A Soundtrack For the Wheel of Time by Robert Berry (CD, Jan-2002, Magna Carta)

This album/soundtrack was SURPRISINGLY well done! I really didn’t know what to expect for something like this. Even with being a huge fan of Robert Jordan’s ‘The Wheel of Time’ books for numerous years now, I was a little skeptical in buying this at first. My main hesitation... this (obviously) hasn’t been made into a movie, production, etc. yet - so really... how good could be? The answer was WOW, much better than I thought! It has a wonderful sound, somewhere between new-age and Enya for several of the tracks, with the others comprised of a variety of great orchestral compositions. I was astonished it sounded as professional as it does (I was expecting something more fan-based / produced, but this ranks up there with just about any other CD / soundtrack you would expect to get from composers such as James Horner or John Williams). Even the tracks with singing are done rather well (some may say some of the lyrics are a little campy, but honestly - it’s still done with pretty good taste, which also happily surprised me!). All and all, if you are a fan of Robert Jordan’s books - AND you enjoy the average musical score, you really should do OK with this album (at a minimum). Had I known it was this good, I would have bought it years ago!