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Robert Jordan Wheel of Time series |
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Robert Jordan Wheel of Time series - Fantasy Science Fiction Robert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney, Jr. (October 17, 1948 – September 16, 2007), under which he was best known as the author of the bestselling The Wheel of Time fantasy series. He also wrote under the names Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reily. Robert Jordan was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Robert Jordan served two tours in Vietnam (from 1968 to 1970) with the United States Army as a helicopter gunner. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with bronze oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with "V" and bronze oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm. After returning from Vietnam he attended The Citadel where he received an undergraduate degree in physics. After graduating he was employed by the United States Navy as a nuclear engineer. He began writing in 1977. He was a history buff and enjoyed hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool, and pipe collecting. Robert Jordan described himself as a "High Church" Episcopalian and received communion more than once a week. Robert Jordan lived in a house built in 1797 with his wife Harriet McDougal, who works as a book editor (currently with Tor Books; she was also Jordan's editor).
The Wheel of Time (abbreviated by fans to WoT) is a series of epic fantasy novels written by the late American author James Oliver Rigney, Jr., under the pen name Robert Jordan. Originally planned as a six-book series, it now consists of eleven published novels, with one more upcoming. There is also a prequel novel and a companion book available. The author began writing the first volume, The Eye of the World, in 1984 and it was published in February 1990.The author died while working on the final volume, which will now be completed by fellow author Brandon Sanderson for publication in late 2009.The series draws on elements of European and Asian mythology, most notably the recursive nature of time found in Hinduism and Buddhism and the concepts of balance, duality and a respect for nature found in Daoism. The series was also partly inspired by Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.The series is notable for its length, its detailed imaginary world, its well-developed magic system and a large cast of characters. The eighth through eleventh books each reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. As of 12 August 2008 the series has sold over 44 million copies worldwide[4] and has spawned a computer game, roleplaying game and a soundtrack album. The television and film rights to the series have been optioned several times, most recently by Universal Studios.
At the dawn of time, a deity known as the Creator forged the universe and the Wheel of Time, which spins the lives of men and women as its threads. The Wheel has seven spokes, each representing an age, and it is rotated by the One Power, which flows from the True Source. The One Power is divided into male and female halves, saidin and saidar, which work in opposition and in unison to drive the Wheel. Those humans who can use this power are known as channelers; the principal organization of such channelers in the books is called the Aes Sedai or 'Servants of All' in the Old Tongue.
The Creator imprisoned its antithesis, Shai'tan, at the moment of creation, sealing him away from the Wheel. However, in a time called the Age of Legends, an Aes Sedai experiment inadvertently breached the Dark One's prison, allowing his influence to seep back into the world. He rallied the powerful, the corrupt and the ambitious to his cause and these servants began an effort to free the Dark One fully from his prison, so he might remake time and reality in his own image. In response to this threat, the Wheel spun out the Dragon, a channeler of immense power, to be a champion for the Light. In the Age of Legends the Dragon was a man named Lews Therin Telamon, who eventually rose to command the Aes Sedai and their allies in the struggle against the Dark One's forces. After a grueling ten-year war, three generations after the Dark One's prison was breached, Telamon led his forces to victory in a daring assault on the site of the earthly link to the Dark One's prison, and was able to seal it off. However, at this moment of victory the Dark One tainted saidin, driving male channelers of the One Power insane. The male channelers devastated the world with the One Power, unleashing earthquakes and tidal waves that reshaped the world. Their leader, Lews Therin in his madness killed his friends, his family, and finally himself. Eventually, the last male channeler was killed or cut off from the One Power, leaving the human race all but destroyed and only women able to wield the One Power safely. The Aes Sedai reconstituted and guided humanity out of this dark time. Mankind now lived under the shadow of a prophecy that the Dark One would break free from his prison and the Dragon would be reborn to face him once more, raining destruction upon the world in the process of saving it from the Dark One.
Over the next three and a half thousand years, the human race returns to a level of technology roughly comparable to that of the Medieval era (although cultural institutions and traditions seem closer to the 19th Century), with the difference that women enjoy full equality with men in most societies, and are superior in some. This is put down to the power and influence of the female-only Aes Sedai spilling over into everyday life. Several major wars have ravaged the main continent since the defeat of the Dark One, such as the Trolloc Wars, when the surviving servants of the Dark One tried to destroy civilization once more but were defeated by an alliance of nations led by the Aes Sedai; and the War of the Hundred Years, a devastating civil war that followed the fall of a continent-spanning empire ruled by the High King, Artur Hawkwing. These wars have prevented the human race from regaining the power and high technology of the Age of Legends, and also left humanity divided. Even the prestige of the Aes Sedai has fallen, with their shrinking numbers and the emergence of organizations such as the Children of the Light, a militant order who hold that all who dabble with the One Power are servants of the Shadow. The nations of the modern era are able to unite against the warrior-clans of the Aiel, who cross into the western kingdoms on a mission of vengeance after they suffered a grievous insult, but are too divided to work effectively together in other areas.
