Reviewing the Mail: Week of 12/1

Some weeks, the pile is very small, and so a long introduction would be silly. This is one of those weeks -- what I have in hand is one book and a folder. I haven't read the book, but I could easily read everything in the folder in ten minutes. But here's what they are:

Ash is the new novel by British horror writer James Herbert, coming from Tor (US) on December 11th. This one is a haunted-castle thriller -- said castle being situated on a remote Scottish promontory facing the sea, to make it more traditional and ominous -- starring Herbert's series character, paranormal investigator David Ash, who is hired to (naturally) investigate hauntings in said castle. The flap copy mumbles something about "what is fact and what is fiction," so this may be based on an actual legend, or that may be a reference to some Scooby-Dooism going on around the actual supernatural beasties.

The folder is an announcement, which will only be a surprise to people who have been living under a rock for the past few months. The final book in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series -- completed, like the prior two books in the series, by Brandon Sanderson from Jordan's notes and under the collaboration of Jordan's editor/wife -- will be A Memory of Light, and that book is on press right now. (It'll be on press for a while; these books are big, and it take a lot of copies to fill up the market.) Memory will be officially published on January 8. Now, I haven't read the first thirteen books in this series, so I don't know if jumping into the end would make any sense. But I'm sure many of you out there have read in this series before, and will be happy to know that it's finally coming to the big climax after nearly twenty-five years. So don't ear-mark your Christmas money for anything else -- that's what I'm saying.