The World of Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, Teresa Patterson, Todd Cameron Hamilton (1997, Hardcover, Illustrated)

This fabulous book that explains everything you need to understand the Wheel of Time series.

If the entire series has not been read, you may wish to read only the parts that you are already familiar with-and need clarification. Thankfully, it manages not to spoil the books-though you will be aware of creatures and causes and effects that you may enjoy more as the series unfolds.

The only drawback I can see it the artwork. In my opinion, the scenery and maps are great, but the characters are rough.

As a lover of the Wheel of Time novels, I believed this "encyclopedia" to be a wonderful addition to my bookshelf. Unfortunately I was sorely disappointed. I had heard that the illustrations in the book were not up to snuff, but these are worse than I had imagined. The illustrations look like they were done in haste (and were, as my research shows) and given no real attention. I've seen untrained artists in high school do better. (Again, this is not the illustrator's fault, he was under an unrealistic deadline, see the Wiki on this book) The structure of the book was also very poor. I expected a chapter all on the One Power and how it works and instead got bits of it scattered throughout the book when it was referenced by some other chapter. The book focuses mainly on the lengthy history of the World, which is somewhat interesting but mostly boring. What is revealed in the course of the books is sufficient for me, this was something of an information overload. Another thing I disliked was the information on the Age of Legends. In the novels, there is precious little information given on the AoL, and this is a good thing. The AoL should remain a mysterious time where only myths and tales remain to explain it, but this book goes into detail about almost everything, turning the AoL into a cheap version of the Atlantis myth and ruining this "mystery" for me.
If you like Wheel of Time, stay away from this book, it will ruin it for you.

If you are a fan of Robert Jordan, then this is a decent reference book. The art work is less then stellar, sometimes shabby, mostly amateur. If new to Jordan, you may want to pass as there will surely be spoilers inside. There is little here that hasn't been published in RJ's books, with the exception of one or two maps. I own it, and will keep it, but you should go to the bookstore to see if it fits your must have book lists.