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The Prologue
The prologue to the book is entitled Embers Falling on Dry Grass. It's about 90 pages long and is available as an ebook. (See our news article about it) Also available (for free) is an excerpt from the prologue on Tor's offical Knife of Dreams website. It's a pretty exciting excerpt and contains a really neat scene involving Galad.

Get Caught Up
In preperation for the release of Knife of Dreams in 2005, we published a downloadable document that was designed to bring readers up to speed with where everyone is at in the story. This recap reminded people of where the story left off at as of the end of book 10, Crossroads of Twilight. It prints up nicely, too

What's it about?
Knife of Dreams is the second-to-last novel in the massive Wheel of Time series. Like the other books in the series, it is not designed to stand on it's own. Here's the jacket text that was originally released when the book was published in 2005.

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.

The "Gasp" Event
One of the exciting things about waiting for this book to be published was that Robert Jordan gave us a hint of what was to happen in the book. At ComicCon 2004 in San Deigo, CA, he said the following about one of the events in Knife of Dreams:

In Knife of Dreams you'll learn the horrible cost of an event in a previous book that you cheered when it happened.

Although we won't ruin what that eent actually was in case you don't know, but suffice to say that the event itself generated some controversy as fans hotly debated whether or not it was indeed a terrible event. Robert Jordan later defended his statement in his blog after the book was published.

The Knife of Dreams Hunt
In months leading up to the release of Knife of Dreams, Tor Books hosted a online "Hunt" which was used to promote the book. The hunt featured trivia questions from each Wheel of Time novel, as well as artwork provided by some of the popular fan sites (Dragonmount contributed artwork and other assistance). Prizes were given out each week. Although there were some technical problems with the Hunt, most fans enjoyed participating and some were lucky enough to walk away with the prizes.