -- that somehow the Dark One's death would remove free will.  I think there would still be plenty of evil in the world, but at least there wouldn't be extreme evil coming from outside the world and trying to destroy the world, every time the end of the Age of Legends and the Third Age come around again.  We even saw an example earlier in the series of evil that does not originate from the Dark One (the evil of Shadar Logoth), so this idea that men can't be evil without the DO just doesn't compute for me -- based on the example of Shadar Logoth, and on simple moral common sense.

• Dissatisfied with the body-swap:  The whole body-swap and Rand-rides-off-into-the-sunset just wasn't handled particularly well, in my humble opinion.  It left too many open questions for me, such as:  What happened to the "three on the boat" prophecy?  Why can't Rand channel?  How did the body swap happen?  How did Alivia help Rand die?  (Was it just gathering gold coins and clothes for him, or something more?)  Are Min, Aviendha, and Elyane still going to want to be with Rand, now that he has a different body?  Wouldn't that be a little weird?  I know that RJ didn't want all questions to be answered at the end, but still . . . .  (I am happy to leave these as rhetorical questions here, to be explored on other threads.)

• The Seanchan will be the real victors (and I hate the Seanchan!):  I still have the same sinking feeling that I had after reading ToM, regarding the future of Randland in the Fourth Age -- based partly on Aviendha's vision of the destruction of the Aiel, and based partly on the history and nature of the Seanchan.  Namely, I assume that the Seanchan will eventually take over all of Randland, leashing all channelers that they can find.  Aviendha's vision of the Seanchan eventually taking over everywhere has a ring of inevitability to it, even if the part about the crushing of the Aiel can perhaps be changed.  I see this as a terrible fate for Randland, mostly because of the Seanchan's leashing of channelers, but also because of other objectionable aspects of their society (e.g., the authoritarian nature of their government, the fact that high-level officials regularly try to assassinate each other, the way that people can be owned as property, etc.).  Basically, I really don't like the Seanchan, so for me, this is not a happy ending.

There are many, many more things that I would like to say about the book, but that is enough for this thread, at least for now.  Thanks for letting me vent.  ;)

Oh, and I may come back here later and add some more general thoughts on the book, if I don't find a good thread for them elsewhere. 

I would like to know any sites or stores that have them.

You might search for signed first editions on eBay. You could also check used book sites like Abebooks.com. Bookfinder.com could be helpful as well; it searches for new and used books across multiple booksellers. You might even get lucky and find a good copy at a local used book store, though it's unlikely to have RJ's signature.

That's how I purchased many of my Wheel of Time hardcovers -- at used bookstores. (I even got lucky and found a hardcover copy of Fires of Heaven on sale for $1 at Target.)

But again, I expect you would need to be prepared to pay quite a bit if you do find signed first editions at any of the locations I mentioned.

If you want a complete set of signed first editions, you could end up paying quite a bit. I recently received an e-mail from Abebooks.com about their most expensive recent sales. Check out #7 on their list:

http://www.abebooks.com/rare-books/most-expensive-sales/august-2012.shtml

In case you don't want to click through, here is the entry:

7. The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan - $7,000

A set of 12 books - all signed first editions from Jordan’s Wheel of Time series - The Eye if the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, The Shadow Rising, The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, A Crown of Swords, The Path of Daggers, Winter's Heart, Crossroads of Twilight, Knife of Dreams and The Gathering Storm.

Right now, I am reading Dragonmount.com -> Social Community -> General Discussion -> What are you reading?

(Sorry, bad joke.)

Actually, I am re-reading The Mirror Crack'd, an Agatha Christie mystery that I originally read when I was in high school. I also just finished The Spear by Louis de Wohl, which is a novel that re-tells the crucifixion of Jesus, but does so from the point of view of characters who are only briefly mentioned in the gospel accounts in the Bible (e.g., a Roman centurion, a young Jewish woman caught in adultery, and the wife of the Roman procurator). I thought it was very good, though most likely it would not appeal much to non-Christians or to anyone who is not familiar with the gospel stories.

I completed a re-read of the entire Wheel of Time series a few months ago (including reading Towers of Midnight for the first time). Right now I am taking a break from fantasy novels altogether. The book that I just finished reading is a historical novel, The Last Crusader: A Novel about Don Juan of Austria by Louis de Wohl. I thought it was very good, though it helps that I am interested in Spanish history, and in general European history and Christian history. Right now I am re-reading parts of a parenting book, and I haven't decided yet what I will read next.

I would suggest at least waiting until Cadsuane has been introduced as a character in the main series (which I think is in book 6, or maybe book 5?). After book 6 might be a good time to read New Spring, since book 6 has such an awesome climax, so it might be a good time to digest what has happened so far before diving back in. But I also agree with the advice from a previous poster to read NS wherever it falls in order of original publication (after book 8?).

The main point is that I definitely would not start with New Spring. The Eye of the World should be the starting point for a new reader, in my opinion.

As an aside, having just completed a re-read myself, I have to say that I found New Spring to be very underwhelming compared to the main series. If I were to read the entire series again at some point, I might just skip New Spring entirely (as well as skipping significant chunks of books 7 to 11).