Origins of The Wheel of Time - Michael Livingston

 

 Welcome to Day 1 of the Blogtour for Michael Livingston's Origins of The Wheel of Time (published tomorrow, 10/11/22).

 For me the journey began ("although there are neither beginnings or endings on the Wheel of Time, but it was a beginning " to quote Robert Jordan himself) way back in 1990 when I spotted The Eye of the World on a shelf in a bookstore in town. It was big, it has a glorious cover, it had maps - I was hooked from that day on. I have read it several times over now and one thing that always intrigued me was the seeming links to our own world's myths and legends.

 And now, Michael Livingston has drawn together information from unpublished notes and from interviews to give us insight to how Jordan created 'Randland' and all its history and myths. And it is just what I hoped it would be.

 The first section of the book is the story of Robert Jordan himself, his life and how he created the mammoth beast that is WoT. I found this fascinating. I thought I knew quite a bit about RJ but this expanded my knowledge a good bit. I really thought I knew him by the end, and that's not an easy thing for an author to pull off.

 The second part of the book is a glossary that links the peoples, places and events of the Wheel of Time with 'the real world' and again, I thought I already knew so much but actually really didn't. I lost track of the times I came across something and thought "ah, of course, that makes sense".

 One of the big links for me was always to Arthurian Legend which I have been fascinated by for as long as I can remember. I don't know if I just took these links for being obvious and just accepted them or what but I can honestly say that this was the first time I thought of an episode from The Dragon Reborn.

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK

 

 In it Rand has to go to the Stone of Tear to claim The Sword That Is Not A Sword that will proclaim him The Dragon Reborn. And I honestly believe this passed me by.

The hero has to go to the STONE of Tear and take up the SWORD. He literally has to take THE SWORD FROM THE STONE!! and it took me 30 years to put the two together. I did feel a bit silly tbh.

 Anyway, I digress, this is a wonderful book, informative, well written and not a difficult read. A worthy companion piece to the original books.

 Oh, and it's got a rather nice brand new redrawn map too.

 The author was a consultant to Team Jordan for some of the battle scenes in the series and although this book was his idea it has the approval and blessing of the Jordan Estate.

Highly Recommended 5/5*

Thank you to Black Crow PR for inviting me onto this blog tour and giving me the chance to open it. Please take a look at the posts by the other bloggers on the tour (below).

Right, I'm off for another re-read armed with The Origins of The Wheel of Time to really get into it.