Robert Jordan's new series

[Encryptic]

<Groundhog Day>Robert Jordan must be stopped. And I must stop him.</Groundhog Day>

-jay

Heh heh heh....

Maybe we could balefire all memory of Book 10 out of existence and force him to re-write it.

[pat5150]

Here is something I found on both wotmania and dragonmount... Thought it would be of interest to both Robert Jordan fans and haters!;-)
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About Infinity of Heaven:
Robert Jordan's next fantasy series, entitlted INFINITY OF HEAVEN, will (as of right now) be 6 books long. He will finish THE WHEEL OF TIME before focusing on this new world.

Dragonmount was able to talk to Robert Jordan and get some preliminary info:

DRAGONMOUNT: Is this the "Shipwrecked" series you've been referring to for a while?

RJ: Yes, this is the "Shipwrecked" series, although what I originally thought of as the first volume actually turned out to be the second.

DM: Will you write this before or after you finish the WoT prequels?

RJ: Infinity of Heaven almost certainly will be written before the prequels, though I might do them between the Infinity books.

You know, the reception of New Spring: the Novel surprised me. Some people were upset or even angry that I wasn't getting on with the main story. I even heard people say there was no reason to read the novel if you had read the novella. (That, by the way, is very wrong. There is stuff in that novel that won't ever be anywhere else, including the test for Aes Sedai and the reasons why certain people have the relationships they do in the books among other things.) Anyway, given the reactions of so many people, I decided to shelve the other two prequels for a while.

DM: Any clues to what the title of the series means?

RJ: RAFO. Heh-heh. You didn't think I was going to abandon that, did you?


DM: How many books will there be in this series? (I mean... REALLY...how many? heh heh)

RJ: The plan is for two sets of three books each, much more tightly focused. In many ways, The Wheel of Time is a story of nations and cultures undergoing change as much as it is a story of Rand or Mat or anyone else. I still intend to take you to a very different world -- in some ways MUCH more different than the world of WoT -- but I won't have quite so many story lines running.

Yes, I think it's pretty exciting, too. This thing has been bubbling around in the back of my head since about 91 or 92, so it has had a good long gestation. And more to come, since I haven't finished Wheel yet, and I'm certainly not going to do any work on Infinity until I do.

As more information becomes available, you'll find it here on DM.


And KoD:

Robert Jordan emailed us today with the following:

"The best news of all is that Knife of Dreams is on target to be finished this month. For the first time in more than ten years, I WON'T be on tour two months after a book is done. I can't tell you what a luxury that seems."

For months, Jordan has been saying that he would like to be finished with the Knife of Dreams manuscript by April, so that he and Tor can spend the summer giving it the full editorial treatment. This has not been done since The Lord of Chaos . Usually, they do a quick and dirty editorial process to get the book in the store for us as quickly as possible. From this, it sounds like he is right where he wants to be and we can expect the book to be released on schedule in October.
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Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

[Variol Farseer]

What wonderful news!

Not only for WOT fans; from my point of view, Mr. Rigney is behaving like a professional again. That's good to see.

[pat5150]

That's very interesting to hear. Unfortunately (said I with some asperity, trying not to grind my teeth) it doesn't help those of us who are trying to deal with Tor now. 'Cos they have cut back their budgets and their buying, and are running with far too few staff for the work they have to do. I've been waiting for two and a half years for a definite response on a pair of manuscripts I sent there, and I'm one of the lucky ones. I know of one poor woman who's been awaiting a response since 2000, and another whose manuscript has been lost altogether.

My friend, as a fellow writer to another, if you have waited this long, feel free to send your ms to another publisher. As writers, we are supposed to give agents and publishers a "reasonable" period of time to peruse and review our material. But this is far beyond what "reasonable" is, by any stretch of the imagination. And that poor woman. . .

