Tor has announced their plans and release date for the conclusion of the Wheel of Time series. The final book, “A Memory of Light” will be released in three volumes with the first, A Memory of Light: The Gathering Storm scheduled for November 3, 2009.
Following Robert Jordan's death in 2007 fantasy author Brandon Sanderson worked to complete the book based on Jordan’s notes. Sanderson has a lengthy blog posting describing how the size of the final book went from an estimated 200,000 words to 800,000 words as he reread the whole series and determined what was needed to tie it together. Like The Lord of the Rings the split between volumes is at climax point in the story rather than the split between viewpoints used by George R.R. Martin in A Feast for Crows and the upcoming A Dance with Dragon.
Sanderson also outlined the schedule of the next two books:
I've got a lot of writing left to do--four to six months worth, I'd guess. By these estimates, we'll have another book ready to go to press, then, in February next year. That means a fall 2010 release. And if things continue as they have, the third book (none of which is written right now) would come out summer 2011 at the earliest. And I guess that's what I'm trying to show you with all of this: No matter how the book is split, cut, or divided, the last portion wouldn't come out until 2011.
So I have a lot of time to reread the series before Tarmon Gai'don occurs.