As we reported earlier, Brandon Sanderson is on tour in Europe this month. One of our staff members, Thomas C., was able to attend the signing and give us this official report from Saturday's signing at Forbidden Planet bookstore in London. Brandon's next official stop is Paris, France.

Finally! After over seven years of being a member of Dragonmount, I finally got a perk! And that perk was being sat next to Brandon Sanderson at his recent book signing at the Forbidden Planet Megastore in London on Saturday 4th June 2011. And this I believe was his first book signing in the country – and hopefully it won’t be the last!

Arriving at the store about half an hour before the schedule 1pm start, my girlfriend (a member of the forums that goes by the username North Star) and I were taken backstage to meet the team involved with the book signing. There we saw Brandon Sanderson updating his Twitter status to say that he was finally in the UK! My girlfriend was cheeky and got one of her copies of the Mistborn books signed, as well as one for a friend.

It was at this point that we got an understanding of the plan for the day. Brandon Sanderson wanted to start the book signing with a reading that seemed to have caught the store’s staff off guard as they hadn’t planned for it! What was meant to be a reading of about 5 minutes was nearer to ten, but I am sure the fans wouldn’t complain, even if they had to stand! And I think the store were surprised at the number of fans who turned up – at the start, it was probably around the 75 mark, and was definitely a lot more by the end of the book signing.

Brandon Sanderson decided to read some unpublished material from his forthcoming book The Alloy of Law, a fourth book for the Mistborn trilogy. And before you jump up and down about a trilogy only having three books, this is a Mistborn novel, and is set 300 years after the end of the trilogy. Brandon Sanderson said that while the magic was the same, he wanted to take it into an industrial age. He did point out that it would not be steampunk, but would have that feel to it. At some stage in the future, he would like to do a sci-fi series based in the Mistborn world.

Spoilers for Mistborn: The Alloy of Law

Brandon Sanderson read from chapter 1 of the book, which focuses on the character Waxillium Ladrian. The passage focused on Waxillium getting an unexpected meeting from someone related to an incident that happened six months ago. He was back in the city, having put his guns down and focusing on trade. And that incident was a tragedy when chasing a psychopath in a Wild Wild West environment that affected Waxillium on the inside. It sounded intriguing, and I am sure Mistborn fans can’t wait!

End of spoilers.

After the reading, Sanderson went to the floor for an open question and answer session before the book signing session. The question and answer session covered both the Wheel of Time and Brandon Sanderson’s books, and had a total of 12 questions. From these questions, I will pick the highlights from this.

The second question focused on the release date of A Memory of Light, the final book in the series. Sanderson answered that it would in 2012, probably between March and November, but more likely to be towards the end of the year. The reason for this is because Harriet had requested more time to edit the book as she felt the previous books were rushed, hence the typos. During the book signing stage, Sanderson also revealed that his re-read of the Wheel of Time was another reason.

Questions also focused on Sanderson’s books, so I will have to put some of those in. Sadly, I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet, but I have heard nothing but good reviews. I will get their eventually! I made a start by buying the first two parts of the first book of the Mistborn trilogy! Fans wanted to know when the next book in the Way of Kings series would be out. Sanderson confirmed this would be after the last Wheel of Time book was published.

At this stage, I must point out that I am extremely impressed in the way that Sanderson juggles so many different series at the same time. And this leads nicely to the answer to question eight, which wanted to know how Sanderson kept track of all his series! He admitted he has a scatterbrain approach at times, which meant he constantly lost things, for example, keys. However, he never forgot stories, and has some stored in his brain from over a decade ago. He also pointed out that he works to the policy of having one book being revision, one being written and one at the planning stage.

The sixth question was a good one. The questioner wanted to know Sanderson’s view on working to deadlines and meeting publisher’s demands. Basically, the question looked at quality versus timing. Sanderson made it clear that he never comprised on the writing. If there were to be any shortcuts, it was more likely to be in the proofreading stage.

As pointed out earlier, I hadn’t read any of Sanderson’s work outside of the Wheel of Time. But question nine got me really interested. They wanted to know if there was a connection between all of Sanderson’s books (excluding the Wheel of Time). Sanderson confirmed there was a link between the different universes, and that there was a character that appeared in them all. So basically, he suggested his readers keep an eye out for this and more details will be revealed...

The twelfth and final question returned to the Wheel of Time and wanted to know if there were any plans for prequels and outriggers. From the point of view as a fan, Sanderson said “yes”, he would love there to be something like this. But from the point of view of the person in charge of Robert Jordan’s legacy, it was a “no”. It felt as if they would be capitalising on Jordan’s name. When the question was raised during the book signing, Sanderson rated it at about a 5% chance of happening. So probably very unlikely one then. From my own view, I think this is fair. The series needs to be completed before anything like this is considered – and this is an opinion that Sanderson expressed as well. But don’t rule it out – just look at Terry Goodkind. I am pretty certain Goodkind said he wouldn’t write in his Sword of Truth world once Confessor was finished. But a new book, The Omen Machine, is coming out shortly and is set in the world of Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell. Only time will tell...

It was time to move onto the book signing, and because of the numbers, which continued to swell, Sanderson said he was happy to stay until about 3:30pm to 4pm. It was at this point that Sanderson stated that he would personalise a couple of books (this definitely got ignored!). He also had a small dig at the likes of Amazon, which reduced the price of books, but didn’t allow for book signings – something that gives book stores an advantage.

The event then moved onto the book signing itself. I really wished I had kept a count of how many people turned up. Overall, I would say it was well over 100, if not nearer 150. It might have been many more! So, a great success. British fans came from all over the country, with Ipswich and Norwich to the East, York and Durham to the north, Wales to the west and of course London and the south. Europe was also represented, with fans coming from the Netherlands (where I gather there was an impromptu meet when Sanderson got delayed with his flights) and Sweden. I can’t see Sanderson dodging Scandinavia again, as I got the impression the Oslo signing was a huge success. Special mention must go to the American fans that turned up as well.

A whole range of books appeared to be signed, coming from Sanderson’s series and the books he has written in the Wheel of Time series. The most surprising book to appear was an advance reading copy (ARC) of The Way of Kings. Sanderson advised the owner of this book to look after it well, considering that some ARC can fetch a small fortune!

Sanderson invited those getting books signed to ask any questions they had. I made loads of notes relating to these, but I will focus more on some, and then summarise the rest. Otherwise, this report would be massive!

Sanderson has sold the film rights for the Mistborn trilogy. I believe this is common knowledge. What I believe is not common knowledge is that Sanderson has read the screenplay and is extremely pleased with it. All that is needed is a studio... Also, the series should appear as three films.

Question of the day went to the guy who asked Sanderson if he could be a soup, what kind of soup he would be! Sanderson confirmed he would be a potato chowder but without the clams! Sanderson said he now had an answer to the question that asked him what was the strangest question he had ever been asked! It was definitely a curveball of a question, and got everyone laughing!

Sanderson talked about his plans while in London. His wife was currently in London trying to find tickets for a show tonight and early next week. He had asked his fans via Twitter what he should see. On the Sunday, he planned to visit some of London’s free museums. I also got the impression he was off to Guildford for another book signing down there, and a few fans admitted they would see him again! To which Sanderson said he would find a new passage to read!

A few questions covered the Wheel of Time being turned into a movie. Universal have the rights to the turn the first book, The Eye of the World, into a film. One fan asked if Sanderson would like a cameo role in the film. Sanderson said he would love a role, even if he was getting eaten by a Trolloc. I hope Universal take note of this!

Sanderson confirmed that there would an update for the companion book, The World of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, lovingly known as the Big White Book. This would be in the form of an encyclopaedia, and contain much more information. A proposed date for this release would be about one year after A Memory of Light.

One fan asked what Sanderson felt was the main difference in the writing style between himself and Jordan. Sanderson felt Jordan was a better prose craftsman, which I agree with. The other difference was in the action scenes. Jordan had lived through battles as he was a Vietnam veteran, whereas Sanderson went more for a cinematic approach. I will look out for this on my next re-read!

Several fans wanted to know how Sanderson felt about picking up the baton and continuing the Wheel of Time series. He felt daunted to begin with, mainly over the fear of not doing a good enough job. He knows it isn’t perfect (like how Jordan would have written it), but he has loved the challenged – and I am sure us fans do like what he has done. He was initially surprised at the hardcore nature of Wheel of Time fans. He jokingly viewed himself as a stepfather to the fans! I got the impression that Sanderson was blown away by the level of detail and research Jordan undertook for the mythologies etc behind the books. He said there were shelves and shelves of textbooks on the mythology, and Harriet was able to pick the necessary books should he need to do some background or further reading.

Sanderson had an interesting discussion with one fan (I gathered he was a keen writer) over the merits of e-publishing. I didn’t even know such a concept existed! Sanderson felt this worked well for those who wrote quickly and also wrote shorter series. For those who wrote longer series, these people were better off with a publisher. Sanderson gave a good plan for someone who wanted to use e-publishing with regards to selling a short trilogy. He said that the first book should be about $0.99 with a good blog to get people interested. Then, the two remaining books should be sold for about $2.99. And if you could over 20,000 copies electronically, he felt a publisher would give you serious consideration.

One fan happened to have the same t-shirt on as Sanderson. It was a grey t-shirt, with dovie'andi se tovya sagain (“it's time to toss the dice”) and a red hand on it. As Social Group Leader of the Band of the Red Hand, I felt extremely jealous. I think I am now on the lookout for one! [Editor's note: Those shirts are for sale from Ta'veren Tees, an officially licensed t-shirt production company.]

After the sad and untimely death in 2006 of David Gemmell, a bestselling British fantasy author, a series of awards were set up in his name as a legacy in 2008 – the David Gemell Legend Awards. The top award for this is the Legend Award for the Best Fantasy novel. Brandon Sanderson is nominated in this award category twice – once for The Way of Kings, and secondly for the Towers of Midnight with Robert Jordan. The announcement of the winner is on 17th June 2011, and Brandon was disappointed not be in Europe at the time of the award. But I am sure we all wish him the best of luck in the category!

Now, after those lengthy detailed insight into questions, time now for some summaries of other key points raised...

- Bela survives!

- Sanderson admitted he was one of four people who knew the ending that Jordan had written for the Wheel of Time. And I think I can put money on who the other three are...

- One fan got Sanderson to do his signature on their iPad, which led to the representative from Forbidden Planet getting a picture of this! Sanderson was extremely impressed with how his signature turned out!

- Sanderson confirmed he would be appearing at Supernova in Australia in February 2012 (but not which city) as well as SwanCon in Perth in April 2012

- Sanderson revealed some of his favourite scenes from the Wheel of Time – Rand at Rhuidean; Nynaeve and Lan when she overcame her block; and Perrin and the Siege of the Two Rivers

- Sanderson admitted that there were landscapes/settings that he moved around his universes until he was sure that they fitted properly.

- There were definitely a lot of questions relating to detailed parts of Sanderson’s non-Wheel of Time work. While I did make notes, my lack of knowledge of these works would mean I would probably make mistakes. So apologies for not covering that in greater detail.

Sadly, no-one dressed up. Sanderson did get a few gifts. A fan from Wales had brought along a Dalek keyring. One fan had written his name down on a piece of paper, gave it to his sister who gave it to Sanderson to hopefully use in a future book. One had written a letter to Sanderson, which he would read later.

Once all fans had been and gone, a few hung back. While getting his books signed, one fan, Matt, had bought his Magic: The Gathering cards along with him and mentioned this to Brandon Sanderson, who admitted that they might play at the end of the signing if time allowed. Matt returned, and both Sanderson and Matt played a quick game in the store. From what I gathered (as I don’t know much about the game), Matt seemed to make a good start, then Sanderson pulled out an ace card and Matt lost in three moves! Matt didn’t seem to mind – I think the experience of playing a game with Sanderson was far more important!

At the end of the signing, the staff from Forbidden Planet felt it had been one of their more successful book signings. Personally, I agree with that. I put that down to the fact that this was Sanderson’s first time in the UK, and I don’t there had ever been a Wheel of Time related event like this here either. I do hope those involved in the Wheel of Time series and Sanderson’s team take note of this – there is a huge fan base over here in Europe just waiting for you! The Towers of Midnight tour was a huge success in North America – there is no reason why something similar for A Memory of Light wouldn’t work in Europe!

And finally, I would like to thank Jennifer for giving myself and my girlfriend the chance to attend and for our special access. And I would also like to thank all the fans that took the time to come to the signing – without you, it wouldn’t have been a success!

There is a gallery of pictures relating to the day under the gallery section of the website. I apologise to Matt - I do have the picture of you playing Magic: The Gathering with Brandon Sanderson, but the picture is too big to upload. If you do drop by the site, drop me a message and I will send it over to you!

It's nearly summer in the northern hemisphere and that means convention season is well underway. Dragonmount would like to highlight some conventions and other fan events that will feature the Wheel of Time series. Of special note to European and Canadian fans, Sanderson plans to attend conventions in France, Norway, England and Toronto this summer. Keep in mind that all these events are subject to change. Items may be deleted or added to his itinerary. We'll do our best to keep you updated on changes, but you'll want to double check with the event organizers before making travel plans.

From May 26-29, Sanderson will be attending Les Imaginales in Épinal, France. You can view his schedule for the event on their website. Sanderson does not have an official signing scheduled, but will be happy to sign any book he wrote in between panels.

