This is the thirteenth (posted on Friday the Thirteenth!) the of our Storm Leader reports we'll be posting throughout the U.S. book tour for [/url]

Fans awaiting Brandon's arrival

He recommended Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and most of the table had read it and agreed.  He said that with writers starting out, there are two basic ways they tend to go - one is to keep writing different things like he did.  The other is to work on one book, rewriting and improving it for a long time.  He recommends to his students that they take the first approach, and one of the reasons is that if you take the second and then hit it big, you don't have a lot of experience starting something new and getting it done.  Apparently Patrick Rothfuss is kind of in this situation - Name of the Wind was the first and only book he has written, and it has become wildly successful.  That puts him in a tough spot - the publisher wants the next book in the series, and he's working under pressure for the first time.

One of the points he made over and over was that writers starting out need to do a lot of writing.  You just have to spend a huge amount of time doing it to improve your skills.  He said that a great writer can take a terrible idea and turn it into a good book, and that a poor writer can start with a great idea and it won't turn into a good book.  Apparently Jim Butcher once made a bet with a friend that he could write a book from any two bad ideas.  The two ideas his friend came up with were a lost Roman legion and Pokemon.  He ran with it and wrote the Codex Alera series.

We got onto the topic of sci-fi, and someone mentioned Starship Troopers.  Brandon thought this was really funny because the book and movie went in completely opposite directions.  The book is about how you should have to serve in the armed forces to earn the right to vote.  Heinlein's idea was that you should have to prove that you're willing to put your life on the line for the country before you have a say.  There's very little action in the book - it's mostly a political argument.  The movie is a campy alien warfare movie that is mostly action, and centers on a love triangle that doesn't even appear in the book.

Brandon pointed out that I, Robot went basically the same way.  The robots in Asimov's books are supposed to be the next step in evolution - we create them to be better than us.  They're supposed to be smarter, stronger, and they obey the Three Laws of Robotics as sort of a moral code.  On the other hand in the movie, they go berserk and are all out to get us.

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Brandon addresses the crowd

 

We headed over to the store at seven, and there were around 150 people who had already gotten their line numbers.  Brandon first talked about how he was chosen to finish the series.  One thing he mentioned was that the first thing he ever did on the internet was get on Usenet to read rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan.  Before he ever sent an email, even!  During Brandon's opening remarks, his father made a surprise appearance.  He had driven down from Detroit to attend the signing.

Brandon also told the story of how Robert Jordan originally pitched the Wheel of Time to Tom Doherty.  He and Harriet pitched it together and said that it would be a trilogy.  At the end of the first volume Rand was going to take Callandor.  Tom Doherty knew how Jordan worked, and decided to write him a contract for six books just to be safe.  He said to Brandon that when he did it, he thought he had done a really smart thing.  He commented recently that it's appropriate that a series that was supposed to be a trilogy in the first place will end with a single volume that turned out to be a trilogy itself.

Brandon answered questions for around twenty minutes.  They're collected below.  After that the poster of the cover art was raffled off, and the signing began.  Brandon was extremely friendly and genuinely interested in everyone.  It took about two and a half hours to get through the line.  Beth handed out a crossword puzzle that she had made to help entertain the crowd, and we raffled off several WoT comics.  Everyone who came through got their choice of bumper sticker, and a nice map of Randland.

Some excited fans brought gifts.  Brandon collected lots of Magic cards, including a deck with character names from WoT.  He also got a box of seven cuendillar cookies shaped like the Seals.  One of his youngest fans brought some Mac and Cheese, which is one of his favorites.

The signing wrapped up around 10:45, with a few dedicated fans staying until the end and peppering Brandon with questions.  The rate of return dropped off near the end, as they were left with mostly RAFOs.  Brandon's planning to have cards made that he can hand out when he RAFOs someone.  Everyone had a great time, and the signing was a success.  The bookstore sold out all of Brandon's solo books, and huge piles of TGS.  As we were leaving, we were already looking forward to next year.

Questions

Q: What's the status of the WoT movie?

A: Universal has bought the rights for it, and they're in the process of writing a script.  Maria is the official contact point for making sure they get the details right.  Brandon is plenty busy writing, so he hasn't been involved.

Q: Is there a WoT MMORPG coming out?

A: Red Eagle has the right to create WoT video games, and they're working on some.

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Aes Sedai of the Blue and Green Ajahs made an appearance

Q: Were you surprised when you found out who killed Asmodean?

A: Brandon had been a fan for a long time before he got to find out who killed Asmodean.  He said that he had heard arguments for every possible suspect, including the really crazy ones like Tam.  So when he found out the real answer, he wasn't shocked.  His reaction was more "Oh, those guys were right".  He said that the clues are there, but he never would have figured it out himself.

Q: Was Taim turned by a circle of thirteen?

A: RAFO.  I will say that he was never a very nice guy.

Q: Slayer made a gateway in Far Madding when he tried to kill Rand and Min.  Does this mean he uses the True Power to make his gateways?

A: Slayer does not channel.  His powers come from somewhere other than the Source.  Slayer is not affected by the Guardian in much the same way that Perrin wouldn't be.

