> The problem with that is that I really don't care a lick for any of his characters, and I actively hate one of them. Rand is a reletively interesting character, but he's not enough to keep me reading. Perrin, Lan, Moiraine, Egwene, and Nynaeve are just kind of there, for the most part. Nothing significant has really happened to them yet, at least nothing that I really cared much about.

Hmm, I actually found Moiraine and Egwene to be quite interestin (well, once things had got going a little) ... as for Rand, he was pleasant enough, I suppose, but had nothing about his nature that made him stand out particularly from his two friends, Mat and Perrin.

Interestingly, Perrin becomes a much more developed character as the novels develop (IMHO) while Matt and Rand become even less appealing and remain otherwise two dimensional ....
> (WARNING. MINOR SPOILERS.)
>
> The gleeman Thom has me in fits--what the *heck* is he doing traveling with them? He had the motivation (*maybe*) to leave the Two Rivers with them. But after that, he should have just gone on his own. If he's going to turn out to be a bad guy, I'm going to scream because it should be obvious to everyone that he has no real reason to be tagging along.

Rest assured, Thom is there for a reason ; - )

> And then there is Mat. I *hate* Mat. He's not naive, he's *stupid*. It seems that every plot point so far (the few there have been) have hinged on Mat's *stupidity*. If I were travelling with this guy, I'd have bound and gagged him long ago, and kept him tied to the back of his horse so he couldn't do any further stupid things. I just want to strangle the guy everytime he gets himself in trouble. It's wearing very thin, let me tell you.

Must agree with you about Matt - if he is supposed to be some kind of rscal that women would find attractive and endearing, I have to say sorry - most unlikely; he's childish, petulant, selfish, judgemental, sexist .... nothing especially attractive about that.

> Finally, I just love the way Jordan treats his horses....

Hmm, missed that entirely (about the very thin horse Lan rides) LOL Well spotted!

> Anyway, I'm still trying to read it. But the going is slow. If Jordan doesn't let me in on a few of his secrets soon, I may have to just quit.

Have taken a break from Jordan myself. Was beginning to see too many problems in the way he writes ... Instead, I'm reading The Solatire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder (author of Sophie's World). And so far, so good! : ) Though I might add, it's not as good as Sophie's World (IMHO, of course) but remains good exercise for the brain cells just the same ...