The Wheel of Time series, written by Robert Jordan and completed by Brandon Sanderson, is set in an unnamed world that, due to the cyclical nature of time as depicted in the series, is simultaneously the distant past and the distant future Earth. The Randlands or The World of the Wheel are names adopted by fans to refer to the world where The Wheel of Time series takes place. They are derived from the name of the central character, Rand al'Thor, and a section of the companion book The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, respectively.