Publisher Tor Books has made the second chapter of the next Wheel of Time book, The Gathering Storm, available for free in audio format only.
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.
Tor has already released Chapter One of the book for free online, as well as the prologue for a charge of US2.99, although it immediately leaked to the BitTorrent peer to peer file-sharing system.
The second chapter of The Gathering Storm is entitled “The Nature of Pain”, following the first chapter, “Tears from Steel”. The full audio of The Nature of Pain runs for almost 48 minutes.
Fans have praised the first chapter in The Gathering Storm.
Over the past weeks, Wheel of Time fans have posted no less than 582 comments on Tor’s site about the new chapter. The overwhelming response has been that Sanderson writes in a slightly different and less descriptive style than Jordan, but that fans were immediately able to re-enter the Wheel of Time universe and were incredibly excited to be doing so.
Commentary
Jeez, Tor is really laying on the publicity for this book; two chapters and a prologue released even before the book comes out!
But does it really need to? The Gathering Storm is one of the most anticipated books in fantasy literature in 2009 and is virtually guaranteed to be a best-seller, even if it ends up being panned critically (which I highly doubt).
As for Chapter 2 being in audio format only … I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone transcribes it and posts it on the internet. Not that I would encourage that sort of behaviour; after all, it’s plagiarism.
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