
Origins of The Wheel of Time
The Legends and Mythologies That Inspired Robert Jordan
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Narrated by:
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Harriet McDougal
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Kate Reading
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Michael Kramer
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Michael Livingston
About this listen
This program includes a bonus interview with Rosamund Pike.
“Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal.”—The New York Times on The Wheel of Time® series
Explore never-before-seen insights into the Wheel of Time, including:
—An alternate scene from an early draft of The Eye of the World
—The long-awaited backstory of Nakomi
Take a deep dive into the real-world history and mythology that inspired the world of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time®. Origins of The Wheel of Time is written by Michael Livingston, Secretary-General of the United States Commission on Military History and professor of medieval literature at The Citadel, with a Foreword by Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan's editor, widow, and executor of his estate.
This companion to the internationally bestselling series will delve into the creation of Robert Jordan’s masterpiece, drawing from interviews and an unprecedented examination of his unpublished notes. Michael Livingston tells the behind-the-scenes story of who Jordan was, how he worked, and why he holds such an important place in modern literature.
The second part of the book is a glossary to the “real world” in The Wheel of Time. King Arthur is in The Wheel of Time. Merlin, too. But so are Alexander the Great and the Apollo Space Program, the Norse gods and Napoleon’s greatest defeat—and so much more.
Origins of The Wheel of Time will provide exciting knowledge and insights to both new and longtime fans looking to either expand their understanding of the series or unearth the real-life influences that Jordan utilized in his world building—all in one, accessible audiobook.
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2022 Michael Livingston (P)2022 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Would be amazing if not for spoiler prefaces
- By Amazon Customer on 08-28-19
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The Knight
- The Wizard Knight Series, Book One
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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A young man in his teens is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Able and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a knight and a true hero. Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead in encounters with giants, elves, and wizards.
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Confusing as hell.
- By Zachary on 09-26-18
By: Gene Wolfe
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Atalanta
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Saint
- Narrated by: Beth Eyre
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When Princess Atalanta is born, a daughter rather than the son her parents hoped for, she is left on a mountainside to die. But even then, she is a survivor. Raised by a mother bear under the protective eye of the goddess Artemis, Atalanta grows up wild and free, with just one condition: if she marries, Artemis warns, it will be her undoing. Although she loves her beautiful forest home, Atalanta yearns for adventure. When Artemis offers her the chance to fight in her name alongside the Argonauts, the fiercest band of warriors the world has ever seen, Atalanta seizes it.
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Action and intrigues
- By Stefan Filipovits on 05-10-23
By: Jennifer Saint
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New Spring
- The Wheel of Time Prequel
- By: Robert Jordan
- Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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For three days battle has raged in the snow around the great city of Tar Valon. In the city, a foretelling of the future is uttered. On the slopes of Dragonmount, the immense mountain that looms over the city, a child is born, an infant prophesied to change the world. That child must be found before he can be killed by the forces of the Shadow.
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Read it after reading others in the series
- By Stacy Fair on 12-13-07
By: Robert Jordan
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The Memory Librarian
- And Other Stories of Dirty Computer
- By: Janelle Monáe
- Narrated by: Janelle Monáe, Bahni Turpin
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Janelle Monáe and an incredible array of talented collaborating creators have written a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts—as a means of self-conception—could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether human, A.I., or other, your life and sentience was dictated by those who’d convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate.
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Hard to follow
- By Nikki Raibon on 04-26-22
By: Janelle Monáe
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The Fallon Blood
- Fallon Series, Book 1
- By: Robert Jordan - writing as Reagan O'Neal
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1765, Michael Fallon, an Irishman on the run from brutal English overlords, makes his way to Charleston, South Carolina, as an indentured servant. Bound over to Thomas Carver, a successful merchant, he quickly shows a knack for trade—and a disturbing attraction to Carver's beautiful, sensual daughter, Elizabeth. With luck and intelligence—and not without bloodshed—he rises into the rice-planting aristocracy of the Carolina Lowcountry, where a frontier spirit pulses beneath the superficial trappings of an agrarian society that is heading rapidly toward revolution.
