Results tagged “wheel of time”

As I reported yesterday, author Brandon Sanderson was in Seattle on November 18th for The Gathering Storm tour.

I took pictures of his stop at The Signed Page, the dinner afterward, and the actual event at the University Bookstore.

I also filmed video of Brandon talking, reading from The Gathering Storm, and answering questions from the fans!

The event was a lot of fun. Brandon is very enthusiastic about his role finishing what he considers the best epic fantasy of all time. He has been a fan since his early teenage years and when the opportunity to finish the Wheel of Time series presented itself, he could not imagine another person doing it. As he says in the video, the main characters in Jordan’s opus were Brandon’s best friends during high school. Before Harriet even approached him, Brandon had read and re-read the books numerous times.

I have no doubt after listening to him that he is the right person for the job.

Continue on, watch the videos, and enjoy this time to revisit the Wheel of Time:

Part I of V: How and why Brandon became involved in the Wheel of Time

More videos! There are five altogether. Continue on for the reading and Q&A!

Hot on the heels of his New York Times #1 bestselling placement that knocked The Lost Symbol from its perch, Brandon Sanderson stopped by my place yesterday to sign several hundred copies of The Gathering Storm for Wheel of Time fans all over the world.

Even after passing through airports and sleeping in a different hotel bed every night for weeks, Brandon was still in great spirits when he arrived.

We talked for a few minutes about fun, geeky stuff like who is painting his The Way of Kings cover art, if he should buck up and buy the original painting of that cover, the Michael Whelan Dark Tower framed art I have on my walls, and the premise of the book I am currently rewriting.

It was then time for work. We knew we were crunched for time.

The first order of business was to get Brandon in touch with two podcast/video interviewers via Skype on my Mac. After a few minutes of getting things set up, Brandon was answering questions about his own reading habits (Terry Pratchett being foremost among them), who wrote the first fantasy book he read (Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly), and how he was chosen to write The Gathering Storm (one fateful voice message on his phone):

After the interview was completed, he had a lot more work to finish before the night wrapped up! Here is last night, in pictures.

Fantasy has regained its New York Times bestselling status!

The Gathering Storm, the first book in the concluding trilogy in the Wheel of Time series, has hit #1 on the New York Times hardcover bestselling list!

It pushed The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown to #2 for the first time since the new Robert Langdon story debuted.

The last fantasy novel to hit #1 was Dark Slayer by Christine Feehan on September 10, 2009.

Tor Books, Brandon Sanderson, and Harriet McDougal have done a great job in promoting this new Wheel of Time novel. It has been two years since Robert Jordan died but a group of very dedicated people have spent time and energy to compete his opus. It is a monumental event to hit #1 on the Times—not only for Wheel of Time fans, Robert Jordan’s widow, and completing writer Brandon Sanderson—but it is a wonderful acknowledgment for the fantasy genre as a publishing entity.

Congratulations to all involved!

Whenever I see the sci-fi / fantasy genre get a little love from a major newspaper, I have to point it out.

It just doesn’t happen as much as I would like. That’s for sure!

USA Today visited with The Gathering Storm writer Brandon Sanderson and his editor, the late Robert Jordan’s widow, Harriet McDougal.

Click HERE for the article / interview!

Today is a big day for fantasy!

The Gathering Storm, the first book in the conclusion trilogy of the Wheel of Time, is now published in fine bookstores!

The Wheel of Time is a defining series. Like Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Pern, Shannara, Harry Potter, Ice & Fire and a few others, the opus by Robert Jordan has been one of the bestselling and most closely followed fantasy series of all time. No matter your feelings about the middle books of the series, the release of The Gathering Storm today—which is the first book in the Wheel of Time series since October 2005—marks the culminating beginning of two decades worth of reading for a great many fantasy fans.

It has been two years since Robert Jordan passed away, leaving author Brandon Sanderson a huge role in completing the Wheel of Time. Up until now there has been an embargo on early-posted reviews. Now that October 27th has come, the blogosphere is alive with reviews!

What are they saying? Here is a gathered list of them thus far:

• OF Blog of the Fallen
• Dragonmount
• Fantasy Hotlist
• Grasping for the Wind
• Neth Space
• Only the Best Sci-fi/Fantasy
• TarValon.net
• Tor.com

Reviews seem to be mixed but lean toward the positive. No one is calling it great; no one is calling it terrible. It seems there are a great many people who think the middle books of the series lacked the magic the first four books possessed, and I think a lot of those fans want a return in these last three books to the quality of tale written early on by Jordan.

