The Eye of the World - Chaper 2 - Strangers

This is a DnD campaign! A strange lady NPC and a decidedly spooky raven (a spy of the Nazgul?). Straight out of Foreshadowing 101. Maybe I'm being unkind, as there's only a certain number of ways to introduce plot elements. But its quite brutal - the Lady Moiraine introduces herself to who I think is the main protagonist, comes out with a few mysterious utterances, and gives him a strange coin (and also his best friend Matrim, I think) . All in one chapter.

The chapter ends with more talk of a gleeman (a travelling entertainer, it seems) and a peddler arriving - the last line of "It was going to be the best Bel Tine ever" seems oddly....sarcastic.

Or am I being paranoid?

The Eye of the World - Chaper 1 - An Empty Road

Hand-drawn maps remind me of many a DnD Campaign.

Onto the chapter itself. Overall, I've immediately noticed Jordan's excellent use of adjectives and adverbs - he builds the atmosphere superbly. However, the story itself, of Rand and Tam carrying a delivery to the village is much more like a movie plot - indeed, I could envisage a movie replicating the chapter practically word-for-word, shot-by-shot.

I wonder what the deal is with the different types of surnames - on one side you have Congar, Perrin, Dowtry, and on the other there are names prefixed with "al", i.e. al-Thor, al-Meara, al-Vere.

Something tells me that the mysterious Dark Figure is a portent for things to come. The obvious comparison is to a Nazgul. A bit of foreshadowing from Jordan? And who or what are the Forsaken? Is the Dark Figure one of them?

The Eye of the World - Prologue - Dragonmount

Its been quite a while since I read a book with such a pithy prologue. Most tend to be much longer, whereas the Prologue here is just over 6 pages in length. And quite packed as well, though there is some really excellent scene-setting which is done is a very lush Tolkien-esque way:

"Bars of sunlight cast through rents in the walls made motes of dust glitter where they yet hung in the air".

The bulk of the chapter is given over to some sort of confrontration between a fellow called Lews Therin and a Satan-type entity (or maybe an emissary of a Satan-type entity, if I read it correctly). The Therin fellow seemed to have succumbed to madness and basically destroys himself and the other entity in anger using tainted magic. Its quite well done, and poses a lot of questions, however, I think that it was over perhaps a bit too quickly for me. Perhaps it was a bit too dramatic?

There is a very curious line near the end of the prologue, which piqued my interest:

"You cannot escape so easily, Dragon. It is not done between us. It will not be done until the end of time..."

Ominous!

This is followed up by two extracts from prophecies ("The Breaking of the World" and "Cycle of the Dragon" and I would guess they indicate that there seems to be some sort of eternal battle going on between the forces of light and the forces of dark. So the rest of the books cover this battle?

But what about the mysterious Aes Sedai mentioned on the back cover? No mention of them at all in the prologue. Who or what are they?