Song 40: I Can't Wait, Stevie Nicks

My usual random number generator is still out walking the dogs, so tonight's random numbers are brought to you by the person previously known on LJ as amychaffinch. And this is the song she randomly selected:

Not especially representative of Miss Nicks's solo work and also something that sounds nothing at all like a Fleetwood Mac song. If anything I think it sounds a bit like a Cynid Lauper song. Proper 80s fashions. And is it me or does one of the male dancers look a bit like Richard E. Grant?

Probably not that famous over here (the single peaked at 54 in the UK). On the other hand, if you think it's strangely familiar, it might be because you recognise it from one of the adverts for Grand Theft Auto V:

Book Review: 'The Eye of the World' and 'The Great Hunt', Robert Jordan

Two reviews for the price of one - the first two volumes of Robert Jordan's enormous fantasy epic 'The Wheel of Time'. It's odd that these were the books randomly chosen by amychaffinch because a) I only finished The Great Hunt at 1 0'clock this morning and b) it was amychaffinch who recommended the series to me in the first place (she's a big fan). The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills...

The Eye of the World didn't really grab me at first. The first part of the book is very obviously written as a tribute to The Lord of the Rings. In fact, some events are almost copies of events in The Fellowship of the Ring. Once I got past that, I realised two things. The first is that actually, I really like The Lord of the Rings, so a tribute by a talented author is not a bad thing at all. Secondly, as you carry on into the first book, you start to get glimpses that actually this isn't quite the straightforward LotR copy that it starts out resembling. The world-building, while not up to Tolkien's standard, stands comparison with most fantasy epics. And Jordan's writing style is very readable.

When you get into the second book, rather more aspects of the world are revealed, with many more hints that there are all sorts of complex undercurrents. I'm trying very hard not to be spoilered for the rest of the series because I'm looking forward to seeing what is revealed and how all the factions fit together. That's two really quite long books read and I feel that I'm only scratching the surface.

So if you're thinking that I'm liking this series more the more I read of it, you'd be right. A lot of Tolkien fans don't seem to read many similar works at all, but if you like LotR and you're looking for something vaguely along the same lines, you may well like this. But try to avoid reaching a firm conclusion until you've read the first two books.

(amychaffinch tells me that "it keeps improving" from this point on and that "there are lots of things that you read now that will make lots of sense later". I hope so, on both counts.)