I was hooked.
Not too long after I finished it, The Great Hunt came out. I also read that from the library.
I bought every book in hardcover after that the week they were released.
Work involved using a computer with an internet connection so via online searching I eventually located the original WOT FAQ which had started on usenet. I went totally down the rabbit hole and their recommended links page led me to Wotmania. That was the spring of 1998.
To echo Cannoli, that is the damookster origin story.
And I was starting the new year and meeting new people in a different class. Well a guy then asked about the book for it was HUGE (700 pages after all in hardback) and I said it is the wheel of time series, and then this 18 year old mentioned he was the younger brother…and his stupid older brother was reading that series over 10 years earlier and the books are still not finished? What an idiot he said about his older brother.
Well I decided then I did not like this guy , if he was going to mock a reader of a book series to another guy he just met and revealed something about themselves well he did not have that good of self-awareness.
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Pardon me with an old story, I figured I would share for there were some other WoT fans who were reading the books in the 90s