Warming up for The Gathering Storm

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 [...]