Something like 3 years ago, L. E. Modesitt, jr. gave me an inside scoop, providing me with the name of a junior editor to whom I could send my submission. I was thrilled, as you can expect. But I never heard from him, because editors, juniors and seniors, are buried under tons of manuscripts. If I am not mistaken, there is no more acquisition editor at Tor Books at the moment. So the slush pile is not an option.

The problem is, as you are doubtless well aware, is that almost all publishers don't accept unagented material. And with the current market conditions, few agents are interested in the fantasy genre, especially is you are an unpublished author. So all of us who love this genre, to put it simply, are caught in some sort of viscious circle. You can't get published until you get an agent. But you cannot get an agent until you've been published.

I found a relatively big agency which is still accepting submissions in the fantasy genre. Mind you, only "excellent" manuscripts will be reviewed. But it is no waste of time to send them a submission, since they will at least review a few sample chapters. I'm thrilled to have passed that test, and they now have my full manuscript under review. Knowing the market, I am acutely aware that this doesn't mean anything, but it's still a step in the right direction.

If you are interested, send me a personal message and I'll give you their contact info... As I said, it ain't much, but at least your material will be read and evaluated. It is a very bad time to be a fantasy author looking to get his or her foot inside the door. But don't give up!

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

[gyrehead]

That's very interesting to hear. Unfortunately (said I with some asperity, trying not to grind my teeth) it doesn't help those of us who are trying to deal with Tor now. 'Cos they have cut back their budgets and their buying, and are running with far too few staff for the work they have to do. I've been waiting for two and a half years for a definite response on a pair of manuscripts I sent there, and I'm one of the lucky ones. I know of one poor woman who's been awaiting a response since 2000, and another whose manuscript has been lost altogether.

I am not sure what that has to do with buying a set of books from an established author within house whose work will most likely see profits for said house. Tor is a business. Jordan is an author. Meaning he writes for a living. I guess I am just too much of a capitalist to see any inherent evil in this particular deal. Especially when I do know from simple economics that if Jordan delivers a hit and sells lots of books, Tor will have more seed money in its pockets.

But maybe this will help. Tor was rather fast in their response to me and two others in my writing group. Both are now on board and quite happy. I am not a book splitter and have issues with my work so I will probably hold off. Good things do happen. Or they don't. Unfortunately that is life.

(Two and a half years, by the way, is about how long it took SRD to accumulate all 47 rejections for Lord Foul's Bane. Truly, there were speed demons in those days!)

By the way, there's nothing to say that those 29 authors, or some of them, wouldn't have been published by someone else if it hadn't been for Jordan. Tor may have expanded their stable, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they caused the readership for fantasy to grow in proportion. At least some of their growth appears to have come at the expense of other publishers in the field.

That is a bit disingenuous. Jordan and Tor are blamed for taking too much revenue in one deal and that keeps authors from being printed, but a deal that stands to make a huge amount of money that in turn can be used to gamble on new authors is completely disregarded?

Ooookay. Gotcha.

[Variol Farseer]

I am not sure what that has to do with buying a set of books from an established author within house whose work will most likely see profits for said house.

Because it will take years for Jordan to earn back even the signature half of his advance. In effect, he's been paid several million dollars for a series of books that he isn't even going to start writing until WOT is finished. That's a significant hole in Tor's operating capital, and requires them to cut their acquisition budget for other authors. Many publishers have been hoist on this particular petard before.

Tor is a business. Jordan is an author. Meaning he writes for a living. I guess I am just too much of a capitalist to see any inherent evil in this particular deal. Especially when I do know from simple economics that if Jordan delivers a hit and sells lots of books, Tor will have more seed money in its pockets.

I am so conservative that I probably make you look like a Trotskyist, but that doesn't mean I automatically approve of any business deal that comes along. Tor may have more 'seed money' when (if?) Jordan finishes delivering the series — if it's as big as WOT. (But how many authors produce two bestselling novel series in a lifetime? If the new series turns out like, say, Mordant's Need — which sold only 20% as well as the first two Covenant trilogies — Tor stands to lose huge amounts of money.) Meanwhile, though, they're out of pocket a big chunk of change, and will have to cut back operations in other areas. Which hits guys like me directly in the neck.

