The World Of Robert Jordan's The Wheel Of Time (edició 2022)

Fans have labeled this 'The Big Book of Bad Art', and for good reason. This book is large format, almost coffee-table sized, and I'm sorry to say there is no reason even a die-hard fan should pick this up.

'World' was released after 'A Crown of Swords' so there are many unanswered questions and plot lines hanging in the air. Reading this, years after the entire series is complete, I read this with the eye of spotting information that wasn't otherwise duplicated elsewhere in the official series.

There's nothing. Well, almost nothing. There are fragments of information about the Seanchan and other lands beyond "Randland" (the main setting of the series, the continent and the world were never given a name, so it was dubbed "Randland", woof.) Even that information gets repeated in the novels themselves.

The text itself couldn't decide if this were a mock-history of Randland from a fictitious scholar, an arch commentary on the book series, or...what? It worked on no level. The text was riddled with awkward sentences and typos as well, which was unfortunate.

With the text out, that leaves the art.

It's bad. If you, as a reader, have ever done a quick internet search about a character or a plot point to refresh yourself (which is acceptable in a 14-volume series with hundreds of characters) pictures will pop up. For years I'd dismissed them as fan art, which has its place, but it turns out they were from this book. Muddy portraits with doubtful anatomy and melting features. Even the landscapes and buildings, such as the White Tower, were terrible. This was an official product of a best-selling fantasy franchise from the premier fantasy publisher. Presumably Jordan signed off on this? I was so appalled, I could only laugh.

The only redeemable art in the whole book was the double page spreads of Darryl K. Sweet's cover art for the first seven books. I've never been a fan of his figure drawing, but the landscapes were beautiful.

That, however, does not make up for the cover price. You're better off picking up only 'The Wheel of Time Companion' and letting this one fade into legend, myth, etc.

The Wheel of Time ( )

This book has a lot of great information. It really fills out the universe that Jordan created. However it is known here as the Big White Book of Bad Drawings because the artwork in it is truly dreadful. ( )

Fondly (or at least accurately) known as the Big Book of Bad Art in Wheel of Time fanatic circles. The text is fine - a bit dry, mostly superceded (this was published barely halfway through the series, before quite a few mysteries were settled) but generally interesting, at least to completist nerds like me. The internet is a better resource for nerdery, though, which would make the only major virtue of the book the art.

And the art, she is bad. Sloppy, poorly-proportioned, irrelevant, generally contextless, and charmless. The maps are lovely - and there are quite a few reproduced here - but they are reprints of maps from the hardcovers. The full-page spreads of the covers are nice enough, I suppose - the advantage to the book being published only halfway through the series is that none of the really appalling Darrel K Sweet covers were out yet. But the original art is just terrible.

Which makes me sad, because if Tor put out a post-series version of this, with some of the spectacular ebook covers they've recently commissioned and just a few pieces original to the book (and, of course, with updated text) I would snap it up in a heartbeat. I am a sucker for art books, and I am still grumpy that this one, only a sucker would buy. ( )

Een mooi naslagwerk met alles wat betrekking heeft op het rad des tijds. Zeker een aanrader voor de liefhebber van het genre. ( )

I really wanted to like this book a lot, because I LOVE Wheel of Time, and have since I was in Junior High in the early 90s when the series was still young as well. However, it doesn't add much to what you already know if you read the books and pay attention to them as you go. And I'm with everyone else - the art work is hideous! I was also really bothered by the fact that I found a number of typographical and gramatical errors throughout the book. I was tempted to red pen it and send it back to the publisher for a refund! Didn't this book have a copy editor?? Overall, very weak. But, I do like the way it looks on the shelf next to all my WoT books... ( )