Subject: Re: Virginia Signing

From: [email-masked] (John S. Novak, III)
Date: 21 Nov 1998 18:14:00 PST

On 21 Nov 1998 18:01:49 PST, John S. Novak, III <[email-masked]> wrote:

Version 1.01.
Included spoiler warning, and a few comments at the end.



There was a signing at a local Borders very close to my apartment.
Kate, myself, and the Dilicks attended.  The signing began at 1:00 PM.
We showed up separately between 11:00 and 11:30 AM to find ourselves
close to the front of the line.  Such paranoia was justified, as the
line grew very swiftly and to great length.  

As the time approached, the cafe area was cleared and chairs set up
auditorium style so that those of us who had been waiting were able to
sit down and enjoy.  This was cool.  Those of us in the cafe area
(andmaybe others) were also given a complimentary cup of spiced
cider-- to bring to mind the idea of having a mug mulled wine in front
of us.  This was cool.  There was also an amazing-looking layered
sheet cake with a truly impressive Wheel of Time design drawn on the
top.  I never got the full story on where it came from-- if Tor
arranged it, or if a fan owned a bakery or what.  It was divied up
into small pieces and given to the fans as we went through line. 

Jordan began with a reading, which was fairly short.  He read the
first few pages from chapter one of tPoD.  I think I'm happier
narrating them in my own internal voice.  He then commenced with about
an hour and a half of rapid signings.  I asked politely if I could
stand off to the side and record the answers to any questions that he
gave.  He and the Borders staff were very gracious.  They seemed to
expect it, somehow...  I will make one comment about Mr. Jordan:  he
seems like a very nice man.  He was obviously tired (he commented at
one point that he had hit some 27 cities in 32 days) but was cheerful,
engaging, willing to chat and banter and seemed generally pleased to
be there.

I did my best not to be completely underfoot, getting out of the
way of photographs, keeping relatively silent while people were
chatting to him and asking him questions.  On a personal and weird
note, a lot of people seemed to recognize me, too.  (Of those, I
recognized only Amy and her man.)  This is unsettling and weird.  And
I am not nearly as approachable as I may have seemed to be-- but I
would have felt like a heel for bitchslapping people who stood behind
me trying to talk to me or at me or near me as I was busy listening
and jotting and dodging out of photographs, while Jordan was being
so nice about letting me hang out there.

Here's what I learned:

(Bear in mind that while there were stretches while I wasn't writing
anything, when I WAS writing, I had to write fast.  I hope I didn't
mistranscribe anything.)

Balefire:  I'm right.  (This was my question)  What this means is, if
someone is Balefire, the Dark One can't reincarnate them.  But they
CAN be spun back out into the wheel as normal.  Balefire is NOT the
eternal death of the soul.  He also made a comment to the effect that
even in the absence of balefire, there may be circumstances where the
Dark One cannot bring someone back.  There was a long line, so I
didn't press.

The Bowl:  Someone asked him whether, if men had helped the Aes Sedai 
and Windfinders and Kin channel through the Bowl, the One Power would
still have been screwed up.  His implicit assumption was that the Bowl
screwed things up.  I expected this to be a sheer RAFO.  I was
surprised.  He went into a relatively detailed explanation to the
effect that the Bowl was stressed far, far beyond its original design
parameters because of the advanced knowledge of the Windfinders.  It
was affecting a global pattern, when it was designed for only a small
region.  Men helping would not have changed anything, and the effects
linger most strongly near Ebou Dar, but also along the "spokes" which
radiated from that place.  (I should have asked if a spoke went out
over Tear.)  My comment:  Nyah-nyah.

Moiraine lost her list sometime between NS and tEotW.  By the opening
of the story, all she could remember was that there had been a name
>from  the Two Rivers.

On the subject of a story set in the Age of Legends, most probably
not.  The Age of Legends was entirely too boring to write about, up
until the time it became too interesting.  And at that point, it
became too gloomy because it was a long, drawn out apocalypse.

He has no particular real world inspiration for the One Power, at
least not that he knows of.  He admits that he's read a lot of stuff
and at times forgets a source here and there.  

