[Brujah]

Demandred was the one Rand used Balefire against in Shayol Gul, right? And their balefires hit each other,and that's how Rand can use the One Power? It's been a while.

[Terez]

Brujah, on 27 September 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

Thats good to hear, actually. I never wanted Taim to turn out to be Demandred. So is there a current theory as to who Taim really is? Or is he just Taim.

Taim is just Taim. Some thought he was Moridin but that was debunked in the prologue (and further debunked by a beta reader on Theoryland). He was probably trained by Ishamael before he proclaimed himself Dragon in Saldaea. After Ishamael died he apparently reported to Demandred, and then reverted to reporting to Moridin when he appeared.

Brujah, on 27 September 2012 - 09:46 AM, said:

Demandred was the one Rand used Balefire against in Shayol Gul, right? And their balefires hit each other,and that's how Rand can use the One Power? It's been a while.

I assume you mean Shadar Logoth. That was Moridin (Ishamael in a new body). I also assume you mean the True Power? We are pretty sure he uses it via his link with Moridin, but we're not sure whether the link was forged during the stream-crossing or whether the stream-crossing merely aggravated an already-existing link.

[Brujah]

Terez, on 27 September 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Brujah, on 27 September 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

Thats good to hear, actually. I never wanted Taim to turn out to be Demandred. So is there a current theory as to who Taim really is? Or is he just Taim.

Taim is just Taim. Some thought he was Moridin but that was debunked in the prologue (and further debunked by a beta reader on Theoryland). He was probably trained by Ishamael before he proclaimed himself Dragon in Saldaea. After Ishamael died he apparently reported to Demandred, and then reverted to reporting to Moridin when he appeared.

Brujah, on 27 September 2012 - 09:46 AM, said:

Demandred was the one Rand used Balefire against in Shayol Gul, right? And their balefires hit each other,and that's how Rand can use the One Power? It's been a while.

I assume you mean Shadar Logoth. That was Moridin (Ishamael in a new body). I also assume you mean the True Power? We are pretty sure he uses it via his link with Moridin, but we're not sure whether the link was forged during the stream-crossing or whether the stream-crossing merely aggravated an already-existing link.

Yeah, Shadar Logoth, True Power^

It's been an extremely long time since I read that book. Just remembering some of this stuff makes reminds Mr how great the series is. I like Logain. Min kept seeing greatness in his future, so maybe he plays an important role at the Last Battle. My favorite character is Mat, though, by far. He's such a brilliantly created character. I was never a huge fan of Perrin, though for some reason. I just find him boring, and I always hated the entire Faile sub- plots. I could read about Rand or especially Mat the entire time, though.

[Tattersail_]

Brujah, on 27 September 2012 - 10:11 AM, said:

Terez, on 27 September 2012 - 09:49 AM, said:

Brujah, on 27 September 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

Thats good to hear, actually. I never wanted Taim to turn out to be Demandred. So is there a current theory as to who Taim really is? Or is he just Taim.

Taim is just Taim. Some thought he was Moridin but that was debunked in the prologue (and further debunked by a beta reader on Theoryland). He was probably trained by Ishamael before he proclaimed himself Dragon in Saldaea. After Ishamael died he apparently reported to Demandred, and then reverted to reporting to Moridin when he appeared.

Brujah, on 27 September 2012 - 09:46 AM, said:

Demandred was the one Rand used Balefire against in Shayol Gul, right? And their balefires hit each other,and that's how Rand can use the One Power? It's been a while.

I assume you mean Shadar Logoth. That was Moridin (Ishamael in a new body). I also assume you mean the True Power? We are pretty sure he uses it via his link with Moridin, but we're not sure whether the link was forged during the stream-crossing or whether the stream-crossing merely aggravated an already-existing link.

Yeah, Shadar Logoth, True Power^

It's been an extremely long time since I read that book. Just remembering some of this stuff makes reminds Mr how great the series is. I like Logain. Min kept seeing greatness in his future, so maybe he plays an important role at the Last Battle. My favorite character is Mat, though, by far. He's such a brilliantly created character. I was never a huge fan of Perrin, though for some reason. I just find him boring, and I always hated the entire Faile sub- plots. I could read about Rand or especially Mat the entire time, though.

