The Wheel of Time Books in Order

Why this order?

The Wheel of Time is one of epic fantasy's defining series, and the good news for new readers is that the order is simple: read the 14 main novels in publication order. Robert Jordan wrote books one through eleven, from The Eye of the World (1990) to Knife of Dreams (2005). After Jordan's death in 2007, Brandon Sanderson, working from Jordan's notes, completed the final stretch as three volumes: The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight, and A Memory of Light. Publication order and the story's chronological order are effectively the same thing, so the default order below is the only order you need to finish the saga.

The one wrinkle is New Spring (2004), a prequel novel set roughly twenty years before The Eye of the World. It tells how Moiraine and Lan first meet, and how the search for the Dragon Reborn begins. Because it was published out of sequence, most readers do not start with it. The common advice is to read it after the main series, or as a breather around the slower middle books (often after book ten, Crossroads of Twilight). Starting with New Spring spoils a few reveals and lacks context, so it is intentionally listed separately rather than at the front of the reading order.

If you came to the books from the Amazon Prime Video series, expect significant changes: the show compresses and reorders events, so the novels remain the definitive version of the story. And if Sanderson's name is what drew you in, his solo Cosmere universe (Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive) is a natural next stop once you have turned the last page of A Memory of Light.