I just started the eighth book in The Wheel of Time series: The Path of Daggers. There are 14 books in total, making this the start of the second half. I haven't done a review since book three (#416511), so it seemed like a good time for an update.

The scale of the story has increased greatly. Our main characters have found their ways into positions of prominence and they are now travelling throughout much more of the world, as they go about their often separate adventures. There's much more political intrigue and military campaigns than the first books contained and less focus on the highly detailed story telling that stood out in the early part of the series.

The world building is still very strong and has made an interesting transition. The first three books had a strong fish-out-of-water approach to building the world, as the small town kids we're following venture out into an unfamiliar world. They are learning a great deal directly from the more worldly characters guiding them. This was a great way to teach us, the readers, about what is known of this world, but we pretty quickly (well, over the course of a couple thousand pages) come up to speed with what's going on. Now, there are many things being revealed about this world that are not known to even the wisest and most educated.

We also start getting more story telling from the perspectives of the main antagonists of the early books. Through this we learn more about the conflicts, as well as the limits of what the various players know about what's going on in the world.

It's a little hard to succinctly describe the nature of time in The Wheel of Time, but essentially the world cycles through Ages, which have such dramatic transitions that society basically has to start over each Age from scratch. Most knowledge is lost from one Age to the next. We've begun learning more about what happened in the previous Age and there are some hints about how certain events must have to repeat.

Robert Jordan has really done a spectacular job of developing an immense story that unfolds at a natural pace. Many things are begun in one book and not paid off until several books later. Mysteries are allowed to linger and payoffs are not rushed.

I still recommend this series for anyone looking to get into a giant fantasy epic.