I just hope that Brandon doesn’t take the brunt of any displeasure some fans are going to have with a series that has so much to wrap up!

Go out and buy your copy of The Gathering Storm today and make up your own mind!

Happy Release Day, Mr. Jordan & Mr. Sanderson!

I love books.

I love signed books.

I love signed books that make people money.

For almost a decade now I have run The Signed Page, a small online signed books business that suddenly is not so small. It has been great fun watching it grow; it has been more fun meeting people from all over the world who share my love for signed genre books. I have even met a few of them in person and all have been true enthusiasts.

For cover price, I feel I’ve helped build some pretty nice libraries out there!

Last week I received an email from one of my customers. She has been there from almost the beginning and has ordered dozens if not hundreds of the signed books that have graced the website. She is a voracious reader but she genuinely loves collecting. In the email she reminded me of a book she had purchased and how it has been a great book but also a great investment financially. It was a first printing book that took the fantasy genre by storm, had a low print run, and now is quite rare to find.

If you do find it, it is going for more than $200 on the low end and $500 plus on the high.

That signed book is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

My customer asked me if I had any forthcoming events that could yield a similar outcome—the combination of great read and financial investment.

So it got me thinking: What books are coming out this fall that might be read, sit still on one’s shelf for a few years and yet make them money?

Here is what I came up with!

Today Tor Books released the long-awaited Prologue from The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.

It is a long Prologue, near 100 pages, and is reportedly mostly written by the late Robert Jordan. To read the Prologue in advance of the book’s October 27th release, it will cost you $2.99.

To find a great summary on this news and where you can download the Prologue, visit the blog A Dribble of Ink.

Happy Reading!

I am really excited for Tor Books.

And the epic fantasy sub-genre as a whole!

Over the last few years, epic/high fantasy has been pushed to the wayside… or backside… or somewhere not entirely pleasant. Contemporary fantasy and paranormal romance have carved out a large niche—and rightly so—and continue to grow. There are more zombies, vampires and werewolves to shake a stick at. The authors who write in these sub-genres—Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, Vicki Pettersson and many others—publish new books all of the time and keep their fan bases hungry for more.

On the other side, only a handful of epic/high fantasy writers have broken out with debut books recently. But that’s not the major problem. Perennial powerhouses in the epic/high tradition are remarkably absent:

• A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin is late.
• The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind has been finished altered.
• The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch is late.
• The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss is late.
• The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson is being released at three year interludes.

Then there is the next installment of The Wheel of Time series!

Yes, I’m excited. Super excited. Thrilled. I haven’t even read The Wheel of Time series (I will when the series is finished like I do all completed series) and I yet I am really looking forward to the release of The Gathering Storm.

Why?

This will be a shot in the arm for epic fantasy. And because Tor Books is doing some pretty cool things for the major epic fantasy release of 2009:

• Chapter One of The Gathering Storm is posted right now for all to read.
• The Prologue, which is really long and written by Robert Jordan, will be available for download on September 17th from fine online vendors.
• Brandon Sanderson, who is completing Jordan’s opus, is going out on an extensive tour for The Gathering Storm, and Harriett McDougal (the widow of Robert Jordan) will be a part of some of those signings.
• Tor Books has hired new artists to re-cover the previous Wheel of Time books, my favorite being Donato Giancola creating art for The Dragon Reborn.

Tor Books has pushed up its release date for The Gathering Storm, Book 12 in the Wheel of Time series. It will now be published on October 27th!

So make the change to your calendar!

That is all.

George R. R. Martin took part in this weekend’s Worldcon.

In a way, Robert Jordan was there as well. Definitely his work, if not his spirit.

Brandon Sanderson, who is finishing the three-book conclusion to The Wheel of Time series, attended Worldcon. While on a panel, he spoke about writing the final three books of A Memory of Light, how many pages of notes Robert Jordan left behind before his untimely death, and gave hints about what people will see in The Gathering Storm. He also spoke about the Mat trilogy Jordan sold to Tor.

A Wheel of Time fan went to the panel and reported on it. You can find a break down of what Brandon had to say HERE!

I really hope Brandon pulls this series off. An early reviewer enjoyed the forthcoming book, although it was read by a very biased fan. We’ll have to wait until November to find out for ourselves!

I wonder what else will come out of Worldcon this weekend…

Today Newsarama posted a preview of the comic book adaptation to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time! This will be a Herculean effort by the Dabel Brothers, the breadth of Jordan’s series going to require hundreds of issues to bring to life.

Issue #1 is the start! To view the preview, click HERE!

Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time #1 will be released June 24th!

Here is the final cover for The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.

As I wrote in the March article The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan?, Tor accidentally leaked a cover that could not have been the cover to the first book in the Memory of Light trilogy that concludes the Wheel of Time series. It was horrible and the information associated with it made no sense. As I postulated then, more than likely it was a mock up cover for marketing purposes that never should have hit the internet(s).

As you can see, the new cover is the same scene as the mock cover—just better painted.

For years the cover art on the Wheel of Time books has been declining but Tor stuck with artist Darrell K. Sweet, keeping the series uniform. In a way, I guess, they should be applauded by that. I mean, as a book collector, nothing drives me more crazy than an artist change in mid-series. At one time Darrell K. Sweet was one of the hottest cover artists out there. The work he supplied on the early books of the series is fantastic, full of vibrant color and life, but as the series progressed it became dull and boring—the cover on Knife of Dreams being exceptionally bad, in my opinion. The Gathering Storm cover is an improvement over the leaked cover, but it is still a lackluster cover for one of the strongest selling fantasy series in history.

It is at least better than Knife of Dreams!

Do you like it? The Gathering Storm is one third of the enormous climax for the Wheel of Time series. Does the cover art have that climax in mind?

To me, it doesn’t.

Can you hear the outrage spreading across the internet(s)?

Boy, I can.

This morning Tor-Forge announced that A Memory of Light, the conclusion volume of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, will begin publishing in November 2009. That’s the good news!

The bad news? A Memory of Light is going to be broken into three separate books released one year apart each, the first of which is titled The Gathering Storm.

Can you hear that? It’s the sound of angry, money-strapped fans.

As the news spreads across the internet(s), the blogs are unanimously saying the same thing. Why three volumes?? Tor and the Estate of Robert Jordan support the decision for three volumes, stating a 750,000 word book cannot possibly be published in a single volume. And their summation I completely agree with. A book that is 750,000 words cannot possibly be held physically in a single binding. But as with most things there is more beneath the surface of their summation.

I say it can be published in two volumes. Easily.

And here are some numbers to prove it.

The Dabel Brothers really started something years ago.

They decided adapting high profile sci-fi/fantasy novels into comic books could possibly be lucrative, reaching a fan base that enjoy such projects.

They were right. They had a string of successful adaptations. Now, after it has proven it can work, other companies like Marvel Comics (The Dark Tower by Stephen King) and Del Rey Books (The Talisman by Stephen King & Peter Straub) have begun adapting books into comic books as well.

The original adapter hasn’t quit.

Dabel Brothers just released a Sneak Peek of the first 10 pages from their forthcoming adaptation of Eye of the World, the first book in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. The pages are only inked, but they showcase very good art by Chase Conley. And with comic book writing legend Chuck Dixon scripting the series, Jordan’s work is in capable hands!

If the final book in the Wheel of Time series is released this year, 2009 might be the year of Jordan!

And the Dabel Brothers will have a hand in it.

I love charity endeavors. There is just something about it that gets me warm and fuzzy—to see people help their neighbors in this world, even if those neighbors may be on a wholly different continent. And over the years I’ve discovered writers and readers give a great deal to those who are less fortunate.

It makes me proud to work in such a giving industry.

Patrick Rothfuss, the author of the amazing The Name of the Wind, recently matched dollar for dollar the amount his fans gave to Heifer International. Together, Pat and his fans gave over $100,000! In 2007, author Terry Brooks auctioned off a character name to be seen in A Princess of Landover, the proceeds going to charity as well. Neil Gaiman has also done this in the past and so has many other great and giving writers.

Continuing in similar footsteps, Brandon Sanderson, author of numerous fantasy novels and the writer given the daunting task of completing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time saga, is auctioning off two different characters to be seen in Memory of Light. Ever wanted to be immortalized in one of the bestselling fantasy series of all time? Here’s your chance!

For more information on how you can give and be a part of Wheel of Time history, click HERE! And good luck!

Fantasy has been on a roll in Hollywood; movie studios have been optioning everything under the sun. It has now gotten around to buying the rights for one of the grandest fantasy series ever written.

Universal Pictures has optioned The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan in a seven-figure deal that would bring Rand al’Thor, the latest incarnation of a force for good called “The Dragon,” into direct silver screen conflict with the evil Shai’tan. Read the Variety article for all the available details.

It is not known when this project will be greenlit into production. As with all movie options, the studio may never make the movie. But this is interesting and the first step of adapting the series is out of the way.

More on this news as it develops!