Can it be done in just one more book?

[Orderofolde]

I've seen speculation, a lot of it, and some reservation to not mention the elephant, or rather, the dead mule in the room. Can it be done in 1 more book, or will it be split again like AMOL originally was? Let's put it to a vote and be honest. As rushed as Towers of Midnight was, with us sweating down to the last 1/10th of the book we're wondering where the Tower of Genji comes in, can it really only be 1 more book able to be bound and distributed, the original trouble the Team had with AMOL in the first place? If yes, it can be done in one, what do you think the pacing will be like with lal the main issues that must be tied up for completion? If no, and you think it must be split or even another trilogy (Highly doubtful) what are your thoughts on that? Are you willing to wait for an extra book? Would you rather the flow and RJ's fine story be chopped up and shoved into one novel or do it justice if it should really take two? I've seen lots of comments and some hot blood and insults not as veiled as Aiel on this topic, and wanted to concentrate it and get a feel from the general community.

 

What's your opinion?

[Erunion]

I think they can do it. Brandon's pretty awesome like that. (I chose that it'll do RJ justice, but I believe that there will be lots of loose ends. RJ told us, way back when, that he intended to leave AMOL with lots of loose ends, as the wheel of time keeps on spinning...)

 

As to Mat and Tuon, RJ was going to write outriggers. That means he said that Mat and Tuon were going to live. Unless RJ changed his mind before he died, Mat and Tuon are going to live. Brandon/co would never, ever, ever, kill off a major character that RJ didn't say to kill off.

[Mulk]

it seems like there is a lot, but really, we have one day before the last battle, and then the last battle itself. I know it's a lot of plot points, but it's not much of a time period, far shorter than any of the other books have covered, imo. As it seems to have been intended that there will be a lot of loose ends, one book, pretty large, stuffed with action will do it. Given that I'm generally pleased with how Brandon is writing it, I see no reason to not expect similar results.

 

No, he won't kill Mat and Tuon.

[capuga]

I'll take Brandon at his word that he is 2/3's of the way through the outline and will get the last 1/3 done in one book. Plus, based on the pace of the last two books and the amounts of items to wrap up, my gut tells me that one book should be enough.

 

As for Mat and Tuon - RJ would have decided their fates and left notes. Since he was planning for them to live and have further adventures in the outriggers then they will live. Neither Brandon nor Harriet will change the fate that RJ decided for his characters.

[herid]

aMoL will be rushed but it will be one book. that's what BS still says and I believe him. as for killing Mat and Tuon there is absolutely zero chance of that. if you read any of BS interviews he is being extremely reverential to RJ's wishes. he would never change something like that no matter what.

[Ashandarei]

The book will be jam-packed and there will be multiple loose ends, but I don't doubt that it'll still be one book. As others already mentioned, it's not like he'll be covering all that much in terms of story time length, just a lot of plot points.

 

As for Mat, I haven't read the interviews and such where Brandon and RJ mention them but I'll trust the others who have that BS intends to follow RJ's wishes and that RJ wanted him to live. Having some open-ended characters at the end such as Mat instead of killing them really isn't that big a deal IMO.

[Beidomon]

It will be finished with AMOL, but it will be very rushed. Here are just some of the major plot points I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Dragon's Peace with the Seanchan

2. Caemlyn is burning, cannons in jeopardy, and so is Elaine's bathtub

3. Black Tower is divided, what's up with Taim, and where the hell is Logain?

4. 5 Forsaken + Shaidar Haran.

5. Aviendha and the fate of the Aiel.

6. Lan/Malkier/Nynaeve/Meh

7. Cyndane's up to something important enough to be mentioned in the ToM epilogue.

8. Moraine's back, and she's gonna do something important.

9. There's a ____ in the Blight, and some new red-vieled Blight baddies.

10. Gollum (er, I mean Fain) is headed to Shayol Ghul

11. Last Battle, sealing the bore, Rand death, Rand resurrection, etc.

 

Can anyone name another a book in the series that covered even half as many major plot points?

