A: They were in hard cover at the beginning, also.

A: Yes, and it was very small printings. The publisher did not even offer them to bookstores. And the publisher was frankly quite surprised when book stores found out about the hard covers and began ordering them. After all, it's a very fat book, a very EXPENSIVE book by an essentially unknown writer. They didn't think anybody but libraries would buy it.

A: Are you kidding?! Of course not! I mean you hope for something like this. Nobody writes a book and hopes for a flop. And, all right, maybe if you write something you've turned out in a month just to get enough money to pay the rent, you're not hoping really, with any real thought of it making THE NEW YORK TIMES, say. But any book you write ordinarily, you hope it's going to be successful, and maybe in the back of your head there's some little dream that, "Yes this one, this one will make THE TIMES. And they'll invite me to Stockholm as well." You know, if your going to dream, why not dream? But practicality says, "Forget it Jack."

A: Well, not really. Not that anybody would go into that depth of analysis. But I want to make the books as layered as possible, so that you could read them on the surface and have a good time, and no more than that. I have twelve year olds who write me fan letters, and I'm certain that's how they read the books. But I wanted layers beneath that, and layers beneath THAT, so that no matter how many times you read the books there would always be something new to find.

A: No. Not to any real extent. There are two things. One, occasionally I will find that the speculation is perhaps getting a little too close to something that I want to keep hidden for a while yet. So I try to become a little more subtle in talking about that. The other thing is that sometimes I discover that there's intense discussion over something that I assumed was quite obvious. I wasn't trying to hide anything at all, I thought I was being quite straightforward, and I think, "Maybe I need to find a way to slip in something, a mention if it just happens to come up anyway, to let them know that this is the way that is supposed to be." It's simply a matter of how things come about, how it occurs with my work if it happens to come up.

A: Some of it. I suppose, actually, that particular thing came from the only time I was really shaken in combat in shooting at somebody, or shooting AT somebody. I had to, uh, I was shooting back at some people on a sampan and a woman came out and pulled up an AK-47, and I didn't hesitate about shooting her. But that stuck with me. I was raised in a very old-fashioned sort of way. You don't hurt women -- you don't DO that. That's the one thing that stuck with me for a long, long time.

A: Yes, in a way it is. It's something that comes out of the way they think. And it fits with the society, as well, as it's been devised. Three thousand years ago men destroyed the world. In effect, O.K. it was the male Aes Sedai, but it was MEN that did it. For three thousand years the world has been afraid of men who can channel. You have that sort of history, and women are going to have power, women are going to have influence and prestige. There is not going to be the same sort of subjugation of women you find in other cultures in our world. Given that, and given the fact that men are, quite simply, stronger than women. There's no two ways about it, on the average man is stronger than woman.

A: Right. Physically stronger. It's going to be, in many cases, a very strong cultural prohibition against a man using that strength against a woman. It seemed to me to fit very well with the way the cultures are set up.

A: Yes. My vacations are almost inevitably now a few DAYS tacked on to the end of a business trip. The fishing trip was an aberration of wild dimensions. I stuck with that despite various people saying, "Can you really do that, can you really take the time out?" I said, "I plan to get my brothers and cousins and nephews together. We're going to fly fish, we're going to fly fish, I don't CARE, we're going to FLY FISH, and catch some trout." But generally I have to think about things like that. I don't go to conventions very much anymore, I used to go to a lot of them, I don't have the time.

A: No, I don't really. I write stories I try to write stories about real people. I'm really glad the books are popular. But, I don't really have any clue why they're so popular, except possibly the fantasy element. I think that we have a real need for fantasy as human beings. Actually Terry Pratchett says it quite clearly. He says that by believing in things that don't exist, we set ourselves up to believe in other things that don't exist such as justice and mercy. *

A: Laughs No, nobody could bond Bela. And for the rest of it, Read And Find Out. .

A: I really have to list five authors I believe are the greatest influence on me. Louis L'Amour,Jane Austen, John D. MacDonald, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain. .

A: First off, it is a rarity. Fewer than 100 men in the nations that are spoken of in the book. It is a semi-formal thing that is normally one is chosen to become a blademaster by other blademasters. There's no real organization. If you want to become a blademaster, you have to find other blademasters who are willing to acknowledge you as an equal.

A: Simply because it's a talent that appears very rarely among men. The Wise Ones are doubtful that there actually can be a male dreamwalker.

A: One of the themes of the book is that no one knows everything there is to know. Another is that just because you believe something to be true, doesn't mean that it is true. Someone can judge a current strength. This differs between men and women. A woman that can channel can very accurate judgement of another woman's strength whether she is channeling or not if she is standing close enough. Among Aes Sedai at least, knowledge of potential strength, especially if it is thought to be a great strength, becomes very widespread. Among men the circumstances are different. A man who can channel cannot judge the strength of another unless the other is channeling the One Power or holding the One Power, and even then all he can judge is how much of the One Power the other man is holding. He can't say how much he can hold. There are great differences between men and women in the One Power.

A: I most definitely write on a computer. I upgrade it about every 18 months. At the moment I'm using a Pentium 266 MMX with 32 MB ram and a 10G hard drive. I'll upgrade that in another six months. My writing day goes as follows: After breakfast i answer the phone calls and letters that I have to answer from yesterday. Then i start writing. I seldom stop for lunch and I stop about six or seven at night. That's seven days a week. Occasionally I take a day off to go fishing.

A: Not really a lot. I was a nuclear engineer and I was in the US Army before that. Then I became a writer.

A: He didn't influence me, that's why. I enjoyed reading the stories when I was a boy and I enjoyed writing the Conan novels, but Howard was never an influence on my style.

A: I don't think there is a question that no one's asked. Including the most personal and intimate that you can imagine. Somebody will always ask anything.

A: There are degrees of victory. The Dark One can achieve victory by breaking free, but can also achieve lesser victories. Such as by stopping the Dragon Reborn from doing other things he was born to do. It isn't as simple as him being born to fight The Dark One. It's never simple.