Best-Forgotten Books: THE EYE OF THE WORLD by Robert Jordan (1990)

The good news first: Half of The Eye of the World is a pretty good book.

Now the bad news: The other half is mindless blather, and the only way to separate the good from bad would be to take a red pencil and cross out all the crap. 

This came as a surprise to me, because I read this and several sequels back in the '90s, and remember liking them. I quit only because I was all caught up, and didn't want to wait for the next book. And that concerns me. I mean, that was only twenty-some years ago. Was my taste really that bad?

Anyway, I reread several of Robert Jordan's Conan books last year, and found them so good I read two and three in a row. The prose was rich but tight, and the characters fun to be with. Each was a little longer than the average Conan pastiche, but seemed just the right length for the story. Every word counted. 

So I was looking forward to a return visit to The Wheel of Time series. Now finished at last (with help from Brandon Sanderson), the series runs fourteen books, plus a few extras. I figured the audiobook versions would give me years of entertainment.

Alas and alack, that was not to be. The Robert Jordan who wrote The Eye of the World (real name James Oliver Rigney, Jr., Wikipedia tells me) seems to be whole different guy from the one who did those Conan books. Rather than the adult fantasy I expected, this book reads like Young Adult. Everything has been dumbed down to a level that borders on Juvenile. 

There are many long and dreary dream sequences (never a good sign) and many stories told of former ages, all of which are more intersting than the main story (another bad sign). 

Of course, Jordan was not trying to make this Conan-like. He was trying to rewrite The Lord of the Rings. The story itself is pretty good, and the characters (aside from the snot-nosed Young Adults) are interesting. But the prose is bland and boring, and dang near every scene is twice as long as it should be. Many scenes containing two or three minutes of meaningful story were stretched out to twenty minutes by tedious and repetitive inner dialogue. 

I found this maddening, and there were many, many places along the way where I nearly chucked the whole thing. But I figured if I didn't finish it now, and give the series a chance, I never would. So I stuck it, suffering through almost 30 hours of this sucker, to see if the payoff was worth it. 

As I'm sure you've guessed by now, it wasn't. The big finale was as bloated as everything leading up to it, and left me cold. Too bad. As I said up front, half of this book was pretty good, and if cut to half (or maybe a third) of the length, I probably would have liked it. I could see this as a decent TV mini-seiries, or maybe a graphic novel. But as a 30-hour audiobook I give it three thumbs down. 

So now it's decision time. Do I listen to another 400 hours of this stuff, or puncture both eardrums with an icepick? Both sound equally appealing. 

Forgotten Books: CONAN THE MAGNIFICENT by Robert Jordan (1984)

Every time I finish one of Robert Jordan's Conan books, I'm eager to start another. In fact, it's hard not to, because if I try reading something different I have a tough time getting into it. 

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? A little of both, I suppose. Good for Jordan (or his estate), but bad for every other author, living or dead.

I read all six Jordan books (plus his adaptation of the Conan the Destroyer flick) as they first came out, and this is my second trip through. And they're still damn good.

This one surprised me a bit because it jumps out of the chronology established in the first three entries, Conan the Invincible (HERE), Conan the Defender (HERE) and Conan the Unconquered, and returns to his day's as a thief in Shadizar - before Invincible. 

Jumping around to different points in Conan's life is a time-honored practice, of course, started by REH himself, but I was expecting continuity and didn't get it. 

Anyway, it's all very fine, with two minor quibbles. First, Conan is described as being young, but doesn't act young. He's every bit as clever and world-wise as he is in anyone else's 
pastiches taking place later in his career, and far more thoughtful than the teenage barbarian of "The Tower of the Elephant," set not long before.

My other quibble is the similarity to Jordan's first Conan book, Invincible. Like that one, Magnficient proceeds from Shadizar to the desert, where our hero falls in with a band led by a proud and beauteous female warrior who can't resist him but hates herself for it. In both cases, despite restistance from her loyal followers, Conan - due to his superior mind and fighting ability - assumes defacto leadership of the bands. In both cases, too, a sorceror with a dastardly plan is tracking them from afar. 

But there are plenty of differences as well, and it's still a damn good read. 

I have two more Jordan's (plus the movie adaptation) awaiting me, after which I'll have to decide if I'm ready for another run at The Wheel of Time series. I read the first four or five way back when, but had to wait so long for the next one that I never went back, and swore off reading fantasy series until all the books were written. (Alas, I broke that oath with the Game of Thrones books, and got caught in the same trap.) Anyway, the series is now complete, but comprises fourteen volumes and a prequel. Do I really want to commit to fifteen big fat fantasy novels, with everything else I have on my plate? Woe is me. I just don't know.