On Saturday, September 4th, the book trailer video for Towers of Midnight will go online after initially premiering at DragonCon and WorldCon. This promotional video, produced by Dragonmount and Mythmaker Film is a live-action “movie” of sorts to help advertise the upcoming novel.

Embedded below is the first of a series of Behind-the-scenes videos made for the Outta This World video blog. related to the making of the trailer. There are no spoilers in this behind-the-scenes video.

Pre-Order the book!

• Amazon.com – This link helps support Dragonmount
• Amazon.co.uk – This link helps support Dragonmount
• Amazon.ca – This link helps support Dragonmount
• Indiebound.org – Find local independent sellers
• Barnes & Noble.com
• Borders.com
• Directly from Tor.com

Tor.com and Brandon Sanderson have teamed up to launch a scavenger hunt they’re calling “The Great Hunt.” The basic idea is that Brandon will hide clues at various bookstores on his book tour for The Way of Kings, his latest non-Wheel of Time novel which is now available. Each one of these clues will be a small part in unlocking some exclusive “prize” related to Towers of Midnight.

Here’s what Tor.com says about the contest:

To unlock it, fans will have to hunt down the many unique digital codes, printed on the back of Wheel of Time bumper stickers that Brandon will hide inside copies of The Way of Kings along each stop on his tour. (Which kicks off tonight!)

Each bumper sticker/code will unlock a piece of the secret and it will require the work of many fans in many cities to unlock the entire page. The Great Hunt begins!

So here’s what you can do. If you live near one of the tour cities that Brandon will visit, stop by the bookstore he’ll be at and look for one or more Wheel of Time bumper stickers located inside copies of The Way of Kings. If you find it, share it with us here in the comments, on our forums, on Twitter, or anywhere else. As a group we’ll crack the code and figure out what the prize is.

Oh, and while you’re in these bookstores ruffling through the pages of their inventory, consider being polite and purchasing a copy of Brandon’s new book? Alternatively, you can purchase it here via Amazon links:

Tor Books has announced via Tor.com that the prologue to TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, the thirteenth book in the Wheel of Time series, will be available for purchase on September 21, 2010.

The title of the prologue is “Distinctions”. Here’s the story description:

In the prologue, titled “Distinctions,” Lan Mandragoran rides on toward death; Perrin Aybara, Lord Goldeneyes, has a disturbing dream; Galad leads the Whitecloaks into harm’s way; one who has left humanity behind creeps through the Blight; and the Blight border faces invasion.

The prologue will be available in ebook format and available for all the major readers. The cost is $2.99 US.

Towers of Midnight will be released on November 2, 2010. Please continue to check back to our website for regular updated related to this novel. In the first week of September, Tor Books and Dragonmount will release a special video “book trailer”. We will have full coverage of that as we get closer.

In addition to the ebook prologue, it is likely that Tor.com will release several other free chapters to Towers of Midnight. This is just speculation based on what they’ve done for past books.

Pre-Order Distinctions, the eBook prologue to Towers of Midnight

• Amazon.com – This link helps support Dragonmount

Pre-Order Towers of Midnight

• Amazon.com – This link helps support Dragonmount
• Amazon.co.uk – This link helps support Dragonmount
• Amazon.ca – This link helps support Dragonmount
• Indiebound.org – Find local independent sellers
• Barnes & Noble.com
• Borders.com
• Directly from Tor.com

The 68th World Science Fiction Convention will be held 2-6 September 2010 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. WorldCon is a “roaming” convention that is held in a different international location each year. This is the fourth WorldCon to be held in Australia. Each year, they feature a variety of events, panels, and discussions about science fiction and fantasy literature. They also give the annual Hugo Award, which is considered the highest award in speculative fiction.

This year, AussieCon will feature a panel discussion on the Wheel of Time series. Panelists will include Linda Taglieri, of the 13th Depository and Dragonmount’s own James Luckman. The panel will include the Australian debut of the TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT trailer that is also being shown at this year’s Dragon*Con. The panel will take place Monday, Sept 6th at 12 PM in room 2007 of the Melbourne Convention Centre.

Dragon*Con bills itself as the “largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!” Over 35,000 thousand fans will descend on Atlanta, Georgia for this annual event. Dragon*Con will take place this year September 3-6.

Dragon*Con includes a full track of Wheel of Time themed programming, sponsored this year by Tor Books. WoT programming highlights this year will include the annual WoT costume contest, trivia games, discussion panels, the annual “A Night at the Winespring Inn” party, and appearances by series co-author Brandon Sanderson and Tor’s Art Director, Irene Gallo. Brandon will be reading from TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, the next book in the Wheel of Time series and premiering the TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT trailer made by Dragonmount’s own Jason Denzel. Brandon will also be doing panels and readings for his forthcoming The Way of Kings, the first book of the Stormlight Archive.

