The Wheel of Time Keeps on Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’

I believe I’ve gone on record as to my feelings about Robert Jordan’s deriviative, misogynist and utterly mercenary best-selling Wheel of Time fantasy series (if not, it’s that I find it deriviative, misogynist and utterly mercenary). But the obese ghost of Robert Jordan must surely be pleased at the recent news from Tor that the series’ final book, called A Memory of Light, will be released as a trilogy, the first book of which will be dubbed The Gathering Storm.

Get that? The 12th book in a 12-part series will be a 3-part trilogy. I’d like to be aggravated at the needless bullshit the late Jordan stuffed into all these damn books in order to keep raking in Pringles money — it was supposed to be a trilogy, you bastard — which pushed the number of the series to 12, but I’m so appalled by this blatant cashgrab by Tor that I can’t. Why not make them books 12, 13 and 14, Tor? Oh, because you want them all to be “the final novel,” even though there are fucking three of them.

There are only two ways this went: either Tor just divided the original last book up, meaning the “trilogy” books will be 400 pages each and will cost $29.95 a piece hardcover, or the original book was crammed full of such useless, meaningless fluff by the new authors that the books will be 600-800 pages… and cost $34.95 each. The end result — a rather loathsome but well-paced fantasy trilogy, stretched out beyond decency into the least epic fantasy epic of all time. Fun fact: once on a trip to the zoo, a peckish Robert Jordan once ate an entire penguin in front of a crowd of horrified children. (Via AV Club)