On June 1st, Sanderson will be signing at Outland Kirkegata in Oslo, Noway.

On June 4, Sanderson will have a signing at Forbidden Planet Megastore in London, England.

On June 10, Sanderson will have a signing in Paris, France. Details to come when we have them confirmed.

From June 11-13, Sanderson will attend Etonnants Voyageurs in Saint-Malo, France.

From July 15-17, Sanderson will be a guest at Polaris 25 in Toronto, Canada. In addition to Sanderson's signings and panels, it looks like they've got a good variety of fan panels on the Wheel of Time this year. You can see details on their website.

From August 17-21, Sanderson will be a programming participant at "Renovation", the 69th annual World Science Fiction Convention in Reno, Nevada. No word on schedules yet, but Wheel of Time fans Linda Taglieri and Jennifer Liang are also confirmed as program participants. Additionally, Sanderson has been nominated for a Hugo Award along with fellow authors Howard Tayler and Dan Wells for their podcast Writing Excuses in the category of "Best Related Work". Hugo voting is open to any member of last year's WorldCon (AussieCon IV) or members of this year's WorldCon registered by July 31st. For more information about the Hugos, check out Renovation's website.

September 2-5 will mark eleven years of Wheel of Time programming at Dragon*Con, one of the largest fan conventions in North America. Brandon Sanderson will NOT be attending this year, but Maria Simons, one of the continuity editors for the series will be participating as an Attending Professional. You can get the latest information about the Wheel of Time track on their website.

If you are interested in meeting Wheel of Time fans at these conventions, feel free to plan get togethers on our Meets and Conventions board. Some of these events already have planning threads started. And as always, if you'd like to file a convention or signing report to be featured on the site, please email jennifer@dragonmount.com for more information.

There are two intense tournaments raging right now, and both of them feature entries from the Wheel of Time. No, we're not talking about the NCAA March Madness tournament either.

Suvudu Cage Match

In this year's Suvudu cage match, which pitches various heroes from the fantasy genre against each other, Perrin Aybarra is representing the Wheel of Time series. As of this news article, we're currently in the fourth round of the tournament. Perrin has defeated. Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Paul Atreides, and Martin the Warrior. Currently he's taking on Ben Adaephon Delat (aka "Quick Ben") from the The Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson.

Please go vote for Perrin!

Last year's tournament champion was Rand al'Thor, who defeated Jaime Lannister from George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire in what was surely one of the most exciting showdowns in years.

The 4th Annual Audible.com Tournament of Audiobooks

The other tournament happening right now is Audible's Audiobook tournament. Celebrating outstanding performances in four categories (Best Sellers, Critically Acclaimed, Customer Favorites, and Editors' Picks), the competition is a bracket-style, single-elimination tournament where customers and fans vote to decide which books advance from week to week. It all leads up to the final week, when the winning book will be crowned Audible's Champion of Audiobooks to stand beside past winners including last year's champion: The Gathering Storm.

This year all the excitement began on March 23 and continues until the champion is announced on April 26. Representing the Wheel of Time is Towers of Midnight, one of the bestselling books of 2010. ToM has already made it through the first round and the second round voting goes until April 4.

Go here to vote for it!

So there you go. Two popular tournaments. The Wheel of Time is the returning champion for both of them. Let's tell the world that our fandom and our favorite series deserve to be #1 again this year.

Ta'veren Tees, an official endorsed website for purchasing Wheel of Time t-shirts is now open. They currently have a small (but growing!) selection of shirts you can buy in both mens' and womens' sizes.

Here's their press release:

OFFICIAL WHEEL OF TIME® T-SHIRTS TO BE SOLD BY TA’VEREN TEES

 

Fans of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time® series now have a way to wear their love for the WoT on their sleeves – literally.

 

Ta’veren Tees is the exclusive provider of Wheel of Time® apparel officially licensed by The Bandersnatch Group, Inc. Located at www.taverentees.com, Ta’veren Tees is the first and only to sell T-shirts dedicated to the characters, themes, imagery and sayings found throughout Robert Jordan’s epic series.

 

The initial store opening features six designs; two for women, two for men and two unisex. More shirts will be rolled out and added to the inventory over the coming months, but don’t be fooled by the site name – shirts won’t skew only towards the series’ three famous ta’veren. Whether you’d like to throw a spear with the Maidens or secretly call yourself a darkfriend, you will find something to wear on taverentees.com.

 

“With the first designs, we want to make sure we address the wants and needs of both male and female Wheel of Time® fans. We think that fans will be very happy with the first six shirts and the ones we will release in the near future,” said Jeffrey Daniel, co-owner of Ta’veren Tees.

 

“It is important to us to take the Wheel of Time® world that Robert Jordan beautifully created and show our admiration for the series that we all love,” said Sophie Decaudin, Ta’veren Tees co-owner. “This is something that hasn’t been done before, there was a need for it, and we are excited to meet that need head on.”

 

By creating these shirts, Daniel, Decaudin and Co-owner Kiley Kellermeyer hope to provide yet another avenue for WoT fans to express the love and devotion they feel towards the amazing world and spell-binding characters Jordan created.

 

“These designs are not only colorful, but reflect the themes and characters in the Wheel of Time® books,” said Harriet Rigney, editor of the series and widow of James Rigney, the author. “They may not be able to stop cold steel, but they are extremely fashionable.”

 

“We also salute Jeffrey, Kiley and Sophie for the design and layout of the Ta’veren Tees website,” she continued. “It’s a clean, uncluttered format that’s easy to navigate and I’m sure the fans of the books will enjoy visiting often.”

 

“Sometimes playful, often insightful, Ta’veren Tees are a welcomed addition to the line of products officially licensed by The Bandersnatch Group,” she concluded.

You can find their selection b visiting www.taverentees.com

Tor.com sent us this announcement via email yesterday:

Tor.com is pleased to announce the addition of a Wheel of Time portal, on both Facebook and Twitter, to our little family of pages.

 

Overseeing this corner of the Pattern is Jennifer Liang, who has been active in various forms of fandom since 1998. Jennifer is now an administrator and co-webmaster of Dragonmount, the largest Wheel of Time fan site. She is the director of Wheel of Time programing for Dragon*Con and the chair of JordanCon, a Wheel of Time-themed convention. In 2009 Jennifer became the maintainer of the WOTFAQ, a document that has existed online in various forms since 1993. When not obsessing over who killed Asmodean, Jennifer teaches middle school social studies and blogs about recipes, restaurants and gardening.

 

TorDotWoT joins the already existing Tor.com portals for science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, steampunk, and art. Come join the conversation!

To follow me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Torcom-Wheel-of-Time/193464610666968?v=wall

To follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tordotwot

Other noteworthy Wheel of Time Twitter accounts are:

[twitter]Dragonmount[/twitter]

[twitter]WheelofTimeFans[/twitter]

[twitter]Theoryland[/twitter]

[twitter]TarValon[/twitter]

[twitter]BrandonSandrson[/twitter]

The 2011 Hugo Awards nomination period has begun. The Hugos are considered the most prestigious award in science fiction and fantasy literature. Think of them as the Oscars, but for books. Unlike the Oscars, the Hugos are decided by a popular vote of fans from around the world. You can find out more about the awards and their history here.

To be eligible to vote in the Hugos, you need to be a member of the World Science Fiction Society, which is defined by the members of either the previous WorldCon or the upcoming WorldCon. So those of you that attended the WorldCon in Melbourne last year are eligible to vote on this year's Hugos, along with anyone registered for the upcoming WorldCon in Reno. To be eligible to nominate you must be pre-registered (either Supporting or Attending) for the next WorldCon by January 31st. To find out more about how to register for WorldCon and participate in the Hugos, check out their website.

While we certainly wouldn't dream of telling you how to nominate or vote, here are some Wheel of Time related things that are eligible for Hugos that you might consider when filling out your ballot.

Best Novel:

Towers of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson & Robert Jordan

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz Verses the Shattered Lens by Brandon Sanderson

(Of these three novels, I personally consider The Way of Kings to be the more Hugo worthy. Your opinion may differ.)

Best Fan Writer:

Linda Taglieri

Leigh Butler

Best Fanzine:

Dragonmount.com

(There is no Hugo for "Best Fan Website", unfortunately. Jason & I think we fit best in the fanzine category because we serve as a Wheel of Time news portal.)

Also, any of the artists who produced work for the Wheel of Time eBooks published in 2010 would be eligible for the "Best Professional Artist" award. You can see their artwork on Tor.com.

Remember, to be able to participate in nominating, you need to be pre-registered for WorldCon by the end of this month.

TarValon.net is hosting The Feast of Lights, a charity drive benefitting breast cancer research. Here's what they told us about it:

This year's Feast of Lights drive, hosted by TarValon.Net, Inc., is being held for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, in memory of Tricia Erickson (Padra Sedai), who passed away this summer. The drive is open to all Wheel of Time fans, and every donor will be entered into a raffle to win some amazing Wheel of Time prizes, including a leather-bound copy of Towers of Midnight signed by Harriet McDougal and Brandon Sanderson.

This drive is being run from December 5 - January 5. Information on the drive, including a full list of prizes and how to donate, is available here.

Please consider donating for this worthy cause, and help us demonstrate how the Wheel of Time community can make a positive difference in the world.

Seamas Gallagher, a well--known Wheel of Time artist whose work can be seen on our main banner above-- has been given an official license to produce and sell high-quality WoT art prints.

The first batch is now available.

View more os Seamas's art at www.seamasgallagher.com

Brandon is planning other trips outside of the USA in the near future. Please check his website for details.

OK, here goes... If anyone else has pictures from the signing, please post them also. Thanks to Cuthbert 19 for sending me his pictures.

Here's a quick link to my dragonmount gallery for those who just want to see the pictures:

Signing Report Paris - Major spoiler warnings

The signing was a great event with over 100 people present. Brandon was very happy with it. The bookstore people were very nice and had bought some drinks for everyone.

Brandon's wife Emily sent me an email when they got to Paris and they met me in a café beforehand as a thank you for helping set up the book signing. Brandon signed my books and drew a dead narg for me because I told him that I am on Theoryland and Dragonmount and he had done things like this for other theorylanders (See Terez's dead Asmodean drawing).

Then we went over to the bookstore.

Here's a picture of the store window with lots of WOT books.

... and the posters they put up

Brandon began by reading Lan's part of the prologue with great enthusiasm:

Then came the questions & answers session (see detailed description below, videos are also coming).

I met up with Cuthbert and we also talked with some other enthusiastic fans met at the signing, one of which I convinced to buy Way of Kings. During the line, we read Julien's list of questions deciding which one or two he should ask if Brandon only had time to answer one and speculated about what the answers might be.

Here's a picture of us with the list of questions:

We intentionally placed ourselves at the very back of the line because both Cuthbert and Julien had a very big sack of books, and this gave us more time to talk about our questions and hang out near the diet coke :). It took about 2 hours to get through the line, which was fine with us!

Here's a picture of people in line (near the end):

... and Brandon signing books:

When we got to the front of the line, we asked our questions and Cuthbert identified himself as the guy who (almost) found the Venice clue during the great hunt (it was lost, but Brandon sent him a copy of it + another code) who flew to Paris just for the signing. There's a great picture of them at the signing table with the clues:

Afterwards, the bookstore was planning to take Brandon and Emily to dinner but as only one person from the bookstore was coming, Brandon invited Federico, Julien, 2 other fans and I who had waited at the back of the line to come along too which was a very fun experience and we got to ask more questions (yay).

Brandon and Emily opening magic cards from Federico:

The rare card in Brandon's pack (I think this is the one he had Federico sign):

... the cards were in Italian

Group picture at dinner:

Please note that here were some topics that Brandon talked about at the signing and also later, so I may have put some things he said later into the description of his answer to the question at the signing to have everything on the same theme in one spot.

This was a really great time and I want to thank Brandon, Emily, the bookstore and everyone who came! For those who were there, let us know who you were and if you remember anything I didn't mention here or got a question in line that I didn't hear.

Signing Q&A video 1:

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Sorry for the shaky camera at the beginning, it gets better after about a minute. This starts a few questions into the Q&A session as the beginning got erased by accident.

Signing Q&A video 2:

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Signing Q&A video 3:

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Signing Q&A summary:

The questions are not necessarily in order as I wrote this from my memory.

There were some funny moments like when someone asked what would be the role of the Prince of the Ravens and Brandon answered it with a rafo on the Prince of the Raisins. Much laughter ensued and he told us about the typo Maria found in the book about "butt trollocs"...

Another question was how much of the books was him and how much was RJ. He said that for AMOL, TGS and TOM, he had about 200 000 words of written material including notes dedicated to that story . He also had dictations dedicated to the AMOL material + dictations and the other general notes for the series. He made the parable of someone who has pieces of a Ming vase for which he had some pieces but others are missing and he had to put it all back together to make a whole. He did say that for this book, more of Mat was RJ and more of Perrin was him. I think that he has done a really great job.