A complete listing of Wheel of Time events can be found here. You can visit the track’s official website wheeloftime.dragoncon.org for the latest updates. Also, Track Director Jennifer Liang (that’s me!) was recently interviewed by the Unique Geek as part of their “40 Days of Dragon*Con” countdown. You can listen to it here.

You can get the latest updates on Dragon*Con guests and schedule changes by following @Dragon_Con and @Daily_dragon. Jason and I will try to update @dragonmount as we can.

Towers of Midnight, the thirteenth book in The Wheel of Time series, has been completed and delivered to Tor Books for copyediting and publishing. Yesterday on his Twitter and Facebook, Brandon Sanderson announced that he had completed the final draft of the novel which came in at around 328,000 words (The Gathering Storm was about 300,000).

Pre-Order the book!

• Amazon.com – This link helps support Dragonmount
• Amazon.co.uk – This link helps support Dragonmount
• Amazon.ca – This link helps support Dragonmount
• Indiebound.org – Find local independent sellers
• Barnes & Noble.com
• Borders.com
• Directly from Tor.com

The book is on schedule for a November 2, 2010 release. At this point Tor needs to take the digital manuscript– basically just a Microsoft Word File– and turn it into a novel. It needs to be copyedited, laid out with the right fonts and margins, artwork needs to be added, review copies generated, and printed. (It can take a long time to print that many books and bind them!)

Brandon is scheduled to go on a book tour for Towers of Midnight in November. Once the schedule is posted, well share it with you here on Dragonmount. Some of you have been asking if we’ll be doing the Storm Leaders for this this year’s tour. The answer is yes, but we don’t have details yet. Applications will probably go online within a few weeks, after DragonCon (Sept 3-6).

In the meantime, be aware that Brandon will be on tour for his other upcoming novel, The Way of Kings. The complete tour schedule for that can be found on this page at Tor.com.

James Luckman, part of the Dragonmount staff, was fortunate enough to interview Harriet McDougal this week. The interview has been posted on the Dragonmount forums for you to read. In it, she discusses her relationship with the late Robert Jordan, what’s it like working with Brandon Sanderson and why peaches are poisonous in the Wheel of Time universe. She even manages to sneak in a RAFO for us.

Back in March, James also interviewd Maria Simons, who is the continuity editor for the series. You can read that interview here.

Tor Books has announced that the release date for TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT has been pushed back by a few days. The new release date is November 2nd. The reason for this change is in order to give Brandon just a little more time to wrap things up on the book.

After Brandon’s deadline, there will be an intense push to get the book copyedited, designed, and printed. Normally this process can take many months, but for this book (and most of the more recent WoT novels), the process has been prioritized in order to get the book out as quickly as possible.

Tor Books revealed to us today the U.S. hardcover artwork for Towers of Midnight, the thirteenth novel in the Wheel of Time series. As with the previous twelve U.S. covers, the artwork was done by Darryl K. Sweet. Here’s a look:

Towers of Midnight is being completed by author Brandon Sanderson, based on extenensive notes and recordings left by Robert Jordan. It will be released in the U.S. and worldwide on October 26, 2010.

Darryl K Sweet will also complete the artwork for A MEMORY OF LIGHT, the 14th and final Wheel of Time novel, currently expected to be released in late 2011.

So what do you think of the artwork?

Tor Books has announced that October 26, 2010 will be the release date for Towers of Midnight, the penultimate 13th novel in the Wheel of Time series.

In addition, here’s the dust jacket description of the book’s plot. Spoilers!

The Last Battle has started. The seals on the Dark One’s prison are crumbling. The Pattern itself is unraveling, and the armies of the Shadow have begun to boil out of the Blight.

The sun has begun to set upon the Third Age.

Perrin Aybara is now hunted by specters from his past: Whitecloaks, a slayer of wolves, and the responsibilities of leadership. All the while, an unseen foe is slowly pulling a noose tight around his neck. To prevail, he must seek answers in Tel’aran’rhiod and find a way–at long last–to master the wolf within him or lose himself to it forever.

Meanwhile, Matrim Cauthon prepares for the most difficult challenge of his life. The creatures beyond the stone gateways–the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn–have confused him, taunted him, and left him hanged, his memory stuffed with bits and pieces of other men’s lives. He had hoped that his last confrontation with them would be the end of it, but the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. The time is coming when he will again have to dance with the Snakes and the Foxes, playing a game that cannot be won. The Tower of Ghenjei awaits, and its secrets will reveal the fate of a friend long lost.

This penultimate novel of Robert Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling series–the second of three based on materials he left behind when he died in 2007–brings dramatic and compelling developments to many threads in the Pattern. The end draws near.

Dovie’andi se tovya sagain. It’s time to toss the dice.

 

(Note: The U.S. book cover shown here is a temporary mock-up. It is NOT the final version of the cover.)

So what do you think? Keep checking back to our website for more information.

Thanks to A dribble of Ink for sharing the early peek at the U.S book cover.