Its nice to have a date and all, but I cant be too happy we still have 11 months to go, color me nonplussed.

Finally!! A date! Although I agree that I'd rather not have to wait quite so long, it's still good to hear that they've announced something concrete.

I wonder why they didn't try for a November/December date. It seems like that would want the increased sales that Christmas would bring.

At least it gives me time to re-read the series again.

I sincerely hope they Mayans have it wrong, or I'm going to be slightly miffed

Bittersweet news. Want the last book so bad, but it's the last book. End of the road is in sight...

Lol, is this some kind of early April's Fools joke?

Brandon is almost done with his 2nd revision but the book won't come out for 11 more months yet? I thought Brandon estimated the revisions would take about 6 months. Now it's a full year??

*Grumble*

I started to read this series back in 1991. I figure, I have waited 21 years already, I can wait another 11 months. Then again, I was recently diagnosed with a small benign brain tumor next to my optic nerves.... Uh, hurry up just in case... Thanks

Whoops...started my reread a little early. I'm going to have to read it twice this year. This guy is still excited though!

Has Tor disabled comments on their AMOL release date page?

This smells of yet more marketing ploy -

"Over the next few seasons, Tor will continue to release new Wheel of Time material, including trade paperback editions of the early novels with new art, new graphic novel editions of the The Eye of the World comics..."

TOR (and since Brandon said it was Harriet's call on the date, her as well) seem to want to milk this last book for all it is worth, which is completely despicable behaviour. I understand that she wants to make the book right by RJ, and have no problem with that, but it should not take AN ENTIRE YEAR to edit and produce a book (especially since Brandon has already said he has sent parts off to her already).

I am thoroughly disgusted with this marketing ploy. The book should be ready for publication by October - how many fans of the series will pass away in the three months between and be deprived of knowing the ending - all because of greed.

please World, don't end!

I'm wondering what this business about new paperback editions portends for the cover of AMoL. Since the death of the original artist (not sure I remember the name, but "Sweet" comes to mind), I'm wondering if AMoL will have a completely different cover art style. (I kind of hope not, since it will look out of place on my bookshelf...and there's no way in heck I'm going to buy all 13 of the prior books again to make a matching set.)

Anyone have a guess as to when the paperback is coming out?

Might be a marketing ploy, the date might be of some significance to Harriet also. The last book in the final month of the Year of the Dragon...I like that.

The last two books came out in October/November respectively. So atleast for me it's not that big of a deal since I had thought they would release it within those two months to follow the other releases anyway. So as far as I'm concerned it's only a short wait of two months. I'm still happy this is still getting finished at all. They,meaning Harriet, wants to wait till then...God Bless Her !!! As it has been said time and again, it's her call !!!

Greed, to push it back past Christmas by a measly two weeks? Now, how does that help sales?

For anyone who's been reading Brandon's updates, this should come as no shock at all. He was late (by a month or so) on his submission of the first draft (of course, those deadlines were self-imposed, so you can't really fault him. Plus, Alloy was cool, and I guess he had to tour for a few weeks). The second draft isn't done yet, and they should probably do about 20 of them to really polish this one (ToM was showing its speedy production, and no one wants that again). And naturally, since this is the last one, everyone wants to make it the best it could be.

I was worried the fall date wasn't going to cut it now that we've fallen behind, and we'd end up with a worse book because they wouldn't want to miss out on the holidays sales. I'm not worried any longer (well, not so much). Let it be the best book it possibly can (it's insane to expect we wouldn't miss RJ), that's really all we can ask of Brandon, Harriet and Tor. Thank god they agree (on second thought, it wouldn't hurt us to thank THEM).

Dear Dragonmount and anyone from Tor (who, disapointingly, dsallowed feedback to this news on their site - what is THAT cowardly act all about???) who may be perusing this;

I have ONE question and one question only for you in response to this news, yet, before I.ask it I simply ask that a read of the comments above mine be performed...the comments where:

Trench says he "can't be too happy" and Elgee refers to being "miffed" and MyKillK ask if this news is an early "April Fool's Joke."

I think I can stop there and still get the jist across. ... Now. My One Question:

Brandon, Harriet, Tom, Tor, Tor.Com, Dragonmout....did ANY of you people have ANY clue how angry many would be when this was released?

That is my question.

