Book 12, Book 13. Man i hope not.

[Majsju]

And I think if my beat up 10 year old copy of The Stand can be 1,200 pages long that they can figure out a way to fit 700,000 words into a hardcover book.

It depends on how long The Stand is.

 

According to Brandon, 464,218 words. He does not say which version he uses for that count though, since one version is significantly longer than the other.

[Harp_Playing_Forsaken]

According to Brandon, 464,218 words. He does not say which version he uses for that count though, since one version is significantly longer than the other.

 

That would be the complete and uncut version. The revised version is something like 400 pages shorter, so it's easy to tell the difference.

 

Not that big a difference. Paperbacks, as a rule, don't have double the page count of hardback editions.

 

True. But hardbacks also usually have wide margins on all sides, or are double spaced, or have larger font. Or all of those things.

 

Lets try a different approach. My copy of Winter's Heart has all three of those things. It's 668 pages for 238,789 words. That's roughly a third of this estimated count for aMoL. So this 2,000 page number is, quite frankly, bullcrap. Unless it's impossible for Tor to release a book that's not widely margined, double spaced, with large font.

 

Speaking of small font and no double spacing, that just reminded me of a good example that I didn't think of before. I was trying to think of single novel that would be good example, I never thought of collections. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, for example, looks to be 957,426 words, 1,200 hardback pages, and does indeed exist! Doesn't even require a wheelbarrow ;)

[Jonn]

Let me think, works of fiction of approximately 2000 pages? There's War and Peace by Tolstoy, then there's ....? Can you name any novels published in the last thirty years that are 1500 pages long, I cann't ("he Winds of War"and "War and Remembrence" were published in the 1971 and 1976, respectively).

 

Well, I can't list any off the top of my head but I have some softbacks on my shelf that have been fine for the last 10 years(no massive binding implosions....)....

 

Lord of Chaos - 1,000

IT - 1,100

The Stand - 1,200

 

Like I said before, they can do it if they want to. It's not like it's physically imossible. And having a fanbase that, I imagine, is quite big, I doubt it's even impossible in a financial sense. But I am sure they have their reasons, and I am not going to treat them like villians if they decide to break it into two books.

 

It's dissapointing, and I do kinda see the "it was RJ's wish to do so and so", but if Harriet decides otherwise, anyone who complains too much about it just sounds like a spoiled WoT fan that thinks they know better than the man's wife did, imho.

 

Of course, I agree. Harriet's word on the matter is law. I trust her judgment as an editor, but as everyone says, it's a business, and no doubt she will feel the pressure of business weigh in on her decisions as an editor as much as her obligation to the integrity of RJ's wishes for the novel.

I am not naive about that.

 

I wouldn't call it villainy or cast great aspersions on TOR if the novel gets split, but I can't hide my true feelings on the matter either, in order to appease them or anyone else.

 

I think it would be a shame and a waste of an opportunity to do something for RJ and the fans.

Sanderson's efforts would be wasted as well, because he is working as if he needs to meet that deadline for one novel, not a split.

 

At this juncture, I can't see that there's much time for Harriet or TOR to change direction and give Sanderson the order to focus on making two parts. It's not entirely fair. Not that he wouldn't be delighted to do it, but you would technically have to pay him for working on two books. He'd be working on an adjusted time line which changes the dynamic of the work he is doing dramatically.

 

On top of that we don't have a complete picture as to how much he has actually completed in relation to a two part finale. He could have done more work on one end or the other. We don't know.

 

I guess for me the prospect of the novel being split into two leaves more questions to be asked than if we were assured that the novel would be done in one go. If we had that assurance, we'd be able to calmly wait until it's done with no question of the integrity of the piece. 

[reyler]

I can personally testify to Tor's poor binding practices. I bought TGH in paperback in 2004, not long after first discovering the series, and a little bit before I declared paperbacks no longer had any new place on my bookshelves; I had the thing a week, maybe two, before the whole thing feel right out of the cover. Needless to say, that went right back to the store. Conversely, my paperback copy of The Fountainhead is now on it's ninth year in my possession, thicker in fact than most paperback WoT books, and the only damage is wear to the spine from having to open the fat damn thing.

