Sanderson himself seems to be losing confidence. - Edit 1
Before modification by Werthead at 01/01/2010 12:16:02 AM
In light of Sanderson's recent writing setbacks, I don't think a 2010 release for ToM is absolutely certain. Given that he only handed in the manuscript for TGS in mid 2009 though, at least if memory serves, I think it's still probable that we will get the book late this year unless Tor decides to space out the Way of Kings and WoT releases by a few more months, which I hope won't be the case.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
According to his Facebook updates, anyway.
This is very strange. Currently ToM stands at 82% complete. He didn't complete THE GATHERING STORM in its published state until June 2009 and it was published in October, only four months later. So he has another six to seven months to finish less than 20% of the book, which seems eminently achievable.
However, he has also been saying that ToM is much more complex because it is less concentrated and cohesive than TGS, and it may take longer. It's also possible that since he has to write AMoL itself virtually from scratch (he had a big head start with ToM from the material he'd written alongside TGS), Tor may choose to space out ToM so it's more or less halfway between the two other books. There's also the issue that Tor seem to want the second STORMLIGHT book, which is not written at all yet, out in 2011, so Brandon will have to work on that for part of next year as well.
At the same time, you'd imagine that Tor would want to capitalise on TGS' very encouraging reception and get the next book out before Christmas 2010 as well, and if it takes another 18-24 months before we see the honest-to-gosh-last-ever WoT book, then that's not too much of a problem.
I suspect we may, yet again, be in a situation where Sanderson is saying one thing but Tom Doherty may decide something else, and we will see ToM again regardless in 2010. However, AMoL in 2011 I would say is now right out, unless Brandon is going to abandon the second and third STORMLIGHT books to concentrate on it to the exclusion of everything else.