That is a bit disingenuous. Jordan and Tor are blamed for taking too much revenue in one deal and that keeps authors from being printed, but a deal that stands to make a huge amount of money that in turn can be used to gamble on new authors is completely disregarded?

Ooookay. Gotcha.

Nothing disingenuous about it. You talk as if the Jordan deal were a sure-fire moneymaker for Tor. It isn't; it's a huge gamble itself. By placing so much money on one huge bet, they greatly reduce their capacity to make smaller bets. And if the big bet loses, their capacity to publish new authors will be permanently damaged.

Now, it's Tom Doherty's business; he can bet the company if he wants. But meanwhile, he's short of editorial staff, and the people he's got are running years behind in their work. I am actually quite angry about that. It's his business whether he wants new authors or not. But having solicited my manuscript, it is his firm's responsibility to deal with it in a timely manner; and because of their own decisions, they do not have the resources to do that. If I had any alternative, I would quit this cockamamie business and tell them to get stuffed. But at present there is no other line of work that I am both physically able to do (for medical reasons I won't go into here) and qualified to do. And I have no idea where next month's rent is coming from.

[Thaale]

IIRC, Jordan once described his vision of the “Shipwrecked” series as having an older hero like Lan. The setting would be a society reminiscent of Jordan’s Seanchan one. Supposedly Jordan’s hero would be shipwrecked and discovered by these people, who would then enslave him as is their custom.

I would not say that Jordan has transcended the genre at all. He has been the most popular author within the field of fantasy, but he has never enjoyed widespread popularity or name recognition outside of the genre. I would guess that more readers in general would be familiar with Tony Hillerman’s or Nora Roberts’s or Peter Straub’s names than with Jordan’s.

OTOH, it’s true that Rowling has jumped outside several boxes, when you consider that she is a British children’s fantasist, yet she has managed to gain widespread popularity among people in other countries who don’t often read British books, adults who don’t usually read children’s / YA fiction, and readers who don’t normally go near fantasy.

Of course Tolkien was boundary breaking as well, and he crashed the mainstream party bigtime. Jordan’s far more modest success has not broken through to the popular culture. The popular graffito, “Frodo Lives!” needed no explanation. Paint “Rand al’Thor Lives!” on a wall somewhere and 99 people out of 100 are going to think it probably has something to do with MS-13.

To be fair to RJ, he produced a tremendous amount of material from 1990 to 1994. I assume that he was able to publish over a book a year back then in part because he had started writing TWOT back in 1986 and was then well onto book 3 or 4 by the time the second book came out, etc. Eventually, though, the swift publishing schedule caught up with his writing backlog and he was writing in “real time,” thus the much longer waits for books 7 through 11.

IIRC, the first two books came out in 1990, followed by a book a year from 1991-1994. That’s a very quick schedule considering the length of books such as Lord of Chaos. Recall that Donaldson has given himself three years to write each Final Chronicles book. Jordan has never had a three year gap between books, but he and TOR are often criticized for drawing things out because fans are impatient with the length of the series and because they became used to getting a book a year back then.

The problem isn’t really RJ missing deadlines – it’s TOR insisting on rushing his manuscripts right into print without any editing. That’s their choice, not his. Now I assume those of you citing financial pressures on TOR know whereof you speak. But I have never heard that RJ held a gun to Doherty’s head and made him hand him huge advances that TOR would then be unable to overcome having given him until the whole series was delivered.

[Variol Farseer]

But I have never heard that RJ held a gun to Doherty’s head and made him hand him huge advances that TOR would then be unable to overcome having given him until the whole series was delivered.

No, that's what his agent is for.

