New Tad Williams novels get new titles and a possibly accelerated release schedule

As related previously, Tad Williams shocking failed to break with convention by writing the concluding volume of his new Last King of Osten Ard sequence as so long that it had to be split in two. Publication plans for these two volumes are now becoming clearer.

First up, the books will be given their own titles. The first volume - now Book III of The Last King of Osten Ard - will be called Into the Narrowdark. The second - now Book IV of the untrilogy - will retain the original title of The Navigator's Children.

The books also look like they might come out sooner than expected, with the publishers considering a spring 2022 release for the first volume and a late summer 2022 release for the second, just a few months later. Previously the publishers had been considering 22 October 2022 for the first volume and an early-to-mid-2023 release date for the second, so it appears they've shuffled things up, which is good news.

Ahead of those two volumes, a shorter novel in the same setting, Brothers of the Wind, will be published on 4  November this year.

Shocking no one, the next Tad Williams book will be published in two volumes

In news that will not be a surprise to anyone, the final volume of Tad Williams' Last King of Osten Ard series, The Navigator's Children, will be published in two volumes.

This is a matter of history repeating itself. To Green Angel Tower, the final volume of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Williams' prior work in the same world and possibly the longest epic fantasy novel ever written (and around the fifth-longest SFF novel of all time), was split into two volumes in paperback. The final book in the Shadowmarch series was also split into two volumes for publication, Shadowrise and Shadowheart. Williams deliberately paced his Otherland series as four volumes, fearing the same thing would happen again, and very nearly extended that series to five books as the final volume came in so long, but they were able to keep it to four.

At the moment it is unclear if the two volumes will be published as "Part I" and "Part II" or if they'll have to be retitled. Tad is currently rewriting and editing The Navigator's Children with a view to Part I being published in 2022 and hopefully Part II six to twelve months later.

Williams' next novel, Brothers of the Wind, a prequel to the entire Osten Ard saga so far, will be published this November.

New Tad Williams novel gets cover blurb

The publishers have confirmed a blurb for Brothers of the Wind, Tad Williams' next novel set in the world of Osten Ard.

This isn't the concluding novel in the Last King of Osten Ard trilogy, The Navigator's Children, which is expected later (Williams has already completed the novel and has been revising it for some time), but a new, short prequel book set a long time before the events even of The Dragonbone Chair (the first novel in the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy).

Pride often goes before a fall, but sometimes that prideful fall is so catastrophic that it changes history itself.

Among the immortal Sithi of Osten Ard, none are more beloved and admired than the two sons of the ruling family, steady Hakatri and his proud and fiery younger brother Ineluki - Ineluki, who will one day become the undead Storm King. The younger brother makes a bold, terrible oath that he will destroy deadly Hidohebhi, a terrifying monster, but instead drags his brother with him into a disaster that threatens not just their family but all the Sithi - and perhaps all of humankind as well.

Set a thousand years before the events of Williams's The Dragonbone Chair, the tale of Ineluki's tragic boast and what it brings is told by Pamon Kes, Hakatri's faithful servant. Kes is not one of the Sithi but a member of the enslaved Changeling race, and his loyalty has never before been tested. Now he must face the terrible black dragon at his master's side, then see his own life changed forever in a mere instant by Ineluki's rash, selfish promise.

Kes and his master will range the world, risking countless dangers and meeting both mortals and immortals of many kinds as they try to undo the tragedy that springs from Ineluki's fatal pledge. During this journey, the seeds are planted for events that will culminate centuries later in the Storm King's War in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and the dreadful Norn Queen Utuk'ku's assault on humanity in The Last King of Osten Ard.

In the end, Pamon Kes must question everything about his life - and risk everything, too - as he struggles to save his beloved master, Hakatri. But will anything Kes does be enough? Or has Ineluki's rash promise already set the entire world on an unstoppable course toward destruction?

Brothers of the Wind was previously scheduled for release in June 2021, although the UK publishers and several online bookstores are now showing it for release in November 2021, with The Navigator's Children to follow in October 2022. These dates are likely placeholders and I hope to confirm those soon.

Tad Williams breaks own record to deliver the longest epic fantasy novel of all time (before editing)

Tad Williams has broken his own record to deliver the longest epic fantasy novel of all time, at least before the editing process is completed.

Williams' 1993 novel To Green Angel Tower, the concluding volume of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, is 520,000 words in length, or around 60,000 words longer than even the complete Lord of the Rings. In fact, the only even vaguely SFF novels longer than To Green Angel Tower are firmly in other subgenres: Varney the Vampire, Atlas Shrugged, Jerusalem and Infinite Jest. To Green Angel Tower is as long as the first two books in the trilogy (The Dragonbone Chair and Stone of Farewell) combined and is often only available in two volumes.

Fittingly, Williams' new, record-breaking novel is the concluding volume to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn's sequel trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard. The Navigator's Children currently clocks in at "bigger" than To Green Angel Tower.

The novel is being "prodigiously cut" and may end up coming in shorter than the published To Green Angel Tower, but whether that happens or not remains to be seen.

The Navigator's Children is currently tentatively scheduled for release in late 2021, and will be preceded by a short novel called Brothers of the Wind (previously known as The Shadow of Things to Come), which focuses on the backstory of the Storm King, Ineluki, and his brother Hakatri.

CORRECTION: It's been noted that Tad has completed the first draft of The Navigator's Children and is now revising, but has not delivered it to DAW as yet.