Tor Books has set a January 8, 2013 release date for A Memory of Light, the final book in The Wheel of Time series–concluding the epic fantasy created by the late Robert Jordan.
After Jordan died in 2007, novelist Brandon Sanderson (pictured) used his notes to write the conclusion to the series, publishing The Gathering Storm in 2009 and Towers of Midnight in 2010. When the news hit the Internet this afternoon, Tor.com and Sanderson’s site both struggled to handle the rush of traffic.
Sanderson posted a frank essay about the writing process on his Facebook page: “I turned in a 360,000-word book. That’s 20% longer than what they wanted, and that means each step of editing and production will require 20% more time than they had set aside. In addition, while I’ve set my own deadlines, I’ve come right up against them and (in a few cases) tiptoed across. For example, instead of sending a revised book at the end of December, I only had a first draft. That’s the length pushing me back and making me revise expectations.”