Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" Series

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.” (Jordan’s The Fires of Heaven pg. 39) These words “began one of history's greatest fictional journeys and the most extraordinary work of American fantasy ever published.” (Jordan’s The Great Hunt pg. 1) Robert Jordan can not only make you feel like you are living alongside the characters in his books, but care for them as if they were truly living individuals.

Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series has been favorably compared to J. R. R. Tolkien’s works. In my opinion, Robert Jordan is one of America’s greatest writers. Wheel of Time is “a series that has topped the bestseller lists of The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London, and is now appearing in fourteen languages.” (Book review www.world_of_wheel.html)

James Oliver Rigney, Jr., who wrote under the pen name, Robert Jordan, used his own life’s experience to bring his characters to life and to bring a sense of total realism to his characters’ backgrounds. A graduate of The Citadel, the military academy of South Carolina, he received a degree in physics. In retrospect, Mr. Jordan felt that fantasy writing and physics actually work well together. "You can't study quantum mechanics without a feel for fantasy, Schrodinger's Cat alone will kill any logical person dead." (Jordan http://www.dragon.com)

Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston, South Carolina. He and his wife, Harriet, live in a house built in 1797. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and has been honored with two Vietnam Crosses of Gallantry, The Bronze Star, and the Distinguished Flying Cross. He has been writing since 1977 and will continue until he dies.

His military experience and training has enabled him to write believable strategies and intrigues that would fascinate the most pacifist of his readers. I am not much for battles and war, but Mr. Jordan’s writing is so realistic, yet comprehensive and involving that you cannot put his books down. He is also a history buff, and can spin a tale with a history so intricate that you could actually believe it happened. In the history of the lands of the Wheel of Time series, prophecies are written in such a way as to create an air of mystery and completion. “With his coming are the dread fires born again. The hills burn, and the land turns sere. The tides of men run out, and hours dwindle. The wall is pierced, and the veil of parting raised. Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth. There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death. – Fragment from the Prophecies of the Dragon believed translated by N’Delia Basolaine, First Maid and Swordfast to Raidhen of Hol Cuchone circa 400 AB.” (Jordan’s Fires of Heaven pg. 9)

"His writing is distinguished as literature by the richness of its fabric, with all the charm and naiveté of the Brothers Grimm and the social/moral commentary of Huxley's Brave New World. With his well-fleshed-out characters, dark imagery, comic relief, vivid landscapes, and a fascinating sense of timelessness, Jordan has created a complex literature with a language and reality all of its own.” (Robertson Myrtle Beach Sun News)

Jordan actually began to teach himself to read at the age of four with the help of his older brother. "When my parents couldn't get a baby-sitter, they'd get my brother. He would read to me, not kids' books, but things he was interested in, like Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Mark Twain, so I was exposed to a lot of great fiction.” (Jordan http://www.dragon*com)

Mr. Jordan was injured and hospitalized and during his recuperation he read a great deal of fantasy. He realized that he could actually write something just as good as the material he read. He had previously written theater critiques which, I believe, have only added to the richness of his stories. He does have a certain flair for the dramatic, even in the way he clothes himself.

Robert Jordan believes that fantasy is and will be an enduring form of literature, which I agree with wholeheartedly. Fantasy, he says, “reaches something deep in people, their dreams.” (Jordanhttp://www.dragon*com) People who read fantasy literature are those for whom a simpler time and way of life are appealing. Where good and evil are defined and easy to recognize.

Robert Jordan’s works have inspired me to read more than any other literary artist’s works combined. He has become my favorite author and the characters in his writings have become very familiar and close to me. He has a style and sense of humanity and all of humanity’s quirks and foibles that I find fascinating. He can make you feel like you are involved in his character’s lives and you actually care what happens to them. He can make you laugh at how serious we, as a race, take ourselves by his characters’ personalities and their illogical and sometimes comical hypocrisy. He can make you feel the dread, and hope, of prophecy when times were dark and people were simple in their thoughts and ways.

“There can be no health in us, nor any good thing grow, for the land is one with the Dragon Reborn, and he one with the land. Soul of fire, heart of stone, in pride he conquers, forcing the proud to yield. He calls upon the mountains to kneel, and the seas to give way, and the very skies to bow. Pray that the heart of stone remembers tears, and the soul of fire, love. – From a much disputed translation of the Prophecies of the Dragon by the poet Kyera Termendal, of Shiota, believed to have been published between FY 700 and FY 800.” (Jordan A Crown of Swords pg. 7)

“In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose…The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.” (JordanWinter’s Heart prologue) The Wheel of Time series began Robert Jordan’s rise to the ranks of one of the most acclaimed of American Literature writers alongside H. G. Wells and Mark Twain. I look forward to the time I can spend immersed in his books.