For the first few times I read the series my favourite character changed. I loved them all but each time I had a new favourite. After many re reads my favourite is Mat.

[Sindriss]

To be honest, it makes me a bit sick that you would release the prologue for money. Just feels so greedy to me.

[Terez]

It's over 10% of the book; it would be stupid to release it for free. They don't make very much money off it because most fans don't hang out on the internet; likewise we don't have to pay very much for it. Which is more worth $3? The AMOL prologue 3 months early, or a Big Mac? You tell me...

[Tapper]

Not blown away by the prologue excerpt (but thanks for the linky), and the quick gloss-over of Chapter 1 seems nothing more than a catch-up between Rand and Perrin.

The chapter 11 cut-out however.... seems Sanderson has mastered writing Mat. And it seems lacking an eye does not make him less bad-ass with a throwing knife.

As for the 80 PoV thing: I guess this is going to be akin to the Marines Dying Chapters in Erikson's chapters, and The Last Battle is going to be a real Battle instead of armies dying for show somewhere while the Big Guns duke it out at high noon in Caemlyn with balefire instead of Colt 45s and the winner porting in to re-seal/open the Bore.

[Terez]

Tapper, on 27 September 2012 - 11:07 AM, said:

Not blown away by the prologue excerpt (but thanks for the linky), and the quick gloss-over of Chapter 1 seems nothing more than a catch-up between Rand and Perrin.

The prologue excerpt is probably the least interesting scene in the prologue. The chapter 1 excerpt barely hints at what happens in the rest of the chapter.

Quote

The chapter 11 cut-out however.... seems Sanderson has mastered writing Mat.

[Tapper]

Terez, on 27 September 2012 - 11:09 AM, said:

Tapper, on 27 September 2012 - 11:07 AM, said:

Not blown away by the prologue excerpt (but thanks for the linky), and the quick gloss-over of Chapter 1 seems nothing more than a catch-up between Rand and Perrin.

The prologue excerpt is probably the least interesting scene in the prologue. The chapter 1 excerpt barely hints at what happens in the rest of the chapter.

Quote

The chapter 11 cut-out however.... seems Sanderson has mastered writing Mat.

From what I remember of the first book Sanderson wrote in WoT, Sanderson-Mat was not quite Jordan-Mat and it screamed so on every page. This was much better.

[Terez]

There have been some improvements, but I don't think it's much better, and nothing close to 'mastered'. Now, I realize that my WoT saturation level makes every little difference stand out, and that most readers are far less sensitive to these differences, so I won't detail them because, for the sake of your enjoyment of WoT, it's best you don't notice them. But I will say that the worst part about Mat in TGS was his introduction, and everyone knows the importance of first impressions. Our first impression of Brandon's Mat, his opening scene in TGS, screamed (more than anything else) 'trying too hard' (and failing). So that affected our view of Mat through the entire book. We didn't have the same problem in TOM, so most people relaxed, but overall Brandon's portrayal of Mat did not change very much. And some of those things in the first scene (the backstories that were so awful on so many levels) are actually referenced in TOM and also in the chapter 11 excerpt, which was galling for people who not only hated those bits but discussed them on the internet as we bookgeeks tend to do.

So of course your opinion is valid (for you) but please be careful with words like 'mastered'.

[End of Disc One]

So the chapter 1 that was posted is the full chapter, correct? I'll probably read both it and the prologue a couple of days before AMoL comes out. Just to have a head start.

[Sindriss]

The prologue is more than 10% of the book? That seems quite much to be honest.

Anyway, the way I see it, the prologue acts as an enticement to bring in the customers, like cocaine. Give them a bit of it for free, leave them wanting more and then suddenly release a bucketful and tell them that they are free to purchase it. Damnit, it works wonderfully with S.E. stuff!!!