Someone asked if he would do the prequels and outriggers. He said its Harriet's decision but he'd seen a lot of series being continued after they probably should have stopped and he doesn't want that to happen to The Wheel of Time. TOR wants very much for Brandon to do more WOT books after the end and also continue his own books. Brandon thinks that the easiest place for them to stop doing additional WOT material is after AMOL and the encyclopedia are done – if the prequels get written, he worries that there would be more demand for the outriggers and if the outriggers got written, demand for more books. He mentioned that he would say yes if Harriet asked him to do the prequels and outriggers but would say no to any further material after that. He has advised that they stop after AMOL and the encyclopedia. However, he did say that he thinks that the outriggers and prequels would be great books if they were written, which makes me really want to read them. He has said previously that if there were one or the other that he'd rather do the prequels but TOR wants the outriggers more.

He mentioned that doing TOM and rewriting/editing Way of Kings the same year was quite intense in terms of time. He is still committed to getting books out quickly and regularly, but WOK and TOM in one year was more than he wants to do on a regular basis.

He is going to take 3 months to reread the series and plans to have AMOL done by end 2011 for a release in early 2012.

Someone else asked if Rand's internal state of affairs was affecting the world around him. Brandon said there are 2 things going on – ta'veren and the fisher king prophecy which says the Dragon is tied directly to the land. He says it seems to Rand that more bad stuff was happening in TGS but that this could be either just Rand's perception or what is really going on. We should remember that ta'veren is supposed to be 50/50 – an extra equal amount of good and bad going on. He would not tell us at this point whether there was really more bad stuff happening in TGS or whether its rand's perception as there was purposefully very few viewpoints from rand himself in TOM. Like the 3rd book Dragon Reborn, TOM is meant to step away from Rand and view him from the viewpoints of others.

Someone also asked if Rand's ta'veren nature would affect people on the other side of an open gateway. Brandon said that the Pattern considers that Rand is where he is and not on the other side of the gateway, so he would not affect a place just by having a gateway open there and not actually being there.

Someone asked how the trollocs are getting enough food in the Blight, they can't just eat each other right? Brandon said that the number of trollocs in the blight currently is unsustainable over a long period of time but we should remember that the shadow does has access to channelers that can create gateways (implied: as a means to bring food TO the trollocs).

Someone asked if the Seanchan taking over the entire world would be a victory for the Light or the Dark. Brandon said it would be a victory for the light because the Dark One would not have won. He said that the Forsaken have different visions of what a victory for the Dark would mean. Ishamael thinks it will mean the destruction of everything and the end of time whereas Graendal thinks that he will remake the world.

Otherwise, many of the Q&A questions were things Brandon had answered previously such as why were the books split into 3...

Other Q&A summary

This part is from the un-official q&a during dinner and the questions I asked Brandon from before the signing.

I asked if he could confirm definitively that Cyndane is Lanfear and end of story since there were still some people saying maybe Cyndane isn't Lanfear. He said that anything regarding Lanfear is RAFO at this point because there is likely to be information about that in the next book and there are hints about what is going on with her in Towers of Midnight.

We discussed the gholam, if someone had pushed it through a gateway, would it have just died? Brandon said that gholam CAN go THROUGH gateways (from one place to another). Gholam are shadowspawn of a more perfected kind. It would have been way too easy to kill if you just needed to shove it through a gateway (to another place). However, falling through the Skimming gateway for a few minutes did kill the gholam and it is really dead and its not going to show up again. This makes me wonder now if one of Rand/Logain's deathgates would have killed it but I didn't think to ask at the time.

I also asked about how Asmodean was killed now that we know Graendal was "responsible" for his death. Brandon said that when he arrived at Harriet's and asked to see the ending and got the pile of Robert Jordan's notes including the ending, on top of that pile was a message from a fan in the form of a dialogue between a Sherlock Holmes character and a Watson character with a note from RJ saying "this is right". Emily asked if it was from Matt Hatch and Brandon didn't think it was. He said that he can probably give send me that message so we know exactly what RJ said "this is right" to.

This is apparently all of the information that is available from RJ himself about the actual method of Asmodean's murder. In Brandon's vision of the story, he imagines Graendal killed Asmodean (did the deed herself) with balefire, but apparently this is not in the notes. So its possible that it could have been done by another kind of weave and we are free to speculate on that.

I then asked about the RJ quote where he said that the place and the method of Asmodean's killer both mean that he couldn't come back. Brandon said this was also a RAFO as he couldn't tell us why the place was important at this point without giving something away. He seemed to know something about this reason (there is probably information about why someone killed in the place Asmodean was couldn't be brought back by the DO). I asked if whether "where" referred to the city of Caemlyn or something else and this was also a RAFO.

He also said that RJ's answer to Winespring Brother "The Dark One couldn't bring back Asmodean because of the combination of 2 factors: HOW HE DIED and WHERE HE DIED. Not one or the other, both factors." might be interpreted as both factors (each alone) would have prevented the DO from bringing Asmo back (and not just one or just the other) OR both factors (each alone) were not sufficient to prevent the DO from bringing Asmo back and the combination of both was required. It seemed to me like his vision of it was more the first answer than the second (both factors each alone would have prevented it).

I am guessing that we will learn about that in either AMOL or the encyclopedia, but probably AMOL. My personal theory is that there is perhaps some kind of magic tied to the city of Caemlyn that makes the dark one's power be lessened within that city itself and perhaps he cannot bring back anyone killed there. This is perhaps also a reason that he wants to make a strike at the city of Caemlyn with all of the trollocs very soon.

I asked about why Grady didn't tie off the gateways to move Perrin's troops if he was too tired to keep them open. Brandon says that this was part of the instructions he had, so he didn't want to change it (my speculation is that I think that means it was probably in the notes themselves but I don't know that for sure). He said that it makes sense for tieing off gateways to have a cost for the channeler to maintain because if it were so easy to create gateways and tie them off, it could be very breaking for the logistics of the world. If this were possible in the Age of Legends for example, why would anyone need a horse or a wagon or to develop any other kind of technology to transport anything? There could just be tied off gateways from everywhere to everywhere else.

I asked if there would be another Great Hunt for AMOL and Brandon said yes and he is thinking about putting in all the chapter names. He said we will notice in TOM that not all of the chapter names got put in because he took out some of the ones that he thought would be so easy to guess. Because of this filtering on the chapter names, he was impressed that we guessed so many. I told him that there were 6000 failed guesses we listed and about the list and search engine that was made by Theorylanders to avoid making the same wrong guesses and he was very impressed by that. He said Tor was surprised by the success of the Hunt and that they were very pleased.

I also asked if there was anything in AMOL like the big un-noticed thing in TOM that we should look for. He said there are lots of little things that come to fruition in interesting ways. I said yeah, I can't wait to see how "his blood on the rooks of Shayol Ghul" turns out. Do you know there are some people that think Elayne will have her babies on SG and that will fulfill the prophecy? He said well, Elayne is like 4 months pregnant at this point... Lots of things are possible with the One Power though. In my mind, this debunks that theory somewhat .

At dinner, Cuthbert told us in detail about his involvement with the last clue. He had to get up on the chair of the photobooth to look at what was on top and a lot of the security guards were looking at him funny. He also got a lot of twitter followers and people encouraging him to go get the clue.

Julien asked if the incident where Perrin comes back from TAR with blood of someone else on his face was a mistake or something else (usually you get blood from your own wounds but not others when exiting TAR). Brandon said remembering thinking it was odd at the time when he read it but asked for an email and find out for that question.

He also asked if Rand had quit smoking since we hadn't seen him smoking tabac recently. Brandon says that if he can't get Two Rivers tabac he would rather not smoke anything and Rand has been a busy guy lately. He compared it to being used to really good french wine and then having only bad American wine available, in which case Rand would rather not consume. Rather funny.

Julien also asked what "Shanna'har" meant and he said that he had asked Alan for a word that meant "commemoration" in the old tongue.

He also asked what was the riddle that the Snakes & Foxes told Rand that gave him the answer about how to cleanse saidin. We know their answer to how can I win the Last Battle, how can I survive the Last Battle and we know the result of rand's third answer about cleansing the Source but we don't know what the "riddle" was. Brandon was not sure if he could tell us this without giving something away so he got an email and find out on this question.

Someone asked about why the clouds are clearing and whether they were clearing around the certain of the important women in the story. Brandon said that the clouds are clearing around Rand, but it has not been specified whether that's because of ta'veren, the Fisher King or another reason entirely. He said that the clouds had cleared over Avi in the Waste and we have not seen whether the clouds have cleared over Tuon, but Tuon is still somewhat behind the other characters at the end of TofM. He also said the clouds have not cleared over Seandar.

Cuthbert gave Brandon packs of Magic cards in Italian and Brandon had him sign one of the cards, which was neat.

Other things we discussed included the Mistborn movie (Brandon has seen a screenplay and it was pretty good, but the project is not for sure going to be made). Dreamworks Animation has the rights to Alcatraz and Red Eagle has the rights to Wheel of Time.

There was an April Fools joke at one point that Lindsay Lohan was going to play Vin in the movie by Brandon's friend Dan wells who does the Writing Excuses podcast for aspiring writers with Brandon. If you haven't listened to their podcast yet you should, its quite entertaining even for people who have no desire to become writers. Brandon mentioned that maybe about 50% of the audience is listening just for fun and may not have an actual desire to become professional authors.

Finally, Brandon told us that he is likely coming back to Europe next year. He wants to get to the UK very much and will likely go to the Imaginales d'epinal convention which is in March. He said that he generally has more time at conventions to do things like play Magic than at signings as there are events over multiple days, parties, etc...

We discussed Demandred, I don't remember how or why it came up, but I said that the most popular theory currently is that he's Roederan of Murandy. I didn't ask who Demandred is because I knew that would get a big fat RAFO. He said "aren't there a lot of people who think its Paitar"? I said not that I knew as, RJ said we hadn't seen Demandred's alias on-screen prior to KOD and we had seen Paitar before. Roderan is basically the only important king of Randland or one of them that we haven't seen on screen. He didn't deny or confirm any of the above.

All this talk about gateways now has me curious if gateways always have to be flat or if there could ever be a curved gateway. But I didn't think to ask that. For example, could you make a spherical gateway around somebody with the destination being a fiery pit and they couldn't move otherwise they'd be toast? If someone made a circular gateway, how would that look on the other side (a big round sphere of nothing... ?)

We talked about the order of the chapters as some people were confused by tam being in 2 places at once. Brandon said there was no way around this as they had to catch Perrin up. Then we asked if there was a chance of getting the last 3 books re-released with the chapters in chronological order. He said this might be possible as an e-book or maybe a rearranged audiobook. Only the chapter orders would be changed.

Author's note: You couldn't fit it all in one published book and it would just be weird to have 3 separate volumes published again with the chapters in different orders. I could totally see an ebook or one huge rearranged audiobook though as something attractive and maybe not too costly to produce that some HCFFs like us would enjoy having.

Finally, here are some pictures of my books.

TOM with dead Narg (awesome):

Contents of my backpack before going to the signing (that thing was heavy)!!

The last stop on the tour, the New York signing went a little differently from the others. For the Tower Guards, it began a few hours earlier, in the Tor offices! We met with Brandon, Harriet, Maria, Alan, Leigh Butler, Tom Doherty, and a few other people from Tor. Afterward, we were given a tour of the office.

From there, we made our way to the bookstore! Upon our arrival, there was already a pretty long line waiting for us, headed off by last year’s Storm Leaders. Luckily, we came prepared with trivia questions! We walked along the line in different places, randomly asking our questions and handing out prizes. Many fans were eager to answer- some even asked trivia questions of their own! So many Wheel of Time fans gathered in one spot is a great opportunity to theorize and have epic discussions with other fans, so we of course did that as well.

Since it was a Monday evening, not as many people dressed up as we would like. In fact, there were only two people in costume. We saw an Asha’man, and Mat among the fans throughout the night. Thanks, you two!

<a href='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&img=435'><img src='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/uploads/1289304312/gallery_15164_51_573231.jpg' alt='Asha'Man, He's Channeling!!!!!' /></a>

As the line was ushered into the small event room of this Barnes & Noble, we were surprised to see how much of the line made it into the room. While the event space was definitely small, the fans did a great job of heeding the Tower Guards directions, and the line moved fluidly. For those who arrived too late, they were able to watch the reading and the Q & A on televisions that were set up outside the room.

<a href='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&img=430'><img src='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/uploads/1289304312/gallery_15164_51_516362.jpg' alt='Can you say Towers of Midnight?' /></a>

The event officially began with Harriet’s reading from the prologue of Towers of Midnight (which can be viewed

Following the reading was a Q & A session. We of course wrote that up, and you can find it here on Dragonmount. We filmed it as well, and you can view it on Youtube.

Among the fans in attendance were Brandon’s wife, Emily, several Tor employees, including Justin, Tom Doherty, Brandon’s editor, Leigh Butler, and author Charlaine Harris. Towers of Midnight is dedicated to the major sources of Wheel of Time fandom. As a representative of this massive fandom, and as someone the book was dedicated to, Leigh Butler was asked to sit at the table and sign books as well.

In addition to the official Q & A session, many fans asked questions as they approached the table to get their books

While not everyone had a question for Brandon (at least one that wouldn’t get R.A.F.O.’d), I think almost every person thanked him for continuing the series and let him know what a wonderful job he has done. One group of fans even brought Team Jordan a cake!

