The Wheel of Time

It is rare to find literature that consumes one's entire life, but Robert Jordan held mine firmly for a long period of time.

While waiting for the final book of The Wheel of Time, I have been reading a variety of novels. It is only recently, however, that I began to read in the same genre as Jordan's epic work. Finding a copy of Medalon by Jennifer Fallon, I sought to placate myself with another fantasy world.

This was hopeless. The sheer volume of detail, rhetoric, character development, plot and even scenery of The Wheel of Time series towers above all other fantasy works. The books have dealt with the complicated issues of love and lust, morality, religion and war to name but a few. In addition to this, just about every journey or occurrence in the lives of the main characters (of which there are about a dozen) is chronicled in brilliant detail.

Of course, Fallon may not be aiming to approach fantasy writing in the same manner. But one cannot help but be drawn into Jordan's vibrant universe, and consequently think less of parallel literature. The ease with which one can insert themselves into this world and the preference readers have held for the series is not an insult to other writers, but a testament to its own magnificence.

Robert Jordan's death was not the end of his legacy, nor was The Wheel of Time the beginning of epic fantasy. But it was a beginning.

-The English Student