Seriously: a number of big-name agents count coup by the size of advances they can wring out of publishers. If the publisher can't afford the advance, the book isn't worth it, and everybody (except the agent) winds up losing money on the deal, that just proves how powerful the agent was. You have to be an 800-pound gorilla to inflict such terms on people, and some people have no higher ambition than that.

As Frank Sinatra once said, 'Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.'

[Variol Farseer]

I would not say that Jordan has transcended the genre at all. He has been the most popular author within the field of fantasy, but he has never enjoyed widespread popularity or name recognition outside of the genre. I would guess that more readers in general would be familiar with Tony Hillerman’s or Nora Roberts’s or Peter Straub’s names than with Jordan’s.

OTOH, it’s true that Rowling has jumped outside several boxes, when you consider that she is a British children’s fantasist, yet she has managed to gain widespread popularity among people in other countries who don’t often read British books, adults who don’t usually read children’s / YA fiction, and readers who don’t normally go near fantasy.

By the way, I agree with this 100%.

[Thaale]

Seriously: a number of big-name agents count coup by the size of advances they can wring out of publishers. If the publisher can't afford the advance, the book isn't worth it, and everybody (except the agent) winds up losing money on the deal, that just proves how powerful the agent was. You have to be an 800-pound gorilla to inflict such terms on people, and some people have no higher ambition than that.

That's interesting. It's the same way in the sports world. The agents are the ones behind the deals that have those balloon payments in some hypothetical seventh or eighth year of the contract that in fact will never occur. The point is to get the agent's name connected with some number like $100 million (that will really be more like $30 million) so as to attract new clients.

[Warmark Jay]

IIRC, Jordan once described his vision of the “Shipwrecked” series as having an older hero like Lan. The setting would be a society reminiscent of Jordan’s Seanchan one. Supposedly Jordan’s hero would be shipwrecked and discovered by these people, who would then enslave him as is their custom.

So...exactly like "Shogun".

[gyrehead]

Well I guess if being stranded in another culture is exactly like Shogun. I tend to think the way Jordan has talked about it is much more like Brothers of Earth, but I don't that would ping on most's radar or stick in the indignant craw of so many who apparently like their knickers to ride high.

After all until the society and the character are put forth in actual writing, to snivel about it being just like Shogun seems overly premature. But if it give people to do?

Hey Clive woodall wrote a book and it has birds looking for a home and for safety and has a battle between other evil birs at the end! It is just like Watership Down. Someone get on that!

And then there is the matter of George R.R. Martin borrowing rather heavily from the War of the Roses, in particular the Canon of Hampstead approach and then his obvious Moorcock and Lee influences in the Dany parts. Get the originality police immediately!

Don't forget the fact that Donaldson has a left a few sticky fingerprints on previous works, themes and ideas. Oh my goodness! The horror!

[theDespiser]

theres alot of books out there...theres bound to be similiarties betwen ALOT of books...that doesnt mean hes copying


cmon, i know you guys always get pissed when TCTC is compared to LOTR...so stopy yer whinin!!!

[I'm Murrin]

Hey Clive woodall wrote a book and it has birds looking for a home and for safety and has a battle between other evil birs at the end! It is just like Watership Down. Someone get on that!

Actually, it's quite different. And very, very bad.

[pat5150]

Speaking of Jordan, here is the Amazon's synopsis for Knife of Dreams. It appears that the next book will be quite interesting!

The Wheel of Time turns, and Robert Jordan gives us the eleventh volume of his extraordinary masterwork of fantasy.

The dead are walking, men die impossible deaths, and it seems as though reality itself has become unstable: All are signs of the imminence of Tarmon Gai’don, the Last Battle, when Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, must confront the Dark One as humanity’s only hope. But Rand dares not fight until he possesses all the surviving seals on the Dark One’s prison and has dealt with the Seanchan, who threaten to overrun all nations this side of the Aryth Ocean and increasingly seem too entrenched to be fought off. But his attempt to make a truce with the Seanchan is shadowed by treachery that may cost him everything. Whatever the price, though, he must have that truce. And he faces other dangers. There are those among the Forsaken who will go to any length to see him dead--and the Black Ajah is at his side...

