Is it possible for someone who has not read all 11 books in The Wheel of Time series to be able to follow and enjoy reading The Gathering Storm ?
My agent did just that, actually. He said he had a lot of trouble through the first half of the book, then had a blast with the second half.
I honestly wouldn’t suggest it. The Wheel of Time is meant to be an in-depth, immersive experience. There’s a lot going on in these books, and they are not episodic—meaning the story is one long saga. It would be a little like tuning in to the Lord of the Rings movies and only watching the last chunk of the final movie.
If you’re determined, you could read The Encyclopaedia-WoT [which] has some excellent summaries of the books, chapter by chapter. But you’ll be missing out on a lot of fun. There will not be summaries posted in the books themselves—the WoT is just too long and involved for that to work. (And Robert Jordan always resisted letting the publisher add anything like that.)
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