Publisher Tor Books has made the first chapter of the upcoming book in The Wheel of Time fantasy series, The Gathering Storm, available for free from its website.
The last three books in The Wheel of Time are being written by established fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, who was selected by the widow of the original author, Robert Jordan, after tragically passed away in September 2007 to finish Jordan’s masterpiece. The first book, The Gathering Storm, has already been finished and will be published internationally on October 27.
But by registering today on Tor.com, Wheel of Time fans are able to immediately download a text or audio reading of the first chapter of The Gathering Storm.
The chapter begins with the standard Wheel of Time format:
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose around the alabaster spire known as the White Tower. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
It then moves further into the main story of the book.
In comments posted underneath the chapter on Tor.com’s site, Wheel of Time fans appeared to agree that the writing style of the new chapter differed from Jordan’s style, but not in a bad way. Most expressed positive sentiments about the chapter.
“I can tell this is a different voice but it’s a good one and does pay respect to the rest of the series,” wrote one fan. Added another: “I could definitely tell it was not RJ writing this, not that it was badly written, but it will take a bit of getting used to.”
But even so, some readers have already filed small criticisms at Sanderson. For example, one wrote:
“If I had to offer any real quibbles, I would say it was a little self-consciously written in parts. I thought Rand’s internal thought processes, in particular, were a tad over-laboured and over-expressed compared to where he was at in the later books – whereby RJ kept him a bit more wrapped in mystique.”
Semi-official Wheel of Time site Dragonmount has also posted a slew of other news about moves associated with launch of The Gathering Storm.
For starters, the prologue to the book will be available on October September 17 as an electronic book download for US$2.99 from vendors like Amazon.com. The whole Wheel of Time series will also be released as e-books, and the original books are to get new covers. And of course there will be a book tour associated with the launch, so far only in the US.
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so let me get this straight, the first chapter is free, but the prologue is $2.99?
Half the price of a paperback for an electronic version of the prologue of all things, and since RJ is dead we know he won’t get a cent of it.
Tor is gonna milk the end of this series for as much as they can.
RJ may not be getting paid, but his widow and the new author will be. Both of them have put a lot of work into the book(s).
Of course the publisher is going to try and get as much money as possible for the books. Their cash cow is dead and the series has a finite number of books remaining to be published.
I’m planning on waiting for the audiobook on audible anyway, so the price of any other copy is irrelevant to me. However, it’s not like the last book (in 3 parts) was already finished and dropped out of the sky as is.
Yeap, Brandon Sanderson has done a lot of hard work on it particularly; and things are looking good so far. I enjoyed the first chapter. But I still do object to the $2.99 for a prologue people will get when they buy the book anyway. Seems a little silly. Why not just leave it at the first chapter release as a promo? I mean it’s not like this book isn’t going to be an instant best-seller whatever it contains; people
wantneed to find out the ending to The Wheel of Time.I think it’s fairly ridiculous they’re charging $2.99 for the prologue, of all things. I mean most people will skip that and just buy the book! Maybe it’s some kind of experiment in e-publishing.
They’ve been selling Wheel of Time ebook prologues since at least book 9. I’m not sure if the pricing is different now (looks like the major ebook sites have pulled the prologues recently), but the idea certainly isn’t new.
Strangely, none of the actual novels have ever officially been available in ebook form. I could see a, “preorder the ebook, get the prologue now” deal, but to selling the prologue digitally only, but not following up with the actual novel is odd.
True! I haven’t made the jump to ebooks yet, although I’ve been reading some on my iPhone. In this day and age its weird publishers don’t publish books in all available formats.
I am a little relieved by the reports that the writing style differs from that of Robert Jordan… The books following on from Book #7 were getting more and more laboured and it seemed Jordan was struggling to remain focused on the overall timeline progress of the series.
I (and I think a lot of other people) agree with this; the whole thing just appeared to get beyond the ability of one man to control, even as gifted a man as Jordan.
Last I heard, the 12th book was going to be the last book. It bothers me that greed has expanded it into three books.
Read what Brandon Sanderson has to say about why it was split on his website. Greed does not seem to be the motivation. http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/56/Splitting-AMOL
you dont think maybe the story might take at least three more books to wrap up?
RJ said that he was going to finish the story in one book, even if it had to be a 2,000 page monster…
I don’t think splitting it marks greed, though. For one thing, that monster sitting beside the other books would look wrong… for another, I think it would cost three times as much to buy if it were triple length – after all, the paper still costs money, as does distribution (by weight), and editting (probably takes more time by page etc).
Lord of the Rings was split up into 6 books from 1 basically because no one would have been able to afford all that paper in one go…
greed for a well told story?
All other sites are showing Sept 17 for the prologue release date
You’re right! Changed. Thanks for pointing that out!
It’s a travesty that Tor is changing the book cover designs. Darrel K. Sweet should have created these to help maintain the flavor of the series.
hey Croaker,
actually there are multiple covers, and Sweet has indeed done one of them:
http://www.dragonmount.com/News/?p=525
HAHA! Are you kidding me? Is this the king’s new clothes or what? I’m a new fan of this series so I guess maybe to devoted fans this might seem irreverent. But I’m glad I AM new since I may end up waiting only 5 or so years to complete this series rather than nearly the fifteen that original fans have had to wait. As for the covers: I think the weakest part of these books ARE the covers! If they hadn’t come highly recommended by a friend (who HAS been waiting impatiently for an end since the first was published…poor guy) I would have NEVER read it, based upon the cover art alone.
The people are not even proportional…and is Rand doing the Running Man on the front of Crown of Swords??? If the pose is not completely hysterical it’s at least idiotic…and utterly embarrassing. Luckily my copy of Lord of Chaos was hardcover, so the first thing to go was the dustjacket. Someone on another website said he looks like Elvis…this was beyond funny because it’s so true. On Fires of Heaven Rand and Mat look like stockbrokers and in all of the covers the women not only look like they were cut and pasted from another picture, story, and era, but they all look like they’re at their wits end.
I won’t even get into the endless errors. Does Sweet even READ the stories?
umm, people say the books have been laboured since what, book #7? Does it not mean anything to you that the way it has been written is that they fear the prophecies wont come to pass? Like the fact Rand was getting even more crazy and unable to be controlled or at least tamed? The fact that the way it was going Rand may have likely gone to the Dark One, if not, like the end of The Gathering Storm, almost destroyed the wheel itself by pulling more of the One Power into himself then Lews Therin did when he created Dragonmount? Until it was Lews Therin himself that stopped Rand, basically curing him from his madness leaving a new, emotional, perhaps even stronger than he has ever been Rand Al’Thor – Dragon Reborn? I think it is a turning point in the story which shows that Rand is now on the true path to take on The Dark One at the Last Battle?
But then I havent read the first chapter yet lol so here goes =P