Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Alright folks, this is a pretty long one:

Saturday's Signing at Borderlands Books in San Francisco.

I was pretty excited. This was my first book signing event and the first time I would get to meet Brandon and Harriet. After reading a number of Leigh's Jordancon posts, Terez's interview transcripts and some of the fellow tor.com rereader's reports, I admit that my expectations were high.

Let me first say that Borderlands is an incredible SFF bookstore. The selection was impressive and the staff were incredibly friendly. If this store were in the East Bay, I'd probably go there often. The bookstore has an attached café right "next door" and it was there that the book signing with Brandon and Harriet was scheduled to occur.

However, Borderland's café was not the largest of places and there were at least 150 people who were there for the signing, so they set up an "overflow room" in the actual bookstore itself. The overflow room section was not within line of sight of where Harriet and Brandon were set up; and although the individuals who were gathered there could hear Harriet and Brandon, they could not see them and vice versa. Brandon and Harriet would therefore be only able to answer questions from the folks in the café (which had about 50-75 folks, I'd estimate). However, there was a sound system that would pipe in all of Brandon and Harriet's comments.

The Memory Keepers were spread between both rooms, and the MKs in the overflow room were providing Wetlander's excellent crossword puzzle to help pass the time. They would occasionally engage in trivia as well. I respected the dedication of the Memory Keepers, but after reading about the MKs at some of the other signings, I'd say that maybe half of the group were on par with those examples. I did win a WoT swag bag answering some trivia. But the audience had to provide possible trivia questions on occasion, or verify whether certain trivia questions were accurate (no, the Third Age did not end after Book 10), or even keep some kind of interaction between the MKs and the audience going through some of the dead periods.

My plan to get there incredibly early was thwarted by Real Life, and so I was only able to get there an hour early. Unfortunately, that meant all of the spaces were taken in the main room and I found myself in the overflow room. Which was cool, but I was therefore unable to ask Harriet and Brandon questions. I had my audio recorder, but the side conversations of my neighbors tended to blend in with the piped in words of Brandon and Harriet, so I had to take notes.

I didn't write down specifics on anything that I hadn't heard discussed before in the reread or on Theoryland or that I didn't feel was new information. Here's a quick summary:

There were approximately 4 "process-type" questions;

There were 2 Mistborn questions and 1 Mistborn game question;

Harriet was asked a generic question about RJ;

There was one question that was RAFO'd (The Tuatha'an and the finding of the Song);

There was a question about Hoid and when he started appearing in Brandon's books (Brandon's 6th book, Elantris was listed as Hoid's first appearance; his next was in BWS's 7th book, Dragonsteel, then in his 8th book, White Sand);

Brandon recommended the works from authors Brian McClellan and Brent Weeks, and the novels A Fire Upon the Deep and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms;

Harriet told the story of how she heard about and ultimately selected Brandon to continue RJ's work;

Finally, Harriet read the "Wind" passage from A Memory of Light.

I was a little surprised that there were basically no story-related questions about AMoL (or even the WoTverse in general) except for the one RAFO'd one. I had 4 questions that were spoiler free and 3 spoilerific ones that I had brought myself and would have tried to ask all of them if I was in the other room (dangit for not getting there sooner!); I was surprised that no one else really came up with any.

I did finally get to the book signing line, and had to pick which questions I would ask; I figured I'd have time for 2. That didn't go as smooth as I wanted. First, let me say that although at times I can be reserved, I can be a rather social person and usually I am fairly good at asking someone questions (and keeping my head in the process) when I want to know something. Somehow, that kind of went out the window when I got up there. I didn't mention I was in the reread, I don't recall if I thanked Brandon (serious self-recrimination going on internally for a while on that one), but I did save it at the end by shaking Harriet's hand and telling her thank you. Anyway, the 2 questions:

Brandon answered (paraphrasing) that distance would affect the strength of their communication.

While collared, would Moghedien be able to use her dreamwalking abilities to compel a sul'dam or someone else to release her from the collar?

Brandon answered (paraphrasing again) that that is not outside the realm of possibility.

I joked initially that I might get each of my questions RAFO'd; and Harriet and Brandon joked afterward that, see, I didn’t get either of my questions RAFO'd, I did get some type of answer.

All in all, it was a good Saturday. I met some interesting folks and got turned on to a couple of other SFF series and bought 4 new books.

I strongly recommend that if you have the opportunity to attend a signing, that you go. And get there as early as possible, so you can get a good seat!