10 Great Fantasy Books To Read if You Love 'The Wheel of Time'

When Robert Jordan published The Eye of the World in 1990, the first of over a dozen novels in his sprawling, best-selling The Wheel of Time series, you wouldn't be remiss in mistakenly assuming that this new-kid-on-the-block author was copy-pasting his way through a regurgitation of his main inspiration — that being The Lord of the Rings trilogy by the king of fantasy himself, J. R. R. Tolkien. Protagonist Rand al'Thor, an unassuming young man from a peaceful village, embraces his destiny by opposing the Dark One; aiding Rand in his noble quest are his four close friends, a taciturn warrior-king, and an enigmatic sorceress. The more The Wheel of Time developed with each consecutive book, however, the more Jordan established his thrilling tapestry of good and evil as a seminal work of high fantasy in its own right. Between his intimidating imagination, outstanding characterization, and a word count too vast to contemplate, Jordan's magnum opus defined a generation.