A Couple of Good Reasons to Put Some Money in the Bank (Updated)
or If You Just Won the Lottery, Set Aside Money for These Books

Following up on the post about soon-to-be-release albums, here's a look at a couple of books that I'm looking forward to seeing on shelves in the near future (maybe). Most (if not all) of these books have had more than one release date already, so these current dates aren't set in stone. Hell, by the time they come out, you will probably have earned a lot of money in interest.

Terry Goodkind has promised that he will end the Sword of Truth series in two more novels (after Chainfire). The penultimate volume, Phantom, should continue the trend away from the droning philosophical tone of The Pillars of Creation and Naked Empire. Goodkind's official site, which is currently being renovated, has an estimated June release date. Amazon says July 18th. As of today, one of the men closest to Goodkind who posts regularly to the official message boards said that TG is still writing, so the date may fall back yet again. The original publication date was planned for January of this year.

Stephen R. Donaldson had this to say about the next book in The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which appeared on his website on February 24th:

The first draft of "Fatal Revenant" is now finished. But don't get your hopes up. I anticipate a year of rewriting--and editorial to-ing and fro-ing--before D&A ("delivery and acceptance"); and my publishers may not commit to a schedule for release until after D&A.

"Fatal Revenant" is roughly 150 pages longer than "The Runes of the Earth" was at this stage. As I recall, I cut about 125 pages out of "Runes" before publication. I think we can assume that the same thing will happen to "Fatal Revenant," so the final version will still be somewhat longer than "Runes".

Incidentally, the first draft of "Runes" took me 20 months. I put "Fatal Revenant" on paper in 16.

China Mieville's Iron Council came out in July of 2004. I just finished The Scar, which I found to be a fantastic read. Mieville doesn't have an official website, but he's only gone a year or two at the most between books in the past, so we should have something to look forward to very soon.

The final volume in the Wheel of Time is probably roughly a year and a half to two years away yet. Jordan wants to finish everything off in this last book, so it might take even longer than normal. Dragonmount.com has an interesting post-KoD interview available, in which he promises that it will all end very soon. The working title for the book is A Memory of Light.

Terry Brooks, author of the neverending Shannara series, has decided to do a trilogy on the period between the Great Wars and the formation of the First Druid Council. The first book, whose title has been changed as many times as the release date for Phantom, is due out in early September, with each successive volume appearing about one year apart. Interestingly, apparently Brooks has confirmed a long-standing rumor that his Word & Void novels are "the ultimate prequels" to the world of Shannara. At one time, the name of the first novel was going to be Gypsy Morph, which means nothing to those of us who have only read the Shannara books, but apparently plays a very important role in the W/V series.

In the meantime, stay young.