A Memory of Light

For those of you who follow the Wheel of Time series written by James Oliver Rigney aka Robert Jordan, you know that he passed away on September 16, 2007 after finally losing his battle fighting the disease Amyloidosis. At the time of his passing, he was working very closely with his wife Harriet who was also his editor. He knew his time was short and made sure to leave ample notes and instructions with her. He wanted to finish the story he began so many years ago.

After his death, there was a huge outpouring of sympathy for the family. But Harriet is a very strong woman and responded to Jim's fans on the Dragonmount site simply saying "Onward." After a short time of grieving and the funeral, she set forth to complete the task of finding an author to take the summaries, outline and writing that Jim had already completed to finish A Memory of Light, the last book in his Wheel of Time series. This was the single most important thing that she wanted to do to honor Jim. She chose Brandon Sanderson.

I have never read anything so compelling and engrossing as Jim's stories. When you read his stories, he draws the world around you. You feel the wind. You see the trees, the land and the cities. It's as if you truly are there and watching the story unfold. Thank you Harriet for your strength and perseverance and Brandon Sanderson for your hard work in the insurmountable task of filling Jim's shoes. I know the books will be wonderful and look forward to reading them as they come out. It is truly Jim's final memorial, the best way we all can remember and honor him, by finishing his story.

Brandon has been working on the book, while still keeping his commitments for his books with his publisher. Jim had originally wanted the last piece to be one complete book, regardless of how long it would have to be to finish the story. But it seems that it is indeed so big, that they are breaking it apart into 3 separate shorter stories. The first to be released on November 3rd, 2009, a little less than 5 months away. It can currently be pre-ordered through Amazon.com and is called The Gathering Storm. By pre-ordering, you can save a little more than $10 off of the MSRP of $29.99.

There is no timeline in stone and the titles of the final 2 books are not yet set in stone either. Dragonmount has the latest on all of this news.