[Mulk]

Beidomon, a goodly chunk of what you are mentioning is directly tied to the last point you mean to cover. I personally think Aviendha and the fate of the Aiel isn't something that will be addressed, aside from whatever Rand does about the Aiel in the Peace he enforces prior to the Last Battle. Points 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10 I think are all part of the Last Battle stuff. I'm not denying there is a lot there. But with everyone in one place again for the first time in forever, a lot of that just won't be as time consuming as it would have been, at least imo.

 

One big factor in how long it will be, in my mind anyway, is how many viewpoints we are given of what is going on. I mean, will it be necessary to give a PoV of Rand, Mat, Egwene, Elayne, Tuon, Moiraine and Loial for the Field of Merrilor? Or will one or two suffice? How many viewpoints will we need during what is going on in the last battle? You have to figure that in the lead up fights (the Black Tower, Caemlyn and Tarwin's Gap) and in TLB itself almost everyone of real substance will get at least one PoV passage: Demandred, Moridin, Shaidar Haran/The Dark One will probably all get POVs for the Shadow, and possibly Lanfear and Moggy as well, then Rand, Egwene, Moiraine, Nynaeve, Lan, Elayne, Aviendha, Mat, Min and Perrin as the probable bare minimum for the Light.

 

I would think that the main thing that could contribute to the length of it in such a way that it might grow beyond what Brandon expects is how much wrap up material there will be. 100 pages? more? How long does it take to "satisfactorily" wrap up 20k plus page novel? I have no idea.

 

Of course, I could turn out to be WAY off base... ;)

[Arc]

It will be finished with AMOL, but it will be very rushed. Here are just some of the major plot points I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Dragon's Peace with the Seanchan

2. Caemlyn is burning, cannons in jeopardy, and so is Elaine's bathtub

3. Black Tower is divided, what's up with Taim, and where the hell is Logain?

4. 5 Forsaken + Shaidar Haran.

5. Aviendha and the fate of the Aiel.

6. Lan/Malkier/Nynaeve/Meh

7. Cyndane's up to something important enough to be mentioned in the ToM epilogue.

8. Moraine's back, and she's gonna do something important.

9. There's a ____ in the Blight, and some new red-vieled Blight baddies.

10. Gollum (er, I mean Fain) is headed to Shayol Ghul

11. Last Battle, sealing the bore, Rand death, Rand resurrection, etc.

 

Can anyone name another a book in the series that covered even half as many major plot points?

 

Ok so that are a lot of major plotlines, but most of them stand in close contact with one another and can be resolved simultaneously (possibly with a lot of POV switching). Like Moiraine, the BLANK, Fain, Mierin, they might all be involved in the final event at SG. And things like saving Lan, or Avi having a word with Rand and the wisones shouldn't take more than a chapter or two/three.

 

I think people say things will be rushed because there has been talk about them in 13 books, carefully building tension, discussing, anticipating and stuff. That doesn't change the fact that some plotlines could actually be resolved quite easely/quickly.

 

Yes, I think it will be one book. A big one no doubt, and a great one for sure.

 

.. and I like to add Demandred to the list of plotlines you lined up. :) Major one.

[Beidomon]

You're right that many of the plot points I list above are closely related, but it's still going to require an all-out sprint to get them all wrapped up in one book, especially given the current state of events. You could devote several hundred highly engrossing pages just to resolving the Black Tower issue, but there simply is not room for that.

 

This is beside the point, but I really wish that some of these plot lines, particularly the Black Tower and the damned Seanchan, had been resolved a bit earlier in the series instead of devoting thousands of pages to things like Faile's Shaido captivity, Elayne's Andoran succession, and post-Tower schism plotting among the Aes Sedai.