<a href='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&img=477'><img src='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/uploads/1289351488/gallery_15164_51_670543.jpg' alt='nice map' /></a>

Lurking near the table to write down the questions people asked, we also heard many stories and comments, of course. One fan showed up with a European version of the book. He had traded with a European friend so they could get a taste of the different versions. Another fan noted that he had come all the way from Brazil! The signing wasn’t his only purpose in the States, of course, but that is still quite a trip. A young woman came bearing Warbreaker and explained that it was purchased on her honeymoon, and when she got home she realized it was the only souvenir she had gotten. We heard a lot of compliments on all of Brandon’s work- especially Way of Kings. Everyone who has read it seems to love it!

Several people let Brandon know how much they love and appreciate his Twitter updates, and of course there were a few fans that showed their appreciation by presenting him with Magic: The Gathering cards! In an interesting twist, he had his fans sign the cards they gave him so he will be able to remember where he got them! Among the books to be signed was someone’s Kindle! That’s right, Brandon & Harriet signed someone’s Kindle. Starr Goozee, another fan, gave Brandon some gorgeous environmental photos she had taken. They really were magnificent, and you can see photos of them <a href=’http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/uploads/1289351488/gallery_15164_51_509155.jpg’> here</a>. Emily Sanderson, Brandon’s wife, sat beside him during part of the signing, and a bunch of fans thanked her and shook her hand.

Throughout the night, Tower Guards did their best to entertain the masses with more trivia and prizes. A poster sized version of the Towers of Midnight cover art was raffled off, and won by Ali Weisz, who enthusiastically got it signed by everyone.

<a href='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&img=478'><img src='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/uploads/1289351488/gallery_15164_51_2001527.jpg' alt='Raffle Winner!!' /></a>

While this particular Barnes & Noble was not the most accommodating of places, the night was definitely a success. As tired as we felt afterward, I don’t think any of us could begin to imagine how tired Brandon and Harriet must be after that tour. We appreciate all the work that goes into The Wheel of Time, from Brandon & Harriet, Maria & Alan, to Tor’s employees and the huge fandom. The overall feel was of the night was excitement and appreciation, and we Tower Guards have already made plans with the Storm Leaders to come back next year so we can experience it all over again (and let someone else keep everyone in line)!

<a href='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&img=495'><img src='http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/uploads/1289351488/gallery_15164_51_1805190.jpg' alt='Team Jordan, Tower Guards and more' /></a>

Thank you to everyone who helped make this event as amazing and fun as it was. Special thanks to Tower Guard Zeshan Hamdani, who spent a great deal of time on all of the filming and photography. You can find the rest of his photos in <a href=’http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/gallery/album/15164/51-nyc-tom-book-signing-110810/’>Dragonmount’s gallery.</a> If you had your picture taken, this is where you will find it!

Editor's Note: The Tower Guard also conducted a short interview with Brandon at the signing. It contains spoilers for TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, so it's posted on our spoiler discussion forum.

When I arrive there is already a crowd of people waiting to make petitions to the Amyrlin and her Keeper of the Chronicles, but there is a while yet before they will arrive and so I do my best to see that everyone is kept happy along with the other Tower Guard. During my talks with some, I find that they have come from cities as far away as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and in the case of one gentleman, London, England. They are all excited to be here, however, and are as pleased as I was to make the journey if it meant getting the opportunity to have an audience with Harriet and Brandon. After a short delay -- planes will simply never be as reliable as Traveling -- the two arrived to much applause and got right down to business.

The evening started with a reading by Harriet from the prologue of Towers of Midnight. We were given the choice of hearing a section from Lan’s point of view or Padan Fain’s, though it wasn’t much of a competition when it came time to raise our hands and vote. For the next quarter hour we listened as Harriet read about Fain’s trek north into the Blight, sometimes laughing and sometimes nodding our heads thoughtfully as she read the passage with a slight southern drawl. Once Harriet was finished, Brandon stepped up to the podium and proceeded to answer questions posed by those in the audience for another twenty minutes, covering topics ranging from the Mistborn series to future works within the Wheel of Time universe after A Memory of Light is complete.

The hour is already growing late, however, and we must move quickly if we are to get all the books signed before Tarmon Gai’don arrives. My duty is to prepare the thick tomes by making sure dust jackets and post-it notes are in their proper place, while others of the Tower Guard perform their assigned tasks. Melody is taking professional photos to document the event; Cassy, ever ebullient, stays nearby to assist Harriet and take pictures for people on their personal cameras; David, Maureen, and Gavin stroll through the crowd waiting in line and play trivia games to win a bookmark or conduct interviews about who their favorite characters and moments are from the Wheel of Time. Eric, our leader, is stalwart by Harriet and Brandon’s table, ready to marshal the other Tower Guard into action when needed.

All things considered, in short order the last person made their way through the line, and by eleven o’clock there were only a handful of people left roaming about the Tower. I was able to absorb a lot in that brief window of time, due in most part to Brandon and Harriet’s unflagging dedication to their fans. Over and over Brandon made sure to ask each person if they had any questions, not just about the Wheel of Time but about any of the projects he is involved in, and more than a few people were brave enough to ask the occasional question of Harriet or tell her how Robert Jordan’s work has changed their life. I felt almost like a Brown, quietly sitting back to listen and make mental notes to jot down once I returned home. If I can take away anything from that experience to pass on and share with the rest of you, it would only be to say that we truly are blessed to have Robert’s life’s work left in such capable, enthusiastic hands.

All too soon I’m on my way home, after a few precious moments getting to talk one on one with Harriet and Brandon about the books they’ve been a part of writing. I asked a single question each of the duo, receiving a RAFO response from Brandon when I asked if we ever get to see Shara, and finally solving the mystery of how, exactly, to pronounce Cairhien from Harriet. A group wolf howl and several goodbyes later, I find myself driving back down Route 50, and this late at night I am the only car on the road. I have left the other Tower Guard to go our separate directions, forging a lone path of light through the darkness as I travel east and north to await the Last Battle. Until then, my friends, may you always find water and shade.

- Renee, Tower Guard 11/05/2010

Damn. That was awesome.

It seemed that our event was going to be plagued with transportation issues. From traffic for the Tower Guard to the tarmac for Harriet and Brandon, the world was just running late. (Oh, who are we kidding? It's the DC-Baltimore metro area on a Friday. That is the Lord of Chaos' time to shine!) But Brandon and Harriet stuck it out, and Books-a-Million allowed people to stay waaaay past their closing time. And just like many years ago with Robert Jordan, Brandon and Harriet inquired and responded to every fan so everyone felt like they had a personal moment. Everyone that wanted to wait had the opportunity to get signatures and to have a small amount of time with Brandon and Harriet. It seems like the word for the signing was "gracious." Thanks, Books-a-Million! Thanks, Harriet and Brandon!

But gracious did not just apply to the people responsible for the event, it also describes the people that got to enjoy the event: the fans. At 11:00, while putting personalizations on post-its, people were still smiling and laughing, sharing their WoT experiences and theories, having a good time despite some having waited for as long as four hours. I got to meet many cool fans, from Bobby and Tammy to Karina, Christoph and Aviendha to Aryn, the birthday girl -- everyone had a WoT story. I will remember Dawn, although I never met her, and her stoic (but unnamed) friend. Dawn, I hope that somewhere you know that there is a Towers of Midnight book dedicated to your memory by Brandon. And some of the theories were fantastic; Paul and Sandy were discussing Rhuidean and the possibility that your sanity passing through the ter'angreal depended on your lineage. Waaaaaay cool, Sandy! It was great that people were excited about the crossword puzzle (even if I did make a few mistakes -- thanks for not lynching me, guys!), and it was more wonderful seeing people reading in line, because before I had WoT friends to go to signings with, that's what I was doing. It's been many years, but this was the first time I got to be on the other side.

Damn. That was awesome.

- Maureen, Tower Guard 11/05/2010

The book signing was so much fun! My role was basically helping out with the fans, talking to everyone, and handing out numbers and stickers (red for -No Spoilers!- and green for -Spoiler Alert!-) so people would know who had finished Towers of Midnight and who you had to watch what you say around. It was amazing seeing everyone there, hanging out and talking about Wheel of Time. Thanks to Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz series, there were some kids who came out to see him. Brandon and Harriet were running late due to plane issues, but they were all smiles when they arrived. Both of them made sure to give each and every fan their attention, thanking them for waiting, asking if anyone had questions and signing many, many books. And in the end, even after spending the day on a plane and signing books until 11:00pm, they made sure to spend a little bit of time with the Tower Guard. Harriet told me a story about Robert Jordan and even howled with "Perrin" -- a fan who stayed around until the very end. All in all, this experience was so much fun, and being a bigger part of this event meant so much to me. I've made some great friends, saw some people from last year, and was able to talk to people who are as big a fan of Robert Jordan's work as I am.

- Cassy, Tower Guard 11/05/2010

Fun Facts:

-- Most difficult trivia question: What gifts does Mat give Tuon while courting her during Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams? Answer: Jewelry, Silk Rosebuds, and a Razor (rare breed of horse).

-- Most popular character: Matrim Cauthon by a landslide; 17 votes. Egwene took second place; 4 votes. Verin took third place; 3 votes. There were 19 characters total mentioned by members of the audience.

-- Favorite Moment from WoT: A tie between when Rand cleanses the Taint and when he travels to Rhuidean; 4 votes each. Second place was a three way tie between Rand’s battle with himself/Lews Therin on top Dragonmount, when Aviendha and Elayne become first sisters, and the battle at Dumai’s Wells; 3 votes each. Third place was another three way tie between when Rand and Aviendha took shelter in the igloo in Seanchan, when Egwene solidifies her authority with the rebel Aes Sedai, and the romance between Mat and Tuon; 2 votes each.

-- Best answer why ________ is your favorite character: “Thom, [because any] old man who can do back flips has my heart.” - Karina

-- Best answer how you found the Wheel of Time: “A friend named Michelle [introduced me to the series] but died before she graduated. [i am on a] mission to get people to read [the books] in her honor.” - Christoph

-- There were two children present who were named after the books: Perrin and Aviendha.

Perrin

Aviendha

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This post has been promoted to an article

Or it’s possible we were just an extra-effective Tower Guard contingent.

We were definitely an EAGER Tower Guard contingent. I’ll admit that, rather than having one of our members wait for Brandon and Harriet’s arrival as suggested by Jennifer Liang, we may have all waited down there, at one point clogging up the lanes into the store a bit, until an amused Borders employee spread us out.

Bad traffic on the roads resulted in a late arrival for Brandon and Harriet, but only by about 15 minutes. In the interests of time, we were quickly ushered into the Borders break room after Harriet warmly greeted a friend of hers who lived in the area and had stopped by to see her.

In the break room, we were fed sandwiches while Harriet and Brandon pre-signed store copies (for those who wanted signatures but could not stay for the event) as well as copies for the store employees. They graciously answered Tower Guard questions as they signed, about the nature of writing and publication as well as about the series itself. It was a lot of fun, but too brief, as we were already running late to start the signing. To end the pre-festivities, Harriet and Brandon both graciously signed all our Tower Guard shirts, ensuring that mine will probably never get washed.

The official signing started off with a reading from the prologue by Harriet. Since they had just been in Baltimore the evening before and expected some crossover attendees, they picked a different section to read. Without naming any names and invoking the wrath of the Spoiler God, let’s just say that Baltimore’s reading involved a long-absent evil-doer and ours involved an old-favorite do-gooder. Having Harriet do the reading was a very special event, and I think she charmed the crowd quite well. Her southern accent also lends a certain gravitas to the words as she reads them.

After the reading, Harriet and Brandon held the Q&A portion of the signing. Several questions about the nature of publication were raised, including why the price of audiobooks is so much higher (because of the hundreds of hours of takes the voice actors have to record as well as a relatively low production rate) and why the ebook is delayed (because ebook sales are not counted by the NYT for the bestseller list). Harriet pointed out that the longer the book is on the bestseller list, the larger the discount for that book later on. She also expressed a general wariness of ebooks. In her definition, a book is “an artifact that can transfer ideas from one person to another without an external power source,” which was not something I’d heard said before. Still, she listened when Brandon recently voiced the concerns of the ebook contingent of fans (“Brandon went to bat for ALL of you”), and agreed to move the publication of the ebook up to February 2011, 90 days from the hardback publication date.

Questions for Brandon included which character he enjoys writing most vs. which he enjoys reading most. For writing, he quoted Robert Jordan, saying that it tended to be whichever he was writing, though he admitted that it depended a lot upon the type of scene he was writing vs. the type of mood he was in. For reading, he said his favorite was Perrin earlier in the series, with Mat claiming the title later in the series. Brandon also spent several moments praising Harriet as an editor and a titan in the field, only breaking off when Harriet got so embarrassed that she made him stop.

The highlight of the Q&A session had to be when Harriet was asked to pronounce the names of all the Forsaken. Harriet asked for a list, proclaiming “show me the wretched creatures!” A fan who had bought his Big White Book to be signed obliged eagerly. Harriet prefaced the reading by saying that this was HER interpretation of the names, but that any pronunciation the fans preferred was correct in her eyes. Discussion of the Forsaken continued on a bit, and Harriet pointed out that Robert Jordan used to say that all of his female characters had a bit of Harriet in them. To much laughter, she joked that Moghedien was the part of Harriet that would complain when Jordan forgot to take out the trash.

