As we reported right before The Gathering Storm hit, Tor is releasing the entire Wheel of Time series in eBook format. Each month, beginning last month (October), they will release the next book in the series. THE EYE OF THE WORLD has already released been released and is currently available in eBook format.

This month, THE GREAT HUNT will be released. Here is a sneak peak at the cover that will be released with it. The artwork is by Kekai Kotaki.

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

Be sure to read the full feature on this artwork on Tor.com from Irene Gallo, the art director at Tor. Here’s a portion of what she had to say about this piece:

I mentioned to Harriet McDougal that Kekai is particularly good with depicting creatures so she suggested the cover be a recasting of the print edition of The Great Hunt cover. Trollocs, a wooded landscape, and Rand in full hero pose—you can’t beat that.

Wheel of Time eBook News and release schedule
Tor Books plans to re-release each one of the Wheel of Time novels as ebooks according to the schedule below. Each will have new cover art, specially commissioned for the eBook format. Each will feature a different artist.

• The Eye of the World: DM News | Tor.com feature | Buy from Amazon
• The Great Hunt: DM News | Tor.com Feature | Buy from Amazon
• The Dragon Reborn – 12/15/09
• The Shadow Rising – 01/ 19/10
• The Fires of Heaven – 02/16/10
• Lord of Chaos – 03/16/10
• A Crown of Swords – 04/20/10
• The Path of Daggers – 05/18/10
• Winter’s Heart – 06/22/10
• Crossroads of Twilight – 07/20/10
• Knife of Dreams – 08/24/10
• New Spring – 09/28/10
• The Gathering Storm – 11/2/10
• From Two Rivers – 11/16/10
• To The Blight – 11/16/10
• The Hunt Begins – 11/16/10
• New Threads in the Pattern- 11/16/10

So what do you think of this new image? Leave your comments below. Remember, we’ll have a more detailed report on the overall future of the Wheel of Time print-edition covers in the near future.

All week we have been reporting tweeting that there would be a total of SIX major announcements related to The Wheel of Time this week.

The first of these news items was the article we posted about Brandon and Harriet’s U.S. book tour. Be sure to check that out if you would like to come meet them in person.

Now here are the remaining FIVE announcements as announced at DragonCon this evening. We will post more details about each over the next few days and/or weeks.

1. CHAPTER ONE of The Gathering Storm is NOW AVAILABLE for FREE on Tor.com. On September 4th at 9:30 PM (EST, GMT -5), you can go to Tor.com to get it. You will need to register with their site, but it is free to do so. Don’t miss this opportunity to start reading the book TONIGHT. (And you thought you had plans on Friday night, huh?) Chapter 1 will remain on Tor.com through the end of October. An audio version is also available via the same link.
2. The PROLOGUE to The Gathering Storm will be available as an eBook purchase beginning on September 17th. The price will be $2.99 and will be available from Amazon.com, BN.com, Tor.com, as well as other online vendors.
3. Tor will be releasing the ENTIRE Wheel of Time series in various eBook formats beginning with the release of The Eye of the World beginning on October 27th. Each book will be released in series order on a monthly basis after that. The text of the books has been optimized for the ebook reading experience, and retain all illustrations and maps from the physical books. Pricing is not yet available
4. And that’s not all — Each of the WoT eBooks mentioned above (not the TGS prologue) will include new “cover art” by different professional artists. Tor is commissioning a different artist for each book, so you’ll see brand new art for each one of the books in the series. Here are the details for the artists of the first four books:
   

   THE EYE OF THE WORLD
   David Grove
   http://www.stock-illustration-portfolios.com/artistPage/Grove_David.html
   Illustrators Hall of Fame.
   Known for work in National Geographic, advertising, and movie posters including Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Outsiders.

   THE GREAT HUNT
   Kekai Kotaki
   Spectrum award winner.
   Lead Concept Artist for ArenaNet on Guild Wars 2.
   http://www.kekaiart.com/
   http://kekai.blogspot.com/

   THE DRAGON REBORN
   Donato Giancola
   http://www.donatoart.com/
   bio: http://www.tor.com/bios/artists/donato
   Multiple Spectrum and Hugo Award Winner, and Hamilton King award winner.

