The Wheel of Time Frequently Asked Questions, or "WOTFAQ" for short, has just been updated. This document was originally started in 1993 by Erica Sadun to document WoT discussion that had taken place at rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan, a Wheel of Time newsgroup and probably the first place fans were discussing this series online. Over the years, the series and the discussions grew, and the FAQ did as well. It changed hands several times, finally ending in the hands of Leigh Butler.

Unfortunately, after her last update in 2004, Leigh was no longer able to maintain the FAQ, though it still remained online in several places. In early 2009, Leigh agreed to pass control of the WOTFAQ to Dragonmount. Jennifer Liang (that's me!) agreed to take it on as a project when she retired as an active member of Dragonmount's community staff.

Since the last update, three new Wheel of Time books have come out (New Spring, Knife of Dreams, The Gathering Storm), Robert Jordan started a blog, become seriously ill, and passed away, and Brandon Sanderson was chosen to complete it. Additionally, a lot has changed with the internet and how we use it.

Here are some notes on how to navigate the WOTFAQ:

The FAQ is divided into thematic sections. Section "Zero" is meta-content about the series, it's authors and it's publishing. Section One is about everything that touches on the Shadow, divided into subsections. Section Two is everything else, divided into subsections. Section Three is discussion of Jordan's historical and mythological inspirations, divided into subsections. Section Four is a discussion of prophecies and Foretellings, divided into subsections. Because of the large amount of material this version of the WOTFAQ had to update, those two sections are not current. Then there is a big skip to Section Ninety-Nine, which contains information about the publication history of the series. The reason for the off numbering is so that additional sections can be added (which is very likely in the next update), but still keeping this section last.

Many articles cover very old discussions from the early days of the series. Others are new discussions. An article that has new information added has "Updated" in in the title. One that was heavily re-written will be marked as "Revised." Articles that are entirely new to this version of the FAQ are marked "New".

The WOTFAQ is not meant to be comprehensive. This means there is a good chance your pet theory isn't included (unless of course your pet theory is shared by many).

The WOTFAQ does not have spoilers for Towers of Midnight. Yes, we know that means some articles are incorrect now. Deal with it.

Aside from fixing typos and other mistakes, the next update of the WOTFAQ is planned for 2011, before the publication of A MEMORY OF LIGHT.

Got all that? Good. You may read now. http://wotfaq.dragonmount.com/