Nalaka Manatunga Manatunga itibaren Lortess, Tunus itibaren Lortess, Tunus

This is a hard book to review. Before even picking it up, I had heard so much about it and a lot of it wasn't good - but at the same time, this is one of the most known fantasy series out there. So even though it seems everyone agree that this series starts out rather good but goes very wrong later on, I've decided to try it out - especially now that it is certain that the series will be completed, even though Robert Jordan has died before being able to finish it. We'll see if I'll finish it or if I quit somewhere along as so many before me has done. Rand and his two friend Mat and Perrin has to live their hometown Two Rivers because they are being targeted by Trollocs sent by the Dark One. They are being joined by an Aes Sedai and her Warder as well as a gleeman, a young girl from the village as well as the village Wisdom. The book follow their journey to try and reach The Eye of the World because for some reason, the three boys - or at least one of them - have been chosen and they are all three able to change the Pattern of the world. During this journey, they become separated and some of them meet a man able to communicate with wolves, a group of Traveling People, the Tuatha'ans while others are almost assassinated several times before they finally meet up again and travel on as a group towards the final battle. This all sounds good and well and perfect for a fantasy novel. And it is - except for one problem. Jordan has definitely read his Tolkien - and not just once. He knows Tolkien by heart - and is not afraid to use him. So many things in this book is borrowed - or downright stolen - from The Lord of the Rings. I'll give some examples. Some of the main characters are copied from Tolkien: Rand and his friends are the hobbits, Lan the Warder is Aragon (even to the extent that he is a king without a crown or a throne), Moiraine is Gandalf - and we even have a sort of Gollum in there too... Oh, and of course we have a race - the Ogiers - who hold year-long meetings and in other ways are similar to the Ents - besides there of course is a treeman too... There are dark flying things in both stories and the creepy dudes are very similar to the creepy dudes in The Lord of the Rings too. The story is often similar as well. A companion of travellers banding together to reach a certain destination to stop the evil mastermind of the world - Tolkien calls him Sauron, Jordan calls him Shai'tan... There are seven towers, not two, the battle at Helm's Keep is now at Tarwin's Gap. They journey through a dark scary place where they are being followed by something - something crazy. And Moiraine has to fight off an ancient wind thingy with her staff to get them out safely... So a lot of things are copied from The Lord of the Rings and I must say, it bugged me. And it is the main reason for my rating. It annoyed me each time I read something that just seemed so Tolkien instead of Jordan. And a couple of Jordan things annoyed me too - like the characters swear (saying 'Blood and ashes') constantly or Perrin and Rand constantly thinking how the other one is so much better with girls... And these things all bothered me. But I still enjoyed reading it. It is a nice, easy, very light fantasy read and I enjoy those from time to time. And I do like the idea of following the same characters through so many books - even though I fear that Jordan is not able to pull it off without being able to lean on Tolkien for support and he has already pretty much used everything from The Lord of the Rings... But here's to keeping my fingers crossed and I'll go and pick down book two from the shelf and start reading that next.

How can blood and gore with children as the main participants attract so many people to that extent that movie was made and manga was published? Perhaps the idea of the totalitarian regime which maintained the control trough the various programs is what makes book spice if the one class would murder each other with "there could be only one" rule. One class of high school students was the perfect sample of the population and of the sociopath behavior. Each students had a background story and showed the illness of the system. There are huge differences between manga, movie and novel but the idea stood the same.

THis book is so good does she take the staff or not? I can't put this book down. BTW: Retorical Question

Not one of my very favorite books by Pike, but it's still a great read. I thought it was engrossing, and I was in my vampire phase at this time, so it held an extra appeal.