So a thought came to me...

[Masema]

Which is very rare by the way. I was thinking, if Robert Jordan was still alive, do you think there would be a couple more books until the end of the series? I think that there would be at least one or two more. You might say that he started building up for the last battle in Knife of Dreams, or earlier, so he meant to end it within a few books. But remember, he only intended the series to be a trilogy originally. He did love his details, and I think he would have stretched it out a bit further. What do you guys think?

[Suttree]

He knew where he was going, KoD made that abundantly clear. In addition he was pretty consistent in his claims that it would only be one more book. That would have been very difficult obviously but no way does it go beyond the three Team Jordan split it into. No chance of that whatsoever IMO. Despite the increased pace and lack of detailed prose in BS's writing it is crazy how much filler there is in TGS and ToM.

[Leala]

I agree with Suttree. If you read the foreword of TGS, Brandon Sanderson says that all notes were ready for just one book to be written. But going over all those notes, he realized it would be about three times the average length of a WoT book, so he worked it out with the rest of Team Jordan, and decided to split it into three.

 

Which I am ever so grateful for. I would have pulled my hair out with the waiting, and then reading of a near or over 3000 page book.

[Dagon Thyne]

Which is very rare by the way. I was thinking, if Robert Jordan was still alive, do you think there would be a couple more books until the end of the series? I think that there would be at least one or two more. You might say that he started building up for the last battle in Knife of Dreams, or earlier, so he meant to end it within a few books. But remember, he only intended the series to be a trilogy originally. He did love his details, and I think he would have stretched it out a bit further. What do you guys think?

 

Well he had notes for 2 or 3 more books....One about Tam, one as a prequel telling the work that Lan and Moiraine were doing just prior to Eye of the World, and one that was rumored to either be a Mat spinoff taking place after the TLB or a sequel about LTT.

 

However, RJ did not want people using Wheel of Time after he died. He did not request that his wife find an author to finish the series until a couple weeks before he died, and both BS and Harriet have agreed that they will not do the others.

[Suttree]

Which is very rare by the way. I was thinking, if Robert Jordan was still alive, do you think there would be a couple more books until the end of the series? I think that there would be at least one or two more. You might say that he started building up for the last battle in Knife of Dreams, or earlier, so he meant to end it within a few books. But remember, he only intended the series to be a trilogy originally. He did love his details, and I think he would have stretched it out a bit further. What do you guys think?

 

Well he had notes for 2 or 3 more books....One about Tam, one as a prequel telling the work that Lan and Moiraine were doing just prior to Eye of the World, and one that was rumored to either be a Mat spinoff taking place after the TLB or a sequel about LTT.

 

However, RJ did not want people using Wheel of Time after he died. He did not request that his wife find an author to finish the series until a couple weeks before he died, and both BS and Harriet have agreed that they will not do the others.

 

Think Masema was referring to the main series only...

[Morsker]

I don't take RJ's claims about "one more book" seriously. It would have ruined the series and he must've known that, and also he'd make jokes about how Tor might have to invent a new binding for it, which again shows he knew what he was saying wasn't credible. I think it was his way of dismissing a question he didn't feel like answering, similar to how Pat Rothfuss gives 2025 release dates.

[Barid Bel Medar]

INTERVIEW: Oct 11th, 2005

KOD Signing Report - Pary (Paraphrased)

 

 

ROBERT JORDAN

He reaffirmed that the next book would be the final installment of the main series, followed by the prequels, in that order. Reiterated that if it takes 2000 pages, then so be it, and he really will fight with Tor to not divide it like the Martin's A Feast for Crows.

 

 

INTERVIEW: Oct 13th, 2005

KOD Signing Report - Allen Bryan (Paraphrased)

 

 

ROBERT JORDAN

Book Twelve will end the main sequence if he has to personally go to New York and beat the publishers at Tor, even if it runs two thousand pages and they have to invent a new way to bind the books (shudder). There will be two more prequels a la New Spring, and there might—very big MIGHT—be another trilogy in the same universe. Have to chew on it a year or two, he says.

