...Obama's Washington? Everybody sniping at everybody else, factional strife, complete dysfunctionality? Whenever I watch these clowns bashing each other on the news, I can't help but think of RJ's portrayal of the White Tower under Elaida's "leadership". Just curious...

It's very rare for me to actually want to have fan paraphernalia for much of anything, but these playing cards are cool enough to be the exception to the rule. Well done, Ms. Burgess!

I was thumbing through a copy (just glancing, really) of Dumas' The Three Musketeersat my local library, and noticed that there was a scene where a letter was in possession of one of the characters that granted its bearer the full authority of its author. That looked *awfully* familiar--rather like a device Jordan used in books 3 and 4 with the letter from Siuan Sanche. I wonder if Jordan picked that up from Dumas...

Okay, folks...let's get back to what really matters here--the cover art! (Okay, that's not what really matters, but it is a curiosity that the comments seem to neglect.) The press release states: "Over the next few seasons, Tor will continue to release new Wheel of Time material, including trade paperback editions of the early novels with new art..." Does this indicate that we won't see a Darrell Sweet-like cover for AMoL? I wonder if anyone has the skinny here.

I'm wondering what this business about new paperback editions portends for the cover of AMoL. Since the death of the original artist (not sure I remember the name, but "Sweet" comes to mind), I'm wondering if AMoL will have a completely different cover art style. (I kind of hope not, since it will look out of place on my bookshelf...and there's no way in heck I'm going to buy all 13 of the prior books again to make a matching set.) Anyone have a guess as to when the paperback is coming out?

Honestly, it looks to me like a no-brainer for the publisher. They already know that the already-converted WoT fans will buy this thing no matter what. That puts the fans in a hopeless bargaining position. If profits are the name of the game, then it's *obvious* that they'll push for a release date that will make a big splash. And if they're *very* successful, there's a *possibility* that current WoT fans might benefit from it. If they actually convert a lot of people to WoT fandom, that might spill over into other WoT-related things being offered on the horizon (although an HBO series might be too much to ask for). At any rate, I think this sort of reasoning on the part of the publisher is perfectly predictible--whether or not you like it.

I don't think the "Mother" in the "last embrace of the Mother" is supposed to refer to the Creator. I think it's supposed to refer to the earth itself. The earth is "embracing" the dead when the dead is buried, and when the dead decomposes to earth. In assigning the female gender to the earth, RJ might just be assuming a standard motif that we get from ancient polytheism, which has crept into common language (e.g., "Mother Nature").

One other little observation to add to what has already been said: The way Jordan introduces sex into the story is telling. While male-on-female rape is mentioned on occasion, it's almost never shown. (Note: I haven't read the Sanderson books yet, so maybe I'm missing something.) The only case I can recall is something hinted in a scene with Padan Fain in LoC--and here it was clearly being presented as a *very bad* thing. By contrast, there are at least two cases of something rather like female-on-male rape, each of which is all but condoned by Jordan. One appears in New Spring, with Lan having pretty much no choice about having sex with someone. (I suppose the business with Myrelle in CoS is of this sort, too, although we never really see what happens there.) The other is the more famous case of Mat and Tylin. Basically, Jordan certainly doesn't condemn what the women so in these scenes. For that matter, neither do the other "good" characters, such as Elayne, who make fun of Mat and all but applaud the situation. Further, whenever consensual sex makes it way onto the scene, it's virtually always initiated by the woman. Examples: (1) Faile and her talking like a forward Saldean farmgirl, (2) both Aviendha and Min grabbing Rand's hair and pulling him to them when he's about to back away, (3) Elayne asking Rand to undo her buttons, (4) Myrelle with Lan (again, we are invited to make some assumptions here), (5) Melindra, who propositions Mat in FoH, rather than the other way around. Can anyone think of times where it goes the other way around? We know that Mat chases women, but we never see that chasing actually amounting to anything in the story, to we? (Again, I don't know what happens in the Sanderson novels...)