Harry Potter is for Sissies

Like any self respecting Muggle I love Harry Potter and his misadventures at Hogwarts. Recently, however, I have discovered something more scintillating than anything He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named has ever cooked up.

Enter Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time fantasy series. As fantasy books go, my general rule of thumb is as follows: it must have the word "epic" somewhere in the description, it should have a map of the magical kingdom we are about to explore, and/or a glossary to define all of the strange creatures and powers we will encounter along the way. If it has one (or preferably all) of the above, then count me in! Jordan's series goes above and beyond, offering not one but anywhere from 2-4 maps and a glossary thicker than my entire college transcript per book. With the series at this point totaling 11 books, 9,353 pages and 3,115,519 words, The Wheel of Time is not for the light of heart, or the soft-core fantasy fans. This is balls-to-the-wall fantasy my dears, and it simply doesn't get much better than this.

What, pray tell, do these 3 million plus words cover? Enter Rand, sheepherder extraordinaire, and requisite small town villager turned mankind's last hope for survival. Like most fantasy books, we are dealing with the classic Good vs. Evil scenario, but this one packs a punch. Rand and his friends must embark on the adventure of a lifetime if they are to beat the Dark Lord and save the world. To even begin to summarize the plot of such an exhaustive series would be impossible (and probably really boring for you, dear reader) and I will therefore not even attempt to do so.

But I will say this: Jordan's series differs from the many formulaic fantasy novels out there, his attention to detail is astounding and he brings a surprisingly feminist perspective to the series, which is an added bonus as a female nerd in a predominately male-nerd-world. Furthermore, this is the first fantasy series I have read that has gay characters. Granted they are not overtly gay (rather, it is implied) this is still the first time I have seen a gay presence in this genre.

His readers are not fans, they are fanatics for life, and that says something. CAUTION: Reading this series will alienate you from people you love (at one point I stopped going out on the weekends because I simply had to know if Egwene was being raised Amyrlin Seat), disrupt your performance at work (My daydreams of becoming an Aes Sedai became increasingly difficult to ignore once I hit book 6), and become a serious financial burden once you finish the series. Because at that point, you will need copious amounts of anti anxiety medication in order to calm the voice screaming inside your head: "I can't wait two years for book 12! I MUST HAVE MORE JORDAN! NOW!" In summation, I leave you with these final thoughts: Best. Series. Ever.