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Disappointed in content
- By james on 07-13-22
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Middlegame
- By: Seanan McGuire
- Narrated by: Amber Benson
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story. Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math. Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realize it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet. Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan.
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Couldn't Finish
- By Amy Ferrantino on 05-22-19
By: Seanan McGuire
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Shadowmarch
- Shadowmarch, Volume I
- By: Tad Williams
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 29 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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For generations the misty Shadowline has marked the boundary between the lands of men and the lost northern lands that are the lair of their inhuman enemies, the ageless Qar. But now that boundary line is moving outward, threatening to engulf the northernmost land in which humans still live - the kingdom of Southmarch.
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It's the characters that matter...
- By JC on 11-09-10
By: Tad Williams
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Of Bone and Thunder
- A Novel
- By: Chris Evans
- Narrated by: Todd Haberkorn
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In this strange, new world deep among the shadows under a triple-canopy jungle and plagued by dangers real and imagined, soldiers strive to fulfill a mission they don’t understand and are ill-equipped to carry out. And high above them, the heavy rush of wings slashing through the humid air herald a coming wave of death and destruction, and just possibly, salvation.
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Vietnam in Fantasyland
- By Michael D. Stuart on 04-19-25
By: Chris Evans
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Starless
- By: Jacqueline Carey
- Narrated by: Caitlin Davies
- Length: 21 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Destined from birth to serve as protector of the princess Zariya, Khai is trained in the arts of killing and stealth by a warrior sect in the deep desert; yet there is one profound truth that has been withheld from him. In the court of the Sun-Blessed, Khai must learn to navigate deadly intrigue and his own conflicted identity…but in the far reaches of the western seas, the dark god Miasmus is rising, intent on nothing less than wholesale destruction.
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The most beautiful thing I've enjoyed this year!
- By DabOfDarkness on 08-06-18
By: Jacqueline Carey
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Diablo: Book of Lorath
- By: Matthew J. Kirby
- Narrated by: Ralph Ineson
- Length: 3 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Amid the restless evil of Sanctuary, only the Horadrim, an ancient order of heroes and scholars, wield the knowledge needed to light the way for humanity. In the Book of Lorath, join Lorath Nahr, one of the last of the dwindling Horadrim, on a journey through Sanctuary's most powerful relics and the stories behind them. It is Lorath's hope that this volume will preserve his knowledge for all time . . . and pass it down to those who will inherit the fight against the Prime Evils.
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Informative and Well-Read
- By Stache on 07-11-23
By: Matthew J. Kirby
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The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel
- A Story of Sleepy Hollow
- By: Alyssa Palombo
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When Ichabod Crane arrives in the spooky little village of Sleepy Hollow as the new schoolmaster, Katrina Van Tassel is instantly drawn to him. Through their shared love of books and music, they form a friendship that quickly develops into romance. When romance gives way to passion, Ichabod and Katrina embark on a secret love affair, sneaking away into the woods after dark to be together - all while praying they do not catch sight of Sleepy Hollow’s legendary Headless Horseman. That is until Ichabod suddenly disappears, leaving Katrina alone and in a perilous position.
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boring, terrible bodice-ripping drivel
- By BooksAndTrouble on 10-04-18
By: Alyssa Palombo
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The Book Eaters
- By: Sunyi Dean
- Narrated by: Katie Erich
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
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Book worth a college course on it's own.
- By SW;MDA on 10-08-22
By: Sunyi Dean
What listeners say about Origins of The Wheel of Time
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- Kritter XD
- 11-14-22
If you read The Wheel of Time, this is a must-read!
