India, Sept. 13 -- It's hard to remember precisely when a love affair began; hard enough with people, even harder with books.

This is a personal story. A story of a love affair with a series of fantasy novels, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time.

It would be easier, I suppose, if these were acknowledged literary classics. Shakespeare. Joyce, maybe. Or if these were books that had gained respectability because of their niche nature. Instead, they were massively successful in the '90s and Aughts, but since the death of the author and the completion of the series, in that order, the buzz around them has subsided.

These books are high fantasy; not the more fashionable grimdark or the even-more-fashionable romantasy. They were never reviewed by T...