At one point, he looked at me and added (with no prompting or
questioning) that no, Mat is not Cyndane.  He explained that at
another Signing, he had a string of ten or so people in a row ask him
about Mat, and he got frustrated and belted out, "What if Mat is
Cyndane?"  He claimed he then recanted, but couldn't tell if the guy
he told that too believed that he was joking.  I admitted that I had
heard the story, but it was okay-- we got the joke.  He then added
that while he likes Chalker's and Varley's works, he does not intend
to emulate them.  "Not at all like Balthamel becoming Aran'gar?" I
quipped.  He retorted to the effect that was one character, not a
whole host of characters.

He is already thinking about his next work.  He has been thinking
about it for five or six years now.  It will definitely be a fantasy,
definitely not Wheel of Time, and will spend a lot of time in a
culture that somewhat resembles the Seanchan.  Ie, the Shipwreck thing
is still going strong.  Someone standing behind me commented about the
Seanchan being a bunch of sociopaths, and Jordan returned that the
Seanchan system is a reasonable response to the conditions they found.
I opined that we could have a serious debate in ethics over that
point.  I expect that in other circumstances we could have rolled up
our debating sleeves and gone at it, but there were more books to sign
and I didn't want to get in anyone's way.

If an Aes Sedai becomes Black Ajah, the Warder would know instantly
that something was up, but wouldn't know exactly what.  The Black Ajah
has three choices, then-- hope the Warder is a Darkfriend or amenable
to being one, hide the affiliation, or arrange for an accident.  Yes,
this would be painful for the Aes Sedai, but it might become
necessary.  The process of becoming Black Ajah is evidently quite
painful in its own right and thus probably involves more than just
swearing new Oaths on the Rod.  (I submit that this is why he Red Ajah
is rife with Black Ajah-- they have an easier time actively recruiting
>from  that pool.  By the same token, I claim that the Gren Ajah is more
pure than the others.)

Asmodean is, and I quote, road-kill.  And he still claims there are
many indirect clues from tFoH on about who killed him.  He also claims
that very, very few of the fan letters he gets are correct about it.

Will more heroes be bound to the Horn?  RAFO.

Who or what is the Tamyrlin?  RAFO.

(RAFO sometimes means that he intends to reveal it later.  Sometimes
it means that an answer is not consequential, but it's logical
implications ARE consequential.)

He really hopes to get the next volume out faster.

His plans have not signifigantly altered from the time of conception.
No major scenes have been inserted or left out or substantially
altered. 

Apparently a Dorset House (?) is currently planning to produce
replicas of jewelry (such as the Aes Sedai rings, Moiraine's forehead
jewel) and articles of clothing (like the Shawls) for the market.

Does the Snakes and Foxes game played in the Two Rivers have anything
to do with the 'finn?  RAFO.  (My answer:  Duh?)

A calendar for next year seems like a very possible thing.  So does
the encyclopedia concept we've heard about-- he already keeps a
running compilation of invented terms anyway.

There were a lot of amusing personal remarks as well, which I won't
try to capture.  He seems to have a half a dozen answers for the
question, "Where do you get your ideas?"  The one that tickled me was
that he sends off to a mail order company from Trenton New, Jersey (I
think) for some large amount of money, at three ideas per page.  I
looked askance and remarked that Ellison gave the same answer, except
his ideas came from a warehouse in Peoria (which I'm sure I've read
somewhere.  Think it was Ellison.)  He shot back, "Yeah, but did you
notice that mine are more expensive?"

And at one point, while posing for a picture, he asked if should
appear pensive?  Or perhaps Byronic?  I shot back, "Byronic, or
ironic?"  "I can do ironic, too, but it costs more."

And my favorite fan comment:  "No questions.  Just, 'Thanks.'"  Dunno
who that was, but if you're reading, I thought that was cool.

So that's that.

Last signing of the tour.

(I left out a bunch of shit we already knew about how many more books,
how does he title things, who's his favorite character, what's his
daily schedule, etc.)

-- 
John S. Novak, III		[email-masked]
The Humblest Man on the Net

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 14:22:08 GMT

> Included spoiler warning, and a few comments at the end.
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A few things not mentioned but learned at the signing.

