New Spring is the prequel to the Wheel of Time series. I’ve looked online to what other readers think is the best time to read the prequel. The general consensus is to read the books in chronological order of publication, which would put New Spring in the reading order just after book ten. I read this prequel after book nine. I’m just getting into book ten and I am glad I read the prequel since the prologue of book ten references some characters from the prequel. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, I think it is safe to read the prequel between books eight and eleven. I may edit that statement once I finish the series, since I did play around with the idea of waiting until after book fourteen to read the prequel.

It’s hard to give a spoiler warning with a prequel since you already know a lot of what the story is about if you’ve read book one of the series. I’m not going to discuss the detailed events of the story in this post, but I am going to talk about what type of information we get from this book, so I’ll give a spoiler warning now if you prefer to wait and read it all yourself first.

Okay. The events of this book take place roughly twenty years prior to The Eye of the World. The two main characters we follow are Moiraine and Lan with the main focus being on Moiraine. She and Siuan are both Accepted at the beginning of the book and are with the then Amyrlin Seat, Tamra, when the then Keeper has a Foretelling of the Dragon Reborn. The Keeper promptly dies after her Foretelling so the Amyrlin Seat, Moiraine, and Siuan are the only ones who heard it. Moiraine and Siuan are sworn to secrecy regarding the content of the Foretelling, which was that the Dragon was born again on the slopes of Dragonmount. Tamra orders all Accepted to go out into the camps around the city to collect the names and information of all children born within a ten day period. The camps around Tar Valon are the armies that were defending the city during the Aiel War, which was ending as the Aiel turned back toward the the Spine of the World the day of the Foretelling. This endeavor is how Siuan and Moiraine gain a list of all children born around that time which they use to search for the Dragon Reborn.

There are a lot of names we recognize in this book and there are some new characters. One fun thing about reading the prequel was knowing characters and events that were still to come. Many of the Aes Sedai we see in the series are Accepted at this time and we see them in a different light. We get glimpses into what they were like before they became full Aes Sedai, and we get little insights into their lives that somewhat foreshadow why they make certain decisions later on in the series. Siuan and Moiraine are thick as thieves and love pulling pranks on others. Myrelle is a close friend of theirs. Elaida was recently raised to Aes Sedai at this point and she is hard on Moiraine and Siuan during their training to become Aes Sedai. Hard to a point where it seems like torture but Moiraine is later told that Elaida nearly “helped them cheat” for the test to gain the shawl. After Elaida is told not to help them train, aka torture them during their training, she grows distant from both Moiraine and Siuan. A little animosity remains between Siuan and Elaida, but not enough to warrant what Elaida does to Siuan later on. The relationship was strange in that Elaida was both a kind of mentor and tormentor to the young women.

We do learn what the test is like for an Accepted to become Aes Sedai. We already know what the test from Novice to Accepted looks like when Nynaeve took it, and again when Egwene does, but this is the first time we see the test to become full Aes Sedai. We see it through Moiraine’s test. Siuan takes it moments after her and they both gain the shawl at the same time. They both choose Blue of course. Siuan is taken in right away to work with the then eyes and ears of the Blue Ajah.

The Aiel War ends when Moiraine’s uncle, Laman, is killed. Moiraine begins to think the Tower intends to have her sit on the Sun Throne, so she leaves Tar Valon even though it is against the new Amyrlin’s orders. I say new Amyrlin because Tamra is believed to have died in her sleep a few weeks prior. Moiraine leaves and begins her search for the Dragon Reborn. Her search takes her up north to Kandor. Siuan later catches up with her there to tell her the five Aes Sedai Tamra had designated as searchers for the Dragon Reborn had been killed. This leads Moiraine and Siuan to believe the Black Ajah are real and they only trust each other from then on. They are possibly the only two who know about the Foretelling at this point.

Moiraine disguises the fact she is Aes Sedai so she doesn’t get found out by other Aes Sedai and dragged back to Tar Valon for disobeying the Amyrlin. She is found out of course by a few Aes Sedai. Mainly Merean, who just vacated the position of Mistress of Novices when the new Amyrlin was chosen. Merean is with Cadsuane. Moiraine believes Cadsuane is Black Ajah. We do later learn, via a scrap with actual Black Ajah, that the Black Sisters know about the Dragon Reborn, but they don’t know when he was born. Since they don’t know when, they are killing any boys who may possibly channel. This gives Siuan and Moiraine an advantage in their search because they know when the child was born and thus the age to look for.

I did mention Lan is one of the main characters of this book. We only get a few chapters from his point of view, but it was great getting some more insight into his character. We do learn quite a bit about Malkieri custom and a little about the dead kingdom itself. We get to see how he and Moiraine meet and how they build a relationship up to the point he becomes her Warder. We learn, via Moiraine to Lan, that the White Tower did send Aes Sedai to help Malkier during the attack, but they did not make it in time and the White Tower kept this “failure” secret. Her confession, of this and her search for the Dragon Reborn, is what leads Lan to accept her proposal to become her Warder. Lan was very wary of Aes Sedai at the beginning of the book. He was actually outside of Tar Valon fighting the Aiel at the beginning, but Moiraine and him don’t meet until they are in Kandor. Since much of the story takes place in Kandor, we do get to learn a little more about the borderlands as nearly the whole series (at least through book nine) takes place in the southern lands. The only exception is at the end of book one and the beginning of book two when they are briefly in Shienar.

At the end of this book, Siuan returns to the White Tower to continue being the eyes and ears of the Blue Ajah so she can get information that might help them find the Dragon Reborn while Moiraine sets out with Lan to continue the search using the list of names she has in her book. I assume she gets through that list and has to use other methods during her search, but we all know where that search leads her.