Robert Jordan, creator of The Wheel of Time believes that fantasy is an enduring form of literature because it reaches "something deep in people; their dreams." He feels that fantasy literature appeals to a desire for a simpler time of life with recognizable good and evil, and that fantasy provides a universe with rules, order and underlying framework. The author has both a degree in physics and a military background, unusual credits for a fantasy writer.

A lifelong resident of Charleston, South Carolina, Jordan was born
in 1948. With a brother 12 years his senior, Robert began his education at an early age, and his future interest in fantastic literature was inevitable. "When my parents couldn't get a baby-sitter, they'd get my brother," he recalls. "He would read to me, not kids' books, but things he was interested in, like Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Mark Twain, so I was exposed to a lot of great fiction.

Jordan served two tours of duty in Vietnam (from 1968-70), earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Bronze star. The Vietnamese twice awarded him with their Cross of Gallantry. After Vietnam, he entered the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, where he
received a degree in physics. In retrospect, Robert Jordan feels that physics is not such an unusual background for a fantasy writer. "You can't study quantum mechanics without a feel
for fantasy," he recently reflected, "Schrodinger's Cat alone will kill any logical person dead."