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99.2: What is "The Guide"? What is "New Spring"?

The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, more commonly known as "The Guide," is a "companion book" to TWOT which Tor published in November, 1997. It is by Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson, and is basically a compilation of background and setting material for TWOT. It contains information about "the world's geography, history, and sociology." [Guide: Preface, 9] A lot of the information is stuff which we already know from the series proper. There is also new information about topics like the AOL, the founding of the White Tower, Artur Hawkwing, and the Seanchan. The book contains artwork from the books (icons, maps, and cover art), and some new art (which is generally considered to be less than stellar). John Novak adds, "The Guide's framing device (or conceit) is that it is a history written by someone from within the Wheel of Time. Hence the first pages claiming that documents are copies of copies, etc. As such, some readers do not consider the material canon."

"New Spring" is a 79-page novella which RJ wrote for the Tor anthology Legends, published in early 1998. "New Spring" tells the story of how Lan and Moiraine met, and the beginning of Moiraine's search for the Dragon Reborn. It is set shortly after the Aiel War. IMO, it's pretty good. Legends itself is a collection of "new stories by the best-known and most accomplished modern creators of fantasy fiction, each one set in the special universe... that made that writer famous." [Legends, Introduction by Robert Silverberg] The other writers featured in the volume are Stephen King (Dark Tower), Terry Pratchett (Discworld), Terry Goodkind (The Sword of Truth), Orson Scott Card (Tales of Alvin Maker), Robert Silverberg (Majipoor), Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea), Tad Williams (Memory, Sorrow and Thorn), George R.R. Martin (A Song of Ice and Fire), Anne McCaffrey (Pern), and Raymond E. Feist (Riftwar).

The ISBN's of both books are given in Section 0.04.

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The Wheel of Time FAQ. Copyright 1999 by Pamela Korda and Erica Sadun. HTML implementation by Matthew Hunter. This site maintained by Matthew Hunter (mhunter@andrew.cmu.edu). Comments and questions regarding the content itself should be directed to Pam Korda (kor2 @ midway.uchicago.edu).

hose same sentiments POLITELY but FIRMLY. At the same time, impress upon Jordan that he ought to save all the letters which express dissatisfaction, and make his agent read those letters.

This plan is great! Where can I bend over, er, pay my $5?

Try the Simon and Schuster web site (http://www.simonsays.com/).

Will Tor provide any on-line sample of WH?

As of right now, we don't know. They will certainly not provide the prologue, since they do not have the electronic publishing rights to that.

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