Spoiler Free - WOT as an Intro to Fantasy

Elania al'Manir

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My first fantasy was Harry Potter, and then the Pendragon series. Next came Dragonlance and Magic: The Gathering, and then finally Wheel of Time. I would say Wheel of Time is a good place to start for epic fantasies, but is probably too heavy and dense to be a gateway into the genre in general. Young Adult books or smaller, more simply written ones are more likely to draw in your average reader.

Also this thread is making me wish I had a list of every book I've ever read, in order. Wouldn't that be fascinating? I guess I can start now for the future.
 
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My first fantasy was Harry Potter, and then the Pendragon series. Next came Dragonlance and Magic: The Gathering, and then finally Wheel of Time. I would say Wheel of Time is a good place to start for epic fantasies, but is probably too heavy and dense to be a gateway into the genre in general. Young Adult books or smaller, more simply written ones are more likely to draw in your average reader.

Also this thread is making me wish I had a list of every book I've ever read, in order. Wouldn't that be fascinating? I guess I can start now for the future.
It would take a book for me to list all 0ther books I've read
:reading
 
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WoT was definitely the first fantasy of any kind that I ever picked up. I was 11 when my friends first started trying to get me into them and I caved a year later. I didn't have an issue with them and I loved how long and detailed they were. I just didn't like being told what to read. I didn't then or even now think there is anything that wouldn't be age appropriate for the age I was at the time. It had a warmth to it that made it an easier read than you might expect from something so long. On the other hand, while I love the stories, I hate reading LotR, and to this day still haven't been able to force myself passed Merry and Pippin with the Ents. I never would have thought of reading fantasy before WoT. My parents were readers, but Mom preferred romance and Daddy liked SciFi and mystery more than fantasy.
 

Teavin Calayna

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If anyone has suggested WoT as my introduction to the fantasy genre I probably would have headed for the hills. It's such a heavy, dense story that I think someone new to the fantasy genre would struggle with it. I was only 6 at the time the first book was even published so definitely well out of my league anyway at the time lol. It does amaze me it escaped my notice until now. If I was introducing someone to fantasy I would suggest The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, Anne McCaffrey's Acorna series that blends scifi and fantasy together or one of my absolute favorites with Mercedes Lackey's Mage Wars trilogy. I didn't tackle Tolkien until I was in high school and while I enjoy LOTR I much prefer the simplicity of The Hobbit. I have never been able to get through The Silmarillion and I have tried my hardest to
 

Ilissa al'Nari

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Also this thread is making me wish I had a list of every book I've ever read, in order. Wouldn't that be fascinating? I guess I can start now for the future.




ooooooh, I like that idea. You just gave me an actual reason to do the storygraph thing other than to just keep track of the books I read in a year :P.
 

Imzadi Hopewind

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I read a lot of cartoons when I was younger and first meeting with sci-fi was when I was 9-10 years old, and about 12 years old I read LoTR, lucky my dad warned me that first about 100 pages are boring, because it's just talk about different people etc, so I got thru that part :giggle I didn't read WoT before I was in Uni in 1997, and then I read it in norwegian, because I needed something fantasy in norwegian because had too much english at Uni :giggle And rest is a story :pleased-1:
 

Morgana Arakos

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I think WoT could be a starter series, but maybe not the best choice for everyone. Maybe better put as a gateway into epic fantasy from the broader fantasy genre?

I'm trying to remember my first fantasy books, and I'm pretty sure it was my dad reading The Hobbit to me, then The Wizard of Earthsea.
 

Llewyn Felvera

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I read Harry Potter as a kid and loved the LotR movies as they were releasing (even though I was too young to really understand what was going on), but funnily enough I still think my introduction to "fantasy" as a broad genre that encompasses various media was via video games. I played a lot of fantasy RPGs growing up, and I feel like those were much more influential to my affinity for the genre than were other books I read.

That said, I agree with everyone who has said WoT wouldn't be a great introduction to fantasy, especially since it occupies the (relatively) niche status of epic fantasy. I feel like starting with the WoT would be akin to trying to learn to swim in the middle of a tempest :tongue
 

Melorea al'Taehor

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I'd have to agree with some others here that WoT is an intimidating size to start with.

I cannot recall what my "starter" series would be. I remember I was roughly Harry's age while reading the first few of those books. The Northern Lights is a series I read when young, as well as the Chronicles of Narnia.

For higher fantasy, I read LoTR 2 and 3 after seeing the first film - but I'll admit I did skip some paragraphs were his descriptions of scenery were a bit long winded.
 

Toral Delvar

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There are also dozens of series aimed at younger children that people who don't have pre-teen to early teens might not even be aware of, such as Kate o Hearn's Pegasus series, or the "Upside down magic" series, both of which my daughter read.
I did note that nearly all the books she read had female protagonists (sometimes with a male friend around, other times not). I don't know if this was because she preferred those books, or there are just many more girl-led fantasy books/series these days
 
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