Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Robert Jordan has returned home from his North American Book tour. After giving him a few weeks to get settled in, we've tracked him down and asked him how the experience was. Here's what he had to say:

Things never do calm down around here. The tour is done, but I'm hard at work on the expansion/rewriting of New Spring, I have to go to Budapest in April for the Hungarian Book Fair (with a little vacation—finally!—in Italy added on), and then I need to get underway with Book Eleven.

new spring

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knife of dreams

The tour went very well. The first night, in New York, the store count (that is, the count of attendance by the store) was over six hundred and fifty people, which was terrific. We had over six hundred in San Jose, and over five hundred a number of other places, ending with four hundred and fifty or so at the last two stops, Toronto and Edmonton. The only small crowds were about a hundred and fifty at a midday signing in LA (the local media escort said it was a very good number, but did point out that Monica Lewinsky drew over fifteen hundred, though Joan Collins got only twenty and was truly pissed), and about two hundred and fifty at a store which shall remain nameless, where the store manager admitted after the signing that they had somehow failed to put out any advertising at all, so it was all word of mouth. All in all, I feel wonderful about the whole thing. Touring is exhausting, frankly, but it is also exhilarating.

rj on fame

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fandom

Most people by far seemed to like Crossroads, though one or two did complain that "nothing happened." I can see their point, in a way, but I think they were expecting another grand battle. I recall that a number of books ago I got some complaints from people because I hadn't killed off another of the Forsaken in a book and hadn't broken another of the seals on the Dark One's prison. There are always expectations that the books will go in a certain way, follow a certain path, and that isn't always the path I intend to follow. Myself, I think a great deal happened in Crossroads, even if it wasn't slam-bang stuff. In any case, I did plan for some of that, but those things will have to come in the next book because putting them into this one would have required at least another five or six months of writing and produced a thousand-page book.

crossroads of twilight

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rj on writing

I did have some people mention your movie. Not just the folks who came to various signings who are associated with it, either. I think there are people out there eagerly awaiting it.

Take care, Jason. It's back to work for the likes of me. No rest for the wicked. I really hope—knock wood, spit over your shoulder, and sacrifice to the gods—that I can finish up in twelve books total. We shall see.

This was in reference to Dragonmount's first 'trailer'-type film.

fandom

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how many more books?

For more information about the upcoming New Spring short novel, follow the link below. We're have an entire page dedicated to it very soon.

Also, once we know the dates of his trip to Hungary, we'll let you know what they are.