Dragonmount announces The Gathering Storm's Book Tour schedule

Jason at DM gave the WOT fans the first (of his promised six) TGS-related news for this week, and published on Dragonmount this morning the detailed schedule of Brandon's TGS book tour (with a few special apparitions by Harriet Rigney).

Now, Brandon is of course not Jim Rigney himself - the Creator - and some of you might think it's not worth the trouble of attending his TGS signings and Q&A.

For having attended one of them a while ago, I can tell you they're very well worth it. Brandon is a very interesting and enthusiastic speaker, to start with (and his years as a teacher and in writing groups show, and not in a bad way!) and to his solid background knowledge of the series as a long time fan he's just added two years of professional immersion into RJ's universe and all the bolts behind it - and he loves talking about it. He also adds a fairly unique dimension to these Q&A, as he can approach the Wheel of Time and the writing of Robert Jordan from his own experience as a professional writer and (ex) teacher of creative writing - which he does with a lot of love and respect for both the writer and the work. It's of interest because, as we all know, that wasn't exactly Robert Jordan's favourite topic of public discussion - he preferred to speak of the story and characters and leave others discuss his work as a writer.

So, if you're looking for someone with a bit of a 'scholar' look on the series and all the enthusiasm of a big WOT geek (takes one to spot another!), Brandon is sort of your guy. His eyes alights speaking of the One Power and such.

Beside his work on The Wheel of Time, Brandon has a new multivolume saga of his own upcoming (the first book of which, Way of Kings, is due out next summer - still from Tor). Brandon's novels are good and recommended, but from the way Brandon speaks of it and describes it, this upcoming series has perhaps the most potential of all his work so far to fall right in the alley of WOT fans. Keep an ear open for what he has to say about it.

Brandon is known around for his openess and generosity with his fans, and it was fairly obvious reading his pre-TGS interviews, Blog posts, chats, Q&A reports and all that the man was full of secrets he was bursting to be able to discuss (way to respectful of his Non-Disclosure Agreeement and not spoiling anyone to make slips, alas ;)). He's no doubt gonna have new and more illuminating insights into TGS and its creation to offer his audiences on tour now that the publication of one of the three books allows him to speak more freely about this one (and as he pointed at a Q&A, once we know what TGS is all about, he's gonna be able to speak a bit more about the next book and its progress as well).

So TGS signings/Q&A with Brandon? Definitely recommended. I wish there was a post-TGS one planned in my area, but I will have like tons of others to rely on fans's reports this time around. And for those, I'm (we're - Linda is in the same situation as I am) counting on all WOT fans who attend the signings. We'll be happy to publish here your TGS Tour Q&A reports if you send them to us, and to provide links to those published on all the various MBs and websites if you point us in the direction of those we've missed. This information is occasionally mundane but more often priceless - so much of what remains today of Jim Rigney's words and wisdom about his series, its world and its literary creation is found only in those Q&A reports, blog posts and all (discounting the massive treasure of his notes etc., which is not available), the best/essential of which has been collected by dedicated fans over the years. I can point you out notably to the best indexed collection I know of, put together by my friend Terez at Theoryland, that hosts her compendium on their MB.


With Jim Rigney's untimely demise a great deal of us wish today far more of those had been preserved over the years, so to all WOT fans in the U.S.A willing to make a contribution to help preserve and make available to the WOT fans worlwide online community what Brandon and Harriet will have to say about the series in the upcoming tour, we thank you in advance for your efforts.

The time is coming when we'll have the book in our hands and will be able to judge for ourselves how much Brandon and the rest of Team Jordan succeeded at bringing the first part of Jordan's A Memory of Life to life. Before the reviews start flooding in and opinions get heated one way and another about the prologue and then the book, it's a good time to thank one more time Harriet Rigney, Brandon, RJ's assistants Maria and Allan, Tom Doherty and his people at Tor for all the love and enthusiasm for the series, for your dedication to see this done for the WOT fans that could be sensed through all your public communications since the day Harriet announced she had picked Brandon Sanderson to finish the book. It's been a great, if excruciating time waiting for the book - and the finish line for us readers is now in sight, the book being less than eight weeks away (and coming out on my birthday, yeah!) and, dare we hope it's one of Jason's new (and we sure do!) - the prologue perhaps is soon to be published as an ebook. TGS may disappoint, or not meet all expectactions - and it can turn out an awesome and terribly exciting. That, only reading it for ourselves will tell, an the answer will no doubt vary greatly from fan to fan. Whatever we feel about it, we'll say it once we've read it, but we still owe a big one to Brandon, Harriet and co. for taking up this challenge in the first place.



Now, what will be Jason's big news #2, I wonder... keep an eye on his Twitter (usr: Dragonmount) and Dragonmount.com (and if you don't we'll do it for you ::), it seems it's gonna be an exciting week.

Edit:

A few updates, all from Brandon's Facebook page:

@Rory I'll get to the UK eventually, but we kind of want to wait for my own books to get published there first. (They're launching this fall.) So probably not until next year.

@Howard I asked for Florida, but it didn't happen. I'm working on visiting a Con there next year.

@Rachel I'll be in Lincoln Nebraska next April.

@Sarah We're working an a Canadian tour with my Canadian publisher. It's a different company that distributes me there, though they work closely with Tor.

@Tim Australia release is this fall, like the UK release, so soonest you'd see me is next year, I'd bet.