Unbeknownst to Rand, Perrin has made his own truce with the Seanchan. It is a deal made with the Dark One, in his eyes, but he will do whatever is needed to rescue his wife, Faile, and destroy the Shaido who captured her. Among the Shaido, Faile works to free herself while hiding a secret that might give her her freedom or cause her destruction. And at a town called Malden, the Two Rivers longbow will be matched against Shaido spears.

Fleeing Ebou Dar through Seanchan-controlled Altara with the kidnapped Daughter of the Nine Moons, Mat attempts to court the woman to whom he is half-married, knowing that she will complete that ceremony eventually. But Tuon coolly leads him on a merry chase as he learns that even a gift can have deep significance among the Seanchan Blood and what he thinks he knows of women is not enough to save him. For reasons of her own, which she will not reveal until a time of her choosing, she has pledged not to escape, but Mat still sweats whenever there are Seanchan soldiers near. Then he learns that Tuon herself is in deadly danger from those very soldiers. To get her to safety, he must do what he hates worse than work...

In Caemlyn, Elayne fights to gain the Lion Throne while trying to avert what seems a certain civil war should she win the crown...

In the White Tower, Egwene struggles to undermine the sisters loyal to Elaida from within...

The winds of time have become a storm, and things that everyone believes are fixed in place forever are changing before their eyes. Even the White Tower itself is no longer a place of safety. Now Rand, Perrin and Mat, Egwene and Elayne, Nynaeve and Lan, and even Loial, must ride those storm winds, or the Dark One will triumph.

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

[Encryptic]

Speaking of Jordan, here is the Amazon's synopsis for Knife of Dreams. It appears that the next book will be quite interesting!

I just hope it's not as dull as Crossroads of Twilight, or Jordan may have to call it "Butter Knife of Dreams".

[Warmark Jay]

Gyrehead and Despiser - actually, I gave up reading Jordan after the first two Wheel books; it's not just his liberal "borrowing" from other authors, but his general writing style that was a put-off, as well as his seemingly market-driven need to keep churning out "Wheel of Time" novels. He's the Don Pendleton of fantasy. I don't particularly care if an author isn't wholly original in his ideas; find me ANY fantasy author - even Tolkien - who's come up with something completely new and original. (And yes, being the captain of a ship stranded in an Asiatic warrior-based culture, first as a prisoner and then rising to the level of exalted fighter is exactly like "Shogun"; at the very least, I'm guessing Jordan saw "The Last Samurai"). As Mick Jagger once said, it's not the song, it's the singer. I'm reading and thoroughly enjoying Erikson's "Deadhouse Gates", but I'd never call his work "completely original" (nor, I suspect, would he). I would say that he takes themes and characters that we've seen and puts his own interesting mark on them. As to Jordan, I'm not alone in my opinion, nor do I whine or snivel - I just don't read his stuff anymore.

[pat5150]

I just read the KNIFE OF DREAM press release:

«With over 12 million copies of The Wheel of Time series sold in North America, Tor will be publishing Knife of Dreams with an announced first printing of a million copies. As part of its $750,000 National marketing campaign (more details below), Tor will be promoting the Knife of Dreams with an Internet Hunt where participants will have the opportunity to navigate through twelve sites by solving a series of riddles. The solution to each riddle will lead to the URL of the next site.»

A 750, 000$ marketing campaign and a first print of a million copies!?! That's unheard of in the fantasy genre! Not that Jordan needs such a campaign, anyway!

Patrick
www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com

[theDespiser]

everybody's entitled to their opinions...it just grates how completey wrong I think some people's are...but thats just me...

[Ainulindale]

A 750, 000$ marketing campaign and a first print of a million copies!?! That's unheard of in the fantasy genre! Not that Jordan needs such a campaign, anyway!

If JK Rowling woke up with Robert Jordan's budget and money she would kill herself