Part of the reason I will be sad is that the books were with me for such a long period. I'm going to feel as the the end of an era in my life is closing. Its just not the actual book I'm going to reflect on, but all the places and times in my life when I read it. I'm going to flash back to being 14 and reading TEotW and then pestering my parents to read it too. I'll be transported back to the end of bootcamp in Orlando Florida, where I got a copy of Lord of Chaos and it took up just about all the space in a tiny personal locker I had available to me.

Just reading any news now about AMoL, chokes me up. When I actually sit down to read it I'll be a 36 year old man bawling with a book in his hands. Started the series when I was 14. WOT for a while has been in my life longer than it wasn't.

Whelan is probably my favorite cover artist, so I think he is a great replacement. Still wish DKS would have been able to finish his.

My only issue is that I had planned on taking a week of vacation when the book came out to give it its proper due and focus my attention on it. And I was kind of expecting that to be around November.

I don't like taking any vacation time early in a new year. Oh well.

Will be so bittersweet to read.

As far as linking to songs for inspiration ... at some point, I don't know... maybe a climatic Last Battle type scene perhaps he could have used this for inspiration, Last Battle song link, I know it will be on my playlist when reading the book.

You can also go down the road of making your own. I've done this with a couple of the chapter icons. Mainly the dragon icon used a lot for Rand's chapters and Mat's five dice icon.