Season 1 of 'The Wheel of Time' Draws From Several of the Original Books

What book is Season 1 of The Wheel of Time based on? Season 1 of the Amazon Prime original is based on a series of best-selling novels written by Robert Jordan and finished by co-author Brandon Sanderson. The series is already being compared to Game of Thrones with regards to its high fantasy elements. However, there is one element that sets The Wheel of Time apart from Game of Thrones. You see, The Wheel of Time book series has already been completed. There are 14 books total in The Wheel of Time series.

So does that mean that each season of The Wheel of Time will follow the books in a linear fashion? Like Season 1 equals book one, and so on and so forth? Not necessarily.

Season 1 of The Wheel of Time does draw primarily from the first book in the series, The Eye of the World, for the main plot. However, Season 1 also draws elements from the second book in the series, The Great Hunt, and parts of book three, Dragon Reborn. The Wheel of Time's showrunner Rafe Judkins confirmed this in a fan Q&A on the official The Wheel of Time Twitter page.

Rafe told io9 his philosophy when it comes to adapting the vast world of The Wheel of Time books to the screen. "I feel like it’s smarter to not make a restrictive plan for how you’re going to approach every single season in terms of the number of books covered."

Rafe elaborated on this idea further, saying, "When I broke it down, I was looking more at the overall stories and what needed to be told, so there’s a couple of sections where there are three books that could very easily make one season, and then there are a number of different places where I think the one book needs to be the entire season because of the way the stories are told in it. My plan is different depending on the season."

Currently, only the first three episodes of The Wheel of Time have been released, so it's a bit too soon to say exactly how often the series will draw from each of the first three books. Currently, the series’ first three episodes appear to be drawing primarily from the first book to set the scene for the rest of the season.

The first episode alone does a great job of setting up the lore of the series. Our hero is Rosamund Pike's character Moiraine, a member of the powerful group the Aes Sedai. Moiraine needs to find the Dragon Reborn: a figure destined to either save the world or destroy it.

Not only does Moiraine have to deal with sifting through potential candidates, but there's danger from opposing figures who yearn to find the Dragon Reborn for their own nefarious means. There are only eight episodes in Season 1, but thankfully, Amazon Prime has already renewed The Wheel of Time for a second season! There's definitely plenty of source material to draw from. Stream new episodes of The Wheel of Time on Fridays on Amazon Prime.