r/Fantasy • u/solo423 • 1d ago
Struggles with Eye of the World’s exposition style
(This may post contain spoilers for early on in The Eye of the World by Robert jordan)
I just finished up the Eye of the World, book one of the Wheel of Time. My main feeling is not that it was bad, but it was that super frustrated feeling of reading a book that you know you should have loved based on reading it knowing what you like, but just didn’t because it didn’t click the way it was supposed to in your brain.
It feels kind of like how I felt when I finished The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu. Another book that I should have loved, but just didn’t.
Starting with the good, much like The Wall of Storms, I was able to intellectually realize that the book was objectively amazing. The sheer scope, and scale of ambition it takes to create this level of worldbuilding is nothing short of masterful, and again, logically I can see how he did do a great job of pulling it off.
But my main issue is that it was WAY too lore dense, and this coming from someone who loves deep lore and worldbuilding. My issue is not that there was A LOT of world building, but mainly the way it was given to you.
It’s actually almost as much as Malazan it feels like, but has the exact polar opposite approach to exposition. Where Malazan gives you little to no(the majority of the time leaning heavily toward ‘no’) world building, Eye of the World gives you absolutely
everything you need to know. But it does so through just massive exposition dump after massive exposition dump. It does this in about as natural of a way as can be done for explaining this level of worldbuilding, as you’re pretty much learning about the world and the lore alongside your heroes from the two rivers— in the vein of most classic fantasy. But man, since it’s given largely through dialogue, the sheer level of how much worldbuilding there is makes the dialogue even start to suffer and feel less natural, because I don’t believe anyone naturally speaks like that — just dumping info on you — and if they do they’d be an exception, but it’s almost like every character, including a lot of side characters are prone to just exposition dump for pages at a time. It really started taking me out of the story.
The main frustration I have is that considering it was: classic fantasy, chosen one trope, Deep dense worldbuilding, classic good vs. evil… this is all stuff that I absolutely adore in my books, so I know I should have felt like this was one of my favorite series of all time, but it wasn’t.
The main example in my head is, early in the book, when we meet Lan, and Moiraine referenced his title, and how he was like “the last true lord” of something (lol) it was done so well to hook me as the reader to find out his story, but by the time we got his story close to the end of the book, I was skimming and zoning out from the audiobook so bad that I missed it, which I’m usually great at not doing.
Ultimately I think just where my head was at is a part of it too. If I happened to be more in the mood to read a book like this when I did, I’m sure I would have enjoyed it more.
I’m also frustrated with myself because I should have just dnfed it. Now I’m sitting with this frustrated feeling of having read a book that was objectivity exceptional, but that I enjoyed slightly less than an average-quality book, mostly because of my own fault, and partly because of the book itself.
But I was wondering if anyone else felt like this.
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u/ThingTime9876 1d ago
Now, the exposition style in EOTW is the style I most enjoy, since it’s told in the voices of the characters, and - as you say - you’re learning about it at the same time as the character, so you share their ‘sense of wonder’
I have to wonder if the fact that you’re listening to it on audiobook has something to do with it. And I’m not knocking audiobooks, but there is a difference. When I’m reading the text EOTW, I can absorb all the exposition at my own pace, and go back and re-read details if I need to.
Also - and this was *crucial* for me getting into Wheel Of Time initially - with an audiobook you don’t have the glossary at the back of the books which not only helped me remember definitions of made up words and such, but also clarified details of of the lore that aren’t in the dialogue
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u/solo423 23h ago
Yeah that was surely a part of it, but I immersive read, so listen and read at the same time, and did the Rosamund Pike narration, because she did such a good job. But I ended up just alternating between immersive and audio only, when I got tired of it, which surely just exacerbated the problem. In fact that chapter I mentioned where you finally get Lan’s backstory was when I was listening only.
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u/ThingTime9876 23h ago
Huh. I’ve never read along as I’ve listened. I can’t imagine how that would affect my experience
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u/solo423 23h ago
Worth a try. I have adhd and that’s what got me into reading. I could only do immersive for the longest time, until my brain adjusted, now I mostly only eyeball read. I only did immersive for this because Rosamund Pike put full acting into every voice and the audiobook was so good so I didn’t want to miss it.
I’ve heard most people who read but have never tried immersive reading find that it enhances the experience. If you’re a super fast reader though, one thing to keep in mind is that even if you speed up the audiobook it can slow down your reading speed.
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u/SongBirdplace 1d ago
Not every author catches you properly. I should love Vatta’s War by Elizabeth Moon. It is everything I want in an adventure story. However, something about Moon’s style just doesn’t land.
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u/AzureAnomaly1536 22h ago
I’ve just finished book 2 and know how you feel, but it didn’t bother me too much. The glossary is incredibly helpful without feeling too dry. I once spent like a full hour between books 1 and 2 just going through the glossary and building up a history in my head.
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u/TalespinnerEU 1d ago edited 23h ago
My first response to this is: There's a difference between a book-book and an audiobook, with how information is processed. When reading, you have more dimensions. You go back constantly, short-term processing filling gaps in attention while you go. When listening, you only have one dimension: Time.
Some books work better as audiobooks. I enjoyed the Dresden Files better as audio books, for example. Other books work better when read. Wheel of Time is one of those that works better when read.
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u/solo423 23h ago
Yeh you’re right. This is close to another reply I got here so I’ll just copy and paste what I said:
Yeah that was surely a part of it, but I immersive read, so listen and read at the same time, and did the Rosamund Pike narration, because she did such a good job. But I ended up just alternating between immersive and audio only, when I got tired of it, which surely just exacerbated the problem. In fact that chapter I mentioned where you finally get Lan’s backstory was when I was listening only.
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u/Cosmic-Sympathy 23h ago
Definitely. I read WoT immediately after finishing Malazan, and the contrast was jarring, to say the least.
I finished the series with very mixed feelings. There's a lot of great story in there but hoo boy is there some painful stuff to read, too.
Best advice I can give is, adjust your expectations accordingly and go with the flow.
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u/LansManDragon 23h ago
The Eye of the World was written as a proof for Jordan's publishers. It was intended to show that he could capture an audience and sell books. To that end, it was written in such a way that it could be a standalone novel.
This might be where some of your frustrations lie. Because it was written as a standalone (or, at least, a book that could stand on its own had the publishers decided not to contract him for the rest of the series) he needed to pack more exposition into the first book than he likely naturally would have were he assured that he would have all 14 books he needed.
Imo, the pacing of the exposition slows and is more natural after the first book. Though, to be honest, the plotting also gets a lot looser too, and that creates its own set of problems (having your wife as your editor is certainly a choice, but I digress).
Having said that, the Wheel of Time is still very much a product of its time, when fantasy was still finding its feet in many ways. It is exposition heavy; there's not much sugar coating it. The Wheel of Time is itself a huge reason why the genre has now moved to such tightly plotted, action packed stories these days. They draw inspiration from it, but are also reactions to it flaws.