Beginners Resource Guide to The Wheel of Time Books

If you are reading the Wheel of Time for the first time, you may find this guide useful in avoiding getting spoiled and it will hopefully provide you with some resources to help you on your epic 15 book journey.

The first rule of reading The Wheel of Time:

Auto complete is not your friend on this journey! It will spoil major events for you if you start typing a characters name. Just don’t do it!

The second rule of reading The Wheel of Time:

DO NOT USE THE WHEEL OF TIME WIKI!

The wiki contains spoilers in the opening paragraphs for all the major characters. It’s a full spoiler wiki and is only useful for rereads or to refresh your memory on something after you have finished the books.

The third rule of reading The Wheel of Time:

“But Narg, if I can’t google stuff or check the wiki how am supposed to keep track of 2,782 named characters!”

Narg glad you asked! Here are some resources to help…

Resources:

The Wheel of Time Compendium

This handy app that is available on both Android and Apple, lets you select the book you are on to read about any character's history. Simply select a book, and search for a character! Easy peasy!

Here are a couple of reviews:

Perfect. So happy to find this resource! Listening to the books on audiobook, the glossary is not available and the herculean task of trying to remember the characters without stumbling across spoilers is a very tricky task. This app fits the bill perfectly!

Amazing resource for someone like myself reading through the series for the first time. The ability to search names and having the description be spoiler free beyond whatever book you choose is amazing. I've been using it every time I come across a character name I'm not sure I've come across before or any character I need a reminder of who they are (and there are an insane amount of characters in this series). I wish other book series had there own app like this one. Tldr: amazing app, get it.

See Narg not lie!

“Ok Narg, thanks for that, but with all this travelling around, how am I supposed to keep track of where they are and all these cities and towns?”

Wheel of Time Lines Interactive Online Map

“If you have not finished the series yet or just want to see a specific selection from the timeline, you can filter out events from whichever books you want. Just want to follow a certain character? This is also possible with the character filters.

If you are curious about a city or country, you can click on it to learn more about it, and for the countries to see the borders light up on the map.”

As first time readers, Narg strongly advises making use of the filters before you explore the map, otherwise you will get spoilers. Narg finds it works better on a laptop than on his phone. Also wait until you have read a chunk of the first book first before you take a squiz as the default screen has spoilers for the early chapters of EYE of the World.

Here’s the Linky once you are ready

“Hrrm…sounds a bit risky but i’ll give it try…later. What about googling for fan art of characters?”

WHAT?!?!?!?!

Bloody humans!!!

What’s the first bloody flaming rule??

NEVER FLAMING GOOGLE ANYTHING!

Seriously…Don’t do it!

If you are reading the books after watching the show, you’re probably seeing the actors images when reading the books, but if you aren't or are reading the books first and having trouble picturing the characters, Narg has an old post that has spoiler free character fan art and images from the graphic novel for each chapter of The Eye of the World.

“Geez I get it…no need to shout dude! What if I have a question though or just want to talk about the books with someone…where can I go?”

Well there are a few places, but none of them are guaranteed to be totally spoiler free:

r/WoT Wheel of Time Sub on Reddit

This is the largest WoT community on reddit with over a 100,000 members and has a strict spoiler policy that is enforced pretty reliably. As a first time reader, Narg would advise only using it to ask questions or to start a discussion and then only looking at your post thread. While spoilers are removed fairly quickly there’s always the chance you might run into one.

Twitter

Can be a good way to ask a questions and get an answer. Use the #firstwottimer tag and general WoT tags like #thewheeloftime or #wheeloftime when posting to get peoples attention. Narg would advise avoiding the #twitteroftime tag as you will run into spoilers on that tag and definitely don’t follow @thedailytrolloc… That dude will definitely spoil things for you!

Friends/Family

Probably the safest option…unless your friends/family are douches…

Reading Order

“What about the prologue ‘New Spring’ or the companion books, when should I read them?”

Publication order is always the safest bet, though some people have read ‘New Spring’ first and didn’t find it spoiled much for them. ‘The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time’ can safely be read after book seven ‘A Crown of Swords’. The Companion is full spoilers and you should go no where near it until you have finished the series. It’s basically a printed version of the wiki.

Publication order is as follows:

The Eye of the World

The Great Hunt

The Dragon Reborn

The Shadow Rising

The Fires of Heaven

Lord of Chaos

A Crown of Swords

The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time (Encyclopedia)

The Path of Daggers

Winter's Heart

Crossroads of Twilight

New Spring: The Novel (Prequal)

Knife of Dreams

The Gathering Storm

Towers of Midnight

A Memory of Light

The Wheel of Time Companion (glossary of the entire series)

Narg repeats…DO NOT LOOK AT THE COMPANION UNITL YOU HAVE FINISHED THE SERIES!! DON’T EVEN TAKE A PEEK!! IF YOU SEE IT IN A BOOK STORE…RUN AWAY!!!(screaming optional)

The TV Show

Season One tells the basic storyline of the first book with a few minor elements from other books thrown in. Common advice is if you have read the first two books you should be good. Season two is expected to cover the events of the second and third books. While there are mixed opinions about the show, one good thing about the changes in the show is that the TV show and books are different enough for each experience to be unique.

Podcasts

Wheel of Time podcasts be popping up all the time, but here are two older spoiler free ones.

“The Wheel Weaves is a podcast breaking down The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and is suitable for first time readers.

Join Dani and Brett as they journey into the series for chapter analysis, character break-downs, and (probably wrong) predictions - all from the perspective of a WoT first timer.

Guided by Brett, the long-time super fan, Dani reads through the series knowing nothing! No spoilers here!”

First episode: https://www.thewheelweavespodcast.com/podcast-1/episode/ddc4ebc5/ep1-eotw-prologue-dragonmount

“Since early 2014, The Legendarium Podcast has been tackling classic (and new classic) fantasy literature. Its Wheel of Time series features Craig, Ryan, Kyle, and Kenn, who span the continuum from seasoned expert to first-time reader. The focus is on themes, characters, and applicability; they’re not smart enough to do minutiae. Listen if this is your first foray into Randland, or if you want to relive your first time through someone else’s eyes.”

Episodes: https://www.thelegendarium.com/robertjordan

That’s it!

Last thing Narg will say is, enjoy the journey, take a breather if you have to, switch to audio books if you start to get burn out(helps some people) and try to go into the series with as few expectations as possible. Every Tom Dick and Harry has an opinion about the series…but the only one that counts is yours!

Oh and if someone say’s RAFO to you…it stands for “Read and find out”.

First time readers don’t scroll past this point…