Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

This report was made over 20 years after the signing itself. When The Fisher King said he'd met RJ on the tour for The Eye of the World, I asked him if he would be willing to write up a report. We don't have any reports from the early tours at all, so I figured a dated report would be better than nothing.

Would you be willing to write a report on that signing, with everything you can remember? It doesn't matter if you can't remember everything; whatever you can remember would be awesome.

The Fisher King

Terez—I'd be happy to. I was a kid then, and with my mom. I'll write up more later but I do remember the name of the place which Im 99% sure isn't there anymore, sadly. It was called "Future Visions" and it was in Houston, Texas. I said '91 earlier but I distinctly remember it being RIGHT when The Eye of the World came out and buying it in hardcover there and getting it signed by RJ. The REASON we were there that day was because that was a favorite bookstore of ours and the owner had told us before on a prior visit about Jordan's "Tour Stop" there and that early word was that The Eye of the World was AWESOME. So, Mom and I made a date of it.

I THINK it was a Saturday and there were not many people there at all. Sign of the times. Now days, it'd be packed, lol. Plus, "Jordan" as Mr. Rigney was calling himself the pen name by for his fiction books then, wasn't super well-known yet—though his version of Conan had been liked by critics for years.

Anyway, there were mainly four of us there chatting in this little shop. Myself, The Mom, the owner and RJ. He was hilarious because the way he spoke was waaay more cultured and distinct that we silly, twangy Texans. He was a chatterbox, too. He gave signs that he would NEVER be comfortable with any kind of "celebrity" but if you could set him off on a topic he'd chat your ear off. I remember him talking about his love of writing and remember him insisting repeatedly that HIS series (TWOT) was DIFFERENT than the norm. A "thinking person's" series and not typical fantasy of the day. I remember him stressing that he had laid down hints and seeds in The Eye of the World that would not come to fruition for many books to come and he wanted people to be shocked and excited when they did. THIS is what always made me scratch my head in later years when he reportedly said he originally envisioned TWOT as a "trilogy."

NO FREAKIN WAY, lol.

He was a BIG man, Jolly, chivalrous-seeming. A real gentleman. Treated everyone the same—me as a child, my mom as a mom/woman, the guy as the shopkeeper...he came off a bit socially awkward, BUT, that was probably due to US—the crazy Texans more than him ;)

You could tell that he had put SO MUCH of himself into The Eye of the World and what would follow.

Awesome man. I wish I could have told him that HIS books were the last books my mom read before she passed very unexpectedly.

rj the man

,

how many more books?