A: As for when or if it will come into play, read and find out. As for another edition of the guide, I would like to do a concordance or encyclopedia when the cycle is finished, but I have no plans before that.

A: Read and find out. The principle is the same, but it doesn't work in the same way as Mat's medallion.

A: Well, the tedious bits were quite easy, and it wasn't so much a matter of research I hadn't done as things that needed to be worked out -- which I thought could wait until later because they were not going to come into the books until later. But I realized once I began writing that I had to realize how those things worked and fit together NOW, because that would affect how things happened in that first book.

A: The kiss is necessary, because that's how they learned to do it, because that's how the fellow that developed it did it. The extra bit is something in the bonding, and you'll find out what in Winter's Heart. You should have gotten a clue, I think, in the scene where the bonding took place.

A: The sword forms described in the book are my own creation, but they are based in part on the Japanese art of the sword, and also on fencing as it developed, when it was well on its way to becoming a martial art as we define them today (when it was developing in the Renaissance).

A: It's called New Spring, and it's in a collection called LEGENDS put together by Robert Silverburg.

A: I can't give favorite books, but I can give my favorite authors: John D. McDonal, Jane Austen, Robert Heinlein, Louis L'Amour, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain.

A: Sometimes I have to look back at the books themselves, but primarily that is to make sure that I remember for example, exactly what someone said to someone else, I don't need to remind myself of the story or what has happened. I sometimes do have to check on small details.

A: Among other places, yes.

A: The basis was notes that I had made for myself on backstory, things that I had never intended to put into the books themselves, but that I needed to know to write the books: such as where did Moiraine and Lan meet, and where did they come from.

A: To be released, you can be released from it.

A: I know the fates of all of the primary characters.

A: (laughs) Unless you can find someone else to bet with, use your money to buy yourself some beer.

A: I don't know that I would particularly like to be a part of any of the societies or organizations or groups that I have described. I suppose if I had to choose, it would be a tossup between being an Ossuman [Asha'man] and being a Warder.

A: No, to the best of my knowledge, I have not agreed to be at DragonCon next year! I have to point out that in the last few years, there seems to be a rash of people convincing world fantasy convention, world science fiction convention, that they are ME, and they have arranged panels that I knew nothing about until I received a schedule from the convention saying that these were the panels I was on.

A: I don't think that I would bring anything from my world into the real world. They're all very wonderful things, I believe, but taken all in all, they make the world much too interesting for comfort. And the world we live in is awfully darned interesting, and sometimes awfully uncomfortable, as it is.

A: Yes and no. It's very hard to get an artist to portray someone just as you see them. If I were an artist, perhaps the covers would show the people EXACTLY as I see them. But since I'm not, we have to make do with me giving descriptions to the artist.

A: I usually write to classical music of various kinds, and occasionally Chinese or Japanese music. I like to listen to rock and to jazz, but I can't write to them. As for the number of hours, I try to do at least 8 hours a day, six or seven days a week. When the schedule gets very hectic, that can grow to twelve hours a day 7 days a week, and no time off.

A: As far as what you'll find out about them, read and find out. I myself see the Age of Legends as a time that was very technological, with a technology based on the One Power. And thus, a place where things happened every day that would be considered miraculous to the people of the present time of the books. If you took someone from 500 years ago into the average house in the United States, they would think that what they were seeing had to be the product of magic, and they would believe that our world was an incredible time of wonder. They probably wouldn't see any of the warts that we see. And in the books this has happened in reverse, because the grand time is in the past.

A: We'll certainly see her again -- for the rest, Read And Find Out. If I tell you everything that's coming, and everything that isn't coming, you're going to lose interest, aren't you?