 

 

INTERVIEW: Nov 22nd, 2005

Bridlington Today Interview (Verbatim)

 

QUESTION

How big can we expect the final book to be and how long do you think it will take you to write it?

 

ROBERT JORDAN

As large as it needs to be, and it will be finished as soon as I can finish it. I don't mean to be glib. This is just the simple truth.

 

These are but a few of dozens of quotes of him repeatedly saying he would finish it in one book. That is why the decision to split it into three was hotly debated. Now this is by no means meant to ressurrect the validity of the decision after his death, only that RJ was insistently adamant about releasing aMoL as 1 book. It is impossible to tell what actually would have happened, however, you can be sure that he would have fought to end and only split it if there were absolutely no other way.

[muddasssir]

I agree with both Suttree and Barid. RJ knew what people thought about his promises. Therefore he was adamant that He is going to do it in one at worst it would have been like Harry potter movie. Two parts released with a gap of few months. He was very excited about his outrigger novels about Mat and Tuon as he talked quite a lot about it in those days before he got sick. I am sorry I cannot quite quote it , but I remember reading and watching those interviews. If someone can provide the quote it will be very kind.

[Morsker]

Denial is the best explanation, I think. The bits about Tor are him passing the blame for the split onto the publisher, and that shows that he knew the split was coming. He clearly didn't want it to happen of course.

 

The only reason it bothers me is I think a 1-volume ending would have ruined the series and destroyed any interest in outriggers or anything else he could have written. I don't even like to think about it.

[Wool-headed lummox]

There's no way this could have worked with so many different characters and plotlines, Jordan had serious pacing problems with his series, and KoD was only slightly better than CoT where the series basically went to a standstill. AMoL would either be over 5000 pages, most of it devoted to describing random villages, dresses, uniforms, and twitchings of the brows, or suddenly different from all the other books in the series, which would have been quite jarring. Personally, I would have preferred an additional book between ToM and AMol, bringing the total count up to 15. It just doesn't feel right that the dreaded Last Battle takes lace in the scope of a single book, after it had been built up to, foretold, portended and dreaded for 13 books beforehand.

 

Unfortunately, Jordan had a very bizarre fixation on irrelevant details, like the aforementioned dresses, gowns and uniforms, which detracted attention from events and characterization, and had no relevance or significance of their own. You don't care about the appearance of a dress simply because it happens to be a dress, you care about it if it means, symbolizes, or denotes something. Suldam wearing dresses with panels of forked lightning makes for an interesting detail because suldam represent the most grueling and shocking aspect of Seanchan culture - institutionalized slavery and dehumanization of people which would otherwise be at the top of their society. Whitecloak uniforms represent the hypocrisy and cruelty of this self-righteous knightly order, painting the image of a white-clad armed man using his authority to threaten and bully those he doesn't like. A Taraborner uniform is uninteresting because there is nothing connecting Taraborners with the reader, it is simply a name of a country that happens to exist in this world, and therefore should be limited to the author's notes or imagination. Instead he puts everything into the books, and cramps important events into the final chapter of the book. This would have been the case with AMoL if he wrote it the way he wanted to.

[Suttree]

There's no way this could have worked with so many different characters and plotlines, Jordan had serious pacing problems with his series, and KoD was only slightly better than CoT where the series basically went to a standstill.

 

The problem with this is you are looking at the books individually not as a series. CoT for all that it is slow has very little filler. TGS and ToM on the other hand suffer not only from unpolished prose and blunt plotwork but they also have whole chunks you could simply rip out and it wouldnt matter.

 

You are actually the single first person I have seen claim KoD had pacing problems. It is almost universally hailed as one of the better books in the series. The story arc at the end of KoD was quite obviously ready to jump towards the finish. The "set up" of the books leading up to it was finished. Again, not saying it would have been done in one but the split into three was totally unnecessary.

