Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Well, I've recovered from the tour, gotten a little work done on A Memory of Light, and I'm slowing down for the Thanksgiving descent of family on the house. And our descent on various other relatives. You know how it goes. So I thought I'd post a short one.

Thanks for the CD, Deadsy. I liked it. It seems very reminiscent of Pentangle at times, but then a lot of groups do. I saw an article somewhere or other that claimed Pentangle had more influence on the music that followed than the Beatles and as much as the Beachboys. The second is quite a claim to make. Remarkable for a group that did two albums—nybody out there old enough to remember vinyl? Hey, I still have some of my 45s!—in the late 60s then vanished.

rj on music

For Min17 and anyone else who hasn't seen any of the posts about my tour appearances—if the usual methods were followed, every word I said was posted at least once—there will be one more main sequence novel. At some point in the future I will do two more short prequel novels. I have signed the contracts for a trilogy—the first of two planned—entitled Infinity of Heaven. And Harriet and I will be doing an encyclopedia once Book 12 is complete. I've said frequently that I wouldn't write in this universe again once tWoT was done unless I had a really great idea. I may—I say again, may—have had such an idea. I have to poke at it for a year or two to see whether it's strong enough. If it is, I'll do two or three "outrigger" novels following some of the characters on another story arc. If it isn't strong enough, then I'll let it die a quiet death.

infinity of heaven

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outriggers

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encyclopedia

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prequels

Once again, for fans in any country other than the United States who want me to tour there, bombard your publisher with requests. With the exception of Canada, however, where you'd need to bombard H.B. Fenn, the distributor. I've done Canada (three times), Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Italy (twice), Turkey, Australia (twice) and New Zealand (twice). I did appear in Russia, but that was for the Congress of Russian Science Fiction Writers. So you can see I'm willing to travel. But tours have to be set up by the publisher in-country.

fandom

I saw some complaints about the "reviews" posted on tWoT at Amazon.com, but you have to realize that a lot of people post at Amazon just so they can flame something. If you disagree, whether with the reviews or the ratings of which sort of reviews were most helpful, make your own posts. Seems to that a year or so back, maybe a little longer, Amazon let a glitch slip in so the reviews were no longer anonymous. Turned out some well known mainstream authors were putting up posts lauding their own books. And others criticizing the work of writers they didn't like. Red faces all around. Amazon fixed the glitch and nobody talks about it much any more.

rj on reading

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fandom

For Son o'merc, I came up with the Almurat Mor character without benefit of the fan sites. In fact, until I saw your question, I wasn't aware that there were any particular postings about Mor.

rj on writing

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seanchan

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wot influences

For kcf, Tuon is stating a misbelief, really, a Seanchan urban folk tale, if you will. The Seanchan no longer know about Foretelling—though they are beginning to hear reports—but they have memories of the knowledge, you might say. There memories have gotten twisted into the widespread belief that any damane can tell your fortune. This belief is strengthened by the fact that some damane actually can Foretell, and more of them than on "this" side of the Aryth Ocean, a facet of sul'dam remaining in the breeding pool with the result that there are a higher percentage of women who potentially could channel among the Seanchan than on the Eastern side of the ocean. And also a higher percentage of many Talents.

seanchan

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damane

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sul'dam

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foretelling

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talents

For Kison, education in this world is a very sometime thing. In the Two Rivers, where literacy is valued, parents teach children, and if, say, old Jondyn is known to be knowledgeable about history, parents send their children to him. This education is not as broad as that they might receive in a school, but then, the education given in many schools as late of the 19th Century would hardly stand up to today's standards. Rhetoric was given as great a weight as mathematics when it wasn't given more. Modern languages were deplored, and not taught even at university level. Parents teaching children is the general model followed. Sometimes a village might hire a sort of schoolmaster, but this is usually thought to be a waste of money since the parents between them have enough knowledge to teach most subjects to the extent necessary.

two rivers

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worldbuilding

Someone asked how difficult it is for a blind person to channel, but I didn't make a note of who. In any case, it is difficult but not impossible. The different flows have different feels, though saying they have different flavors might be as accurate. In the comic, we use colors, not because they actually have colors but because they also can be told apart by sight. Someone who was blind and who tried to learn to channel would be able to differentiate between flows of the Five Powers. The difficulty would be in learning to make the weaves.

channeling

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fiver powers

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one power

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weaves

Also, in Knife of Dreams, Beonin does speak wrongly, and as much as I would like to call it an editing error, it is such only in that neither the editor, the copy editor, nor my assistant caught it. Homer nodded, and I blipped. It will be corrected in the next printing.

In the first edition, Beonin stated that to Travel one must know the destination, and to Skim one must know the starting point. (It's the other way around.)

traveling

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skimming

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errors

And for Min Farshaw, I always wanted to a writer. I decided when I was five years old that one day I would write. There have been scenes I didn't like writing because of what was happening in them. That has happened fairly often.

rj on writing

Oh, yes. Isabel. You didn't think I'd forget you, now did you? Your rather long—very long—list of Nynaeve questions was handed to me, so your minion did his job. He also told me you would have been there yourself except that you had been grounded! Aha! I knew you'd been lying about your age.

Well, take care, guys. The tour was fun, but it's good to be back home. It's good to be alive. It's good to back at my desk, writing.

Bye for now.

RJ