   THE SHADOW RISING
   Sam Weber
   Society of Illustrators and Spectrum award winner.
   http://www.sampaints.com/

5. Dragonmount is proud to announce a very special opportunity for WoT fans. We are working closely with the gang at Tor to put together a team of Storm Leaders for each city that Brandon visits on The Gathering Storm tour. These Storm Leaders will be fans (like you!) who will get to meet Brandon and/or Harriet before the bookstore event begins (food and drinks to be provided). This will be a small, intimate gathering, only about 4-5 people per city, where you can also get your books signed. Because in return, during the actual event, you’ll help us photograph and blog about the event, so that other fans can read about it on DM and other sites. There will also be other responsibilities outside of that, details of which to come next week. Storm Leaders will also receive a limited edition TGS Storm Leader Tour t-shirt™ and bragging rights to all your friends.

   Dragonmount will be accepting applications for Storm Leaders beginning sometime next week. It’s free to participate and sign up. We’ll post a lot more information next week about how you sign up, what’s required,and what we’re looking for from candidates.

You may be wondering why Tor is releasing Chapter 1 before the prologue? Yes, technically that’s out of order. The prologue is about 20,000 words, while Chapter 1 is only a few thousand (ie, much shorter). Be forewarned: Although you will have no problems whatsoever following along, chapter 1 does begin after a short scene takes place in the prologue.

Regarding the book covers: this new art will be exclusive to the eBooks for now. There are no plans to print new editions of the books themselves with the new art. Darryl K Sweet (who has illustrated the other books in the series) will most likely be asked to paint the covers for books 13 and book 14. Tor remains committed to exploring the idea of doing all new art for the series after the final book is published.

Finally, Brandon reported on twitter today that the new title of book 13 has been approved by Harriet and is now going to Tor for approval as well. (Tor needs to make sure the title doesn’t conflict with other recently published books, and that it doesn’t bother the booksellers. Yes, book sellers have a lot of say on book titles believe it or not)

So… what do you think? Not too bad, eh?

The Gathering Storm will be released in hardcover in the U.S, Canada, U.K. and other locations on October 27th.

More Info

• Pre-Order The Gathering Storm from Amazon.com (and help support this site)
• Read our Review of the book
• The Gathering Storm Info Page
• Downloadable Recap of Books 1-11 (PDF)
• Discuss the book on our forums
• Listen to us talk about #WoT and #TGS all day on Twitter

Brandon Sanderson, the author chosen to complete the final novel in The Wheel of Time series, is currently re-reading the entire series before embarking on his journey into A MEMORY OF LIGHT. As he writes, he’s sharing some of his thoughts and observations with fans via his blog. We’ll post these excerpts as he writes them.

Be sure to read his introduction first.

These are some MORE of his throughts on THE GREAT HUNT

I know that this book is the favorite of a lot of readers, and as I re-read it, I can certainly remember why. The ending was fast-paced and dramatic and contained several of my favorite scenes from the series.

One of these is the experience of using the Portal Stone and letting us see all of the different lives Rand could have lived. I loved the variety of the scene and the power of ending each one with the Dark One’s words. I win again….

I thought that would be my favorite scene of the book until I hit the climax with the horn sounding and the Dragon Reborn riding to battle beneath his banner. As many of you know, I am an endings guy. A great ending makes a book for me, while a weak ending can really ruin a story. This ending was a great one–plenty of powerful imagery and good conflicts.

There’s one interesting that happened when I was reading this book. I remembered and anticipated a lot of the moments in this book, one of the most important being Egwene’s capture by the Seanchan. The strange thing is, I kept waiting and waiting for the event, and it never came. I’d remembered with detail the chapters and chapters of torture she’d gone through as one of the leashed ones.

Finally, I reached the last fifth of the book and the capture came along. I was surprised to see that the time I’d remembered as filling ‘chapters and chapters’ was really only about thirty pages worth of material.