[Agitel]

Jordan may have intended to hammer it all out as one book, but for publishing reasons it would have to have been split into multiple volumes. I think he realized that his time was short and wanted to approach the ending as one final project, not three.

[Wool-headed lummox]

CoT for all that it is slow has very little filler

CoT is filler in itself. Only one thing happens in the book. Egwene gets captured by Elaida's Aes Sedai in the last chapter. That's it. You can safely omit this entire book from your read-through, and start KoD with the passage where she gets kidnapped. Everything besides that is either characters reacting to events that happened in previous books, musing about the future, or making arrangements that don't matter at any point in the future. CoT is a book that didn't need to be written.

 

You are actually the single first person I have seen claim KoD had pacing problems

Every book in the series has pacing problems (yes, even the early ones), and KoD simply includes several actual events and new information, sprinkled among aforementioned musings and descriptions that we don't need to read at all. Whereas CoT is nothing but musings.

[Suttree]

CoT for all that it is slow has very little filler

CoT is filler in itself. Only one thing happens in the book. Egwene gets captured by Elaida's Aes Sedai in the last chapter. That's it. You can safely omit this entire book from your read-through, and start KoD with the passage where she gets kidnapped. Everything besides that is either characters reacting to events that happened in previous books, musing about the future, or making arrangements that don't matter at any point in the future. CoT is a book that didn't need to be written.

 

Only one thing happens so the rest is filler? Errmm you're not too big on literary technique and set up are you?

 

Curious as to what some of your other favorite fantasy series if you don't mind sharing.

[David Selig]

You are actually the single first person I have seen claim KoD had pacing problems. It is almost universally hailed as one of the better books in the series. The story arc at the end of KoD was quite obviously ready to jump towards the finish. The "set up" of the books leading up to it was finished. Again, not saying it would have been done in one but the split into three was totally unnecessary.

I will be second then. IMO KoD is very poorly paced. Most of this is at snail's pace, there are whole chapters where literally the only thing that happens is something really minor and mundane like mat buying a horse. And then he resolutions in the last third are rushed. You can't even say the first part was setup since most of it had little to do with happened later.

 

The problem with this is you are looking at the books individually not as a series. CoT for all that it is slow has very little filler.

Oh, come on. There's an awful lot of filler.

I present to you Chapter 25 - When to Wear Jewels, as an example. The single most pointless and unnecessary chapter in the series. There's absolutely nothing there of any value or interest.

[Suttree]

You are actually the single first person I have seen claim KoD had pacing problems. It is almost universally hailed as one of the better books in the series. The story arc at the end of KoD was quite obviously ready to jump towards the finish. The "set up" of the books leading up to it was finished. Again, not saying it would have been done in one but the split into three was totally unnecessary.

I will be second then. IMO KoD is very poorly paced. Most of this is at snail's pace, there are whole chapters where literally the only thing that happens is something really minor and mundane like mat buying a horse. And then he resolutions in the last third are rushed. You can't even say the first part was setup since most of it had little to do with happened later.

 

The problem with this is you are looking at the books individually not as a series. CoT for all that it is slow has very little filler.

Oh, come on. There's an awful lot of filler.

I present to you Chapter 25 - When to Wear Jewels, as an example. The single most pointless and unnecessary chapter in the series. There's absolutely nothing there of any value or interest.

 

I'm actually somewhat suprised David. For some reason I remember having conversations about how much you have enjoyed that book. I can tell you as a lit major I have read KoD a number of times in a similar manner as I would a literary work and don't have much of an issue with the pacing. To call it "poorly paced" is certainly a huge stretch. The set up I was referring to is CoT. If you read the two as one work they fit together quite nicely.

 

As for CoT I stand by the statement that to make any significant cuts you would need a huge rewrite. RJ actually referred to that when he was deciding whether to scrap things based on the timeline "tecnhique" he expiremented with there.

