at which age you read Magician? You kind of seem to be in a similar situation to what Rebekah describes about Eddings, i.e. overrating the book because of nostalgia, and enjoying it more because of that than you would if you read it for the first time now.

Admittedly, I haven't gotten around to rereading it myself, so I'm not really in a position to judge, but I did reread most of the Empire trilogy, which - again like Rebekah - I remember finding at least as good or better than the Riftwar saga itself, bac, when I first read it. During the reread, my opinion of it sunk significantly. So as a result of that, perhaps unjustly, I'm not inclined to rate Magician or the rest of the Riftwar saga all that high, certainly not higher than WoT.