Quote:
Originally Posted by BenG
I finally got around to reading A Memory of Light, the 14th and final volume of The Wheel of Time. It took me about 21 years to get to this point.  |
I know I was really frustrated with how long it took to get books in that series but looking back at it, the series only took 23 years to finish and considering the author died in the middle that's quite a feat.
In that time he released 14 main-line novels (plus a prequel) that total about 13,000 pages and 4 million words. That really isn't too bad. It FELT a lot longer and there were a couple larger gaps but the largest was only 4 years (#11 was 10/15/2005 and #12 was 10/27/2009) and that was where Brandon Sanderson came in to take over when RJ died.
I guess it all comes down to anticipation and perspective. It's hard to have patience when you are anticipating something and that makes waiting feel extra long.
Spoiler:
As a comparison, the other epic length, ever ongoing fantasy series has released 5 books in 21+ years with gaps of 3, 1, 5, 6 and 6+ (TBD) years and is only 1/3 of the length so far.
Another author I have seen complaints about in the last couple years has published 15 main-line books, started the series after the two authors above, and has only had one 3+ year gap. Everything else was less than that. Plus this author has published a couple short story collections and a couple other series in the mean time.
The other most complained about SFF author that I can think of has published 2 main-line novels, a novella, and a few short stories since 2007, so averages over 5 years per novel release (with no release date for #3 scheduled yet).