About this book
The Gathering Storm is the twelth book in The Wheel of Time series. Released on October 27th, 2009, it was the first book in the series published after Robert Jordan's death. Brandon Sanderson co-authored the book, using extensive notes and recordings that were collected before Jordan's death.

So far, early reviews have been mostly postiive. (see our review).

History
As most of you know, Robert Jordan passed away in September, 2007. The book he was working on, A Memory of Light, which was intended to be the twelth and final novel in The Wheel of Time series, was incomplete at the time of his passing. He left behind a staggering amount of notes on the world, as well as some written chapters for the final book. In addition, for the parts of the story he did not have documented in written form, he passed on in the good, old fashioned way: he told people the story.

In his last days he told the story to his friends and family, who recorded it onto tape. In the months that followed his death, Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan's beloved wife and editor, put together a comprehensive outline of this final book.

Brandon Sanderson, an up-and-coming fantasy writer (and long-time fan of Robert Jordans's) was chosen by Harriet to bring the outline to life in the form of a published novel. Harriet will edit these book, just as she did the rest of the series.

In March 2009, it was announced that A Memory of Light was going to be far too long to contain into a single novel and would be published as three seperate novels instead. This was primarily a creative decision, and not a business one. (For a full explanation of why this decision was made, please read Brandon's blog post on the topic).

The final three books will be:

1. The Gathering Storm
2. Towers of Midnight
3. A Memory of Light

The timeframe for the remaining novels is currently unknown. Brandon Sanderson is currently working on completing them. For frequent updates directly from Brandon, be sure to visit his website (www.brandonsanderson.com) and read his blog.

Why did they split "A Memory of Light" into three parts?
As stated above, before he died, Robert Jordan frequently said that he intended to write just ONE more WoT novel, entitled A MEMORY OF LIGHT, which would conclude the series. The decision to take his remaining notes and publish them as three novels was ultimately something Harriet annd Brandon thought was best in order to properly tell the story. Please see Brandons blog post for the full details. He explains it very well on his website.

Before Brandon had posted that article, we asked Harriet that same question in an interview we did with her in March 2009, right when the news about the split started to come out. Here's what she said:

The material that Jim left was very capacious, and Brandon saw after working with it for a while that he could not complete it in less than a total of 750,000 words. This is probably an impossible thing to bind - unless we sold it with a magnifying glass. 250,000 words is in fact a fat, or Rubensesque, novel. You will notice that 3 x 250,000 equals 750,000. So... part of the decision was based on making a book within the scope of binding technology. The major part of the decision was to get ALL the story that Jim left out there for us all.

The full interview with Harriet can be found here.

On his blog, Brandon Sanderson said:

I'll be honest, this is a big, big project. I stand by one promise to you, no matter what else happens. I will NOT artificially inflate the size of this book. It doesn't matter to me how many volumes Tor decides to make it; the story is the same to me. One volume, as Robert Jordan planned it. Enormous.

Will the prologue be published early?
Yes! You can order it from Amazon.com right now for $2.99 as an eBook. If you're wondering why you have to pay, it's because it's 20,000+ words (about 100 pages) and you're getting it over a month early before the release date.

In addition, you can read chapter one, Tears from Steel, for free on Tor.com until the end of October.

There was a special reading from the prologue at the JordanCon convention in April 2009. Harriet shared an audio recording of Robert Jordan, just 21 days before his death, dictating the opening to the prologue in The Gathering Storm. He was not reading, he was telling the story in vivid detail. The experience was incredible, and by the end of it, the entire room of 200+ people was completely silent save for a few people weeping. To read the opening of the prologue was one thing. To hear Robert Jordan tell it to you was something even more amazing. At this time the audio file is not online, and it will be up to Harriet if she ever wishes to release it to the public.

What will happen in this book?
We have, of course, no idea! (Well, some of our staff do. Read our review of the book here) Dragonmount will soon publish a list of unresolved questions and plot threads that we know of. Most of those are likely to be resolved, but both Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson are known for their suprise twists.

Brandon Sanderson said the following about the contents of the final books:

[These books] WILL finish the series. I've read the outline, and I am confident that I can do it in a single book. This won't go five more novels. It will end here.

Note that I'm not saying there won't be more Wheel of Time material released. That's not up to me. There were notes for prequels (Mr. Jordan wrote one of a planned three) and some notes on what happened to certain characters after the end of book 12. However, those are all intended as extra information and separate books outside the Wheel of Time main series.

Where can I learn more about Brandon Sanderson?

Brandon runs a very active website complete with forums and a blog. He encourages anybody to contact himn through his website and encourages you to enjoy his free sample chapeters of his published books.

Please note: if you contact him, please do not pester him with questions about the plot of A MEMORY OF LIGHT. His contract prevents him from being able to talk about that stuff.

Brandon Sanderson's official website
Dragonmount Interview #1 with Brandon
Dragonmount Interview #2 with Brandon (One year after the announcement)
Wotmania 2005 interview with Brandon Sanderson

Some selected books by Brandon Sanderson
Elantris
Mistborn: The Final Empire (Book 1 of the Mistborn trilogy)
The Well of Ascension (Book 2 of of the Mistborn trilogy)
Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians (Young Adult novel)

Sample Chapters of Brandon's work
Mistborn: The Final Empire - Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Elantris - Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3