This says a lot, I think, about the depth of the conflict in those thirty pages. What Egwene went through was traumatic enough for her that it left a strong impression on me. The fact that Mr. Jordan was able to do that in just a few chapters says a lot for his ability to give depth and power to a scene.

More Info
Brandon Sanderson’s Blog [ View this entry quoted above ]
A Memory of Light info page
The Great Hunt info page

Brandon Sanderson, the author chosen to complete the final novel in The Wheel of Time series, is currently re-reading the entire series before embarking on his journey into A MEMORY OF LIGHT. As he writes, he’s sharing some of his thoughts and observations with fans via his blog. We’ll post these excerpts as he writes them.

Be sure to read his introduction first.

These are some of his throughts on THE GREAT HUNT

I’m very interested in the way that Mr. Jordan expanded the viewpoints in this book. Here is where we first begin to see the scope of this story, in my opinion, as we start to get viewpoints from Moiraine, Fain, and numerous others. This is one of the things I’ve always liked about Mr. Jordan’s writing–in fact, it may have been one of his greatest talents. His ability to craft a very intense, well-written, and engaging third-person-limited viewpoint. If there’s one thing I could pick to learn from his writing, it would be how to do such a good third limited.

I’m about halfway through the read right now, and like how quickly-paced this book is moving. Sometimes, readers get down on Jordan for his pacing, but I’ve found that these first books move at a real clip. I think the shifting viewpoints in this book is how I prefer it; I remember that later, he starts to divide the books in chunks, having a large section from one viewpoint, then moving to another viewpoint for a long time. We’ll have to see how I feel about that when I get to it, but for now, I like having short chapters moving from viewpoint to viewpoint so I never lose track of anyone for too long.

I mentioned before that I see things differently as I read these books through for the sixth or seventh time. I’m a writer myself now, and I look at the books from that standpoint. I can still enjoy them as a reader, but I think I enjoy different things as well. For instance, I love the sheer weight of conflict Mr. Jordan gave to his characters. I often say that stories are about conflict–characters are made interesting by conflict and a setting comes alive via the pressure points where different aspects of culture grind against each other. If you’re an aspiring author, take note of the excellent variety of conflicts Rand has shown during the first book and a half:

1) Servants of the Dark One chasing him.
2) The Dark One himself (kind of) appearing in Rand’s dreams.
3) Rand’s worry about his identity and whether or not Tam is really his father.
4) Rand’s worry about his relationship and love for Egwene
5) His tension between Mat and Perrin in Book Two.
6) His worry about everyone calling him a lord.
7) His frustration that the White Tower is trying to control him.
8 ) The danger of channeling and his place as the Dragon Reborn

And that’s just a few of them. There’s a reason why this story has been so successful and has been able to carry so many books. Conflict. There’s no shortage of it here. Anyway, I’m still enjoying Nynaeve’s character, though I wish she’d get over her anger at Moiraine. In most things, Nynaeve is clever, but she’s got a hole in her vision when it comes to Moiraine.

I’ll post some new Mistborn 2 annotations tomorrow, as well as the first chapter of WARBREAKER in html.

More Info
Brandon Sanderson’s Blog [ View this entry quoted above ]
A Memory of Light info page
The Great Hunt info page

Audio Renaissance, a producer of audio books, has released unabridged versions of The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt. Previously it was hard (if not impossible) to come by unabridged copies of these audio books.

According to Audio Renaissance, they plan to roll out the rest of the series in the coming months:

All of the WHEEL OF TIME [audio books are] available through audible.com, and we are releasing all of the backlist on Unabridged CD at a rate of 1-2 per season. In April we released EYE OF THE WORLD and THE GREAT HUNT, and in November we will release THE DRAGON REBORN and THE SHADOW RISING. In the Winter ‘05 season we’ll release FIRES OF HEAVEN.

Both are read by Kate Reading (who reads the female POV’s) and Michael Kramer (who does the males). Both CD sets include a bonus interview with Robert Jordan.

Both unabriged versions are now available through our online store. Click the links below for more information.

More info on:
[�Online Store�] [�Eye of the World info page�] [�The Great Hunt info page�]