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New Wheel of Time Book — Chapter One Online, Released Oct 27
Tor Books has made the first chapter of the latest Wheel of Time book available to readers for free via their website. This is the first book to have work from Robert Jordan's replacement, Brandon Sanderson, since Jordan died in September of 2007. The Gathering Storm is complete and will be released on October 27th of this year. In addition, the prologue to this book will be available in e-book format on October 17th for $2.99. The whole of the Wheel of Time series will also be released as e-books with several of the books receiving new cover art as well.
Update: 09/07 23:42 GMT by KD : Reader Daniel Benamy points out that the correct release date for the prologue e-book is September 17.
Update: 09/07 23:42 GMT by KD : Reader Daniel Benamy points out that the correct release date for the prologue e-book is September 17.
to download this book if they followed Jordan's writing style. The first chapter alone will contain so many electrons the internet itself will become unbalanced. Seriously, I swear he was paid by the pound for how much his books weighed. Long, flowery descriptions of clothing, scenery, hell, the crust on the underside of a chamber pot in the thirteenth bathroom of the summer home of the ice king's third cousin's dog. The series ought to come with a Wheel-barrow of time to avoid slipping a disc. Still, as long as there are trees left to kill and money to be earned the series will "be continued."
www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.
Not really...
Robert Jordan pretty much up and died in the middle of finishing his last book In Memory of Light. Leaving his family, publisher, and fans pretty much hanging. The recently got Brandon Sanderson to finish up the work; a very good author btw (see Elantris and the Mistborn series) who pretty much churned out part 1 of 3 in a year off of Jordan's notes. He was originally contracted to do 1 book but found it impossible due to how many threads were left open. I for one, am happy to see a good author finishing up this series in the original author's spirit (and with his family's blessing). So, as a fan I have to say fuck you for trolling.
No wait, that's not right...
I read the first 3 or 4 books thinking "This just has to start getting cool soon. It's got too much cool potential not to".
Silly me.
I think the only reason the later volumes even sold was because people didn't want to admit to themselves that they'd been persuaded to waste the time and money on the earlier ones.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Except that unlike Brian Herbert, the only actual story that Christopher Tolkien wrote was the chapter in the Silmarillion was The Fall of Doriath, because his father had only in fact written one version of that story, but in the earliest phase of the mythology, and it was entirely incompatible with the later variants. The entire History of Middle Earth series is JRRT's own writings, with Christopher Tolkien's essays and notes trying to clarify and relate various versions of his father's ever changing and rarely completed versions of the Silmarillion. CJRT apparently regretted his interference, though, after having read the History of Middle Earth series, the only alternative to rewriting the chapter was not to have released a published version of the Silmarillion.
I wish Brian Herbert would have just released the notes that his father had written about the Dune backstory and the sequel to the final Dune books. Instead he released just awfully-written trash (Brian Herbert ain't no Frank Herbert).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Here's Sanderson's post on why he split the book into 3 parts: http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/56/Splitting-AMOL
I just look on the bright side - at least the new author will actually finish the series
You can say a lot about Jordan, both good and bad (my wife likes the series, I wouldn't have read it if it wasn't in the house already), but the man did not know how to finish a story. I suspect he would have died with the series unfinished, whether he died now or 50 years from now.
My experience was similar, but somewhat different. I actually really enjoyed the first three or four books, but after that it just started to drag. He'd introduce new character after new character and then spend hundreds of pages trying (and usually failing) to make me give a damn about them. Then, from that point on, you'd have yet another interruption to the main story line to deal with before you ever got back to it.
I quit somewhere around book six. It just got to be too much. The fact that there has since been *five* more books and they're still not done, with these last three still on the ledger, convinces me I was right to do that. In fact, the fact that Sanderson couldn't even wrap up all these damn sub-characters' plots in one book is telling enough that Jordan never stopped that nonsense and got to the point.
Still, I dragged myself through at least one book or so before I just couldn't take it anymore, and you're right about the reason: When books weigh in at 700-1000 pages and you're already 4-5 deep, there's a powerful incentive to keep plodding along to the end.
On a semi-related note, Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy I found to be very good. They picked a good author to continue the work, and if not for all this Wheel of Time stuff I probably wouldn't have found him. So I guess some good came of it at least.
I'm tugging it.
Why? You really don't know? Okay...
Because the first three books were damn good. The problem was, what should have been by all rights a 5-6 book series has turned into, what...12? The remaining books sort of meandered around, filling in niggling details and sub-plots that every other author on the planet saves until the second series set in the same locale. Jordan, however, crammed it in the middle. He admitted he had only outlined it to about 5 or 6 books.
Hell, I'm sure there are four WHOLE BOOKS of material in there that can be summed up as repetitions of "the men and women in this series can't communicate with each other worth a damn, and have egos the size of elephants".
Jordan was verbose. He made Tolstoy look parsimonious. A word used a couple times in WoT novels, by the way. The man probably bought thesauruses by the case.
The remaining books hit the best seller list by fans hoping he would finish the damn story before he died. And yes, that was the joke going around YEARS before he was sick, much less actually dead.
When I finally read Knife of Dreams my first thought was "Damn! He really is picking up the pace. I wonder what got into him?" I later learned it was cardiac amyloidosis is what got into him. A year and a half later he was dead. My first thoughts being "Wow. He DIDN'T finish the story before dying. Who'd a thunk it?" followed by "There are gonna be a lot of people online who now feel like assholes for jokes from years past!"
Thus, the commentary here Slashdot. There was a lot of sentiment expressed that Jordan was milking the series for all it was worth. The George Lucas of epic fantasy novels, if you will. I'm not convinced he wasn't, which is why I didn't get Knife of Dreams right away. I waited for the reviews before I decided it probably wasn't yet another string-em-along filler book.
That being said, I'll probably buy the final three novels in ebook form and acquire the others -- which I currently have in hardback -- as ebooks.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.