The prequel novel, New Spring, takes place during the Aiel War and chronicles the end of the conflict and the discovery by the Aes Sedai that one of the Prophecies of the Dragon has been fulfilled, that the Dragon has been Reborn. Aes Sedai agents are despatched to try to find the newborn child before servants of the Shadow can do the same.
The series proper commences almost twenty years later in the Two Rivers district of the kingdom of Andor, a near-forgotten backwater. An Aes Sedai, Moiraine, and her Warder Lan, arrive in the village of Emond's Field with news that servants of the Dark One are searching for one particular young man living in the area. Moiraine is unable to determine which of three men: Rand al'Thor, Mat Cauthon or Perrin Aybara is the Dragon Reborn, so she takes all three of them out of the Two Rivers, along with their friends Egwene al'Vere and Nynaeve al'Meara, whom Moiraine has determined can channel the One Power and learn to be Aes Sedai. The first novel depicts their flight from various agents of the Shadow and their attempts to escape to the Aes Sedai city of Tar Valon.
From then on, the story expands and the original characters are frequently split into different groups and pursue different missions or agendas aimed at furthering the cause of the Dragon Reborn, sometimes thousands of miles apart. Broadly speaking, the original group of characters from the Two Rivers make new allies, gain experience and become figures of some influence and authority. As they struggle to unite the western kingdoms against the Dark One's forces, their task is complicated by rulers of the nations who refuse to give up their authority and by factions such as the Children of the Light, who do not believe in the prophecies, and the Seanchan, the people of a long-lost colony of Artur Hawkwing's empire across the western ocean who have returned, believing it is their destiny to conquer the world. The Aes Sedai also become divided between those who believe the Dragon Reborn should be strictly controlled, and those who believe he must lead them into battle as he did in the earlier war. As the story expands, new characters representing different factions are introduced: although this expansion of the narrative allows the sheer scale of the growing struggle to be effectively depicted, it has been criticized for slowing the pace of the novels and sometimes reducing the appearances of the original or main cast to extended cameos.
By the eleventh novel, it has become clear that the Last Battle, caused when the Dark One is able to exert its influence directly on the world once more, is imminent. According to both Robert Jordan and the author finishing the final volume, Brandon Sanderson, the Last Battle will be depicted in the twelfth and final novel in the series, A Memory of Light.
Jordan's Wheel of Time concept and art, while fictional, recalls common circular motifs from world religions and folklore. Buddhism has the Wheel of Law and the Wheel of Life; Hinduism, the Wheel of Rebirth. Taoism and other major and minor religions make use of the wheel symbol, in the round or twisted, to symbolize eternity. The snake or dragon swallowing its tail is found in folklore as a hoop snake and in fiction and elsewhere under the name "oroborus". The symbol for the Aes Sedai is similar to the taijitu, a Taoist icon representing the harmony of opposites.
There is also a companion book to the series, entitled The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, published by Tor Books in November 1997, which contains much hitherto unrevealed background information about the series, including the first maps of the entire world and the Seanchan home continent. The book was co-written with Teresa Patterson. Jordan ruled the book broadly canonical, but stated that the book was written from the perspective of a historian within the Wheel of Time universe, and was prone to errors of bias and guesswork.
There is also a prequel novella, New Spring in the Legends anthology edited by Robert Silverberg. Jordan expanded this into the standalone novel New Spring that was published in January 2004. Prior to his death, Jordan planned another two prequel novels and up to three 'outrigger' novels taking place during or after the main series. He had notes prepared for these, and it has not been ruled out that Brandon Sanderson or other authors could expand them into full novels, although the final decision will be taken by Jordan's widow and publishers.
In 2002 the first book, The Eye of the World, was repackaged as two volumes with new illustrations for younger readers: From the Two Rivers, including an extra chapter (Ravens) before the existing prologue, and To the Blight with an expanded glossary. In 2004 the same was done with The Great Hunt, with the two parts being The Hunt Begins and New Threads in the Pattern.
A Wheel of Time computer game was released in 1999 that features a storyline set some 150 years prior to the events depicted in The Eye of the World. Over the course of the game, a lone Aes Sedai must track down a robber following an assault on the White Tower, and prevent the Dark Lord from being released prematurely. She eventually learns of and executes a long-forgotten ritual at Shayol Ghul to seal the Dark Lord in until the Dragon is reborn. While Robert Jordan was consulted in the creation of the game, he did not write the storyline himself.
The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game had a single adventure module published in 2002, Prophecies of the Dragon. The storyline takes place concurrently with the books and revolves around the Artifice of Brassion, an ancient Ter'angreal which allows a single female channeller to cut off a male channeller from the One Power over a distance. On the sidelines of the great Battle of Dumai's Wells, the adventurers eventually confront and defeat Black Ajah sisters and capture or destroy the Ter'angreal, to prevent it from being used against the Dragon Reborn. Robert Jordan had no part in the writing of the adventure storyline, but is acknowledged for Licensing Approval.
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