Wheel of Time: The Path of Knives

Robert Jordan

(1948–2007) An American writer and one of the most important authors of epic fantasy of the last few decades, James Oliver Rigney Jr. was born in Charleston, South Carolina, where he also spent most of his life. After returning from the Vietnam War, he studied physics at a military academy and worked for the US Navy for several years. He published his first book in 1980 and, through his writing, later met his wife, editor Harriet McDougal. He began writing fantasy literature under the pseudonym Robert Jordan in 1982. He became one of Robert E. Howard's successors, writing a series of new stories about his character Conan the Barbarian. In the late 1980s, he took a several-year break, during which he conceived his future masterpiece – the Wheel of Time series, the first volume of which, The Eye of the World, was published in 1990. He then developed this original fantasy vision in ten sequels, published between 1990 and 2005, and a prequel novel, New Spring (2004), which preceded the events of the first book. Although the author was diagnosed with a serious illness requiring demanding treatment in 2006, he continued to work on the next instalment of the Wheel of Time. However, there was a threat that Jordan's seminal work would remain unfinished – until, at the request of the author's wife, writer Brandon Sanderson took it on. Thanks to him, the fifteen-volume series was completed with the novels The Gathering Storm (2009), Towers of Midnight (2010), and A Memory of Light (2013). The saga was adapted into an Amazon-produced television series of the same name in 2021, which was filmed predominantly in the Czech Republic. Its first eight episodes are available to watch on Prime Video.