Further to our brief announcement yesterday, we now have the full story.
Brandon Sanderson has been chosen to write A Memory of Light, the twelfth and final volume in Robert Jordan‘s modern-day classic Wheel of Time series (Jordan died 16 September after a long battle with the rare blood disease amyloidosis).
Harriet Popham Rigney, Jordan’s editor and wife, chose Sanderson for the job, saying “I have chosen Brandon Sanderson to complete Robert Jordan’s great work, and I am absolutely delighted that he accepted. I will of course be editing this book as I have all of the other books” in the series.
As with the previous 11 volumes, Tor Books will publish this one, and Tor President Tom Doherty said “I am delighted that Haarriet has chosen Brandon to complete Robert Jordan’s magnificent and timeless epic.”
Rigney will be working closely with Sanderson on the book, keeping it as true as possible to Jordan’s plans and voice. She also noted that Jordan himself had been on working on the novel toward the end of his life, and that “some scenes were completed by Robert Jordan, and some exist in draft form; he left copious notes and hours of audio recordings.” He’d also taken the time to tell the ending to several family members.
Cousin Wilson W. Grooms, Jr., wrote “During a recent family sit around, [Jordan] became the Gleeman and told the bones of it all to Harriet and me. You read that right, I did say all. Don’t ask, ain’t telling. Two and a half hours of story telling by the Creator himself went by in the twinkling of an eye.”
Sanderon knows he has a huge task ahead of him. “I’m both extremely excited an daunted by this opportunity. There is only one man who could have done this book the way it deserved to be written, and we lost him in September. However, I promise to do my very best to remain true to Mr. Jordan’s vision and produce the book we have all been waiting to read.” Sanderson counts Jordan as one of his major influences as a writer, writing to Jordan “You showed me what it was to have vision and scope in a fantasy series—you showed me what could be done.”
Sanderson’s own literary output thus far includes the novels Elantris, Mistborn: The Final Empire, and Mistborn: The Well of Ascension, as well as the recently released YA novel Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. The story of Elantris‘s publication is fascinating itself: as a college student, writing during late night work shifts at a hotel, he wrote the manuscript, and then approached Tor editor Moshe Feder at a convention. Several months later, after reading the manuscript and deciding he had to publish it, Feder had trouble finding the author, who was as yet unagented, and had moved in the interim. Fortunately, Feder was able to track him down through a campus directory.
A Memory of Light is scheduled to be delivered to Tor in December 2008, and they plan to publish it in Autumn 2009. Sanderson’s agent is Joshua Bilmes of JABberwocky Literary Agency.
There’s a brand new interview with Sanderson about this new gig here, and ongoing commentary on his blog.