Jordan has a subtle brilliance in this work. I honestly had a lot of trouble getting through the series at first. What kept me on, and by book three I was a huge fan of the series, was the characterization. Jordan shifts voices so subtly you can almost miss it, but then you see so much. You see characters' assumptions about themselves and others, and you see how they could be mistaken but never do you think "oh so and so wouldn't think that". The characters are believable and compelling, the world is complex, and the story is wonderful. There is more than a little wisdom in the book in addition to a good story. It may be difficult, but read at least the first three books. I promise you it's worth it.

This book is SUCH a great beginning to the series. It's so good that the next few books pale a little bit. However, the whole series is great and I would recommend anyone who likes fantasy to read them! The last book is coming out January 2013, so you still have a lot of time to catch up on the series before then :)

I'm hooked on Wheel of Time. Looking forward to book 2, The Great Hunt.

With so much detail as you read your imagination takes over and its as if you are in the book.

No one has ever made their characters 'pop' like Jordan did in WoT. True epic fantasy characters you can cheer for unlike in so much other literature where characters are so flawed I can't stand them. Reading his series I always wish I could grab a sword and run off to help out. This was a great intro to the best fantasy series ever (although LOTR is great, I consider it a single book and therefore not a series).

This was my first fantasy book and I loved it. I've read the whole series and I can't wait for the final book to come out. It's very addicting.

Great story and a fun read - I read 5 books into the series and this first book was by far my favorite.

this series is ridiculously addicting. I am almost through the 2nd book and I'm already invested in the whole series. The first book is really similar to Lord or the Rings, but it digresses and begins to form it's own tale towards the end of the book. I highly recommend this for anyone that loves fantasy novels.

Amazing book. The series has it's ups and downs, but this book is absolutely topnotch.

This is the first book in the "Wheel of Time" series and it didn't dissapoint. I hadn't read any of this series yet which is surprising as I've read many other major fantasy series (otherland books by Tad Williams, the George RR Martin series, etc.). This is very traditional fantasy with lots of magic, evil creeping back into the world, etc., so certainly not groundbreaking. But Robert Jordan did a great job introducing the main characters and making you feel like you know them. Can't speak for the rest of the series, which is crazy long, but even as a stand alone piece of Fantasy it is fantastic. Perhaps my only criticism is that it starts a bit slow, but all epic fiction does.