After the Q&A, the signing started, and the Tower Guard had to stop watching raptly and start actually earning our shirts. We split off into our various tasks, taking photos, handing out paraphernalia, and checking to make sure personalization post-its and jacket flaps were properly positioned for maximum signing velocity. For those of you who have never attended a signing by Brandon, he is very engaging and loves to chat with the readers. I can now report that Harriet has a similarly gracious view of Wheel of Time fans, and having everything positioned for ease of signing allowed them both to concentrate more on the person in front of them than the book they were signing.

One interesting tidbit overheard by Tower Guard members came when Brandon was asked about the Eye of the World movie. Apparently the script is being finalized now, so this is a lot closer to reality than a lot of us were aware.

My job was to keep the masses amused. With 400 people, there was going to be some waiting in line. People were called up 10 to 20 at a time to wait, the rest reading, milling around the store, or venturing out to find food. When they arrived in line, they would find me waiting with a huge bag of candy and a list of trivia questions I’d composed (thanks http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/ for letting me fact-check my memory so easily!). If they answered a question right, they got to pick a piece of candy. If they answered it wrong, they could still take candy, because I felt like a jerk withholding it. Many who missed their question demanded to be asked another, stating they needed to “earn” their candy. There was also a large number of people who were there getting books signed for others who couldn’t be present. These people had never read the series. They got candy for being awesome.

A number of hardcore fans demanded that I try to stump them. I’m happy to report that I was able to in most cases. But in these cases other fans quickly jumped in to help, ganging up on the poor helpless Tower Guard with his bag of candy. Everyone was in high spirits, despite the long waits, and the trivia seemed to amuse many. I did manage to learn one spoiler (due to a poorly-chosen question I asked) but it was something I had mostly guessed anyway. Oh well, the price I had to pay.

There were three items in our WoT swag box that went beyond mere bumper stickers. These included an extra Tower Guard shirt (signed by Brandon and Harriet), a Borders display poster for the book (also signed) as well as an excellent bronze bookmark with the Serpent and Wheel logo. These were chosen by line number raffle, with the numbers picked by Harriet. The winner of the shirt went to a very excited woman who “never wins anything” in her words. A bookstore display Towers of Midnight Poster went to Craig, a recent fan who quickly became a “raving ultra-hardcore fan.” Truly, there is no zeal like the zeal of the recent convert. In a neat turn of events, the bookmark went to a gentleman who was there for his brother, currently serving in the military overseas in Korea. It will be shipped to him along with a copy of the book! We all agreed that this was a great way to part with the bookmark (which the Tower Guard all secretly coveted).

The event wound down, and at last it was just a few stragglers and the Tower Guard that needed their books signed. In a move that would surprise no one who knows me, I managed drop one of my three ToM copies, bending a few of the pages. I decided that, rather than saddling my brother or cousin with the slightly-damaged copy, I would pay the klutz’s price and claim that one for myself. But Brandon surprised and amused me when he found the bent pages and wrote BUBBLE OF EVIL along the crease. So yeah, sometimes being a klutz pays off. Also, Brandon Sanderson is awesome. I also got Harriet to sign my copy of Winter’s Heart, previously autographed by Robert Jordan himself. She found the dedication page (“Always for Harriet. Always,”) and signed beneath it, a gesture which I found very touching. Harriet McDougal is a very special lady, and it was a pleasure and an honor to have met her.

I’ll close with a quote from a Tower Guard’s email. “One more time. In barely over a year, it will be over. Feels like ice water being poured down my spine. After doubts arose about the series even being completed, fans couldn't have a better person than Brandon complete it, or one who could connect as well with the fans. 20+ years will have passed since the furious ride to The Eye of the World, ‘yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Battle, and his blood shall give us the Light. Oh ye people of the world, weep for your salvation.’”

Photos available here: http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/gallery/album/11024/49-baileys-crossroads-towers-of-midnight-signing/

Let me tell you about my day on Thursday November 4. It was, in a word, awful. To begin, my alarm didn't go off, causing me to be late for work. Work, as a result, was slightly on the miserable side. In addition, it was cold and drizzling, and the traffic was a mess. Suffice it to say, I spent the better part of the bloody day in a fairly foul flaming mood.

Why am I telling you all this? Because when I say that the Towers of Midnight book signing was awesome enough for me to consider the day an amazing success, I want you to fully grasp my meaning. After a rough day at work, I headed straight into Dallas to help set up for the signing. There, I found my fellow Tower Guards already hard at work getting things ready and entertaining the small crowd that had already assembled with trivia questions. By the time the tables had turned and members of the crowd were offering up their own obscure trivia, I couldn't help but be in good spirits, and I think it was the same for everyone present. Being surrounded by people who are as geeky as you are (and I mean that in the best was possible!) and love this series as much as you do, and seeing the laughter in their eyes and the anticipation on their smiling faces... well, I defy anyone to be in any kind of a bad mood at that point.

Now let's move on to the good stuff. Most of you reading this were not privy to the conversation we in the Guard shared with Brandon Sanderson and Harriet McDougal over dinner. Lucky you, I'm in a sharing mood, so I'll give you a brief rundown of what we said. Why brief? I understand that this is supposed to be spoiler free, so I don't want to give too much away. I feel though that I can at least share the main points, as long as I'm vague enough on plot points.

We all sat down for dinner, asking Harriet and Brandon about their travels this week. They informed us that it had been rough despite what sleep they had gotten, yet I was struck by how cheerful they both seemed. Both wore warm smiles and seemed fairly relaxed for all that they had been traveling across the country so much recently. Harriett informed us with a laugh that “life on tour is like being a Fed-Ex package”: Just tell her where to go and send her off. Fed-Exed or not, her eyes grew wide at the sight of a pizza laden with olives, while Brandon stated stoutly that he didn't like “green things” on his pizza as he reached for another slice of pepperoni.

Once we were settled to eat, we got to ask them any questions that were burning in our hearts. Again, I will avoid spoilers, and many of our questions were R.A.F.Oed (Read And Find Out!) but what we gleaned was quite interesting. We asked Brandon about his time working on the story, such as his greatest surprise from the last book, Gathering Storm. No one was surprised to hear that it was a certain scene involving Verin of the Brown Ajah, and while I won't go any further than that, I will add that he stated the scene in question was written entirely by Jordan before his passing.

We learned that Brandon's favorite scenes of the series turned out to be Rand at Rhuidean in Shadow Rising, followed closely by the climactic events in the Two Rivers in that same book. You know the ones I mean, and if you don't, go read! We learned that what Brandon liked about the magic system, and magic systems in general, is what the magic can't do. Think of the limitations on Traveling, and you'll understand.

Most interesting, in my opinion, we learned more about Brandon's thoughts on writing the series in general. He told us that most important was staying true to Jordan's notes and his vision. He wanted the characters to stay the same, so that if you liked Perrin (the girls all sighed at this point) or hated Cadsuane, you would continue to do so for the same reasons, until such time as the story might bring about any changes. Some things would change as he wrote, but Brandon's conscience would not let him deviate from Jordan's true vision of the story.

We wrapped up our private Q&A, got Brandon, Harriet and Bob Kluttz to sign all our books, then it was on to face the crowds of adoring fans.

Brandon and Harriet were met with a round of applause, which they accepted with gracious smiles and a friendly wave. It seemed obvious that they were as excited and pleased to be there as the rest of us. The crowd had swelled considerably; a buzz of excited conversation and a spark of anticipation filled the air. Wasting no time, the guests of honor took their seats at the head table and dove right in.

Brandon started the ball rolling, announcing that Harriet would do a brief reading, one that had been requested at the previous signing. He passed the microphone to Harriet, who, with a mischievous smile, claimed she was going to “chew the scenery.” She did not disappoint. She began to read from the prologue, specifically the excerpt from Padan Fain's point of view. Bad Guys can be fun to read, and Harriet seemed to thoroughly enjoy herself, narrating the twisted villain's vile exploits. Even in the middle of the reading, when our recording device (a phone) began to make several loud ringing sounds, she merely picked it up, passed it to Brandon with a wry smile (he passed it to us, looking bemused), and told the crowd, to peals of laughter, “This is not the Droid you're looking for!” before diving right back into her fun.

Harriet finished to tumultuous applause, and Brandon reclaimed the microphone for the Q&A. What follows is a transcript of the audience's questions and Brandon's and Harriet's responses. For space, I cannot put every single word, but I will write out the responses as fully as possible. (Anything in parentheses is my own.) For more details, look for the film footage, which should hopefully be posted here as well.

Q: I heard that Great Hunt was written first, before Eye of the World. Is this rumor or truth?

Harriet: It's rumor, not truth. He (Jordan, obviously) worked on The Eye of the World first; they came in order. He did work on The Eye of the World for four years before he ever gave me any of it. And, while he was writing The Great Hunt, he and I went out to lunch in the neighborhood deli, and he asked me what I thought the child-rearing practices of this desert people he had in mind, what they would be like. And if you remember, we just saw the first Aiel in a cage. But he was already working on how would Rand be brought up, you see, so he worked very far ahead in his thinking. But the way he wrote them was the way they were published.

Q: Verin—

Brandon: Let's avoid spoilers. (A lot of people hadn't read Gathering Storm yet, it seemed.) Can you talk around it?

Q: There's a certain character of the Brown Ajah—

Brandon: Now that's too much! Ask us in the line.

Q: Is there a scene planned with one of the Aiel Wise Ones as a damane?

Brandon: That will be a R.A.F.O., I'm afraid! But excellent question, nonetheless.

Q: Do you write the scenes in order?

Brandon: For very large epic fantasies, such as Towers of Midnight and Way of Kings, I actually approach it by viewpoint grouping, meaning I take all the characters who are together in the same location, or who are kind of together emotionally or things like that, and I will write them straight through until they run into people from other sequences. At that point, I'll usually stop and do the next one straight through, or I'll just skip those chapters and go on, depending on what's going on. I do it by group, and the reason for that is: juggling all of these characters in your head, and making sure I'm keeping every character true to themselves, it's kind of like I have to upload a bunch of stuff into my brain, and then wipe it clean and upload a bunch of other stuff for another sequence. So for instance, for this book, Perrin and Faile and everyone around them would have been written straight through, and then I jumped back and would've done Mat, and so forth.

Q: How are decisions made about breaking up the chapters?

Brandon: Usually, that's Harriet. I break the scenes, she decides what gets grouped together into a chapter, and she will often move the chapters around. She does quite a bit of that, tweaking it to try and figure out where the best balance is. I don't generally give her an initial (order) with a bunch of them. Well, she'll get them in viewpoint chunks first, and she'll be doing edits on those while I'm writing other viewpoint chunks, and then I'll stick them together in an initial, and she'll through and say, “No, this one needs to be here, and this one needs to be here, these three need to be one chapter.” That sort of thing.

Harriet: And if Brandon says, “No, I just can't get behind this one,” he wins! (Laughter from the crowd)

Brandon: There were a couple that I really like. There's a really, really great cliffhanger at the end of the first Mat chapter and I'm like, “Oh, that's such a great place to break a chapter; it'll make everyone turn to the next page!”

Q: Who is Bela really working for?

Brandon: Harriet?

Harriet: (with a wicked grin on her face) Would you believe Bela is the Dark One? (much laughter followed that statement!)

Q: Have you finished the Mistborn novella?

Brandon: The Mistborn short story, that became a novella that became a short novel is 60,000 words long and is really looking like 70,000 words, which is about a third the length of one of my other novels. It's slow going while I'm on tour, but it will be done fairly soon. (He had a few other details about this, but I'll let you watch the recording for the specifics. Also, read Mistborn if you haven't yet!) If you weren't aware, between books, I generally take a few months off and just write something random, whatever strikes me. I can't have a contract for it. It has to be something completely unexpected to keep instincts sharp and my writing ability sharp. I'm starting on Memory of Light on January 1, but I've got these three months to do whatever occurs to me. Two months ago, I wrote a story about a pizza delivery man who turns into a necromancer. It was called Death by Pizza. (lots of laughter; although I hope he publishes this!) He was a good pizza delivery man, with good pizza, he was just a necromancer.

Q: Are there any characters in particular you find hard to write?

Brandon: There are several that I've had more trouble with than others, and in that case, I generally work on them quite a long time. Aviendha, when I first started writing her, was probably the most difficult to get the voice right. There are characters that I write that are more difficult to write than others for different reasons. For instance, Gawyn is kind of... frustrated with himself, and when you step into a character's viewpoint, you start to feel and think like them; that's the goal. And so, him being frustrated with himself and his purpose in life makes it hard to write his scenes, because you feel frustrated and things like that, and Harriet has a great story about that.

Harriet: One of the things that happens with a writer, which certainly happened with Jim (Jordan's real name, FYI), was he was often asked “what was his favorite character?” and he said, “whoever I'm writing today.” Because he understood that villains don't think they're villains. They are doing what the world or the devil or something outside has forced them to do. So they think of themselves as gallant victims, generally, while they're slitting somebody's throat. But I could tell when he'd been writing somebody awful. He'd come in the kitchen door at supper time and he'd slink around the walls! I said, “You've been writing Padan Fain today, haven't you?” “How did you know?!”

Q: Who's your favorite villain to write?