 

I've got my own Complete Shakespeare, though mine is around 1100 pages. It holds together fine, but the font is half the size of the font they use in the WoT books. This certainly doesn't bother me, as for some silly reason I feel insulted by larger print (don't ask me, I don't know), but it might be difficult for people who aren't comfortable with spending ten hours with their noses six inches away from the page and a digestive system whose complaints have gone unregarded since about two hundred pages in. Yes, it would be nice to have the whole thing in one edition, but if they have to split it up to sell, or just to fit whatever printing standards they have, I won't object.

 

What scares me is when, post-completion of the series, somebody at Tor starts thinking about how to do a boxed set of all 12/13 books.

[CUBAREY]

Well, I can't list any off the top of my head but I have some softbacks on my shelf that have been fine for the last 10 years(no massive binding implosions....)....

 

Lord of Chaos - 1,000

IT - 1,100

The Stand - 1,200

 

 

Which would make The Stand the longest book you have listed is 20% pages smaller then 1500 pages and about 40%.  Again thats way longer then any new fiction I can recall being published in the last 30 aor so years. Could it physically be published in one volume if they really tried? Yes,but it would be unweildy as all hec. Plus if my hardcover copy of KOD is any guide (784 pages long) the binding would start breaking by the time you got about a third of the way through. And these considerations have to be addressed even if you decide to totally blow-off the wishes of the bookstores.

 

Moreover, it really makes very little diffence if their are differences in the margins, font size, etc.  between the Hardcover and paperback versions as one of the considerations that Harriet and Tor have to take account of is that it would make little since to publish the hardcover as one volume if the paperback version would have to be two volumes (consider how truly pissed a fan who waited to buy the book in paperpack because of the cost of a hardcover would be if after waiting for months he is told that he will still have to pay about the same of the cost of a hardcover copy because its being published in two volumes).

 

He'd be working on an adjusted time line which changes the dynamic of the work he is doing dramatically.

 

He is already working on an adjusted timeline as he was originally supposed to have delivered a completed draft to Harriet by the end of 2008.

 

On top of that we don't have a complete picture as to how much he has actually completed in relation to a two part finale. He could have done more work on one end or the other. We don't know.

 

Sansderson has stated that he is writing it from beiginning to end; chronologically based on character groupings until they all meet up just before last battle (a perfect place to end the first volume as he has intimated).

 

Look I'm so intent on reading any part of AMOL I can get my hands on that i will pay the bail of anyone who wants to join me in a drive to Utah so we can sneak into Brandon Sanderson's study to get a peak at what he has written so far. :o ??? ;) :) ;D

 

 

 

 

[Raezold]

Look I'm so intent on reading any part of AMOL I can get my hands on that i will pay the bail of anyone who wants to join me in a drive to Utah so we can sneak into Brandon Sanderson's study to get a peak at what he has written so far. :o ??? ;) :) ;D

 

When do we leave?  ;D

[Jonn]

Again, we really don't have a full picture as to what he has finished or not, so rushing to conclusions about how much is ready to go and in what order doesn't serve us.

 

Besides, chronologically in groups doesn't necessarily mean that the final edited piece will go exactly in that order. Some plot lines will be group together, while others will unfold later, yet concurrently. We're familiar with that having read Crossroads of Twilight, yes?

 

Anyhow, I find it amusing how patiently impatient we all feel at the moment. Some want whatever to come out, in however many pieces no matter how long it takes to publish those pieces.

 

I, on the other hand, would rather wait long enough for the whole thing to be complete, and devour it in one go.

Have you ever been down a road with lots of intersections with traffic lights? On this road, it's early in the morning and no one else is driving in any direction, it's just you, and for some ridiculous reason, the automated lights keep stopping you every hundred yards even though there's no cross traffic.

You just want to run those red lights and just get to where you're going, it's straight ahead! For goodness sake, let's just go already, but you still can't because arbitrarily you must obey these laws that while reasonable in other situations, it just makes no sense to adhere to at this time.

 

That's what this feels like to me, this argument. Some are happy to wait and take the road bit by bit so long as they move forward. Others, like myself, would prefer to just go if there's no reasonable impediment. The destination may be the same, but the philosophy differs.

 

I'm actually quite confident that Sanderson will finish in good time, faster than we expect.