Dunno what to say, I really still feel it is pure greed to release a freaking prologue and demand money for it. As to the value of the money, that is just a bad example.

[QuickTidal]

Sindriss, on 27 September 2012 - 10:41 AM, said:

To be honest, it makes me a bit sick that you would release the prologue for money. Just feels so greedy to me.

I don't think it's a lot to pay for the hard work of the author's for the option of reading some stuff early.

A somewhat fair example in another media is that you could see 3 DARK KNIGHT RISES trailers before the film dropped for free...but if you paid a little extra to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in IMAX theatres (which cost a little more), you got to see the first 5 minutes of the film almost a year early. I had no problem doing that. I realize the analogy isn't perfect as you are paying to see another film...but still.

Either way, I don't see how charging some $ to read something early like that is "greedy". You are still paying an author and publisher for work that's been done. Why do you think should it be free? That feels like an entitled stance IMHO.

And Sindriss, no one is demanding anything from you. You are quite welcome to wait the few months till it comes out if you'd rather not shell out.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 27 September 2012 - 05:54 PM

[Terez]

Sindriss, on 27 September 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

The prologue is more than 10% of the book? That seems quite much to be honest.

It's just how prologues work; they cover a number of side plots that set up the main body of the book. Not all of them are so long, but the KOD prologue for example was 84 pages out of 746 for the whole book (not counting the glossary). The prologues of TGS and TOM were shorter, but the AMOL prologue is significantly longer than those two. We're not sure what it comes to in print pages, though, or its proportion of the book.

Sindriss, on 27 September 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

Anyway, the way I see it, the prologue acts as an enticement to bring in the customers, like cocaine. Give them a bit of it for free, leave them wanting more and then suddenly release a bucketful and tell them that they are free to purchase it. Damnit, it works wonderfully with S.E. stuff!!!

That's why they release chapters 1 and 2 for free, and they usually try to make them independent from the prologue (not spoiling the prologue). This time it didn't work out that way, so they gave excerpts of chapters 1 and 11 and cut them off before they became relevant to what came before. We'll probably get chapter 2 for free on audiobook soon, and the full chapter 11 not long after that. I'm guessing that chapters 3-10 are dealing with a plot line that's behind in the chronology. But there is a possibility we'll need another one of those chapters (maybe 3) to catch up to Mat well enough to read the rest of chapter 11. The early release stuff has been coming out earlier than usual this time, so there is either more of it than usual, or they're planning on moving up the release date.

Sindriss, on 27 September 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

Dunno what to say, I really still feel it is pure greed to release a freaking prologue and demand money for it. As to the value of the money, that is just a bad example.

How is it a bad example? If you want it, and the price is not too much, you will pay it. If you want it, and you think the price is too much, you will be torn between the two. If you don't want it particularly much, you probably won't buy it. You seem to be in the middle, and people like you show up every time a prologue is released to complain. If you didn't want it, you wouldn't care one way or another, but for whatever reason you think $3 is too much to pay for something you obviously want. It's a simple reality that books take time to print, and the publishing industry is not rolling in so much dough that it can afford to release blockbusters in full ebook before the print release. And of course the NYT list, being the #1 marketing tool, is a big consideration. Maybe one day. But for most other books it's not even relevant because most books don't have such hugely-long prologues.

[Terez]

Added link for chapter 2 audio:

http://www.tor.com/b...ice-of-an-ajahq

We had a transcript up but had to take it down because of a copyright claim. That's never happened before when we transcribed audio releases or con readings, but apparently we pissed them off by endeavoring to assemble the prologue via Google Books and forcing them to release it early. (We only did that after the ebook went on sale early in Canada, by the way.)

[Illuyankas]

What really screwed you was whichever pillock linked it to reddit (if it was you, you're still a pillock).

[Terez]

ha, yeah I actually figured as much. He announced that he had done so at Theoryland, and I was thinking....thanks dude. My mom said she saw 2100 viewers on there at some point. Eventually I figured I'd better put a source link up, and less than an hour after I put the source link up, I got the copyright notification. Usually when we do stuff like this, only the HCFFs are paying any attention.

