Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

Seeing as how it's been a good week since this damn thing happened, I'll add what few cents I can scrounge up amidst the pocket lint of my memory.

DISCLAIMER

I'll leave this in there, but I don't recall too much that was mentioned at the signing by RJ that would be a spoiler for The Path of Daggers.

(from Drew Gillmore's report): I was drinking most of the time, so my recollection of details may be a little fuzzy. My Wheel of Time was definitely wobbling.

Wot 'e said.

{ snip much of prelude }

(from Drew Gillmore's report): We also discussed what questions to ask. Most were discarded as frivolous, or obvious RAFO answers. I hadn't thought about it too much, but fortunately Chris had, and he had a few that he let me borrow.

Actually, we were trying to come up with something approaching the "Canonical list of stuff that if we asked Jordan would get us thrown out" back at my end of the line, and having a blast in doing so. Some questions we had:

o Rand and Elayne—Incest or just Wrong Wrong Wrong?
o Aiel Logistics—Surely you jest?
o Aiel vs. Stormtroopers—Who would win?
o Aiel vs. Fremen—Plagiarism or theft of Hebert's ideas?

There may have been more—I was getting beaten by Hawk after she heard my first suggestion (Rand and Elayne), which may have affected my memory.

Mike Steeves

Robert Jordan

I had two questions for him. The first was if we were going to be moving to more of a "short timespan, lotsa action" format, since the past couple of books seemed to have fit this format (disclaimer: it's been a couple of years since I've read A Crown of Swords, much less Lord of Chaos, so my sense of book-time may be off slightly), at which point he replied that he didn't deliberately plan the book to be in that format, but if he continued the book would be another 600 pages in length.

The second, which I didn't really get a chance to ask, was if Rand is in LTT's head during the period of the Sealing, which could explain LTT's mental state fluctuating in and out of some semblance of sanity.

After the signing, we stood outside of Gamescape, and held a vote. I motioned for beer, Drew seconded, and after a quick stop in Gamescape (where I impulse purchased a copy of "Family Business") we were off to:

(from Drew Gillmore's report): The next thing we did was went to the Thai House to drink. Or at least, Darkelf and I drank, with a little bit of sipping done by Eric and Chris. However, Darkelf and I got married (Work that in, K-J) and consummated the marriage with a pitcher of Stout beer (Thanks, oh Dimly Lit Sprite). I taunted Noell with the thought that Cal would beat UCLA until with four seconds left in the game, I relented and admitted that, in fact, Cal would probably not be coming back.

Let us not forget also the most excellent Oktoberfest that they had as well.

(from Drew Gillmore's report): After that, things *really* get fuzzy. We went to Amber, an Indian Restaurant, and had food, and talked. Rick Moen, Rajiv, Phetsy, Paul Ward, and "Justin" showed up. Other people showed up, but they were sitting at the other table and I don't remember all their names. (Someone else is *really* going to have to help me out here...anyone make a total list?) Mansur Ward made a cameo.

Ken Kaufman was there as well, along with a couple of others, but like Drew said, they were at the other table.

(from Drew Gillmore's report): I had Chicken Vindaloo, that was supposed to be spicier than it was, according to Chris Mullins, but since I was already full of beer I couldn't taste much anyway.

'Twas good Indian food—the Chicken Tikka Masala was, indeed, made extra hot and spicy, like I had requested.

After stuffing our faces, when it came time to divvy up the bill Rick suddenly had the need to "powder his nose", and was thus absent when we were collecting the cash. Of course, Rick's also a noted Linux weenie, and since he can't afford a real OS anyways, this is slightly more excusable in that light.

(from Drew Gillmore's report): Somewhere in there my ex-fiancée showed up, and I mentally checked out for the evening. I remember going to Brian's apartment complex for the rec room there, more beer, lots of pool, then a jaunt to Bill and Hawks for an hour or so. At that point I had been up for somewhere near forty hours, and had drank sufficiently enough in my sleep depraved condition to make thinking straight a tricky situation.

After the pool, it was back to Chez Bill'n'Hawk, at which point I also tended to zone in and out of things. I think Lawn Order was played, after we all sang along to a couple of selected tunes from the Doctor Demento discs that Rick so thoughtfully provided. I think I slept, at the time.

(from Drew Gillmore's report): I'm not sure how it ended. Badly, one would assume, but you'll have to get that part of the story from someone who A) was there, and B) was there, if you know what I mean.

Yeah. I know what you mean. There are rumors of other depraved activities, but thankfully I wasn't among the (conscious) participants....