Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Chicago

Who would you wait in line this long to get a book signed from?

Terry Pratchett in a heartbeat.

Calamity-Seattle

Was Adonalsium the one who created the cosmere universe as a whole?

That is widely assumed to be the case.

Brandon on fandom theories,

Bands of Mourning Release Party

Do you ever go on the 17th Shard just to see what randomness we do there?

Not often, but yes.

Brandon on fandom theories,

DragonCon 2016

At the beginning, you haven't had much of a fan base, how had it been transitioning from lack of a fanbase to... this.

This. Um... wow, yeah. So... it's been crazy, definitely been crazy. It's weird because as a writer, you become a writer to tell your stories, not to become famous, right? But becoming famous, nobody becomes famous as a writer, right? That's what you figure and you just want to tell your stories. If you would've gone to me, when, let's say, 1999, 2000, when I was in the thick of writing all these books, and come to me and said, "we're gonna give you", um, just pick a normal salary, "forty grand for the rest of your life if you'll keep writing books", I'd have taken that in a heartbeat. That guarantee - I'm there. I can publish a book a year, I can have means to make a living on it, that is all I ever wanted, in fact, I totally would, if I could just get there. Well... (laughs) Now, with over ten million books out there, it's different. But at the same time, being a writer is awesome in that... I sat next to somebody on the plane on the way here and he's like "oh, what are you doing", I "I'm a writer" and he's "oh, should I know who you are?" My response was "no, actually, because I'm really, really famous with a really small and weird group of people." (general laughing) And that's for me the best kind of famous. I can... if I go out, right, I'll sign maybe one or two autographs and it feel cool, right? One or two people will recognize me and be like (does "whoa" impression), then I'll sign the autograph and it's great, but then I just go on with my life! And it means a ton to some people, but for average people it means "oh, you want fries with that". And so I basically live a normal life, as normal a life as one can be when, you know, you're travelling to Europe and things like that on tour. But when I'm at home it's very normal, it's just me and my kids and my write, I write at home, it's a blast, it's a normal life, I play Minecraft with my kids, I hang out and things like that, and then I go on tour and I'm a superstar for short time with some really cool people, then I go home and it's just normal again. So... yeah, if you're gonna be famous, be writer-famous. Don't be... even movie stars very few people know, you recognize their face and they can't go anywhere, and I don't think I would want that. So this has been awesome. And the other thing is, you always want to be able to just write whatever you love, and we talk about that, I mean... I, at the end of the Wheel of Time, I paid for my house, we put enough savings for the kids and for whatever we'd need to pay for for the rest of our lives, and I retired. I retired like four years ago, retired meaning "I get to write extra books!", so thank you guys for that!

Brandon on fandom,