Brandon: It depends on the book. The scene that Harriet just read was a huge amount of fun to write, because Fain is just completely bonkers at this point. And so in this book I'd say that was, of the villain viewpoints, my favorite one to write.

Q: Can you do a Forsaken “Mwa-ha-ha”?

Brandon: MWA ha ha ha HA HA HAH HA HA HA!!!

Brandon's evil laugh brought a huge round of applause, and then it was time for the book signing to truly begin. Everyone lined up eagerly, awaiting his or her chance to talk with the people responsible for our favorite series.

Talking with the crowds, listening to them as they came up to speak with Brandon and Harriett, I began to get a feel for the assembled fans. They were diverse. They liked The Wheel of Time for different reasons. Some were old hands, some recent converts. Some were just getting the book for friends and family.

One person from Dallas who had been reading for ten years expounded on her love of the fashion and the spark of imagination they gave. Another pair of girls from Edgewood and Coppell, Texas told me about how the different story-lines sucked them in and they were never bored with any of them.

One person from Houston, a history student in college, described his love of the depth of the story and the world. Another college student explained that he was working on his doctorate and that Wheel of Time was the only pleasure reading he allowed himself. Yet another person in line told me he'd written his thesis on the series and had exchanged a wealth of correspondence with Jordan, seeking details to help write his paper.

One couple from Ft. Smith, Arkansas, fans from the beginning, had brought their three-week-old child last year, and another couple, fans for but a short time, informed us they had named their first son Lan.

One person said these books had gotten him to turn off the TV and to start reading. Another person told Sanderson that he made her want to write, and they discussed NaNoWriMo. Some people asked about his magic systems; some asked about playing Magic: the Gathering. Some people asked for pictures, to which Harriet and Brandon happily obliged.

Some were young, and had only read Sanderson's Alcatraz series; some were older and claimed a need to read the last three books six times through as they had done the previous stories.

A pair of ladies, dressed as Aiel Maidens, were just happy to be there.

Young and old, male and female, old fans and new, they came, and each person in line was as unique as the one before and after. And yet several things bound these people together. Each and every person offered Brandon and Harriet their thanks. They thanked them for continuing the series after Robert Jordan's death, and for keeping the books as good as they had ever been. They told Brandon and Harriet it was an honor to meet them. They treated the writer and editor with class, offering smiling faces and small stories of their love of the series, and received the same in turn from the pair. It was an experience such as you can only get when you are surrounded by those who share the same loves that you yourself hold so dear.

Several hours later, the signing was done, and a few hundred fans rushed home to begin reading their new books, despite the late hour and having work and school the next day. Don't deny it; you know you did. With a last group photo with their Texas Tower Guards, Brandon and Harriet departed, off to the next signing in Baltimore.

As I'm writing this, several thoughts come to mind. I know it gets said time and time again, but it really was an honor to get to meet with Brandon and Harriet, and I want to add my thanks. I think I speak for everyone reading this when I say that we all appreciate everything they have done for us, the fans. I think they were happy to meet with us and sign well over a thousand books, despite how stressful such tours can undoubtedly be. It shows a level of dedication to their readers, and I think we all owe them a huge amount of gratitude for the efforts and the sacrifices that they make, in addition to those of all their assistants, whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting. It is clear to me that this is a series written by fantasy fans and for fantasy fans, and the level of dedication that has been shown for The Wheel of Time is nothing shy of remarkable.

I began reading the series in high school, when my best friend handed me Eye of the World and said, “Dude, read this.” I have been hooked ever since. Now, ten years later, I have gotten to be a very small part of making the series happen. That is, to coin the phrase, frickin' awesome. But it's not about one person; it's about all of us, and the book signing was a place for us all to be connected to these books. For those of us who were present, all united by our common love of what I consider to be the greatest fantasy series of our time, it was an amazing experience.

Thirteen books down, and one to go. Many people said they were eagerly anticipating A Memory of Light, book fourteen, next year, but would be sad to see the series end. Brandon said it was a bittersweet feeling gaining the chance to write the series but losing the chance to read it, for which we all must be grateful to him. In the same way, it will be very bittersweet for all of us to see the series come to an end.

But, as we all know, there are neither beginnings nor endings to The Wheel of Time, so I think it'll be just fine.

-from Dallas, Texas

Chris Treco

Steve Godecke, owner of PortalStones.com and Stormblessed.com was also at the signing and provided us with video links. Thanks Steve!

Sorry this is so late, a full three days after the event. Hopefully I can make it up to you with punch and pie. Well no, I don't have any of that. I do have this reports and some pictures though. Almost as good, right?

All pictures for the event can be found at: http://www.dragonmou...amento-signing/

And for those that haven't finished the book yet, don't worry. This is a No Spoiler Zone.

It was a warm day in Sacramento, highs in the 80's which is a little warm for November even in Northern California. And where was I? Having an awesome time stuck inside a rather warm and increasingly stuffy Barnes & Noble. And I wouldn't trade a minute of it. The Tower Guards started to gather around 4 pm to survey the lay of the land, organize duties, get our equipment set up, and write on the floor. Yep, I spent at least 20 minutes wandering around B&N writing Wheel of Time phrases on arrows of bright pink tape on the floor to show people the direction of the line. Easy enough you'd think, but apparently writer's block is possible even in those situations. Thanks to the fans there that helped give me ideas when my brain locked.

Who would have thought setting up would require weaponry?

Yes, that is a sword.

The signing was supposed to start at 7 pm. At 4 pm there were already people in the store waiting. At 5:45 pm they started to give out numbers and move people into line. That was when we realized just how big this event was going to be. Some of us had felt a little pessimistic about turnout because there hadn't been much advertising. We scoffed at the estimate Tor had given the store of 400 – 500 people. However at 6 pm we had over 60 people in line already, and still an hour to go until the signing started. We started to realize that this could well be long night. Brandon, Harriet, and Jason Denzel of Dragonmount arrived around 6 pm. Brandon and Harriet sat down with a couple of people for interviews, including one with Tower Guard Virginia for the 4^th Age podcast. Meanwhile Jason helped us Tower Guards with getting things set up. Then at 6:30 pm the Tower Guards, Jason, Harriet, and Brandon got to sit down to a nice pizza dinner and talk. One of my favorite parts was talking with Harriet personally about how we both loved Terry Pratchet's “Discworld” series, and how she and RJ used to share reading them, passing the books back and forth as they got them read. I also loved to listen as Brandon talked about writing and the best ways to get going when you're having troubles.

Brandon's main piece of advice was to write, no matter what, just find something and write about it. If you're stuck in the middle of writing a scene and feel like you can't finish, have some ninjas attack. Write something, and don't be afraid to throw it out. The important thing is that you're writing. He also said not to look back. Don't keep rereading and changing what you've already written. That is the path that leads to never finishing anything. Finish first, then go back and polish. Even if you end up rewriting half your work, at least you finished. Interestingly enough this was actually a really popular question through the night. Yes we got Wheel of Time questions like the usual “Who killed Asmodean?” or “What happens if a person gets balefired in the World of Dreams?” However we also got a lot of aspiring writers there looking for advice on how to get going. Brandon was always happy to answer any question, even if it was with the dreaded RAFO card. But the questions about advice on how to get writing seemed to really resonate with him, as fans of his Writing Excuses podcast would probably tell you is not surprising.

After dinner Brandon and Harriet both got up on a ladder to see out over the bookshelves and addressed the crowd. They thanked everyone for coming of course, and Harriet made sure to let people know how much it meant to her to see us all out there supporting her husband's work. They announced the rules for the signing, i.e. what Brandon and Harriet would and wouldn't sign. And Harriet told us about the great vest she was wearing that was made from her husband's old ties. RJ had great taste in neckware.

Once the announcements were finished, Brandon, Harriet, and Jason settled in for a very long night of signing. For the most part things went pretty smoothly. We kept the line running well, everybody seemed to be behaving themselves, and despite the night lasting until almost midnight people seemed to keep in pretty good spirits. Sadly Harriet had to leave around 9 pm as she'd had a very long day already considering she'd had to fly all the way across the country from Charlotte to Sacramento. It was a sad moment for many though as Harriet got up to say goodbye to everyone. I know we not only missed our chance at getting her autograph, but just having her there was a connection to RJ that I think everyone wished to experience. People were eager to talk to her and say goodbye, but eventually she had to say farewell.

One of the most common things I heard people say to Brandon was how grateful they were to him for picking up the series and carrying it on for us. I know many people, myself included, despaired about the fate of the Wheel of Time books after RJ's passing. It was clear that people felt an intense gratitude for seeing someone who obviously loves the series be able to continue it and see it to the end. And it was also clear just how grateful and humbled Brandon felt each time he heard those comments. More even then how well he writes, the way he handles the responsibility of carrying RJ's legacy on shows that he was the right man for the job.

The signing lasted well into the night. After Harriet left I got to join Brandon at the table and assist him in making sure we got every copy of Towers of Midnight numbered. With the long day and the rush of trying to get to everyone I had to catch a couple here and there. It might not have been the most glamorous job, but it was a lot of fun. Getting to sit there and listen as everyone came up, and getting to interact with Brandon and Jason was great. I even got to be there for a question that stumped Brandon. Someone wanted to know why Verin was able to feel that the one Ogier had no soul when she visited the Stedding with the boys during tGH. Brandon, if you're reading this, the part of the Wheel of Time FAQ I was talking about is http://wotfaq.dragonmount.com/node/88 The whole time the signing was going on, we were stopping people as they left and had them sign large poster-board version of the Towers of Midnight cover, minus the text, as a thank you to Harriet and Brandon. Tower Guard David felt like they were going to spend all night signing things for us, so we should sign something for them to say thank-you.

Slowly the night went by, but eventually we started to make headway against the line. At one point some time after 10 pm we were told that the last person was in line and we were in the home stretch. As time went by I kept looking over at the line to the side where it wrapped through the bookshelves. I kept hoping for some sign that we were nearing the end. Finally I saw it, the end of the line. My girlfriend was at home watching us on ustream and sent me a text wondering why we were all suddenly looking behind us. It was amusing how everything stopped or that one moment as we all realized the end was in sight. At the same time though was a touch of sadness at knowing that this great night was coming to an end. Finally shortly before midnight, almost five hours after the official start of the signing, the last person in line stepped up to the table, greeted by a round of applause. We got our stuff packed up, and the Tower Guard finally got to get their books signed. Brandon tried to skip numbering mine as a test, but I caught it one last time.

We took some final pictures and said our goodbyes. It was a long night, but it was a great experience. It was easily one of the most fun I've had stuck for eight hours in a bookstore. A good time was hopefully had by all, and hopefully Sacramento gets another visit next year.

Thank you to everyone who came out.

Yours Truly,

Sacramento Tower Guards

Cincinnati Book Signing -

As Tower Guards our book signing began much sooner than the general attendees. As fans we felt a strong desire to do right by the community to which we are a part of and love. As such, we had planned for a night of fun and camaraderie with prizes and games in order to celebrate the release of Towers of Midnight. Arriving at the bookstore at 4pm I proceeded to contact the store event manager a lady by the name of Barb. Unfortunately the Tower Guards for whatever reason were viewed at this point as somewhat of a nuisance by the bookstore. As Tower Guards we recognized that in effect we were simply volunteers extremely honored to be granted this chance. To Joseph-Beth, they had a well-trained staff ready to do what was needed for the book signing to be successful. That and a gentleman by the name of Brian who is probably one of the most well-read fantasy/science fiction people I have ever met and a friend of Brandon Sanderson's. Brian was extremely pleasant to deal with but due to the lack of a final authority for the Tower Guards we were required to wait until Brandon Arrived in order to do anything.

The Tower Guards had agreed to meet before the signing at the Rusty Bucket near the bookstore and after meeting with the bookstore I headed over there to meet my fellow tower guards. Upon arrival I passed out our shirts and sat down. We ordered drinks and began by introducing ourselves and what we knew of each other. Skipping the details of our planning we began to discuss the books themselves. Only two of us, myself included had finished Towers of Midnight so we had to be careful with our discussion lest we ruin it all. Where nerds gather the conversation is bound to get animated and we discussed many things over good drinks and some homemade brownies that one of our Tower Guards provided. Yum, mint.

We talked for almost two hours before we needed to be at the bookstore to meet Brandon at six. Around 5:45 we paid our tabs and moved over to the bookstore to meet with the staff again. Since the question of our duties during the signing were still up in the air we were herded into the upstairs break-room. We made ourselves at home and discussed our impending meet with Brandon and Harriet. Unfortunately, Brandon's flight due to the time difference going from the West to East coast was due in at 6pm as opposed to the 2:45PM the bookstore staff expected. Brandon and Harriet themselves arrived straight from the airport at 6:30ish and proceeded once freshening up to being signing pre-release copies for those attendees who wanted a signed copy but could not stay.

During this time we got to chat a bit and ask a few questions. One of our Tower Guards, Lynn asked Harriet which Aes Sedai had Jim used Harriet as a pattern for. She replied that they Jim had a bit of her, Harriet in many of them, including some of the Forsaken like Moghedien. That bit with a bit of laughter and a follow-up did Jim get to sleep on the couch after that revelation. (No) Despite their willingness to answer questions both Brandon and Harriet were pressed for time having arrived less then 30mins before the signing. Joseph-Beth had a couple of Nacho tray's sent up so Brandon could get something to eat before going in. Tor was supposed to have provided meals but those were not present so the Joseph Beth staff reacted quickly so Brandon would not go out on an empty stomach to sign books for almost 4hours.