This post has been edited by Terez: 25 October 2012 - 08:38 PM

[Terez]

If you haven't heard, Tor is doing a promotional mailing list thing (which you can still sign up for) whereby they release one tidbit from AMOL every day from here until the book comes out. The tidbits could be "Sentences, words, paragraphs, chapter titles..." etc. Today was the end of the first week, and I thought I'd do a weekly digest of them here in case anyone could be interested. This week's tidbits, which were all basically sentences/short paragraphs (the last one is technically two paragraphs, but probably the least meaty of the five)....EDIT: They actually meant 'daily', so I'll add Saturday's to this. No real speculation on this one yet, but we think it's pretty huge.

Spoiler

Day #1: It had been useful at Maradon. Nobody knew he had it. That was important.

Day #2: "I should like to hear one of your stories. Perhaps you could tell me of the time your father and you visited Shara?"

Day #3: "Being married is not so bad, Perrin. Why didn't you tell me it was not so bad? I think I am rather fond of it."

Day #4: "Pass his bond to me."

Day #5: "Creator shelter us," she whispered.
Mat scowled. "You know, that's what Tuon said."

Day #6: The right thing had always seemed clear to Galad before, but never had it felt as right as this. Those streaks of light were like indicators on a map, arrows pointing his way. The Light itself guided him. It had prepared him, placed him here at this moment.

Common speculation on these:

Spoiler

1. a) Rand had an angreal at Maradon (maybe Callandor) in TOM when he destroyed lots of Shadowspawn. b ) Bashere had a ter'angreal that protects him from Rand's Darkfriend-torturing superpowers. c) Various other loony theories. Interesting how a would debunk JesusRand somewhat while b tries to buttress it.

2. a) Anyone to one of the Aiel or the Sea Folk. b ) Someone to Nalaam, the guy at the Black Tower in TOM who speaks in tongues and tells crazy stories. c) Androl is Jain Farstrider's love child. (I think this one is loony.) d) Thom to Moiraine. (I like this one, despite its looniness; it's just a play on the undeveloped fact that Cairhienin were allowed to cross the Waste before Laman cut down the Tree.)

3. Probably Loial. There are various other theories but this makes the most sense.

4. This one is the most interesting. My first thought (and the first thought of many others) was that it was Anyone to Alanna, but it could also be Elayne under duress (which Min has unfulfilled viewings about from way back in TGH). It could be something relatively uninteresting, like a random Aes Sedai passing a random bond, but most people are centering on Rand (probably because he has so many bondees). Some think Lanfear/Cyndane is the speaker. Some think Nynaeve, Moiraine, or Egwene is the speaker, wanting some kind of connection to Rand when he goes to Shayol Ghul. (In that case, most likely to Alanna.) Some have theorized Cadsuane. Etc.

5. This one doesn't appear to have much in the way of plot significance. Either way, it's hard to speculate about. My first thought was "that's what she said" and that's about the extent of my ideas on that.

This post has been edited by Terez: 01 December 2012 - 05:50 PM

[Terez]

This weeks tidbits from AMOL:

Spoiler

Day 7: "Nobody travels the Ways," Ituralde said, aghast.

Day 8: Egwene strode around a frozen pillar of glass in her dream. It almost looked like a column of light. What did it mean? She could not interpret it.

Day 9: The letter was written in Mat's hand. And, Elayne noticed with amusement, the handwriting was much neater and the spelling much better in this one than the one he'd sent her weeks ago.

Day 10: "And farewell to you, old friend," she said to the air. "Until I dream again."

Day 11: "One more thing, the marath'damane . . ."

"I'll deal with those channelers personally," Mat said. She gawked at him as if he were insane.

Day 12: "Enough talk. You will bed me now."

Day 13: "We must spread the word to all of our allies," Amys said. "We must not use this weave."

[amphibian]

Terez, on 09 December 2012 - 03:20 AM, said:

"We must not use this weave."

So... this?