What is the Wheel of Time?

The Wheel of Time is a bestselling series of epic fantasy novels written by the American author James Oliver Rigney, Jr. under the pen name Robert Jordan. Originally planned as a six-book series, it now consists of thirteen published novels, with one more book forthcoming. The series also includes a stand-alone prequel novel and a companion book. The author began writing the first volume, The Eye of the World, in 1984 and it was published in 1990. The eleventh volume was published in 2005. The author passed away in September 2007 while working on the final volume, A Memory of Light. Fellow fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson was to complete the final volume for publication in late 2009, however due to the size it was decided that A Memory of light would be divided into three separate novels. The first of the three, The Gathering Storm was released late 2009, with the others to follow at one-year intervals. The thirteenth and penultimate volume in the series, Towers of Midnight, was released November 2nd, 2010.

The Wheel of Time is the great seven-spoked cosmic loom that weaves the Great Pattern, using the lives of people as threads. It is believed to encompass all worlds and realities into a Pattern of the Ages.

Think of a great cosmic loom in the shape of a seven spoked wheel; each spoke is representative of an Age, one passing, one always receding, one approaching. Put in place by the Creator, it uses the lives of people as threads to weave the Great Pattern. The Wheel gains its energy from the True Source, saidin and saidar working against and with each other. No one knows how long a full turning of the Wheel actually takes, and it very well may not be the same amount of time each turning. Reincarnation is a fact, as well as prophecies.

At the centre of every Web of Destiny, there is a ta’veren. Since ta’veren are made to influence life threads to create change, the only people who can affect the pattern in any significant ways are ta’veren; hence, the destinies of ta’veren are more strictly controlled by the Wheel of Time itself. These people are used by the Wheel to correct itself when the weave begins to drift from the pattern. The great changes caused by a ta’veren form a Web of Destiny. These Webs of Destiny are almost always arduous for those that live through that Age but are an unfortunate necessity for the Wheel. The more change required, the more ta’veren that are born.