[TheBeerPatriot]

You're right that many of the plot points I list above are closely related, but it's still going to require an all-out sprint to get them all wrapped up in one book, especially given the current state of events. You could devote several hundred highly engrossing pages just to resolving the Black Tower issue, but there simply is not room for that.

 

This is beside the point, but I really wish that some of these plot lines, particularly the Black Tower and the damned Seanchan, had been resolved a bit earlier in the series instead of devoting thousands of pages to things like Faile's Shaido captivity, Elayne's Andoran succession, and post-Tower schism plotting among the Aes Sedai.

Agreed. Even in ToM, more space could have been devoted to the Seanchan and Black Tower plotlines instead of devoting a good chunk of the book to the Perrin/Galad plotlines. A lot still happened in ToM, but I think more could have been covered as well, thus shaping up nicely for the Last Battle.

 

While I believe Brandon's sincere when he says there's only a 1/3 of the outline left, it would not surprise if AMOL bled over into another book. Simply way too many major plotlines still open, regardless if some of them are tied together with the Last Battle.

[Alternate34]

Well, the amount of pages it takes to bring those plot point to resolution is dependent on what the resolution is. I don't think that it would take several hundred pages to resolve the Black Tower for instance. The cards are all dealt on that one. You have a dwindling number of light devotees in there. Many of the others have been turned to the Dark One, probably by the 13x13 methodology. People cannot Travel in. People cannot Travel out. The rending in fire and blood doesn't have to take that long and it can occur immediately. Caemlyn is entirely similar. It is already burning.

 

The last book may feel rushed because it is different than the previous books. It will hit us again and again with climax after climax with little in between. It will be like the end of Towers of Midnight when Perrin and Egwene are fighting battles simultaneously. The difference is, the whole book will be like that. It will feel rushed, but it won't actually be rushed, because the deluge of intensity was intended.

[Avalonjohn44]

Heck, I hope it goes two more books. I would also hope there are at least a few (to several) chapters after everything is resolved to show the paths our favorite characters might take in the future that we can speculate on ad infinitum.

[Elan Tedronai]

you can blame sanderson for that. bloody half of TOM was all about perrin acting like like some sort of leader who was in coma for the past 6 books and his battle with galad. Pages and pages of wasted ink.

[Luckers]

I chose yes, the book will be rushed and have loose ends--though that is not precisely what I believe. Rather, I think the book will not be rushed, but that it will not be as complex as it otherwise should be.

 

In my opinion this has already been happening in tGS and TofM. Take, for instance, Nicola's death, Elayne taking the Sun Throne, or Galad and Asunawa's confrontation. Brandon has a list of all the key plot points, but it is for him to write how the characters move between them, and he glosses over a lot more of the background than Jordan did. Of course, he said he never intended to try and match Jordan stylistically--a decision I both agree with, and admire him for. But I'm not so much speaking of Jordan's style, as I am of the degree of effort Jordan put into polishing the books.

 

That being said I do know a lot of people like the streamlined nature of Brandon's novels, and I am not talking about Jordan's tendency towards excess in descriptions of dresses and depictions of baths, rather I'm talking of just how much world information he could fit into a sentence--and without it ever feeling like exposition.

 

And the thing is, I don't believe the books would have been larger with this material. There is a fair amount of empty paragraphs in these later books--character renumerating on decisions to explain their actions or intentions, long references or discussions of past events to tie into current events, and so forth. Read the scene where Rand and Nynaeve arrive in Falme for an example of this, or Perrin's POV's in tGS and ToM up to about Shanna'har. These elements needed to be cut, and more depth put in to other scenes--a matter mostly for the editing rounds, which he put two to three months into, and Jordan put upwards of a year into.

 

Of course this isn't entirely Brandon's fault. He was under enormous preasure from us to get the books out fast. I do believe that Brandon should have put his foot down--WoT books needed two years by the master--and I know thats a harsh judgement on my behalf, given it would have brought flack (from us ingrateful bastards) down on him in a torrent--but then he accepted that responsibility when he took on the job.

