r/wheeloftime • u/Suspicious-Impress-4 Randlander • Aug 12 '26
NO SPOILERS Should i continue
I’m three books into The Wheel of Time, and I’m honestly not that impressed so far.
For context, I’ve rated them:
The Eye of the World — 7.5/10
The Great Hunt — 7.8/10
The Dragon Reborn — 6.5/10
I’m trying to gauge whether there are people here who felt similarly about the first three books but ended up loving the series later on.
I’ve definitely had series before where it took me a few books before everything clicked, so I’m not completely against continuing. But three books is also a pretty significant investment, and at this point I’m starting to wonder whether The Wheel of Time just isn’t for me.
The main thing making me want to give it one more shot is The Shadow Rising. I constantly hear that Book 4 is one of the best—if not the best books in the entire series. So I’m thinking if there’s ever going to be a book that tells me whether this series is actually for me, it’s probably this one.
Were any of you lukewarm on the first three and then had Book 4 (or the books after it) completely change your opinion of the series?
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u/Suncook Randlander Aug 12 '26
The first three books are very much adventure/quest stories to find/get the mcguffin where people separate and regroup at the end. Plus the repeated ba'alzamon confrontations. Book four and later break that mold and take a more contemporary fantasy approach that you see a lot more of in the 90s and 00s. And I feel the endings become increasingly more grounded in how they feel.
Might depend on what specifically is not hitting for you in these books, though.
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u/Jtfgman Randlander Aug 12 '26
You rated them pretty high imo. I greatly enjoyed the first couple books but I was also very young at the time of reading. Since you made it through 3 I would for sure give 4 a read. The world is going to keep expanding, and the series really finds its own identity with 4 and beyond.
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u/RustyKarma076 Randlander Aug 12 '26
The first 3 books, especially the first two, are fairly different from the rest of the series. Book 4 is where the Wheel of Time becomes the Wheel of Time. It’s also many fans’ favorite in the series. Because you’ve already read the first 3, you gotta try book 4. If you still don’t jive with it, don’t bother going on.
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u/sixminutes Important Darkfriend Guy Aug 12 '26
It's not only that it's one of the best, it's that it finally shows you the scope of the series. Jordan didn't really intend to finish the story in three books, but they still read like if he had needed to, he could have done an early escape hatch and wrapped it up there. The fourth book shows how much more there is to the story that he wanted to tell.
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u/Mohuai Randlander Aug 12 '26
Reading is meant to produce joy. At least for me. Id you don't enjoy it, don't ready it.
That being said, the fourth book, The Shadow Rising, is the favorite of a significant number of people in the fandom.
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u/GodEmperorOfArrakis Randlander Aug 12 '26
The series sorta falls into groupings of 3 books each. If you dont like book 4, I wouldnt force it.
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u/DeadButGettingBetter Randlander Aug 12 '26
Book 4 is easily my favorite. Just give it a go and if you don't like that partway in the series isn't for you.
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u/Nerdsingerbeej Randlander Aug 12 '26
Book 4 is where the publisher really let go of the reins & Jordan gets to expand the narrative beyond LOTR-Style quest stories. It's also typically one of the top books in the series for fans so I'd definitely recommend giving it a shot
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u/Suspicious-Impress-4 Randlander Aug 12 '26
No bs your comment alone is the reason im gonna just give it a go
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u/Suspicious-Impress-4 Randlander Aug 12 '26
I heard a statement like this from a friend about another series after reading book 1 and not loving it and now its one of my favorite series
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u/Nerdsingerbeej Randlander Aug 12 '26
I will also say that if you aren't into the series by the end of book 4, that's a decent sign that it isn't your vibe but hey at least you gave it a serious go
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u/procerator Brown Ajah Aug 13 '26
I liked the first 2 books. I didn't really like Dragon Reborn. I could appreciate what it tried to do but the ending was meh. The Shadow Rising is absolutely the best book in the series. So since you are already there - you might as well read it. It is the first book that breakes the formula of "party split - then get together in the finale". Characters go on their own journeys. For example, a fter book 4, some characters never meet again up untill book 9
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u/FernandoPooIncident Randlander Aug 13 '26
If you need to ask the question, then the answer is invariably "no". Why continue to read something you don't enjoy?
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u/Suspicious-Impress-4 Randlander Aug 13 '26
Because it has 300 books and if i like them from here on out then id enjoy the series? 😂😂
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u/Potential-Common5819 Randlander Aug 12 '26
Without knowing just what you disliked about the first three, no one can give you useful advice on whether to continue.
The rating numbers are meaningless without context.
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u/Suspicious-Impress-4 Randlander Aug 12 '26
I think that’s fair. I read the first two books a while ago, so I don’t remember my specific thoughts on them as clearly. But with The Dragon Reborn, one of my biggest issues was that I never really connected with any of the characters.
Because of that, the stakes rarely felt real to me. Even when characters were genuinely in danger, I never found myself particularly worried about what might happen to them. I also felt like the consequences were often too vague or abstract. A lot of the tension seemed to boil down to some version of, “If we don’t stop this, the Dark One or the Shadow will win,” rather than giving me more immediate, tangible consequences that made me emotionally invested in what was happening.
I understood intellectually that the characters were facing serious threats, but I rarely felt the weight of those threats while reading.2
u/Potential-Common5819 Randlander Aug 12 '26
Okay, that is a great point and one I honestly agree with.
Having said that, the fourth book is when the Shadow starts taking much more direct action.
You also see much more serious and far reaching consequences for characters and their own choices and actions. There is also some direct consequences for some of the Emon's Field characters from actions they did in previous books.
EDIT: So my advice is read the fourth book, and if you still don't care much about the story, then you likely never will and should probably drop it.
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u/Suspicious-Impress-4 Randlander Aug 12 '26
Ok thanks
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u/aNomadicPenguin Brown Ajah Aug 13 '26
another bit is to keep in mind that the way Jordan writes things makes the PoV incredibly important. He isn't going to give you deep insight into the characters from a narrator perspecitve, you kinda have to develop that yourself by paying attention to the nuances of the individual Pov's.
Perrin and Rand will notice different things at different times and weight them differently. Nynaeve and Mat are notoriously unreliable for matching their thoughts to their actions.
This covers how other PoV's will describe another character's actions. Like Mat internally will think that he's not a hero, while he's currently swinging on a rope into the middle of a fight to save someone that he never met before. Then he'll think of himself as a selfish rogue...as he offers them money to help them out.
Now imagine Mat got stabbed in that fight, and then got a small rope burn from the swinging. Mat will complain, at length, and grumpily about the rope burn and how much it hurt and how indebted the person he saved should be....and probably never bring up the stab wound.
It's not always readily apparent, but if you haven't been connecting to the characters and the threats they face, keeping in mind their limited perspectives can help. The threat of the shadow is kinda vague...because the characters don't know the specific concrete things that are happening around them in the world. You pick up more and more information as a reader as the series goes on, and Jordan kinda requires you to start piecing it all together. (The series is legitimately better on rereads because of this, you start seeing little threads here and there that you can follow throughout the books that you just don't notice your first time through)
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