Jordan's Wheel of Time is a true classic of fantasy literature (and, no offense meant to any authors out there, it's also actually a finished series. ;) ). Eye of the World is the first book in the series, and it's a great read.
The pacing of introducing new facettes of the colorful world and it's (mostly) unique concepts is well done. No bigger lore-dumps, nothing terribly overwhelming, but enough regular reveals to continuously drawing the curtains back more and more (and even at the end of this book the reader hasn't seen nowhere near everything).
There is a certain level of coming-of-age to the story, but it's never overpowering the actual story. Sure, some characters might show behaviour, that's not terribly well explained (Nynaeve, looking at you), but for the biggest part, character motivations make sense (at least in hindsight).
So, if the idea of reading 14 jam-packed books …