Books like The Complete Wheel of Time

Well, here we are—11,100 pages read in 3 months, but who’s counting!Now I can finally say that I have read the Wheel of Time cover to cover, a work of Fantasy that's been more than 23 years in the making. As many of you WoT fans out there know, the first book in the series entitled The Eye of the World came out in 1990, and, unless I’m mistaken, it was a huge success, and deservedly so. While heavily influenced by The Lord of the Rings (sailing too close to plagiarism for comfort at times), Robert Jordan managed to veer off that slippery road as soon as book 2 (The Great Hunt) came out, creating as a result a juggernaut of a Fantasy world of amazing depth and detail (too much detail, some might say) peopled by just as deep and detailed characters, many of whom will forever live in many a Fantasy-loving heart.I believe everyone is or should be familiar with the story by now—that of Rand Al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, whose destiny is to save the world from destruction, thwarting in order to do so all attempts by the Dark One and his minions and eventually defeating them. You can’t get more traditional Fantasy-esque than that, and I love it. Page after page, Robert Jordan manages effortlessly to take us readers on an amazing adventure full of plot twists, action and magic, and truth be told I couldn’t get enough of it…that is, until I got to book 7, A Crown of Swords, and everything fell apart. The plot began to meander and go nowhere, the amount of useless description and detail of this or that dress, shawl, jewelry and whatnot simply became indigestible, the characters and especially the female characters became downright obnoxious verging on sexist, and all in all the reading experience became a chore reaching outright torture in book 10, Crossroads of Twilight. At this point, I believe that even the most hardened reader would just call it quits and move on to something else. I think I vented my frustration loud and clear about this in my review of book 6, Lord of Chaos, so I won’t bother you guys with a rehash here.Anyway, long story short, the thought of quitting was real, but then one day I found myself picking up book 11, Knife of Dreams… and, miracle of miracles, it was so good that I simply could not put it down! Robert Jordan really penned an amazing book with this one, proving to the world (or, at least, to me) that he was back at the top of his game. Unfortunately we all know what happened next: Jordan became sick with an incurable disease and in no time he was gone, leaving behind the WoT unfinished. But then, as fate would have it, Jordan’s readers and fans were blessed with Brandon Sanderson as the young Fantasy writer accepted to finish the Wot series, releasing the first of the last three books, The Gathering Storm, in 2009.Now we all know that it can be a risky business for an author to pick up the baton and continue another author’s series. People will invariably compare him/her to the original author and more often than not find him/her wanting. Not so here. Sanderson was the perfect choice to accomplish such a feat, and the fact that he himself is a huge fan of the series is nothing but icing on the cake. While managing to blend to perfection both his own voice and that of Robert Jordan, Sanderson injects not only a breath of fresh air into the WoT, but a much needed dose of action and resolution to many questions that were both sorely missing in books 7 through 10. The ending, while somewhat predictable, was masterfully written, totally satisfying, and, after more than 23 years, could not have come soon enough.Best passage of the whole series (and quite possibly the most well-known!):The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long pass, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.OLIVIER DELAYEAuthor of the SEBASTEN OF ATLANTIS series\ \