The Wheel of Time, if you’re not familiar with it, is a series of epic fantasy books by the late Robert Jordan that currently spans fourteen novels published over a period of 23 years, since 1990. The latest three books in the series, The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight, and the upcoming fifteenth (counting the prequel) and final book, A Memory of Light, are posthumous works completed by author Brandon Sanderson from Jordan’s notes.
According to this chart over at Gamma Squad, The Wheel of Time clocks in at #5 on the list of longest fantasy series ever written with 11,362 pages. For comparison’s sake, A Song of Fire and Ice (aka Game of Thrones, thanks to HBO) logs a paltry 5,705 pages. There’s also somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,600 distinct characters.
I began my journey into Randland last year with an audio book of The Eye of the World and have since continued the adventures on my Kindle and made it as far as The Shadow Rising, the fourth book in the series. Needless to say, this undertaking isn’t exactly what you’d call light reading and I still have a long way to go. Keeping up with the intricate plots, huge cast of characters, and vast map of locations is difficult, especially if you aren’t reading the books with regular consistency.
That’s why I’ve decided to start supplementing my reading with The Wheel of Time comic books:
It’s a monthly series from Dynamite Entertainment that begins with the first WoT book, The Eye of the World, and breaks the story down into more easily-digestible parts, and has gorgeous artwork to boot.
If you’re into digital comics (which is my latest addiction), Comixology is running a sale right now on all Wheel of Time comics, which are 50% off. For only 99 cents a pop for the digital version, right now is a great time to get started or catch up.
