I noticed that the hardcover’s dust jacket specifically mentions the Wheel of Time fan community, calling out several of the most important ones by name . Why?
Partially because I am a part of the fan community myself. And because I’m part of the newer generation of writers who’re very involved online. Robert Jordan did some of these things: he posted his blog on Dragonmount, and would post other things like that. But he was part of a different generation. The very first day I got onto the internet in 1994, I found my way to rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan . I found myself there—I was on Tolkien’s, and I was on the Wheel of Time one, and that was the very first day that I was on the internet. You’ll find that a lot of us in fandom were like that. The internet is our community for these books, and I felt it appropriate to involve them and mention them, because that’s what they’re there for.
It’s basically the air at this point.
Right: It’s like breathing. It’s not like I sat down and said, “oh, I should mention the blogs.” It’s just what I do, because it’s there—it’s hard to say why or why not, because it’s obvious that you should do it.
It is true that Robert Jordan was of a different age. I’ve tried to respect that, particularly because Harriet is of that era, too, and she’s very worried about spoilers on the internet and so forth—and I think rightly so. I might be a little too open, or a little too free with some of these things. I’ve tried to run more of a balance, and to give fewer spoilers. To talk about the process with people, but not tell people what’s going to happen, or what specifically is going on with the plot.
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