 

Still, this is what I fear for aMoL. That Brandon will take the shortest, simplest path through the plot points Jordan left him, rather than the path that would best express the story. We'll still get a good book--and despite the amount left to be dealt with, I doubt that it will feel rushed--but it will be... shallow is the word, but I don't mean it in the "you're shallow man" insulting kind of way, just in truest sense of the word. Simple.

 

The scope of the world has shrunk in Brandon's work. It will allow him to do what needs to be done in a shorter period of time, but the expansive nature of the Wheel is compromised in the process.

 

My two cents.

 

 

As for Mat and Tuon--Brandon has always respected that this is Jordan's work. He would not change Jordan's plan, which included Mat and Fortuona living.

[Mats Spare Hat]

What the Luckers fella said ^

 

Sanderson, to me is kind of the Bud Light to Jordan's Blue Moon...It's good & it'll get you wasted, but it's just not the same, or as great a consuming experience.

 

*shrug

 

...Not to say you can't have a good or even great time, drinking however or whatever you choose though

[zidfrekle]

As much as I love both Brandon's original works and his work to this point in finishing WoT, I am terrified that AMoL will be disappointing to me whether it is one final book or another 20. This is no fault of Sanderson's in my eyes, I would have been disappointed were RJ still alive to finish the series. These characters that I have "known" for so long are soon to have no future in our world. It is a sad prospect no matter how their endings come. That being said, I do believe that to finish the series, one final book will not be sufficient to achieve the most satisfying result. It can be done, and Brandon won't butcher it if held to the one book, but I just don't think it will be what RJ had in mind. I remember when he said something to the effect that 'if Tor had to make a new binding system and sell the book with a library cart it would be done in one massive book'. They denied him this request and split the ending in 3 so my biggest hope for AMoL is simple. If it takes 3 more years for Brandon to finish it, let AMoL be as close to that final volume RJ wanted as possible. If they're only going to do one more, let it be 20k pages and weigh 50 lbs. Charge me $100 for it, I dont care. But finish it right. Do it justice. I have faith in you Brandon....don't let me down!

[RyanDuranGeiger]

The ending would be so bittersweet, it would be amazing and terribly sad at the same time..

 

I sort of hope it would be split into two books so everything can be resolved. (And I can go another year with the series not ending.)

[Suttree]

Of course this isn't entirely Brandon's fault. He was under enormous preasure from us to get the books out fast. I do believe that Brandon should have put his foot down--WoT books needed two years by the master--and I know thats a harsh judgement on my behalf, given it would have brought flack (from us ingrateful bastards) down on him in a torrent--but then he accepted that responsibility when he took on the job.

 

Still, this is what I fear for aMoL. That Brandon will take the shortest, simplest path through the plot points Jordan left him, rather than the path that would best express the story. We'll still get a good book--and despite the amount left to be dealt with, I doubt that it will feel rushed--but it will be... shallow is the word, but I don't mean it in the "you're shallow man" insulting kind of way, just in truest sense of the word. Simple.

 

The scope of the world has shrunk in Brandon's work. It will allow him to do what needs to be done in a shorter period of time, but the expansive nature of the Wheel is compromised in the process.

 

Great call on this Luckers. TGS and ToM were very rushed and I'm hoping that the extra time he will take on AMoL will help rectify a few of these issues. I have always felt that the increased pace has come at the expense of depth in the story telling. It has lead to an almost stop and start feeling when reading. Slow scenes followed by important items flying by at an accelerated pace. Character reflecting on their actions and discussions of past events are painful for me to read to say the least.

 

As an example of how to go about it the right way, I am part way through The Wise Man's Fear right now. Patrick Rothfuss spent a good deal of time growing as an author and really polishing his work. It is obvious how much the extra time helped and it made me notice just how many editing issues these last two WoT books have had. Major props to BS for doing the best possible job in a very difficult situation. But it is my wish that in AMoL he takes as long as needed to make the final installment a fitting conclusion to the series that has meant so much to us all.

