Tor Books, the US publisher of The Wheel of Time, is now suggesting that A MEMORY OF LIGHT, the 12th and final novel in the series, may be published in November of this year.

The publisher has published a “widget” that anybody can post on their website. This widget (seen here below) counts down to November.

No official word has come yet from Tor about a more specific release date, or even whether or not November is just when they hope the book will be ready by.

Brandon Sanderson, the up-and-coming fantasy author who has been selected to complete the novel, frequently blogs on his website about the progress that he is making. From what he has said so far, it seems unlikely that the entire novel would be ready in time for a November release.

The idea has been discussed several times that A MEMORY OF LIGHT may be broken up into two parts. Brandon has discussed this possibility in great depth both on his website and in a podcast interview he did with Dragonmount’s 4th Age Podcast team. Although the decision to divide the book into multiple parts has not been made (or at least not made public), if this were to happen, a November release date for the first installment would become much more possible.

It should be noted, however, that most novels require several months of lead time from the time they are “turned in” the authors to the time they show up in stores. With Robert Jordan’s previous WoT novels, Tor has always expedited that process and published them in about six weeks, which is an extraordinary speed. With that in mind, if Brandon has a deadline of late September to finish the entire novel, a November release date for A MEMORY OF LIGHT may still be possible.

This is all speculation on our part, of course. We’re just making our best guess based off of a website widget. (Which, btw, you can download for your own website here) . Let us know what you think in the comments below.