Towers of Midnight synopsis

[Poobah]

Oh thank god thank god the hobbit cover was wrong. It's still awful, but the regular level of awful we've come to expect. And seriously, who draws Mat without a hat? He at least got that part right in FoH. They made such a bad, bad decision. Not when they hired him, but when they decided to stick with him.

eta: I was gonna ask about what the (unidentified) guy was drawing on the tower, but then I realized how divorced from reality these covers are laughed at myself for even entertaining the thought. Even so, don't they do some sort of ritual when they play foxes and snakes, draw something and say the rhyme to open the game. It saddens me that apparently the all powerful glyph is a pie wedge. I'm also imagining how awesome the cover for this might be for the e-books (if they used this scene that is)

I believe I that to open the tower you're supposed to draw a triangle on the side. But I'm not sure where I remember that from since I haven't read WoT in ages. I guess triangle translated into pie wedge in an effort to show the curvature of the tower.

[Shryke]

The symbol for the game is a triangle (for the Foxes) with a squiggly line through it (for the Snakes).

I think it's Birgette who tells Perrin how to get in.

[Gertrude]

This is ringing bells for me now. I'd imagine the triangle would be point down to simulate a fox head though. I guess adhering too strictly to the actual text and/or common sense would be too big a departure from the rest of the covers. Can't have that.

eta: I think I just realized that the brown haired guy drawing the symbol on the tower is supposed to be Thom. I was thinking it was the guy in blue, but then wondered where his cloak was. I looked at the other guy and realized the purple and yellow jumble on his back could potentially be considered a patchwork cloak. I don't consider it to be even close, but in some universe it might be. Then again, the guy in the blue does have the right mustache for Thom. *buries head in hands*

Seriously - how hard is it to give a detailed fucking description to an artist and then hold them to it? The art director should be shot. It saddens me that everyone involved has given up even pretending to care about quality at this point. Have some pride, people. I hope to hell that NOT FINAL banner was placed there because there is still work to be done with this.

[AverageGuy]

I think it's Birgette who tells Perrin how to get in.

Birgitte does tell Perrin about the Tower of Ghenji, but only to say not to go in. She told Olver how to get in (off-panel, I think RJ realized no one knew how to get in yet and had to retcon a little), and Olver brings it up in KOD when Thom and Noal and Mat are talking. Just read that part yesterday, actually. The triangle and squiggly made on the side of the tower with a bronze knife.

[Jussi]

October 26th is the official release date for ToM:

http://us.macmillan.com/towersofmidnight

Of course Sanderson has to finish the book before deadline.

[Werthead]

October 26th is the official release date for ToM:

http://us.macmillan....owersofmidnight

Of course Sanderson has to finish the book before deadline.

Which, also of course, means it's not the official release date. It's the date Tor are hoping he'll hit, not the final date set in stone. Based on Sanderson's comments and productivity, I'd say it's looking very likely he'll hit it, but it certainly should not be represented as the final, definitive date until it's delivered.

[Werthead]

The final cover art.

The Tower is still in the wrong place, but at least they've fixed the appearances of the three characters.

[Old Nan]

Mat's ashandarei is much improved in this one, though I don't know about that green and brown outfit of his. Thom and Jain Farstrider seem pretty accurate. The Tower is ... not how I'd imagined it, but it's not a huge problem.

Still not the kind of thing I'd be seen with on the subway, but as an illustration it's not bad.

[The Evil Hat]

I think Tor had a brilliant strategy to make us stop bitching about these, personally. Compared to all the earlier drafts, it looks nothing short of brilliant now. Up until I remembered to compare it to something wasn't Lords of Chaos, The Gathering Storm (early version), and the fake dwarf draft, I was thinking of this as the greatest cover I'd ever seen.

[Old Nan]

Now if they used the dwarf draft, with Mat riding a dog and Noal astride a pig, I'd proudly display that wherever I was.

[Arataniello]

A vast improvement, with the three characters now clearly being Noal, Mat and Thom. Mat not wearing a scarf is about the only niggle I have with it. And Noal looks a lot less knackered/beaten up than I pictured him, based on the descriptions of him in the books.

[Gertrude]

And Thom's cape should be brightly colored and less symmetrical, not matching the rest of his clothes. And I really didn't picture the towers as having a pebbled surface - aren't they supposed to be smooth? Meh - still better than most, sadly.

[Renasko]

You guys should be in the room with Sweet when he's doing these art pieces...

[Avalon]

You guys should be in the room with Sweet when he's doing these art pieces...

...and make sure there aren't any sharp objects in the room :)

[Jussi]

Sanderson finished the first draft of ToM:

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/897/Updates-THE-WAY-OF-KINGS-ARC-Giveaway-Tour

And if you've been following me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that today I finished writing the final chapter (or rather, the last chapter I had left to write, which is not right at the end of the book) of TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT. Now it goes off to Team Jordan for feedback, and I start into the revisions that will be required before the book can go into production less than two months from now. It's going to be tight, but we'll pull it off.

From Twitter:

And...it is DONE! 359,000 words, 1800 pages in manuscript form. Nobody tell Tor. They asked me to try to keep it shorter. WHOOPS.

And, just to warn you all, I WILL do my standard 10% cut on this book. So expect the final length to be around 320k or so. (TGS was 300k.)

Either way, the first draft of Towers of Midnight is done. We are now confirmed for an on-time release late October or Early November 2010.

[Lightning Lord]

An epic fantasy installment being delivered on time? I think I just wet myself.

[Renasko]

Woohoo. Jubilation!

[fionwe1987]

When they said they'd have the three books out in 3 years, I thought they were setting themselves up for tragedy, ala. the various authors who made promises on when a book will be released.

Sanderson seems to be bucking the trend, though. Good for him!

[Liadin]

Is the dwarf cover still up somewhere for those with a morbid curiosity to satisfy? The link originally posted to it now shows the final cover (imagine my confusion, looking at that and reading posts about hobbits....).

[Jussi]

Here are the hobbits:

http://en.risingshadow.net/images/stories/zoom/image_bank/fake-tom.jpg