Those who know me know that I have long been a huge fan of fantasy fiction. While I cannot remember the first fantasy I read, the first I actually recall was the Narnia series. From there I branched out into Tolkien, Eddings, Donaldson, Brooks, and many others besides. I was so into fantasy that I once read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single weekend!

Robert Jordan came later, as he did not publish the first book of his seminal Wheel of Time until 1990, and I did not discover the series until I returned from Japan in 1991, when the second book was released. I often consider Jordan’s works the last great fantasy fiction, as I have not found anything I enjoyed in the genre in many years. (My opinion only, folks.) As we’re talking trivia today, I thought I would delve a little into the nuts and bolts of Wheel of Time, as it is eye-popping and well worth discussing.

1. The first book of the Wheel of Time, titled The Eye of the World, was published in 1990 by Tor Books. That began a long odyssey that would not be finished 2013 when the last book, A Memory of Light was finally released to the public. If you’re counting, that’s 23 years!
2. The main series consists of a total of 14(!) books, comprising a colossal 9901 pages, and 4,183,241 total words. As you might expect, reading a series of that length is a serious commitment. I have a history of going back and reading books that I’ve read before (I estimate I have read The Lord of the Rings at least 10 times and likely more.) I have only read Wheel of Time twice, once as the books were coming out and once about two years ago. It took me 3 – 4 months to read it all!
3. The shortest book of the series was the was the 8th book, The Path of Daggers, and it came in at a cool 222,000 words. For context, the longest Pride and Prejudice variation I have ever written was Out of Obscurity, which was over 184,000 words. The longest book of the series was the final book, A Memory of Light, which ended after more than 350,000 words, and two more books were more than 340,000.
4. In 2005, James Rigney (Robert Jordan was a penname) was diagnosed with terminal Amyloidosis, which is a condition of the heart. He passed away in September 2007, leaving the series unfinished. The publisher announced in December that year that Brandon Sanderson, another Tor author of fantasy fiction, would finish the series. Thus, Sanderson wrote the last three books based on Robert Jordan’s notes, with some of the material original from Robert Jordan before he died.
5. The last three books were intended to be a single volume, according to Robert Jordan’s testimony on many occasions. He is quoted as saying he would finish it in one book, even if the book reached 2000 pages. After his passing, Sanderson, with the editors and Tor Books, decided to break it up into three books. As the shortest of the three was almost 300,000 words and the longest was the aforementioned last of the series. Had he kept it as a single book, the total pages would have exceeded 2600, and more than 1,000,000 words! I would say they made the correct decision, as that would have been a massive tome!
6. The series has 147 unique characters that have point of view sections. There are an astounding 2787 distinct named characters.

That’s a wrap, folks. If you have any interest in fantasy, I highly recommend Wheel of Time, though I will acknowledge it is quite the commitment! For reasons I explained in a previous post, I would not recommend Amazon’s adaptation, not if you want to know what really happens. If you do decide to give it a chance, happy reading!