Earlier-Ravens

The Wheel of Time #prologue for 1

by Robert Jordan

This is a new prologue written for the Wheel of Time series. It was first published in “From the Two Rivers,” a new paperback published in late 2001 that is actually just the first half of “The Eye of The World.”

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Short Stories, High Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Magic, Science Fiction

34 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Robert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney, Jr., under which he was best known as the author of the bestselling The Wheel of Time fantasy series. He also wrote under the names Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reilly.

Jordan was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He served two tours in Vietnam (from 1968 to 1970) with the United States Army as a helicopter gunner. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with bronze oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with "V" and bronze oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm. After returning from Vietnam he attended The Citadel where he received an undergraduate degree in physics. After graduating he was employed by the United States Navy as a nuclear engineer. He began writing in 1977. He was a history buff and enjoyed hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool, and pipe collecting.

He described himself as a "High Church" Episcopalian and received communion more than once a week. He lived with his wife Harriet McDougal, who works as a book editor (currently with Tor Books; she was also Jordan's editor) in a house built in 1797.

Responding to queries on the similarity of some of the concepts in his Wheel of Time books with Freemasonry concepts, Jordan admitted that he was a Freemason. However, "like his father and grandfather," he preferred not to advertise, possibly because of the negative propaganda against Freemasonry. In his own words, "no man in this country should feel in danger because of his beliefs."

On March 23, 2006, Jordan disclosed in a statement that he had been diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis, and that with treatment, his median life expectancy was four years, though he said he intended to beat the statistics. He later posted on his Dragonmount blog to encourage his fans not to worry about him and that he intended to have a long and fully creative life.

He began chemotherapy treatment at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in early April 2006. Jordan was enrolled in a study using the drug Revlimid just approved for multiple myeloma but not yet tested on primary amyloidosis.

Jordan died at approximately 2:45 p.m. EDT on September 16, 2007, and a funeral service was held for him on Wednesday, September 19, 2007. Jordan was cremated and his ashes buried in the churchyard of St. James Church in Goose Creek, outside Charleston.

Reviews

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short story written as a prologue for a two-volume edition of The Eye of the World. We discover Egwene as a child, and we listen to Tam telling a story about the Age of Legends, its heroes and foes.

It doesn't add much to the WoT universe but it was nice to meet them again.

[♥♫☻Olivia☻♫♥]

Baby Egwene was adorable and the best water carrier in the Two Rivers!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I read this short story at this point in the Wheel of Time series (between Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams) as it cast a foreboding atmosphere over its events and dialogue which made it more enjoyable to read. It was so sweet seeing Egwene, Nynaeve, Rand, Mat and Perrin so young and oblivious, and I liked seeing Egwene's relationship with her sisters as I keep forgetting she has them. However, nothing really happened during the story, hence the lower rating.

[Christian Schultheiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now this obviously doesn’t contain too too much story was for the wheel of time story as a whole but I have to love the feeling of reading about our heroes young again and actually younger than we ever read of them before. It’s definitely interesting that this prologue only got added to the later dual first book but none the less I’m glad I found it and had a chance to absorb just a bit more of Jordan’s amazing world

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

To have a short story with Egwene's perspective right after ending the last book of the series made me really happy!
I loved seeing all of our characters (main or not) and how their essence was still very much the same.
I don't understand when people say they don't like Egwene when she is one that stayed truth to herself through the whole series. And all I could think reading this was just how cute she was when young with such a set up mind.

[Kamen Rider Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se que esto pone prólogo pero se entiende mucho más si lo lees justo después del libro 1... o supongo que habrán más detalles del resto de libros que no noté en su momento porque en efecto lei justo después de acabar el primer libro.

Me baje la saga completa en un solo pdf y dios la traducción era enervante con como usaba constantemente las mismas palabras y era sumamente repetitiva, luego me di cuenta que era cosa del tiempo original, aún así creí que era cosa de la traducción así que me baje un PDF solo del primer libro e iniciaba con este párrafo, por ende lo leí hasta el final.

muy genial, lo recomiendo ver cómo era la la vida idílica en la infancia del grupo de protagonistas de Dos Rios

[Tian Gao · Rating 2 out of 5]

[Feb 26, 2022] When I started my reread of the series (which I just finished), I wanted to read this short story as well. I absolutely cannot get through it. There's a section where Tam tells a story about the Dragon, which I think I've read, but the other parts are just about sheep-shearing, Egwene has never been my favourite character and I care even less about her thoughts on water-carrying. We get it she wants to be the best at everything she does but there's zero conflict and zero plot, and fucking hell is it ever boring. There's literally nothing happening. I cannot remember ever reading through this story fully even though one of the first books I bought for myself was the 2vol edition of TEotW where this appears. I was in grade 7 with almost no judgment on quality of writing and I was skipping through this story, that's how boring this is. I think I've said it somewhere before but this story is kind of emblematic of some of the middle books where Jordan goes so deep into every single minutia and detail that it takes him three books to resolve what should have been resolved in one.

[Safraz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prologue two in my re-read of The Wheel of Time. This one was written for a YA reprint of The Eye of the World that split that book into two halves. It is, as with all of Jordan's writing, quite verbose at about 40 pages. It's also, as with anything written partway through a sprawling epic, rife with foreshadowing. Finally, and most significantly (to me), it's kind of a chore to get through. All the hallmarks of things I very much do not miss about the early days of The Wheel of Time and its first crop of characters are present in spades: the snippy inner thoughts about every little thing, the weird hostility between the genders, where the females all think men are idiots and the males all put the women on pedestals like flawless angels, and the nuggets of greatness frustratingly buried under all that other stuff. That last one means that while this prologue is, strictly speaking, skippable, if you inherently err on the completist side, like me, you'll probably still want to check it out.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long ago I started the eye of the world on audio book an it went directly to the prologue: Dragonmount. Therefore I didn't read this beforehand. I understand that the purpose of this prologue was to cater the book to a YA audience, and I do think it would've done that well, but as someone who hadn't read the wheel of time yet and isn't part of that audience it was quite boring. I'm sure later once I finish these books I'll come back and love this but for now it was just boring, also maybe the reason I'd write a review for a 25 paged prologue is because I want to make myself feel better for tricking my goodreads challenge into thinking I'd read another book.

