Breaking news on A Memory of Light: three volumes (maybe) & cover art

[Miyabi]

This topic has degenerated to those of intelligence talking to those too angry to see past the ends of their noses.  No matter how much reason and logic you throw at them the wall at the end of their nose will block it from reaching them.

I don't see the problem with multiple books/volumes.  It needs to be done right one way or another and I don't think having to pay $150 per book would make people happy, but you know, I guess some people could care less how much money they spend so long as they get what they want.

[Shard]

I understand we will be getting a 2 book split at this point, the thing is I think Brandon has been writing with that in mind. I'm just worried with a three book split being sprung on Brandon may have to cause him to re-work things to give us proper beginings and endings for each of the three instead of two. I'm worried the quality may suffer for it, especially since he may have worked for a two book split in mind.

[maxonennis]

Aside from the three years thing, I like the idea of three books. *ducks from the wrath of posters*

[Spriggan]

@shard.

If there are 3 books it probably was decided long enough ago for him to change that, I'm sure after the announcement we'll hear more.  One thing about Brandon is he won't let the quality slide and from everything I've heard about Harriet she's the same, they'd push back the release date if they thought that was an issue.

[Silk]

I'd imagine that whatever decision Tor makes regarding the splitting of the books, they'll keep Sanderson well-informed, for the reasons that Shard mentioned.

[Alatar]

Spriggan, please, stop saying there are no binding machines for that...
The first copy I read of the LotR was a 1100 plus appendix pages, and I have seen books over 2000 pages. Yes, they are special editions, but they have been printed. And some of them are more than 30 years old. Oh, and the cost wasn't insane, but prices have gone up insanely since then, at least in here.

Anyway, I think the problem here is the concept. Let's face it, RJ said he would give one final book because it was his legacy and he didn't know if he could see it finished , which he finally won't
Hadn't he got ill, he would probably have written 3 or even 4 books.
But, as it is now, to transmutate one compact story-book into 3, well, they may go for the "chapters 1-45", "46-87" and "88-end" which would be something dissapointing, or they could try to have BS rewrite the story so that he could give 2 minor book endings, but still good enough, and the final one which is written by now (I believe). That would be acceptable and even desirable. I have some and I tell you, you don't want to have 1500 pages hardbacks, they are so difficult to read. And no paperback would resist that amount of pages.

Also we have the title. It ringed some bells and I looked after it. Apart from Winston Churchill's book about WW2, it is also one book (I think about terrorism or something like that) released around 2006, so copyrights.....

[Hero of Ages]

Do you really want this??


I didn't think so.  Yeah it is "possible" to make books like that but it really isn't cost effective (for both the publisher and the reader) or good on your back to lug that stupid thing around for the 1-6 weeks it will take to read it (granted some will read it in 4 hours and then start posting spoilers everywhere)!!

[Spriggan]

Bad choice of words on my part, I know books can be that size I just kept bring up making new ones because people keep on using that Jordan quote about making new ones because they don't leave that out and imply they would actually expect Tor to do so.  But the books I've seen around that size have been over $100 every time so I'm not off on the price.

[Miyabi]

Spriggan, please, stop saying there are no binding machines for that...
The first copy I read of the LotR was a 1100 plus appendix pages, and I have seen books over 2000 pages. Yes, they are special editions, but they have been printed. And some of them are more than 30 years old. Oh, and the cost wasn't insane, but prices have gone up insanely since then, at least in here.

Yeah, but does TOR have those binding machines?  No!  And those machines are meant to make a small amount of a book.  Not millions of copies.  They simply couldn't handle the work load OR print fast enough for things to be reasonable.  Also most of those are probably bound in older methods that cost TONS more to do.

[Alatar]

In fact, they are meant to do some million copies, because, well, encyclopedias............... 

That's not the point, I think everyone who is not agreeing to have the book split as a good idea haven't really tried to read one book that size...........
It can be done, and it can be done for maybe 80-100 U.S. dollars (we are speaking of around 90$ in 3 hardcovers, so price isn't really much different).
But, well, BS is reviewing the first 450k right now, so it will take him at last as much time to finish the other 350k-400k words. How much time could that be?

[douglas]

I don't really care how many separate physical objects it comes in (within reason, of course).  It's the possibility of delaying publication of parts of it longer than necessary that concerns me.  I realize it's not done yet, and even November this year might not be enough time to finish the whole thing.  My impression of the pacing on this is that November 2010, however, would be at least half a year later than necessary, probably more, and November 2011 is just ridiculous.

When it's done to both Brandon and Harriet's satisfaction, publish it.  All of it.  Immediately.  Most of the fan base interested in purchasing at all will buy all of it immediately no matter what part of the year it is.

[Werthead]

Updated news:

The cover is a very rough production mock-up that the people at Tor were playing around with. Harriet didn't sign off on it and neither she nor Brandon had seen it before the picture appeared. The current guess is that the picture was included in the press release by accident.

The Tor press release was supposed to be released next week supported with information from Brandon and Harriet that would have laid out the details of publication. From the sound of it an incomplete version of the release was fired off to a couple of Tor's partner stores in Europe, again in error.

Barnes & Noble is listing the book, so the title appears to be accurate at least*. The split into three volumes does not appear to have been confirmed yet, but it's definitely appears that it's going to be at least two. Amazon.ca confirms a hardcover and a leather-bound special edition for November 2009 and the mmpb for November 2010. This suggests that the trade paperback the original site was talking about is an international-only edition, or news that  trade paperback edition will be issued in the USA as well, the first time this has happened to WoT since I believe The Great Hunt back in late 1990.

* Although Amazon.ca were listing the title yesterday and just pulled it to replace it with 'Wheel of Time #12', so who knows?

My own speculation:

The page counts offered are in the 700 range, supporting a longer book (The Shadow Rising, at 390,000 words, was about 800 pages in hardcover). A 230,000 word-book would be shorter, around 500 pages in hardcover (like The Path of Daggers). That does at least suggest that if the book is going to three volumes, it will because Brandon goes over his estimate of 750,000 words by a lot, not because they want three smaller volumes.

[Necroben]

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/771/More-news-on-AMoL

A few more days and some points will be moot.

[Comfortable Madness]

I don't see why everyone keeps bringing up the impossibility of one REALLY big book. That is entirely unecessary as I mentioned earlier. All you have to do is print the writings  into a couple(or however many it takes) of your "standard" size books and release them all at once. In a box set if you will. No new machines needed. The three year delay, for the ending, due strictly to book sizing is nonsense. If it takes Brandon, lets say, 5 years to finish it. I have no problem with that but don't tell me this isn't just a marketing gadget by Tor.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

I would rather have a satisfying story continuation this year than wait a lot longer for the whole thing to be done. If you want to wait 2–3 years before you buy the books and read the ending all at once, you're entirely welcome to do so.