Fish

Interesting, I could not leave a comment at Tor.com They really wouldn't care, but I want to state how unhappy I am with the publishing date. Young readers, time moves much differently for you. I knew it would not be out before Nov., but keeping the book until 2013 makes me think that it is just marketing to sell the other books for Christmas, or there's an award they want the book/series to win and being released at the beginning of the year is better for that. Several people in my family have not lived to the end of this series and it's one of my biggest fears of never knowing the end. Don't believe that this date was chosen to keep out typos. All the mistakes were found by readers in the other book within several days of its publication. If their editors can't do it quicker? Since we are only readers, our opinions really don't count in the publishing world. It is very sad that it will not be published in 2012 as promised on Tor's site.

I smell editing, re-editing, more editing, polish, more polish, extra-polish brand polish with some edit on top and varnished with an extra coat of we should have taken at least this long with the prior two books.

Daddy likes!

Listen to "Retired" above. NAILED IT.

Is it too soon still to be asking what Tor's official response to the backlash is - and what they plan to do in attempting to set things right??

Fish

I can't tell you what Tor's "official" response is, but I can tell you what their "unofficial" response would be:

"We're not worried about a backlash. All those complaining will still buy the book when it comes out."

And it's absolutely true. Not a single person will choose to not buy the book because of the late release date.

Really? People are complaining because now it's essentially a month or so later than the November 2012 date they've been talking about for a while?

Fun fact:

Since the date Brandon S was chosen to finish the series, and with the upcoming release of his next book, 'The Rithmatist' which is supposed to come out THIS YEAR; He will have published 3 of his own books for each WOT book he's published. That's 3:1 folks. Kinda shows where the Wheel of Time sits on his priority list.

I've only been a member of this community for a short time, but I've been coming here for about four years now. I've never felt any extremely compelling need to comment.

But I do feel compelled to express my outright frustration. I am extremely disappointed with the ridiculous amount of entitlement being posted here.

First of all no one ever announced a definitive date. Second, there are plenty of places where you could track Brandon's progress without having to make broad assumptions about how you think the publishing process works for what is assumed to be an incredibly massive final novel. There was also never any indication that Mr. Sanderson would put his own work on hold for three plus years to work on WoT. He has his own readers, some of which do not overlap into the Dragonmount community, whom are looking forward to his work. Should he just leave them to rot? If anything I think we should be thanking him for a job very well done. A job that may not have ever gotten done had he not stepped up to bat.

I am incredibly excited about this news because it means that, after so long, we have reached the end. It will be amazing. In the interim though, I do have other books to read.

So please lets act a little less like spoiled children and show some appreciation for Sanderson. Between writing none stop on multiple projects, podcast, blogs, interviews and touring; he's a seriously busy dude.

I'm going to stop here, since I've pretty much just punched this out on my cell phone, and say that I am seriously stoked for January and can't wait to see how it all ends.

@Povno, here, here! I totally agree with you 100%. WoT fans like to complain that BS still has continued his own works while writing the WoT in the past few years, but you know, I have heard his own fans (of his works, not the WoT) complain about him writing WoT taking time away from his stuff. All around, less complaining on all fronts, and more understanding and gratitude for what Brandon does, would be nice.

I don't mind.

Just felt that I needed to add that for some nuance. However long it takes to get it right is fine with me. I want Brandon and Harriet to be comfortable in doing their thing so that they get it right, I really don't want them to feel burdened or pressured in this.

I don't think the frustration is aimed at Brandon, it's aimed at TOR with this release date. Pushing for November 2011 allowed them extra time to polish it up. I smelled a rat when they got on Brandon for announcing that the first draft was finished, and this is why.

Like in the comments above, the WOT community who received the ARC's (advance reader copies) for editing reasons nailed all the typos and continuity errors in days the last few books. This smacks of complacency with TOR that we will buy the books anyways and trying to milk the series with re-releases and new covers.

Cool for us, but when they fail to invest in advertising in the later books compared to earlier books just goes to show you how they think these released will be a shoe-in for New York Times Bestseller and awards for 2013. But the community has already predicted potential manipulation of the release date so it's no surprise to many of us. We complained that November was too far out for their swearing to get it to us as humanly possible, so it's two more months than what they said...yah, grand scheme of things not too much of a big deal. Least they could do to sweeten the deal is announce if the Outriggers are a go or not. Maybe I should use a Tor-like approach paying my mortgage and all my bills. "I said I was looking to pay in November, well, I've decided to push it back to January." lol