Today is the day when the long-awaited sequel to the way too long fantasy series The Wheel of Time is released. The writing and publishing of this series is a story in its own way, although I doubt even Robert Jordan would have been able to squeeze ten more than five books from it.

I think anyone that has started reading a long fantasy series that is currently unfinished (and it seems fantasy is a genre cursed with long series) lives with the fear of the author dying before it is completed, or the author simply seems to focus on other things (yes, I’m looking at you George R.R. Martin). It’s like reading a Sherlock Holmes story and finding the last revealing chapter to be ripped out. Now you will go around wondering who killed the butler, and you will never find out!

Well, that is exactly what happened to The Wheel of Time. After having squeezed out eleven books in the series Robert Jordan passed away in September 2007. Add insult to injury, Jordan had even proclaimed that the next book would be the last, even if it killed him. Funny as it is… no wait, that’s too cheap.

While fans were still left in shock, it was announced that Brandon Sanderson had been chosen to finish the series. Jordan had wisely (as in ‘someone would have dug him up, made him into a zombie, and forced him to reveal the end’-wisely) made plenty of notes so that at least the ending would be as Jordan had planned.

As Sanderson progressed – and he kept readers up to date on his blog – a dreadful discovery was made. It was just too much content to squeeze into one book. And after some more time, that it wouldn’t even fit into two books! The final volume of the series – by Jordan named A Memory of Light – was to be chopped up in three books: The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight (could be changed), and A Memory of Light.

This is where we now, with The Gathering Storm being released today. My copy has yet to arrive, probably thanks to me living in a backwards country where polar bears reportedly roam the streets. But when it arrives I will likely do like I do with all new fantasy books by favorite authors: burn through it and keep food, sleep, and communication from the outside world to a minimum until it is finished. And then it must be reviewed!

How do you review a Wheel of Time book? Well…

You should take notes during reading to how many times specific events happen.

Negative things could be (you better bring plenty of papers):

• Number of times a woman complains about the amount of honey in their tea.
• Number of times Nynaeve pulls her braid.
• Number of times Egwene want to box someone’s ears.
• Number of times Rand/Perrin/Mat think that Rand/Perrin/Mat is better at handling girls than they are.
• Number of generic Aes Sedai with a complicated forename and surname we apparently really need to know.
• A “prologue” over a hundred pages.

And positive things could be (half a paper is enough here):

• Number of chapters that actually focus on Rand and drive the main plot forward.
• Number of times Rand has to fight one of the Forsaken. One is standard (the last chapter), but the more the better. They just resurrect afterwards so it’s ok.
• Number of important characters that die in such a way that it would be impossible and/or stupid to the plot to bring them back (yeah right).
• Number of plots (big and small) that has been going on since the first book that is wrapped up.

All this you mix together, make careful deviations and graphs, and hopefully you will know just how good/bad the book is in comparison to other books of the series. A book could be two and a half The Great Hunt (that’s good), or three Crossroads of Twilight (that’s bad).

I can’t wait for The Gathering Storm.