Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

We're very pleased to be involved with Brandon on the release of his latest epic, Words of Radiance, which as we type is Number 1 on the New York Times Bestsellers lists. (Congratulations!)

He's a very busy man, so we were allowed three exclusive questions as part of his UK blog tour. Here they are, and Brandon's responses.

1. So: Book 2. How does this book differ from Book 1?

Living up to a really successful book is always hard. The second book expands the world and the characters. It shows off a new magic. It has Wit being himself. It involves more depth into the understanding of Realmatic theory and the Cosmere. It lets several of the characters really come into their own. It moves at a fast pace, and things where you may have been thinking, "Oh, it's not going to go there at least for a few more books," happen immediately instead of taking forever. This is all part of my desire and goal for the series. I wrote a really big essay for Tor.com about how I envisioned these books going, where I look at each one as being more than book, where I'm playing with the idea of what it means to be an epic. Words of Radiance went very well in that regard. I plotted it like a trilogy, and wrote it as this one book made of three books. Anyway, I'm just super excited about how it turned out. The major difference between this book and the first book is that Shallan comes more to the forefront. Kaladin's presence in the second book is about the same as it was in the first book. But this one is more Shallan and has a little less Dalinar than the first one.

2. Will we learn more about the character currently known as Hoid in Words of Radiance?

Yes, you will. Watch for a story told at a bar.

3. Is the plan still for ten books? How much ahead are you with the overall plan?

The plan is still for ten books, which is two arcs of five. The first five are very well plotted and nailed down in my head. The back five, I know the endings of each of those, but I'm not 100% sure on all the elements. Once I finish the first five, I will sit down and create the second outline in much more detail. Because they are divided in my head in such a way that they are two smaller arcs that have a big gap between them, I'm really focused on the first five right now.

Many thanks to Brandon and Gollancz for making this happen.