New Spring
A Wheel of Time Novel
By Robert Jordan

     Fat fantasy novels set in Tolkeinesque worlds are as common as grass, but every now and then the pasture contains a four-leafed clover, and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time novels are definitely more than a cut above the norm. This prequel tells of Moiraine and Lan’s joint adventure to find the newly born boy child who is the Dragon Reborn. Moiraine and her best friend Siuan are both accepted in the White Tower, and not far off from their testing to become full Aes Sedai when the prophecy is uttered. Meanwhile, Al’Lan the exiled King of Malkier is battling the Aiel, while Shadowspawn crowd closer from their stronghold in the Blight. The two will join their quests together, and what happens next will presumably be covered in a second prequel.

     What is so special about Jordan’s massive oeuvre? He has the knack of creating a world and describing it so meticulously that you could believe he had been there himself and knew it very well. His characters are shown living their lives in minute detail, not merely the exciting parts that concern the story and thus they stay in the mind long after the book is put down. This is possibly the only true fantasy soap opera, with the main series now ten tomes long and the characters seemingly nowhere near the end of their grand adventure. Jordan is unfairly compared to Tolkein, but apart from a handful of encounters with the Trollocs and the fact that the first book opens in a place owing a fair bit to Hobbiton, his work as actually far more like Frank Herbert’s Dune. If you truly want to lose yourself in a book and despair of finding a writer who can fill a long book with a long story, then search no further; Robert Jordan fits this description to a T. Hugely enjoyable, and marvelously professional.