For the Tower Guards the arrival of Brandon finally dispelled any worries over our duties as we were able to take our positions before the event started. For the actual signing what follows is a bit of creative blogging by one of our Tower Guards, Mark for the event:

--

CINCINNATI - Evidence of a startling reality is readily apparent at the Joseph-Beth Bookseller in Norwood tonight (November 3rd): the WOT virus has spread more rapidly than originally projected. Hundreds of the afflicted are present here to engage two of the leading experts in the field of WOT, Brandon Sanderson and Harriet McDougal.

Drs. Sanderson and McDougal emerge from the second floor and nervous anticipation fills the air (along with the WOT virus, which is airborne) as Sanderson introduces McDougal to read from the latest book on the subject, Towers of Midnight, in which he co-wrote with the most prominent WOT researcher, the late Dr. Robert Jordan. Dr. McDougal reads the first section of the Prologue, holding her audience in rapt attention.

Please note that as of now, there has been no cure found for the WOT virus, but it is treatable and people with the virus are able to lead normal and productive lives. However, occasional flare-ups of RLDS (Real Life Deficiency Syndrome) do occur, and it is during these times that the virus is so dangerous to those afflicted. Symptoms include uncontrollable reading, a lack of sleep, dementia, mania (mainly laughing hysterically over things that only people with the virus find funny), depression (mainly weeping over things that only people with the virus find sad), and an inability to care about responsibilities such as work, school, or household chores.

Generally, with the release of a new book by Dr. Sanderson, an RLDS flare-up wanes once the afflicted person finishes the book, and within weeks usually reverts back to only being WOT-positive. Also, attacks usually go away quicker if other WOT-positive people or RLDS sufferers are there to coax the patient into speaking about his or her affliction, and this is done mainly on websites attributed to information about the disease or those afflicted, such as Tor.com or Dragonmount.com, to name a few.

However, this has brought hundreds of those suffering from RLDS or that are WOT-positive into interaction with each other on a more personal basis. And even though those of us that are unaffected by the WOT virus may not understand the nonsense they discuss, play or wear, that does not make them any less worthy of our thoughts and/or prayers (if so inclined).

For instance, two men are arguing whether a Role-Playing Game that they invented should use a D20, or another type of die. Men dressed as “Asha’man” and women dressed as “Aes Sedai” are in attendance. When one woman dressed as an “Aes Sedai” is asked about her costume, she exclaims that she is not “full Aes Sedai, only Accepted,” whatever that means. Another group of afflicted people are playing a game called “Stones,” which may offer them some level of comfort, but does not seem to have any sort of point.

Clearly, these people are tormented with a significant level of dementia. Among the most common nonsense questions that RLDS sufferers are asking the researchers, who are here to sign the most recent book written by Drs. Jordan and Sanderson: “Who killed Asmodean?,” “Who is Demandred?,” and “Who is Mesaana?” But others, seemingly more thought-out, and therefore indicating an even deeper level of dementia, are: “Is Shara just a red herring?,” [to Dr. Sanderson] “Did you find yourself disagreeing with anything in Robert Jordan’s notes?”, [to Dr. McDougal] “What Aes Sedai are you most like?”, “What is the Book of Translation?,” and finally, “Why was the female Choedan Kal sa’angreal destroyed during the cleansing of saidin, and not the male?”

Drs. Sanderson and McDougal are very generous with their time and Brandon is a lesson in humility, especially when people thank him for writing the books. The hope is evident on their faces; it is clear that they believe Dr. Sanderson may be able to deliver them from RLDS and possibly even the WOT-virus itself, which has now spread since its first discovery 20 years ago.

Let us hope this most recent book, Towers of Midnight, and the last book co-written by Drs. Jordan and Sanderson, A Memory of Light (to be released in 2012), will help them to reach the finally reach the goal of being WOT-free. Because I have been breathing the air in here for so long, and I just picked up a book called The Eye of the World, and it is very interesting, but I am starting to feel a little strange myself…

[Marvin Knorr, Lynn McDonald, Kathy Eisen, Andrew Gelos, Leah Jent and Rosie Kraftick contributed to this report.]

The signing itself went on for almost 4 hours. Brandon and Harriet were very much troopers for the event handling themselves with grace and kindness for a seemingly endless horde of fans. We were honored to be able to represent the Cincinnati crew for the signing despite our limited time with Brandon and Harriet, that was just more time for the fans. We were happy to see several fans dressed up as well as play some trivia for swag for the estimated 400 attendees.

See you guys for AMoL!

Here is the link to our gallery! http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/gallery/album/15021/43-cincinnati-towers-of-midnight-signing/

First off, why are you reading this when you could be reading your new copy of ToM?

Second, thanks for reading this!

Third, this post will be updated on occasion as more TGs send me their reports. For now, you get to read my report (jemron) of the Event! Be warned: IT IS LONG! Like Loial, I don’t know the meaning of the word “brief.”

Fourth, I’m still a bit bleary-eyed from the release party, and it was a day and a half ago. Some of the details are crisp in my mind, and some are very fuzzy. I’ll do my best to recall the Event as I remember it. Pictures also help. There will shortly be LOTS of pictures posted in the gallery of the event. I’ll also try and break this overly long report up with some cool pictures that I and other Tower Guards took of the Event.

Fifth, enough lists, let’s get to it!

jemron's report:

The day came too quickly. It didn’t come fast enough. I awoke early, anxious to be on my way and out the door so that I could help setup at the BYU Bookstore.

I gathered together a TON of equipment (too much, and, of course, not enough) that I had agreed to bring to help with the live video feed, including my computer, a bunch of various cables, an iPad, cameras, and other things you don’t care about.

I finally arrived at the bookstore at around 10:30am, where I got to meet some of the other awesome Tower Guards, including Matt Hatch (Tamyrlin of Theoryland), Mark (Kaldric from readandfindout.com), and Spencer (of the 4th Age Podcast). Later I met Andy (the tall one) and his brother Chris (the unofficial Tower Guard). These guys came in from Paige, AZ and were very friendly and helpful the whole time, willing to do anything and everything they were asked to do.

I also met Casey (aka Beast, aka Rodrigo, aka Big Scary Guy Who Was Super Super Nice—Please don’t eat me ), and Riley (A Shatayan/CFO from TarValon.net). Riley also brought a friend who was very helpful whose name has escaped me for the moment (sorry!). Christie or Krissy maybe? (Please correct me in the comments). Anyway, she was representing TarValon.net as well, and was also an unofficial Tower Guard. And, of course, Jennifer Liang. I don’t think I need to explain who she is. She was really cool too (actually, a lot like I imagined her).

It was really great to also have people representing pretty much every major fan site, including Theoryland.com, Readandfindout.com, TarValon.net, and Dragonmount. Did I leave any out?

Though some arrived later than others, we all got along really well, and everyone was super helpful and friendly. This is what I love about the Wheel of Time community! We come from all walks of life (and different fan sites), and yet we all treat each other like long-lost friends. We have something great in common. We are HCFFs (Hard Core Fan Freaks) who love what Robert Jordan, Harriet Rigney, and Brandon Sanderson have created. Everyone who was there that night, and all of you who are reading this, are HCFFs too.

I also met some really cool people at the front of the line, including a guy who flew in all the way from Sweden! Some of these people had been camped out since the Thursday afternoon before. One guy told us he was out here on a “family vacation” from Australia, but that he secretly planned the whole thing without telling his wife that the real reason for coming here was the Midnight Release party! How cool is that?!

The giddiness/excitement for the Event was palpable from the start. I immediately got sidetracked from my “duties” and started talking to people in line about theories, the WoT movies, and other WoT related stuff. I just kept getting pulled into conversations, though I should’ve been helping setup. And even though I also love discussing on-line via chat and/or forums, there’s just nothing better than discussing the books with real people. I love this about these events. This is why we should all plan on going to JordonCon next year (and Jennifer didn’t even pay me to say that).

Anyhoo, fast-forward to later in the day, after our introductions and after setting up some stuff; some of us find ourselves in a Best Buy in a city north of Provo, looking for a piece of equipment we needed for the live feed. A random guy in the store sees Andy’s Tower Guard t-shirt and says, “Hey guys! I’ll be there tonight!” So cool. So geeky.

Fast-forward even farther, and the Tower Guards are all sitting around in the bookstore chatting about the series, anxiously awaiting news about Brandon’s arrival, and then a palette of books appears:

This is when I suddenly realized; I was going to be reading ToM in a matter of hours! Years and years of waiting, and it came down to just a few hours. I almost peed myself. Okay, maybe I did… a little.

When that first box opened, we all held the books in reverence, careful with each and every one. Then, 500-600 books later, we just were treating it like an assembly line. We had to setup the books so that Brandon could quickly open each one, number it, and sign it.

About an hour of prepping, and the crowd outside was getting bigger. Brandon shows up at 8pm, and then the fun really began.

Brandon is just so chill. He’s one of us. A fan, a nerd, a human being. It was so cool to be able to talk with him as he signed all the books. Each signature was important to him. If the table was bumped, or if he made the tiniest mistake, he did whatever he could to make it right. He cares about the fans and it really shows through with how he treats everything he does.

We asked him all sorts of questions but few were actually related to spoilers/teasers.

One of the questions that I asked him was, “Do you think it is fair to you, as a prolific author, to be asked by the rest of “Team Jordan” to write the prequels and/or outriggers?” I asked because as a BWS fan and as a WoT fan, I’m torn between wanting to let Brandon get on with his other work (he still has 9 Stormlight books to write, 6 Mistborn books, an Elantris sequel, a Warbreaker sequel or two, AND another 10 book series called “Dragonsteel” to write!), and wanting to see more WoT after the main series ends. I told him this, and he was very open about it. He said, honestly, it probably wouldn’t happen. But, he said, if Harriet does want them written (which he seemed to indicate that she probably wouldn’t at this point) he says he would want to be the only choice to write them. He said he feels like he more of a right to it than any other author, though he can’t call it his work/world, it is a part of him now, and he wouldn’t want anybody else writing those other books.

Anyway, Tamyrlin will be posting a much more in-depth write-up of the questions and answers from that night, so I won’t write any of that here. Brandon had also brought just 3 things with him (that I could tell). An ARC (advanced reader copy) of The Way of Kings which was to be given out to a lucky winner as a prize and two of his special decks of Magic: The Gathering cards that he hoped to be able to use in a game or two before the event.

We also had several other cool prizes donated by various people, including Tor (thanks for the bumper stickers and goodies!!), Inkwing.com (those t-shirts ROCKED, thanks guys for this!—checkout their site for awesome BWS paraphernalia), Theoryland, and the BYU Bookstore (thank you guys too).

All the prizes were lying out on a table and, sadly, someone stole the ARC of the Way of Kings right off of the prize table!! The one thing that Brandon himself brought to give away to a lucky fan, and it was stolen. I was saddened that someone who likely calls him/herself a “fan” did that! I felt for a moment that whoever did that made all of us, as fans look bad. Then I decided that that thief is not a true fan anyway, so it doesn’t affect me. I’m still angry about it though and I could tell Brandon was disappointed too when he found out. I hope it will be returned!

The rest of the night, after the doors were opened, and the sheep were led in to wander around for hours before midnight, is a bit of a blur to me. I was so tired at this point, and a lot of cool stuff happened, but I can only share the things I remember.

I was given the task of “polling” people in the crowd about the WoT. I asked people if they thought Rand would die during the series, and whether or not they thought he would return. I asked them who they thought Mesanna was hiding as in the Tower, and I asked if they thought Moiraine would come back able to channel (if she comes back at all). It was a good set of questions that Matt came up with that got people talking/excited about ToM. I ran around asking various people and discussing some crazy theories with them. I couldn’t convince anybody that Laras is Mesanna though .

At around 10:30 or 11, Brandon did a reading from Chapter 2 of ToM. It was a nice reading, but I had already listened to it from the free audio version that Tor provided a few weeks ago. No offense to Brandon, but Michael Kramer does a bit better job at reading the books than Brandon does . At least Brandon does a good job of writing them!

After that was a Q&A where Brandon took many questions from the audience. I was running around for a lot of it, and so I didn’t get to hear much of them. Hopefully Matt’s write-up will include some or all of these at Theoryland.com.

Just before midnight, there was some panic from the bookstore because they thought they might actually have over sold too many books (more than they had). Luckily it all worked out, but I think there were only a very few left by the end of the night (like 10-12 copies maybe). There were a LOT of people from all over the place, and many people bought more than 1 copy.

In the chaos of the last half hour, we attempted to herd the sheep in a somewhat orderly fashion back into the line so that they could receive their books. With everyone lined up, they did a countdown to the release (I think they did it 5 minutes early) and soon Brandon was personalizing books.

That took about 3.5 hours. Brandon was kind to everyone, and took the time to answer questions and to talk to each person in the line. It was worth the wait for everyone, I think. A lot of people left after they received their signed copies, expecting to have their books personalized another time, when they didn’t have to wait in line for 3 hours.

Eventually, the line got smaller and smaller, and soon it was just us tired, worn-out Tower Guards remaining. Though Brandon had just spent the last 7 or so hours talking to fans, signing, and answering questions, he was gracious to us as TGs and took the time to personalize each of our books, get pictures, and answer even more questions. What a stud!

