I genuinely cannot recommend the series enough, the first book is heavy on the fellowship of the ring inspiration and is more or less a homage, but unique enough and very fun to read through, the second and third books are unique enough and more or less set the basic plotlines for all the characters for the rest of the series. The prose is honestly one of the better parts, it isn't overtly flowery (I personally prefer more flowery prose but wot is an exception) but it just flows, there are flowery and verbose bits and he uses them really well throughout, makes the scenes hit harder when the prose gets flowery.

The world is heavily gendered and imo, there are parts that anyone can point out and say that's misogynistic and they would be fair but i think that is just because of how gendered the world is and some cultures are going to be misogynistic, and i always felt that its just a reflection of jordan being really thorough. Though it does feel needlessly sexualizing at times, but might just be me nitpicking. The character work is genuinely the best in any piece of media i have seen, especially for most of the main cast.

The pacing from Books 1-3 is excellent, books 4-6 just fly while 7 and 8 are good, 9 and 10 are undeniably a slog, a problem with an author getting too enamoured with the world they created imo. one thing i cannot stress enough is how well jordan researched the cultures he is inspired by, the world building is just amazing and also the story itself is very realistic in the way how the politics revolve around everyone's material interests.