[Elena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, the ravens were there at the start and nine year old Egwene was that one who noticed. Another window through which we readers can see what life was like at the Two Rivers. Little did they know that their idyllic way of life would change so drastically.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting view of how a young Egwene al'Vere believed prior to Eye of the World.

[Жасмин · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked this story. It was lovely seeing the characters young. A lot of foreshadowing.

[AM · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. Dreadfully boring. Just skip it and start at the prologue.

[Nisha Joshi (swamped, will review whenever possible) · Rating 4 out of 5]

After spending a year with Rand and company, I am now looking for ways to prolong my time with them. Reading this prequel to The Eye of the World, I was taken back to the time when the Emond Fielders were just children on the brink of adulthood. They are younger here. In Earlier-Ravens, Egwene is 9 and is determined to be the best water carrier ever (true to her character throughout the series - she has to be the best in whatever she does).

As she goes about her day in the shearing season, she meets young Perrin, Mat, and Rand (all woolheaded fools), of course, and even though she doesn't directly interact with any of them, their conversations and inner thoughts are cute to behold (young Rand wanted to be a king - haha, Rand, watch what you wish for!). We meet a younger Nynaeve as well, bullheaded and brash but also caring (how did I miss this in the earlier books? I always thought her rude, but she was just too caring for her own good).

If only they all knew how their lives would turn on their heads in a few years...The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.

4 stars.

[txai · Rating 4 out of 5]

surprisingly heartfelt reading it at the point of the story where i am.
i think this would have been a good introduction to the books with the way it subtly intertwines characterization, atmosphere, and world-building all in one neat package (with some foreshadowing sprinkled in).

Rand being the least present of the five in this prologue is also a very interesting choice imo.

as much as i love the lews therin prologue in retrospective, this is definitely better and more in-line with the tone of those earlier books.

good stuff, it warmed my heart and also made me a little sad to see how much has changed since our characters were that young.

[Barrett Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

"She stopped wanting to hear stories from the grownups, though she would have liked to hear a gleeman, but she still liked to read of distant lands with strange ways, and dreamed of seeing them. The boys stopped wanting stories, too. She did not think they even read very much. They all grew older, thinking their world would never change, and many of those stories faded to fond memories while others were forgotten, or half so..."

A fitting start to the massive epic that is The Wheel of Time Series from Robert Jordan, with the help of Brandon Sanderson later on. A fun little prologue that gives some more characterization to our key characters, mostly Egwene here, and a good look at a day in the life in Two Rivers.

[Miranda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find it somewhat strange that this comes before even the prologue to the series. If I hadn’t watched the show, I’d probably be confused by all the different names/characters. The story isn’t particularly engaging up until when Al-Thor finally begins telling the legend of the Dragon either. Still, I think it’s pretty well written and the depiction of Egwene and her friends as children is pretty cute.

[Keenan Crone · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly interesting chapter of The Wheel of Time. Nothing new though; I definitely see why the prologue was changed, the current one is much more memorable.

It feels like Jordan hadn't fully developed his voice for the series, but that could also be because it is from the perspective of a child and RJ likes to write differently for each perspective. There are no other children's perspectives in his books so that, at least is a novel attribute of this piece of writing.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this after reading the prologue of book 1. It wasn't an issue for me as I've been watching the show on Amazon so I already knew who all of these characters were, so for me this prologue was a bit more interesting because in book 1's prologue I can see how a new reader wouldn't really understand what is going on (granted it's a prologue), but the Earlier-Ravens was also pretty slow until it got to the Dragon's story.

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting prologue and I can see why they decided to keep it included for newer book editions. I think it especially gives a lot more insight into the Dragonmount prologue and makes some more sense of it. It may be slightly boring to new readers, there were a lot of names thrown out, but in the end it does feel like a TEotW Two-Rivers chapter.

[Vivian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely adorable. This was included in the ebook format of The Eye of the World, so it was the first thing I read in the series. It hooked me right in. I love Little Egwene so much. I don't know if I would've been as eager to start the series without this, so I recommend reading this before the Dragonmount prologue, which is in the book as well.

[Elwin Kline · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I liked it." - 3 out of 5 star rating.

A nice short story that sits as a prequel to the opening Wheel of Time books.

While short, I enjoyed it and the added depth/lore/character perspective provided for Egwene in particular.

A "low price of entry" snack to the larger meal that which is the feast of fantasy realm known as The Wheel of Time.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda interesting to know that "He Who Shall Not Be Named" was watching Two-Rivers as back as Rand & the rest being 9 yrs old.

[Sandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little insight into Egwene's past.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable prologue to The Eye of the World, which didn’t exist when I first read the book, literally ages ago. Though the book is overlong, I do think it added some solid backstory.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tale set in the Two Rivers approximately 5 years before the events that start in The Eye of the World. A bit of insight on the main characters in the series to follow

[Ariellë · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 ⭐

[David Sastre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this series forever ago and I never realized they added an additional prologue!

[Matthias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Terence · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this short story/prologue after reading The Dragon Reborn (book 3). And I have to say that I liked it far better than the last two books in the series.