It's 1547 pages. They got it down in the final edit. That's also manuscript pages, not the final count. It's 15 MS pages longer than A STORM OF SWORDS, so it'll be about 930 pages in hardcover, assuming they use the same small print they did for A STORM OF SWORDS. It probably won't feel much longer than an Erikson book, though in terms of word-count it's radically longer (about 50,000 words longer than THE CRIPPLED GOD).
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To ask a semi-serious question: is it just my limited experience, or is the whole Brienne thing just the longest cliffhanger EVER??? Are there similar or even bigger cliffhangers with other series that had massive gaps in publishing times?
Mat was stuck under his wall for 4.5 years (from A CROWN OF SWORDS in 1996 to WINTER'S HEART in 2000), so that's not as long (assuming Brienne's fate is revealed in ADWD; if it's left for TWoW, it should outstrip the Mat cliffhanger by quite a lot). Jack Vance left Cugel marooned on a desolate beach thousands of miles from home for 17 years between THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD in 1966 and CUGEL'S SAGA in 1983.
Frank Herbert left Arrakis destroyed, the Imperium overrun by the Honoured Matres and humanity under threat from an unknown enemy in CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE, published in 1986 shortly before he died. His son and noted talentless hack Kevin J. Anderson supplied a resolution based on Herbert's notes with HUNTERS and SANDWORMS OF DUNE in 2006-07. However, this was later exposed as being total bollocks and they'd just made it up off the top of their heads. So a canon resolution for the cliffhanger will never be released.
This post has been edited by Werthead: 13 May 2011 - 04:03 PM