Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13262 in Books
• Published on: 1991-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 705 pages

From Library Journal
Chosen by fate to become the Dragon Reborn--savior and destroyer of his world--young Rand al'Thor attempts to outrun his destiny by joining in a mad search for the lost Horn of Valere. Continuing the story begun in The Eye of the World ( LJ 2/15/90), Jordan creates a lush, sprawling tapestry of a novel in the tradition of Tolkien and Eddings. Recommended where fantasy is popular.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
THE GREAT HUNT is the second novel in Robert Jordan's massive Wheel of Time fantasy series. Michael Kramer and Kate Reading alternate sections, depending on which character (male or female) holds the shifting point of view. The large book is slow moving, especially at the beginning. Kramer and Reading help the prose along, providing much-needed spark to the characters. The author continually drags the story back to petty arguments between male and female characters, which becomes tedious. On the plus side, the action scenes, Jordan's specialty, are excellent. S.D. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
Praise for Book One of The Wheel of Time:

"The Eye of the World is the best of its genre."--The Ottawa Citizen

"A powerful novel of wide and complex scope."--Locus

"This looks very like the next major fantasy epic. It has magic and pacing and detail and human involvement, with a certain subtlety of presentation and a grand central vision. Robert Jordan...is a lot of writer!"--Andre Norton
-- Review

Customer Reviews

Great Book and Series!
This is book number 2 of the series. It's great story! Easy to read and follow!

A significant improvement over the first book
The Great Hunt is the second volume in Robert Jordan's gigantic, rainforest-devastating Wheel of Time series. It was originally published in late 1990 and like the first volume, The Eye of the World, was an immediate big seller.

The story picks up a month or so after The Eye of the World. Rand al'Thor has discovered he can channel the One Power and thus is doomed to go insane and die, wreaking terrible destruction at the same time. Normally it would be the responsibility of the Aes Sedai sisterhood to 'gentle' him, remove his ability to channel, but Rand's Aes Sedai mentor, Moiraine, and the head of the sisterhood, Siuan Sanche, believe that he is the Dragon Reborn, the long-prophesied saviour who will defeat the Dark One at the Last Battle. As such, they have no choice but to let him go free. When the twisted, insane Padan Fain steals the legendary Horn of Valere and the cursed dagger from Shadar Logoth upon which the life of Rand's friend Mat depends, a band of hunters are assembled to track Fain down and reclaim the dagger. Meanwhile, Egwene and Nynaeve travel to Tar Valon to begin their training as Aes Sedai, but find danger lurking even within the walls of the White Tower. In the far west, on Toman Head, rumours speak of the arrival of strangers who apparently use the One Power in battle and use savage beasts in combat, strangers who will not rest until all the lands are under their control...again.

The Great Hunt sees a notable widening of the scope of the world seen in the first book. Whilst the first novel perhaps veered too close to Lord of the Rings' characters and structure to be entirely comfortable, the sequel takes off in a completely different direction. Whilst the series' slightly irritating tendency to be obsessed with 'plot coupons' gets its start here, it does give the book a classical quest structure and deals with the parallel timelines as the core group from the first book gets split up and we follow them separately until their reunion at the end. Jordan also introduces a whole new threat in the form of the Seanchan, a powerful empire ruling a continent beyond the western ocean who now want to reclaim the homeland of their founder (Artur Hawkwing's son). This out-of-left-field threat does an excellent job of shaking things up, whilst the suspicious timing (the Seanchan invasion occurs at the same time the forces of the Shadow are gaining strength in the world) is later revealed as deliberate. The characters are deepened and made more interesting, particularly Rand and Perrin who are shown to grow and change as a result of the revelations they have discovered and the things they have suffered in the first novel. However, we also get to see the Dumb Aes Sedai plot trope get the first of many wearying outings, as Nynaeve, Elayne and Egwene get led into a trap which couldn't be any more painfully obvious. Only their relative youth and naivete makes it convincing in this book; the fact that Elayne is still falling for these things as late as Book 11 is rather more dubious.

The Great Hunt (****) is a notable improvement on the first book, taking the world, story and characters in refreshing and interesting new directions. Jordan's mastery of his enormous narrative is evident here, and even a certain economy (not a word normally associated with the verbose Jordan) of plotting can be detected as some major storylines are rattled through in just a few pages (the Seanchan themselves, surprisingly, don't appear until the book is more than halfway done). The novel is published by Orbit in the UK and Tor in the USA, and is followed by The Dragon Reborn.

In Keeping With the Tradition Introduced in Eye of the World
With the untimely and unfortunate passing of Mr. Jordan, one of the most epic fantasy series of all time lingers in the hands of another author in its conclusion (Brandon Sanderson) leaving the rest of us the task of revisiting the first eleven (plus prequel) volumes as we wait patiently.

I have recently taken this opportunity to begin again in the hopes of timing it smoothly so that hopefully book eleven can flow right into book twelve (although it seems I am progressing a bit too quickly for this to happen, but that's besides the point).

Some may find it strange that my review of the series begins not with book one (or even the prequel for that matter) but with the second book, The Great Hunt. To justify real quick- there isn't much more that can be said for Eye of the World that hasn't been put forth already. In the hopes of cutting down on redundancy, I will concede to the mass consensus that Eye of the World is an imagery rich and well developed novel worthy of the five stars I would have given it.

That said, onto this review... The Great Hunt picks up quite seamlessly where Eye of the World concludes and takes our small band of heroes into foreign lands in their quest to rid the world of evil. The pacing in this book is quite well done (though perhaps not precisely as well done as it was in EOTW) and the backbone follows Rand's mission to retrieve the stolen Horn of Valere (and with that Mat's evil dagger). The main story is then divided by the progress of our heroines in their struggles to become Aes Sedai. Intermingling within these are still even smaller plot segments that introduce us to a ship captain (Domon) and a mysterious woman whose true identity is only hinted at by the end of the book.

The most successful aspect of the book in my opinion is Jordan's ability to bring all of these threads together by the book's conclusion. Truly nothing was said just for the sake of saying it. Also well done is the separation from Rand and his brood for much of the story- it would seem that his apparent inability to rely upon the support of Mat and Perrin would unbalance things, but thanks to some well-developed cohorts in the form of Loial the Ogier and Hurin the Sniffer, the dynamic never misses a beat.

Additionally, Jordan does a great job with the concept of foreign lands (and the cultures inhabiting them). All too often (in fantasy especially) the only way of knowing that we are whisked away to a far off place is a sentence in the narrative that tells us so. Here, however, there are enough strange practices and unique cultural references (especially in the matter of slavery) to make the locales feel far from home.

About the biggest criticism to the subtle beauty in the prose would come in the form of lack of character development. I suppose when one considers the fact that we have the expanse of 12 thick novels to do so, it isn't entirely critical to grow the lead characters up in just the course of the first two, but be forewarned that Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve, and even the elusive Moiraine are, for the most part, mirror images of the characters we met at the very beginning of Eye of the World despite the fact that by sheer experiences alone, one would think they would be slightly more jaded if nothing else.

All in all, revisiting this series is an absolute joy especially after spending some time with some of the more recent entries to the fantasy genre that certainly pale in comparison. I literally closed The Great Hunt and went directly into The Dragon Reborn in effort to keep the rhythm going as stated above. While I'm not so enamored in the nostalgia to pretend things won't bog down in the later volumes, one can hardly help but enjoy The Great Hunt for its adventurous charms.