[Luckers]

*nods* I agree. And I'm reading Wise Man's Fear now too--I'm going to be writing a review for Hatchett books--and one of the points I was going to make about it was that the time he took to produce it following Name of the Wind was time well spent.

 

I'm hoping that the extra time he will take on AMoL will help rectify a few of these issues.

 

The problem is that he isn't actually taking more time--he took time off to recollect himself and write Alloy of Law. The time he intends to spend on aMoL more or less matches the time he's taken on the first two.

[Terez]

Well, he hasn't really set a date. But yes, he's allotted himself roughly a year from when he starts writing to publication date. However, he's said that he will take as long as he needs to take to get it right, and he's promised that the beta readers and copyeditors will have more time to work on revision, too.

[Luckers]

Good news, that.

[MrWOTjunkie]

Unfortunately I agree with Luckers. Though if being honest I can go a touch further. It pains me to admit but I can't help but think upon completetion I will feel as though the quality, depth and scope of my most favourite series wasn't given the justice it deserved over the closing stages. Mind you in no way would I ever expect any author to complete the work of another with any fluidity either. It is what it is. How could I say anything but as Robert Jordan is my favourite author? Though well do I understand the courage Brandon has shown. I have the upmost respect for him as an author and have enjoyed ALL of his books. Does that make sense???

[Beidomon]

I chose yes, the book will be rushed and have loose ends--though that is not precisely what I believe. Rather, I think the book will not be rushed, but that it will not be as complex as it otherwise should be.

 

In my opinion this has already been happening in tGS and TofM. Take, for instance, Nicola's death, Elayne taking the Sun Throne, or Galad and Asunawa's confrontation. Brandon has a list of all the key plot points, but it is for him to write how the characters move between them, and he glosses over a lot more of the background than Jordan did. Of course, he said he never intended to try and match Jordan stylistically--a decision I both agree with, and admire him for. But I'm not so much speaking of Jordan's style, as I am of the degree of effort Jordan put into polishing the books.

 

...

 

Still, this is what I fear for aMoL. That Brandon will take the shortest, simplest path through the plot points Jordan left him, rather than the path that would best express the story. We'll still get a good book--and despite the amount left to be dealt with, I doubt that it will feel rushed--but it will be... shallow is the word, but I don't mean it in the "you're shallow man" insulting kind of way, just in truest sense of the word. Simple.

 

The scope of the world has shrunk in Brandon's work. It will allow him to do what needs to be done in a shorter period of time, but the expansive nature of the Wheel is compromised in the process.

 

Perfect analysis. TGS and ToM generally read like BS was just moving from point to point in the outline as quick as he could (with some longer passages inserted that were obviously written more by Jordan), and things feel a little shallow. I know this criticism probably sounds weird coming from someone who has constantly blasted how books 7-11 slowed to a crawl, but there is a happy medium (see Books 1-4!).

 

This isn't BS's fault, and I admire the task he undertook and what he has accomplished. RJ simply spun way too many threads and left too much undone. Now, everything just feels a little rushed and unsatisfying, and I fear this is really going to manifest itself in AMOL precisely because it's the last book.

[dobraine]

One book should cover it.

There is no doubt on that it will be a fast paced book.

One thing that really has me worried is an anticlimactic feel.

The Tower of Ghenjei scene felt very bland to me.

I'm a little afraid that the ending will feel like it didn't

deserve 14 books building up to it.

My hope is that RJ didn't build to much expectation without the

end to top it off.

I believe there will be loose ends.It was meant to leave us

guessing.And that just leaves room for theories

I think a little editing would be good for ToM and TGS.

Kudos to the authors thought it has been fun.

 

Edit:Forget a word mid-sentence