At or around 3:30am we were packing up all my equipment, and leaving. Spencer and I were the last two Tower Guards remaining. The bookstore employees had mostly disappeared as well. Just as we were getting ready to leave we noticed that there was a very small group of fans (from the 17thshard.com—Brandon’s official fan site) that were waiting patiently outside in the cold for Brandon to play a game of Magic: The Gathering with them.

Even at 3:30am, Brandon was kind and alert, and he agreed to play “just one” game with them. I’ve never played, but I could tell that it was 5 on 1. Brandon creamed them all. Muahahahahaha!! It was cool to see that. At about 4am, he said his good-byes, and walked away.

What an Event! I had a blast. I met a lot of really great people, met Brandon (though I had “met” him before, after that night, I felt like I knew him), and, most importantly, I got my book!! Brandon wrote this in my book, “To Jemron, you stood at your post bravely Tower Guard.”

Thanks everybody who participated.

Now… where’s my book?

You can chat with us live by going to bit.ly/4thlive

Hi everyone, this is Jennifer Liang over at the Midnight Release party for TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT in Provo, Utah with author Brandon Sanderson.

We're streaming live video from the event all night. You can watch us right here:

You can chat with us live by going to bit.ly/4thlive

We'll have a full report from our Tower Guard volunteers posted on Dragonmount very soon. And Brandon and Harriet will both be signing in Sacramento tomorow. You can see the full tour schedule here. And you can see all our TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT coverage in our round up.

And because we like Jason, here's the TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT trailer again.

U.S. Citizens: the Empress of Seanchan (may she live forever) has an important message for all of you. She requests commands you to go out and vote on November 2nd, which also happens to to be the release date of a certain book we keep talking about.

If you happen to live in her district, you might be well advised to cast your vote for her.

Thanks to Andrew" rel="external nofollow">http://twitter.com/andrewmjordan">Andrew Jordan for producing this fun video.

TarValon.Net has just posted information on this year's recipient of the Robert Jordan Memorial Scholarship. Christopher Lipnickas, a Psychology major at Wichita State University, is receiving the $500 award based on his essay "How I plan to use my studies to become a Servant of All." His goal is to become a substance abuse counselor, inspired by the suffering his family went through after his father became addicted to prescription pain medications.

For more information about the winner, an interview, and copies of the winning and finalist essays, http://www.tarvalon.net/news/interview-2010-robert-jordan-memorial-scholarship-winner" target="news">head over to TarValon.Net's new website.

• http://www.tarvalon.net/content/2010-winner-christopher-lipnickas" target="news">Winning essay & interview
• http://www.tarvalon.net/content/2010-winner-and-finalists" target="news">Other finalist essays

"The only thing better than a double-cross is a triple-cross"

Ladies and gentlemen, we have successfully out-foxed the master Aelfinn (Brandon) and received the answers to 20 questions!

Here's what happened. Around 4 PM U.S. Pacific Time yesterday, Brandon challenged Dragonmount and Theoryland to compete against each other to find the last hidden clue in his GREAT HUNT. He encouraged us to fight over the bragging right. But we had other plans. He said each site could submit (5) Yes/No questions.

Brandon was giving clues to where the codes were --really obscure clues-- and his assistant Peter would tease the Hunters every once in a while. They thought they were out-FOXING us. But like a certain gambler... it was time to toss the dice and take the fight to the 'Finns.

The first thing we (Jason, Jennifer, Tamyrlin and Frenzy from Theoryland.com) did was get on a conference call. We came up with a plan to trick not each other but BRANDON into giving us even MORE clues.

In public --on our websites and on Twitter-- we declared that we were peacefully working together. It seemed like Brandon was disappointed because he wanted us to FIGHT! But our motives are pure. We want to find this code as fast as possible. We're not totally sure, but it looks like the reward could be a whole chapter's worth of Towers of Midnight content!

So once we collected our 10 questions (5 from Dragonmount and 5 from Theoryland) the Dragonmount team sent Brandon an email, claiming that we had "stolen" their questions.

It worked! Brandon replied with the answer to all 10 questions.

Shortly after that, the Theoryland team followed up with their own email, asking for 5 more of their own questions. And THAT worked too! Not only did Brandon answer those five, but being a fair sport, he then offered to answer 5 MORE for Theoryland, matching the total Dragonmount had.

When all this settled, we now had a total of 20 questions (!!) when we originally expected to only have 5, or 10 at the most!

So here you go people. Dragonmount and Theoryland have been working together to trick the master Trickster himself. Our goal from the start has been to give the entire WoT community a better chance of seeing the hidden prize as quickly as possible. Let this be a point made for all: WoT fans are never divided. We are united in our causes. We uphold the positive ideals set forth by the books. Tai Shar Dragonmount. Tai Shar Theoryland.

Here are all 20 questions and answers. Read them over. And let's get some feet in the ground in these places so we can unlock that hidden prize!

- Jason

- Jennifer

- Matt (aka Tamyrlin from Theoryland)

- Mary (aka Frenzy from Theoryland)

1) Is the code in the northern hemisphere?

YES

2) Is the code in the western hemisphere?

NO

3) Is the code in a country that was one of the original NATO signatories?

YES

4) Is the code located in a country with a population greater than 36 million?

YES

5) Is the code in a city with a population of more than 250,000?

YES

6) Is the code currently in the possession of a WoT fan (someone who has read at least one of the WoT books)?

NO

7) Is the code in a bookstore?

NO

8) Is the code in a capitol city?

NO

9) Assuming each English letter corresponds to a progressive numerical value where a=1 and z=26, does the last word of the most commonly accepted English name for the name of the facility/business the code is located in begin a letter with a value EVENLY divisable by 2?

NO

10) Is the code in one of the following cities:

Aalborg Aarhus Abidjan Adelaide Alexandrian Algiers Birmingham Bradford

Brisbane Bristol Cairo Calgary Cape Town Casablanca Copenhagen Coventry

Edmonton Esbjerg Frederiksberg Johannesburg Kano Khartoum Kinshasa Lagos

Leeds Leicester Liverpool London Lyon Manchester Marseille Melbourne

Montreal Nantes Nice Paris Toulouse Augsburg Berlin Cologne Dusseldorf

Frankfurt Hamburg Kaiserslautern Mannheim Munich Stuttgart Dublin

Belfast Limerick Cork Galway Newry Lisburn Waterford Armagh Kilkenny

Rome Milan Naples Turin Palermo Genoa Bologna Florence Bari Catania Oslo

Bergen Stavanger Trondheim Fredrikstad-sarpsborg Drammen Madrid

Barcelona Valencia Sevilla Zaragoze Malaga Les Palmas de Gran Canaria

Bilbao Murcia Valladolid Bern Zurich Geneva Nottingham Odense Perth

Sheffield Sydney Toronto Vancouver

NO. And that one was pushing it. ;)

11) Is the code in a city north of the Equator?

YES

12) Is the code in a city with a population of more than 500,000 people?

NO

13) Assuming each English letter corresponds to a progressive numerical value where a=1 and z=26, does the last word of the most commonly accepted English name for the City where the code is hidden begin with a letter with a value evenly divisible by 2?

Yes

14) Assuming each English letter corresponds to a progressive numerical value where a=1 and z=26, is the second letter of the last word of the most commonly accepted English name, for the City where the code is hidden, a letter with a value evenly divisible by 2?

NO

15) Assuming each English letter corresponds to a progressive numerical value where a=1 and z=26, is the third letter of the last word of the most commonly accepted English name, for the City where the code is hidden, a letter with a value evenly divisible by 2?

YES

16) Is the code in a fixed location (e.g.: not in someone's possession)?

YES

17) Is the code in a member state of the European Union?

YES

18) Have you ever personally visited or lived in the country where the code is located?

NO

19) When responding to these questions, will you provide us a picture of where the code is located?

YES. Here it is:

10) When responding to these questions, will you provide us with the first name of the individual that possesses or oversees this code?

YES. His name is Ryan.

------------

Ready to get to work? Start discussing it here on Dragonmount or here on Theoryland.

Brandon Sanderson is on tour right now to support his latest release THE WAY OF KINGS. While on tour, he's been hiding Wheel of Time bumper stickers with a clue printed on the back in the various stores he's visited and posting the locations on Twitter. When you take it to his official website and input it, it decrypts part of a passage of text. Fans have either found or guessed the majority of the clues and decrypted most of the text. However, one of the final clues has evaded us. Our only hint from Brandon is that it's "outside the US".

Earlier today on Twitter, Brandon announced that he would allow the members of Dragonmount.com and Theoryland.net to ask him FIVE yes or no questions each about the location of the missing clue. Because we want to make sure we get the most out of this opportunity, Dragonmount and Theoryland will be working together to jointly submit a list of ten questions and share the answers with both communities.

With this clue, it's very likely that we'll be able to decrypt the passage (which alert fans have pointed out looks quite a bit like it could be an early chapter from TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT) and have our first glimpse of the penultimate Wheel of Time novel.

If you've got a submission for a question, please post it in our forums or in the corresponding thread on Theoryland. Jason, Matt and I will look over the questions submitted here and at Theoryland and determine the TEN questions with the best chance of getting us the location of the missing clue. The deadline for us to submit to Brandon is midnight CST TONIGHT, so we have to move very quickly.

Tor.com and Brandon Sanderson have teamed up to launch a scavenger hunt they're calling "The Great Hunt." The basic idea is that Brandon will hide clues at various bookstores on his book" rel="external nofollow">http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/06/brandon-sandersons-the-way-of-kings-tour-announced">book tour for The Way of Kings, his latest non-Wheel of Time novel which is now available. Each one of these clues will be a small part in unlocking some exclusive "prize" related to Towers of Midnight.

Here's what Tor.com" rel="external nofollow">http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/08/the-way-of-kings-holds-a-secret-from-the-wheel-of-time">Tor.com says about the contest:

To unlock it, fans will have to hunt down the many unique digital codes, printed on the back of Wheel of Time bumper stickers that Brandon will hide inside copies of The Way of Kings along each stop on his tour. (Which kicks off tonight!)

 

Each bumper sticker/code will unlock a piece of the secret and it will require the work of many fans in many cities to unlock the entire page. The Great Hunt begins!

So here's what you can do. If you live near one of the tour" rel="external nofollow">http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/06/brandon-sandersons-the-way-of-kings-tour-announced">tour cities that Brandon will visit, stop by the bookstore he'll be at and look for one or more Wheel of Time bumper stickers located inside copies of The Way of Kings. If you find it, share it with us here in the comments, on our forums, on Twitter, or anywhere else. As a group we'll crack the code and figure out what the prize is.

Oh, and while you're in these bookstores ruffling through the pages of their inventory, consider being polite and purchasing a copy of Brandon's new book? Alternatively, you can purchase it here via Amazon links:

The 68th World Science Fiction Convention will be held 2-6 September 2010 at the" rel="external nofollow">http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/">the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. WorldCon" rel="external nofollow">http://worldcon.org/">WorldCon is a "roaming" convention that is held in a different international location each year. This is the fourth WorldCon to be held in Australia. Each year, they feature a variety of events, panels, and discussions about science fiction and fantasy literature. They also give the annual Hugo Award, which is considered the highest award in speculative fiction.

This year, AussieCon will feature a panel discussion on the Wheel of Time series. Panelists will include Linda Taglieri, of the 13th" rel="external nofollow">http://13depository.blogspot.com/">13th Depository and Dragonmount's own James Luckman. The panel will include the Australian debut of the TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT trailer that is also being shown at this year's Dragon*Con. The panel will take place Monday, Sept 6th at 12 PM in room 2007 of the Melbourne Convention Centre.

Dragon*Con" rel="external nofollow">http://www.dragoncon.org/">Dragon*Con bills itself as the "largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!" Over 35,000 thousand fans will descend on Atlanta, Georgia for this annual event. Dragon*Con will take place this year September 3-6.

Dragon*Con includes a full track of Wheel of Time themed programming, sponsored this year by Tor Books. WoT programming highlights this year will include the annual WoT costume contest, trivia games, discussion panels, the annual "A Night at the Winespring Inn" party, and appearances by series co-author Brandon Sanderson and Tor's Art Director, Irene Gallo. Brandon will be reading from TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, the next book in the Wheel of Time series and premiering the TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT trailer made by Dragonmount's own Jason Denzel. Brandon will also be doing panels and readings for his forth coming The Way of Kings, the first book of the Stormlight Archive.

A complete listing of Wheel of Time events can be found here." rel="external nofollow">http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Amz90ZOKvE3CdE1GMkNzeEpCNFhFeFNCaVpwYXBCMlE&hl=en&single=true&gid=0&output=html">here. You can visit the track's official website wheeloftime.dragoncon.org" rel="external nofollow">http://wheeloftime.dragoncon.org/">wheeloftime.dragoncon.org for the latest updates. Also, Track Director Jennifer Liang (that's me!) was recently interviewed by the Unique Geek as part of their "40 Days of Dragon*Con" countdown. You can listen to it here." rel="external nofollow">http://www.theuniquegeek.com/40-days-of-dragoncon-2010-day-6-%E2%80%93-jennifer-director-of-wheel-of-time">here.