SPOILERS AHEAD!  IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE BOOK, STOP HERE!

The change in Mat's personality that many of us noticed in TGS was deliberate.  He's reacting to being married, which was the last thing he thought would happen to him.  RJ's notes said specifically that "Mat refuses to become husbandly", and he's doing that by trying to go back how he was in TDR.  This is part of where the silliness with the backstories comes from - he knows that he was less serious and more of a joker at the time, but can't really get back to how he was then.

When he was writing Talmanes, Maria mentioned that Talmanes doesn't usually mock Mat in the earlier books.  Brandon said that he has always read Talmanes that way, and that's what he finds so funny about it - Mat doesn't realize he's being teased.

Q: Do the Seanchan consider the raid on the White Tower a success?

A: Yes, they consider it a success, but they're disappointed that they didn't get their hands on the Aes Sedai superweapon.

Q: Will Moiraine be rescued in the next book?

A: You're assuming that Moiraine will be rescued.

Q: Will Moiraine's rescue attempt be in the next book?

A: You're assuming that Thom and Mat will attempt to rescue Moiraine.  (I'll tell you, he's as bad as an Aes Sedai.)

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Brandon's littlest fan comes bearing sustenance.

Q: What will be the focus of the next book?

A: This book really needed to focus on Egwene and Rand, and get their stories moving.  There was also a nice contrast between their arcs in this book, with Egwene's going upwards and Rand's downward.  The next book will be much broader in scope - we need to see what's going on with a lot of different parts of the story.  There will be a lot more Mat and Perrin than in this one.  I suppose you could say that if there was going to be a rescue attempt, the logic place to put it would be in a book with a lot of Mat .

Q: Will we see what's going on at the Black Tower?

A: We'll see whether that fits in or not.

Q: Will Fain be in the next book?

A: Padan Fain will be seen again.  He's a mixture of two things - Mordeth's power, which he got by seeking out all of the evil things that weren't related to the Shadow, and the Dark One's Hound.  Brandon said that Fain's number one goal is to kill Rand, and a close second is to kill the Dark One.  Now that Shadar Logoth has been destroyed, all of the Mordeth power that remains in the world is in Fain.

Q: It's pretty clear now that Moridin and Rand are linked because of the balefire incident.  Since Rand used saidin to create the balefire, and now he gets sick when channeling saidin, does that mean Moridin gets sick when he tries to use the True Power?

A: You're assuming that Rand's channeling sickness comes from crossing the streams.

Q: After Rand has channeled the True Power, he has a dark cloud around him.  When he meets with Tuon after this, she manages to resist his ta'veren pull.  Is this because the True Power has reduced his ta'veren mojo?

A: The reason she manages to resist is that she has a lot of willpower.  Rand is just as ta'veren as ever.

Q: How about the food going bad in Bandar Eban?  Was that caused by Rand being nearby with his cloud of evil?

A: We've heard earlier in the books that the Dragon is one with the land, and the land is one with the Dragon.  This is an old belief - many kingdoms believed that the wellness of the King was directly tied to the wellness of the land.  In WoT, this is quite literally true.

Q: In Falme we saw Rand fighting Ishamael and the Heroes of the Horn and the Seanchan were mirroring the progress of the battle.  Does this mean that there is something inherently evil about the Seanchan Empire?

A: Nobody in WoT is inherently evil, except for Shadowspawn.  At the time, the Seanchan were being led by a Darkfriend.

Q: Was the Domination Band made of cuendillar?

A: The original one is made of cuendillar.  The one that was destroyed was a copy, but one would assume that the copies are made of cuendillar too.  The True Power works by destroying the Pattern.  Everything that is done with it involves damage to the Pattern.  For example, when we see Ishamael Travel, he does so by poking a hole in the Pattern.  Cuendillar can be destroyed using the True Power.  There is another way to destroy cuendillar, too.

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Q: Is Mesaana still in the Tower?

A: Egwene makes some deductions about this at the end of the book.  Egwene is not incorrect.

Q: She could swear that she's not a Darkfriend on the Oath Rod, right?

A: As long as she believed it to be true.  Every remaining Aes Sedai in the Tower has retaken the three oaths.  You should be thinking about ways to defeat the Oath Rod.  There is a way to do it.

Q: At the darkfriend social, Carridin is given orders by Ishamael that he can't remember.  Later on in Ebou Dar, he sees Mat out the window and he sort of goes into a trance, sees more imagery, and when he snaps out of it, time is stopped and Sammael is in the room.  How did this happen?  Was Sammael paged somehow when Carridin's orders were triggered?

A: MAFO - Maria and find out.  This means he will answer the question, but he wants to check with Maria first to make sure he has the details straight.

Q: After Moiraine uses balefire on the Darkhounds in TDR, she says something about how she's much more dangerous now than when she met Perrin in Emond's Field.  How did she become more dangerous?

A: There are a couple of ways she might mean that she has become more dangerous.  Think about this - when she went to Emond's Field, she thought Rand was the Dragon.  Now she knows that he's the Dragon.  That in itself, combined with the fact that she's Blue makes her much more dangerous.