The tenth book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series will be finally released on January 7th, 2003. I'm very excited. I received book 1, The Eye Of The World, for a birthday many years ago. I think it was my twelfth or thirteenth, which either way would mean that I've been reading the books for a decade. Over time the plot has increasingly got larger and larger, the main characters more complex, and the scope has significantly expanded. On the other hand, Jordan has at times struggled to keep track of all the threads as the series threatened to spin out of control, and many of the newer characters have been reduced to caricature. While Jordan initially planned the series for ten books, he has stated that it seems inevitable now that the series will take much longer to complete.

As impatient as I am, I don't mind waiting as long as he does it right. I pray he does it right this time, unlike one or two of his previous books where he seemed to be setting up more and more new plot threads with no sign of a resolution in sight. I was most peeved with book eight, where my favourite character, Matrim Cauthon, did not appear at all- and this despite a cliffhanger at the end of book seven where he was last seen as a brick wall came crashing down on him.

Fingers crossed. Let's have a cracker of a book!