Oh, gods, no, don\'t read Jordan, especially if you are new to the genre. These books will make you never again pick up another fanstasy book, which would be too bad, since there is some good stuff out there.
The first three or four books are okay, albiet somewhat derivative of just about everything else out there and full of the usual steriotypical nonsense. But if you like the \"young innocent boy destined to save the world that\'s been done a million times\" routine, they aren\'t too bad.
But then Jordan decided to take his story and milk it for everything it\'s worth. They\'ve become nothing short of drivel which cause actual pain to read. Think I\'m kidding? In the eleventh book, Jordan hit a new low. It\'s about 900 pages, give or take, and EXACTLY one thing happens in that 900 pages. One thing. I\'m not exaggerating or making this up. You need to read only one paragraph (and a fairly short one at that) toward the very end of the book, and you\'ve essentially read the entire book, except you\'ve skipped all the skirt-smoothings, sniffings, temper tantrums, wool headed callings, hair pullings, and other miscellaneous nonsense we\'ve endured for eleven books. After that last one, I\'ll not read any more of them. I only went this far because I liked the first four okay and I was invested. Now I couldn\'t care less about any of them, they just aren\'t worth wading through all that crap any more.
Please, for the sake of your sanity, don\'t even look at these, they\'re awful. It\'s too late for us, but you can still save yourself
On the other hand, let me whole heartedly agree with Vengance. George R.R. Martin\'s Song of Ice and Fire books are among the best I\'ve ever read in any genre. They\'re right up there with LOTR. You should definately do yourself the favor of picking up the first one.
