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'Watchmen' writer Alan Moore has finished a 1 million word novel

'Watchmen' writer Alan Moore has finished a 1 million word novel

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Watchmen writer Alan Moore has completed work on the first draft of an epic novel that has now spiraled into an enormous story totaling over one million words. For context, that's more than two Lord of the Rings, or about as long as the first three Song of Ice and Fire novels. Titled Jerusalem, the book has been in the works since 2006, with Moore intermittently providing updates on it — last June, his draft was around just half-a-million-words long. The story is reported to be about Moore's hometown of Northampton, England, but loosely so. It'll cover historical events from the town and Moore's family, but it'll also dive into fantasy. One section, for instance, is said to be about his brother traveling into the fourth dimension.

There's still no date on when we'll get to see the novel or what form it'll take. Moore has previously stated that it'll likely be broken up into three volumes, though he seems more resigned to the idea than taken by it. "Now there's just the small matter of copy editing a more-than-a-million word document, and its all done," Moore's daughter Leah writes in a Facebook post announcing the draft's completion.