I have been looking for a new series or saga to sink my teeth in to. My reading queue is pretty light. I am not a huge fantasy fan, but I have loved A Song of Ice and Fire so much more than I expected. This series looks a bit daunting though.
It is different to SoIaF but so much better IMO. What is it you like about SoIaF? If it's the fact that it's quite gritty and more realistic, in the way that characters get unceremoniously killed off and it's more 'real' the WoT is quite different.
However, a few cool points about WoT and how it deals with problems that befall most fantasy series. Number one, it can be ridiculous how the main characters get out of many life threatening situations and it you get to the point where there's never any danger that your favourite characters aren't going to pull through. This is why SoIaF is so refreshing, no one is safe!! WoT deals with that in it's own way. Some of the main characters become, early on in the story, something that essentially means fate is twisted around them. They inadvertently mess with chance and probability which is a mechanic of why they scrape through certain situations. It's just one of the great ways Jordan explains so much about his universe and how everything works. Very few things 'just happen', with no explanation as to the mechanics of WHY they happen, in the story.
Secondly, fantasy stories can sometimes draw heavily from Greek or Norse mythology, religion, Jesus etc. In Jordan's world time is a wheel, ages come and go and them come again. The story is essentially set in our world but so far in the future that everything about our time is legend and myth. There are stories about us going into space but everything has been lost and changed in the retelling. In the same way as our present is legend and myth in the story, because time is a wheel, the events in the books essentially become OUR legends and myths. That may be seen as a bit of a cop out but I LOVE it. All the facts and names got mixed and blurred in the retelling but so many of out myths, legends and religions could be based on what happens in The Wheel of Time series. I could give lots of examples but the last thing I want to do is spoil anything. Again, I just want to show how well crafted Jordan's world is. It's fascinating.