The Two Rivers (Wheel of Time)

The Wheel of Time

Cover of the first book
See list of books in series
Author	Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Cover artist	Darrell K. Sweet (Michael Whelan for A Memory of Light)
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy
Publisher	Tor Books (US) and Orbit Books (UK)
Published	January 15, 1990 – January 8, 2013

The Wheel of Time is a series of high fantasy novels written by American author James Oliver Rigney, Jr. under his pen name of Robert Jordan. Originally planned as a six-book series, The Wheel of Time spanned fourteen volumes, in addition to a prequel novel and a companion book. Jordan began writing the first volume, The Eye of the World, in 1984, and it was published in January, 1990.

The author died in 2007 while working on what was planned to be the twelfth and final volume in the series. He prepared extensive notes so another author could complete the book according to his wishes. Fellow fantasy author and long-time Wheel of Time fan Brandon Sanderson was brought in to complete the final book, but during the writing process it was decided that the book would be far too large to be published in one volume and would instead be published as three volumes:The Gathering Storm (2009), Towers of Midnight (2010), and A Memory of Light (2013).

The series draws on numerous elements of both European and Asian mythology, most notably the cyclical nature of time found in Buddhism and Hinduism, the metaphysical concepts of balance and duality, and a respect for nature found in Daoism. Additionally, its creation story has similarities to Christianity's "Creator" (Light) and Shai'tan, "The Dark One" (Shaytan is an Arabic word that in religious contexts is used as a name for the Devil). It was also partly inspired by Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1869).