Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Well readers can always contact me through Tor Books. Just address letters to Robert Jordan, c/o Tor Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Do put my name on the envelope. If it just says Tor Books it takes longer to get to me, because people open it to see what it is and sometimes the envelope gets lost and I get a letter which has no return address.

Also, Tor is talking about a tour, starting mid-October, something like eleven cities in fourteen days. There's been talk of new York and Atlanta. Boston, Chicago and Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, and more...but the actual itinerary isn't firm yet. As for conventions, I've accepted an invitation to a literary convention in Bath, England, next February, because the organizer is an old friend. It's not a science fiction convention, per se, although the organizers say they hope to have me on a panel with David Eddings and Terry Brooks and a couple of other people. Beyond that, I plan to go to the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow next summer, though in truth I'm largely planning to go to that because I can catch the tail end of the salmon fishing afterward.

Fast Forward

Robert Jordan

Fast Forward

Robert Jordan

Fast Forward

Robert Jordan

Fast Forward

Robert Jordan

Fast Forward

Robert Jordan

Fast Forward

Robert Jordan

Fast Forward

Robert Jordan

Fast Forward

Yes, there were a couple signings (well one, anyway) with 30 or 40 fans, and I am ashamed to say it was a blessing. I can remember when 30-40 fans made me grin with pleasure, but after signings with 200-300 people, each with 3 or 4 books, and a tight schedule to get to the next signing, 30 or 40 seemed like a rest.

New York decides where I go on tour, as I think I've told you. Sometimes they make odd choices; they once planned to send me to Phoenix so I could visit my brother, only he lives in Tucson, he couldn't dump the classes he teaches to come to Phoenix, and we had just seen each other on a fishing trip a few weeks before anyway. It is possible for fans to get places added. (Within reason, anyway; I was told if I had gone to all the stores that wanted me on the last tour, I'd have been out for six months!) Anyway, both Washington, D.C. and Toronto were added to the last tour because of fan complaints about being excluded. They made enough noise, apparently, that Tor decided I should go.

I think I got the December and February Chronicles. I think I did. My wife sometimes wonders how I can keep the plots straight when I can't remember which day to put out the garbage. I tell her it's an acquired skill, but I don't say which bit is the skill.

His impression of Sweden was: "Very nice, but a little cold for the season" (the temperature in Stockholm sunk 10°C during the weekend compared with the previous week).

The biggest fish he has ever caught was a 12", 980 lbs tigershark, even though he had some help. He claimed he had on one occasion caught a tigershark bigger than the boat, but let it go. The audience saw with suspicion at this statement.

He said the book-signing tour will run through November 22nd. He'll spend two days fishing in Canada, and then return home to Charleston for Thanksgiving. (He said he finds being on tour exhausting, and always spends the following several days doing nothing at all.) After Thanksgiving, he'll start in on the next volume.

Someone mentioned the Internet-based rumors about him suffering from heart attacks / other forms of poor health. I couldn't tell from his expression whether RJ was amused or annoyed: Probably both equally. He replied that he's in good health with a resting heart rate of 71 beats per minute and good cholesterol.

He told quite a few people that the series would be requiring a minimum of three more volumes, perhaps more—and pointed out that he'd had to find time to work on "New Spring" and the Guide, in addition to The Path of Daggers. He also pointed out that, so far, the books have always been published within a month of completion, which he called "instantaneous for the publishing world". He stressed that he wants to reach the end (the final scene that he worked out 15 years ago), and would like to be "as compact as possible". (He said "Don't laugh.")

Did you enjoy your time in New Zealand and will you be back?

I enjoyed my visit to New Zealand tremendously, and I certainly hope to return. New Zealand is the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen, and on top of that, I hope to return at the right time of year to do some serious trout fishing.

What does the future hold for you?

Well, I’d like to catch a thousand-pound black marlin, a thirty-pound brown trout, and a sixty-pound Atlantic salmon. I’d like to shoot a twenty-four point whitetail and a perfect round in sporting clays. I’d like to get another royal Flush in poker—I got one, once—finally learn how to play go beyond the basics. I’d like to learn to sky dive, and.... Oh. More writing, certainly, for as long as I can find a way to put words on paper. I used to keep notebooks of story ideas, until I realized that I wold need three or four lifetimes to write just the ideas already had. I would like to do different sorts of writing, too. History, stage-plays. I’ve been noodling around lately with the idea of musical composition, too, something I haven’t touched in many years. Given the way medicine advances, I might have lived little more than half my life so far, which means I have a few decades remaining. Not enough to do everything I want to do, but I think I can fill them up.

Eventually I found her looking at some of the cards, and asked her if she would mind taking a photo with myself and my family. She was very nice and said that she would. We wandered around a bit more, with my mother joining us, before they called our numbers, and Harriet showed us some of the books she'd been looking at. She said she really liked Books & Co. and said that she thought it was one of the nicer stops on the tour.

They called our number and we met up with my father at the stage, and I introduced him and Harriet. We talked for a few minutes while we were waiting, about her getting to see her godson on their New York/New Jersey stop, and that I'd heard they were going to get to go to Alaska for a tour stop in 2006. She said that they had tried to combine the Alaska stop into the tour this year, but there was no way to do it without significantly modifying the tour that was already set up. So, RJ asked the tour manager "when are the salmon running?" and that decided when they would make it up to Anchorage.

Fantasy writer Robert Jordan recently published Winter's Heart, his ninth book in the Wheel of Time series. The Publishing Mills (in a joint effort with Books On Tape) released an unabridged audiobook version read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading. Though Books on Tape has released his books in their entirety for the rental and library markets, his novels have only been available in an abridged format for the retail market.

A highly decorated war hero, Jordan served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He is married to Tor Books executive editor Harriet McDougal. The couple lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

Jordan said he works hard to complete his massive books, writing eight hours a day, six or seven days a week. An eclectic reader, he said he likes to relax by fly-fishing. The author spoke to Rochelle O'Gorman at the beginning of December, while he was on book tour.

Another question followed about the number of books. Same answer.

He said that he writes about 8 hours a day 6 days a week when he is not on tour. He said something about when he was fishing, unless he was fly-fishing or was on the boat really having to work at it, he felt like he should be home writing.

He then answered a question about living in Charleston; about how it was his favorite place to live out of the half dozen or so cities he felt that he would like to live in.

He said that for this book it took two months from the time he handed in the final manuscript until he went on tour.