Jordan has not replied to any fan letters in the last year.  I am not sure if
he said he would be tackling the old letters or whether he would be answering
any from now on.  He did say he apologized for not being able to get to them.
 I think he said he was basically involved in writing something. (duh)

There was the usual mention of how many books.	I heard three or so but then
he said something else which I missed.	It seemed to create a bit of buzz but
I have no idea what it was.

He said he had no idea what the title of the next book was yet.  Once again I
I did not hear the rest of what he said.  I think though he said that once the
title was firmly established he will let us know.  Which is what he did with
tPoD.

Romanda is the Sister who is mentioned in New SPring as being as old as
Cadsuane.
(Sorry if that was something many of you already knew to be true.  I had a bet
going so was rather pleased with that one)

There was something about Black Ajah and the oaths.  I am not sure if this was
part of the Warder question or not.

Problem is what little I heard was then appended by the questioner's
perception of what Jordan said.  So I may have gotten a few things wrong.

Overall it was the friendliest crowd of fans I have seen yet in four signings
over the years.  For the most part people wanted to talk and get to know one
another.

The cake was good and as Mr. Novak said quite cool.  I got the feeling that
the powers that be at this Borders either really liked having RJ there
because they were fans or because he was a #1 bestselling author.  Either way
they were very appreciative to have him there and have his fans there as
well.

If this is how they do things on a regular basis I think their author series
is something not to miss.

Thanks Mr. Novak.  I was not sure if that was you or not.  I am glad you came
prepared and got there early.

Maybe next time you could vet the questions as well!

One thing about this signing I did notice.  We all might be reaing WoT but
damn if I would recognize by some of the theories out there.

My favorite had to be the voluable blonde who insisted that Egwene is the
reborn soul whose previous incarnations have included (I hope I remember
these all)

1.The founder of the White Tower (forget her name)
2.Caraighan Maconar
3.Mabriam en Shareed
4. & 5. two women named in the forntpeices of two fo the books but I don't
remember which ones
6.Rashima Kerenmosa
7.Kirukin (the Trolloc Queen) she was rather excited since she was mentioned
again in the new book
8.Deane Aryman
 this one was the last I recognized

I think she also was trying to decide if the three strong Amyrlins mentioned
in the new book were also a part of this ongoing heroic chain.

Did you catch any of that J Novak?  We were rather close to the table when she
was going into great depth the various clues she thinks existed for each case.

More amusing were the wide-eyed looks from those standing by her.

Oh well a good time was had by everyone from what I saw.  Oh except the lady
who rather loudly started bitching because the people seated towards the
center got to go up first even though 'we were in the line before they were'.
 This got repeated at least twenty times in five minutes.  I guess she
thought those ten people were going to make a world of difference.

Thanks again Mr. Novak.  Hopefully this will set a trend for the future
signings.  A geographical breakdown perhaps.  Boye and Bergman can fight it
out for who gets the NY territory.

---
JSH

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---

From: [email-masked] (John S. Novak, III)
Date: 22 Nov 1998 08:36:58 PST

On 21 Nov 1998 18:14:00 PST, John S. Novak, III <[email-masked]> wrote:

Two more tidbits.



There was one piece of information that I _thought_ I heard correctly,
but didn't want to relate until I was sure it made proper sense.
Thanks to Rich Boye for confirming the text of NS (which I don't have)
and that the following makes sense:

One person asked whether Romanda was the Aes Sedai that Cadsuane
referred to as being nearly as old as she was.  Jordan answered in the
affirmative. I was distracted by someone at the time and _thought_ I
heard that correctly, but wasn't quite sure.  (And I gave the guy who
asked the question a really weird look, because the answer didn't seem
to make sense-- why was everyone surprised about Cadsuane's being
alive, if Romanda was just about as old?  Apparently because Cadsuane
is so much more heroic than Romanda.)

And another tidbit that I meant to mention, but neglected.  Someone
actually asked Jordan whether a hermaphrodite would channel Saidin or
Saidar.  Jordan was... non-plussed.  "A hermaphrodite?!  I dunno.  I'd
have to sit down and figure that out."  He shot the guy a funny look
as he walked away, then remarked to the next group of people in line
that he put that in the same category as the person who wrote to ask
him what Donald Duck would channel.