A: The material of a true heron mark blade is altered. It is not simple steel anymore.

A: Well I've got good news and bad news. The good news is there is a tour and I'm on it right now. The bad news is I was in California in the middle of October. Right after the book was published. All around San Diego, and LA, and SF and Sacramento. Sorry.

A: The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.

A: No, there was no intention to make any similarities between Dune and my writings. And I am certainly a big fan of the original Dune novel. Although I doubt if I've read it since it first came out!

A: Well the first thing I thought of was what would it REALLY be like to be tapped on the shoulder and told that you had been born to save mankind. And somehow or other I suspect it wouldn't be very much like anyone had said it was so far and about the same time, I was wondering about the sources of myth. And why there are so many myths and legends that show striking similarities when they're paired with cultural references. Those two things are as clear to a starting point as I can show you. And they bounced around in the back of my head along with 40 odd years of reading everything I can get my hands on. History, Biography, Myth, Legend, Comparative Religion, Social Anthro, whatever I found. And out eventually came the Wheel of Time but not until a number of years thinking about it.

A: Well I keep being told that all sorts of technology are going to overtake books, make books obsolete, but in fact sales of books go up year after year. And while I am a technofile of the first order, I have never found any technological device that could produce what a book does. That I could put several hours of entertainment with spectacular special effects in fact, special effects as great as my mind was encompassing, a cast of perhaps hundreds or thousands, and no need of a power supply,and all of it would slip into my jacket pocket and very easy to read to boot. No tiny screens, no glare from the sun on a page as it would be on a screen. Somehow I think books are in for the long run.

A: The books are published as fast as I can write them. In fact, in the beginning, you might say they were being published faster than I can write them! The normal lead time from ending a book to publication is 8 months to a year. My last 3 books have been published within 60 days of completion by me.

A: That's why we now are out on a longer stretch between the books. But I do hope that the next one will come a little bit faster.

A: One at a time. In fact, when I first started thinking of what would turn into The Wheel of Time, Rand and his foster father were one character. Not a 50-ish man and his teenage foster son. But a man in his 30's who had run away from a quiet country village seeking adventure, had become a soldier, and now after 20 years of that, world weary and tired. Who has come home to his pastoral village seeking peace and quiet, only to find that the world and prophecy are hard on his heels. You can see that that's a much different character that what I ended up with when I started writing. I may actually use him someday.

A: No, I dont have a set amount of books planned. I believe it will take at least 3 more books to reach the ending that I have known for more than 15 years. I knew what I wanted to do in these books, what I wanted to say, and how it was all going to come out, before I ever started writing them.

A: Uh, Ship Wreck is in the works in the back of my head, where it's been for 5 or 6 years. It is in fact what I will be writing when I finish WOT a different world, a different set of characters, a different universe, a different set of rules. But I don't expect to put anything on paper until I have finished WOT it's much easier to plan these things out in my head than to write them out on paper. Someone asked me where all of my critical path charts were for the plots, and I had to tell him they were in my head because they were too complex to put on paper charts, and the time necessary to put them into a computer would be approximately equivalent to put them into books. it's much simpler to keep it in my head.

A: No, it's neither harder, nor is there more info. It simply has been that it is more difficult. No, not more difficult, it is still difficult to get to the end. Remember, after COS I said at least 3 more books the same thing I say now. Because everytime I reach a branching point and put down a major event, I cut off other possible paths to other major events. It means that certain things then are going to have to take place in a certain order and a certain way because the other branches of the logic tree are no longer available. But don't worry, guys, I really am getting there! I apologize for the length of time it's taking me, but I really am getting there.

A: Well, it's not on purpose, though I don't know about great minds. LOTR has more dissimilarities than similarities to my series. I have no elves, no unicorns, no dragons. Tolkien wrote from a distinctly English viewpoint and voice about myths and legends that came from England. I write in an American voice, in fact a distinctly southern voice, about myths and legends that come from every country represented by the population of the US. And then there's the role played by Women there are only 2 women in LOTR but women tell half the story in WOT! There are other differences, and I sometimes find it hard to see the similarities.

A: C'mon guys, Mat had half a building fall on him! Give the man a little rest! If he's alive, which I will neither confirm or deny (I could probably do very well in Washington!) but you don't have half a building fall on you without a few ill effects!

A: That would be pushing the laws of coincidence, if you wish to call them that, a bit far. What a ta'veren does, remember, in effect, is unwittingly bend the laws of chance to favor himself, and to affect other lives. What would happen one time in a million without him there will happen because he IS there. But there really are limits.

A: I'll have to give 6. John D. McDonald, Jane Austin, Louis L'Amour, Charles Dickens, Robert Heinlein, Mark Twain. And I also like the essays of Montaigne, a lot. Sorry they're all dead guys, but I don't read contemporary stuff! You asked for favorites.

A: Um, her viewings are always concerning the future.

A: The Asmodean question? I've said time and again that there is enough evidence for you guys to figure out who killed Asmodean. I have, since Asmodean's death, put in a few more clues. The evidence is there, if not exactly listed with flaming arrows pointing to it. It should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer.

A: Well guys, I have no intention of dying if I can help it. Not now and not ever, if I can help it! So all I can say is, everyone look after my health! Especially since I've taken out an insurance policiy, you might say, just in case someone thinks that by knocking me over the head with a hammer to learn the ending! Upon my death, I've arranged for all of my hard drives to be reformatted 6 times, every bit of paper which mentions anything about the books will be burned! AND, there is a tidy sum set aside to pay for the removal of the knee caps of anyone who sharecrops in my universe after I am dead! So if you want to know how it ends, look after my health!

A: No, I would not agree with that at all. I think that writers who say that are doing one of two things. They are either being lazy and not paying attention to the procesees of their own brains, or they're pandering to those readers who would like to believe that the characters are independant entities. When it comes to my characters, I am not only a GOD, I am an old testament God, with my fist in the middle of their lives. They are as I wish them to be, they do what I wish them to do, they speak the words I put in their mouths. And that is ALL they may do.