Theres a lot of TV coming our way this holiday season and one of the most buzzed about shows out there is Amazon new fantasy series The Wheel of Time developed by Rafe Judkins and starring Rosamund Pike.
As the series Nov. 19 premiere date approaches when the first three of eight episodes will be released at once naturally a lot of people are asking O.K. but what is this thing and why are so many fantasy nerds losing their minds over it?As I have been reading fangirling and writing both as a layperson devotee and professionally about The Wheel of Time series since the 1990s I am here to offer some insight.
The Wheel of Time is based upon a novel series by the same name published by Robert Jordan starting in the 1990s and until his tragically early death at 58 in 2007 and then completed by Brandon Sanderson in 2013. Prior to Amazon deciding to adapt it into a TV show a precursor to the streamers even more expensive Lord of the Rings fantasy series due next year it has occupied an oddly contradictory space in the consciousness of the world huge and yet mostly invisible. Its one of the best selling novel series of all time over 90 million copies of the series have been sold worldwide and yet unless you are a nerd like me who reads science fiction and fantasy literature as a regular thing up until now its more than possible you have never heard of it. In other words the novel series The Wheel of Time or WOT as its fondly known to fans was massively famous where it was famous and pretty much unknown everywhere else.
But why is this story so awesome that more than 90 million people voluntarily read or at least bought with the intention to read its 14 novels plus a prequel each individual book big and thick enough to kill a guy totaling a staggering 4.4 million words? And how is Amazon going to make that behemoth into a series that will wrap before all the actors retire and/or civilization collapses? Heres what to know about The Wheel of Time.
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