Ross was kind enough to send us this report about the RJ book signing in Cambridge, MA. There's some good stuff here:

I attended the book signing in Cambridge, MA last Thursday, and I just wanted to drop a quick line, because RJ mentioned some stuff I haven't seen listed in any of the other reports.

 

First (and most surprising to me - did I miss something) he mentioned that he is considering writing 2 or 3 "outrigger" novels in the Wheel of Time world in addition to the final book and the two other prequels. He said that he had always maintained that he wouldn't write any more in the WoT world unless he came up with a really good idea. Now he's afraid he has come up with such an idea, but he says he'll have to think about it for a couple years to really decide if it's good enough. So, it sounded like those novels wouldn't come out until after his "Infinity of Heaven" series, but he made it seem like they were a definite possibility and that they'd be about a side story or minor character from the main sequence books.

 

Second, he promised that he would either 1) reveal who killed Asmodean in the final book or 2) if he couldn't work it into the book, reveal who killed Asmodean online around the time the book 12 paperback comes out. So, at least the controversy will be settled some day.

 

Third, he was indignant that there weren't more women asking questions. He would bypass 10 male hands that had been raised for half an hour to answer the question of any female who had just raised her hand. So, if you've got a question you MUST have answered, get your girlfriend to ask for you.

 

There were lots of other cool aspects of the signing. He's a wildly interesting man to hear speak. My wife hasn't read any of the books, but she came with me and she was fascinated. There was one story he told that was too cool not to pass along. I hope I am faithful to the story and don't embellish too much.

 

RJ was asked about his portrayal of elected officials and rulers, and he said that he wrote them in the way that he thought politicians in the real world acted. Then he told a story of a meeting he had with a fan in Russia. This fan turned out to be an ex-KGB officer who had been nicknamed "The Dragon" and wanted to know how RJ "knew what he knew." RJ admitted to being really nervous at this point, imagining KGB torture stories, but said that

he replied, "First, we must determine what it is that I know." The Dragon seemed to find this funny, and then proceeded to compliment RJ on his writing of politics, saying that he gave the WoT books to friends with the caveat they were not books about politics, but books about the "poetry of politics."

 

So, don't bad mouth RJ in Russia, unless you want the Dragon on your ass.

 

Ross

Thanks, Ross!