[Byzantine279]

We would still be another 3 books from the end right now.

[Wool-headed lummox]

CoT is filler in and of itself. Nothing happens in the book. It's just people reacting to events we've already read in the past books, musings on what's going to happen in the future, men bemoaning the incomprehensibility of women, and vice versa. Egwene gets captured in the final passage of the last chapter of the book, which could have been moved anywhere else. There are no other events in the book, and it can simply be skipped in the read through without losing any valuable information.

[Suttree]

There are no other events in the book, and it can simply be skipped in the read through without losing any valuable information.

 

That is patenetly false. Again not big on forsehadowing, immersive prose and set up are you?

 

I'll ask one more time, curious as to what some of your other favorite series are?

[Clouded]

There are no other events in the book, and it can simply be skipped in the read through without losing any valuable information.

 

It depends on what you call valuable. I, for one, enjoy that the wheel of time has so much background information. It makes the world feel alive. It makes for a much more complicated and realistic world than some other books.

 

I agree that few shocking or major plot twists happen, but to say it could be skipped due to being inconsequential seems a bit ridiculous.

[ironisles]

There are no other events in the book, and it can simply be skipped in the read through without losing any valuable information.

 

It depends on what you call valuable. I, for one, enjoy that the wheel of time has so much background information. It makes the world feel alive. It makes for a much more complicated and realistic world than some other books.

 

I agree that few shocking or major plot twists happen, but to say it could be skipped due to being inconsequential seems a bit ridiculous.

 

 

Ninety percent of CoT is filler. The only major thing that moves the plot forwards is at the end.

[shortkut]

the split into three was totally unnecessary.

this is one of the stupidest things i have read. even if you removed scenes like hinderstrap, there is still too much plot development happening and threads to tie up for it to fit into one book and not read like an outline/summary... unless you think BS had the gravitas to win the fight with tor that RJ hinted would come. Seriously, reread what you said and what it would mean.

[Suttree]

the split into three was totally unnecessary.

this is one of the stupidest things i have read. even if you removed scenes like hinderstrap, there is still too much plot development happening and threads to tie up for it to fit into one book and not read like an outline/summary... unless you think BS had the gravitas to win the fight with tor that RJ hinted would come. Seriously, reread what you said and what it would mean.

 

Reading comprehension much? I said fitting it into one would have been a long shot but the split into three is unnecessary. What does that leave us with? Need help with the math?

 

Btw since you have been attacking my smarts and logic so consistently where did you go to college shortkut? Seems my UC education is sorely lacking in your eyes...

[shortkut]

the split into three was totally unnecessary.

this is one of the stupidest things i have read. even if you removed scenes like hinderstrap, there is still too much plot development happening and threads to tie up for it to fit into one book and not read like an outline/summary... unless you think BS had the gravitas to win the fight with tor that RJ hinted would come. Seriously, reread what you said and what it would mean.

 

Reading comprehension much? I said fitting it into one would have been a long shot but the split into three is unnecessary. What does that leave us with? Need help with the math?

it was as unnecessary as the decision to have the series become a series instead of a 12,000+ page novel. the logic and reasoning would be the same. I know you seem to be lacking here, but let me help:

reasons why the three should be as one

1. RJ wanted it that way

2. it is one story (debateable)

- reason against: too much info and too many pages

 

reasons the whole series should be one book

1. it is one story (debateable)

-reason against: too much info and too many pages

 

seriously,to you argue just to argue? do you love the sound of your own voice so much that you love it in print too?

[Maleshub]

Personal perspective on plot lines that could have been reduced or deleted all together to trim the series:

- Whole Children of the Light plotline

- Significant parts of Elayne's succession

- All of Masema Dagar and his lunacy

- Significant parts of Valan Luca's circus

- Most of the Faile rescue operation

- Most of Rand's venture into Arad Doman

- Shara and all references to it since it is truly useless to the story

- Padan Fain: the guy should have died in Far Madding, if not before then.