10/10 recommend for ANYONE who has finished The Wheel Of Time. Though the explanations of the real-world references in WoT were fascinating, my favorite parts were about Robert Jordan himself, a legend in his own right.
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- Anthony Bear
- 01-02-23
Historical basis for writing The Wheel of Time
This was a fabulous book which details the historical basis of the elements Jordan used when writing The Wheel of Time series. It contains MANY spoilers, so do not listen to this first!! 😁
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- JE
- 11-10-22
A fan’s delight
If you have read the entire series and looking for the stories, names, and battles that influenced the creation of the book series and it’s rich world then you will love this book.
It also includes a chapter on Robert Jordan’s personal history that’s really interesting.
The book is full spoilers so don’t read even the biography if you haven’t finished the series. Major secrets are discussed without warning.
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- Anonymous User
- 02-04-24
Not what I expected
Love the Wheel of Time. Love history and language. So why didn’t this work for me?
The subtitle reads “The Legends and Mythologies that inspired RJ”. That sounds really interesting to me. I want to know about them. Problem is: In this book you don’t get to know about them. You get to know of them. At its core, it is a listing of which word or name or occasionally theme was inspired by either which real life (personal or general) or literary/mythological correspondant. While that is fine and probably a ton of research work, it is not interesting to read. I.e. the rather obvious fact that almost all the names of our main characters are derived from Arthurian legend, remains hollow and somewhat irrelevant without further elaboration on how the in-book character’s arc is also inspired by or is a foil of that original character or simply how it connects thematically. For without this it is simply a I-heard-a-name-somewhere-and-kinda-liked it sort of thing. And why should a reader care for that?
I did quite like the biographical parts about his life experiences and his writing process. This part is the reason I give a second star. I thought that was interesting. It just wasn’t what I bought this book for…
The rather lengthy introduction on why this author was chosen for this task and how he personally connects to RJ and his work I didn’t much care for.
The final interview with Rosamund Pike is fine, but is really about the newly recorded audiobooks and not about this book at all.
So the big chunk of this by no means long book is the Thesaurus-style alphabetical listing of names, that I found very dull. Additional problem with the audiobook here: This medium is not suited to leafe through this part and look up a given name that interests you.
Sidenote: The chapters on this recording don’t always correspond with the in-book chapters.
To sum it up: It was a disappointing read with - to me, personally - lots of promise and poor delivery.
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- Chariti Messer
- 11-27-22
Revelatory!
Fascinating background to a beloved series. Especially enjoyed the interview at the end with the actress from the series. Excellent all around!
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- Lisa Z Burris
- 11-11-22
Origins of The Wheel of Time
I loved this!! I found it fascinating. I cried, I laughed, I am amazed on some of the information listed... I knew a great deal of it beforehand but I learned a lot too. Thank you Team Jordan, Michael Livingston and of course Robert Jordan
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- Vincent Bonnet
- 11-11-22
Listened for Nakomi, but learned a lot more
Very worthwhile! Recalls the monumental work done by Robert Jordan in creating a story telling universe with influences from many different sources.
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- Robert B. French
- 07-22-23
Very informative
This was very helpful and interesting in describing how an author creates a world and develops their intent for a series that underlines the narrative. I just finished a course from The Teaching Company on mythology from around the world and am amazed at the depth of knowledge and the the amount of reading and research Robert Jordan so seamlessly interwoven into his magical world. Am even more grateful for this his series.
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- Kyle Herbert
- 10-27-23
very interesting and in-depth dive into the WoT
it's a very in-depth and interesting dive into the wheel of time and the history behind the series.
listening to the producer of the show talk about it however is exactly what Brandon was afraid of when he mentioned not wanting someone to write the books that wasn't both a good writer and a fan. somehow the wrong people got in charge of the show and don't want to make something that actually brings Robert Jordan's vision to life.
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- Oskar
- 05-21-24
use with physical copy
i buy anything about Jordan, but the Audio version of this is best of you have the physical book as well
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