This is the ninth of our Storm Leader reports we’ll be posting throughout the U.S. book tour for THE GATHERING STORM. At each tour location, Dragonmount and Tor Books recruited a select group of volunteer fans to help run the event, hand out promotional materials, and represent us to the fans. In return, they were given the opportunity to meet with Brandon Sanderson and (if present for their event) Robert Jordan’s wife Harriet. We will have a full report with photos and possibly video for each one of the tour stops. Prior Storm Leader reports can be found here.

By Paul Grow

Brandon Sanderson arrived in Philadelphia today in the middle of a mass transit workers strike just days after the Phillies lost the World Series for the second time in 59 years to the Yankees. The Septa Strike and the ensuing traffic nightmare it is causing certainly delayed Brandon’s scheduled 5:30pm arrival at Chester Books, located as it is some 30 miles away from the International Airport, but he arrived with enough time to hang out with his Philadelphia Storm Leaders (Paul, Pam, Jason, and husband and wife team Brian and Miriam) over a hamburger for an hour before the 7:00pm start of the book signing.

The five of us had just finished dinner when Brandon suddenly sat in our midsts. My first impressions were that he was taller then I expected him to be, talks fast and is very very intelligent. Yes, I was trying to judge him somewhat. After all, I am older then him and have read and re-read WOT a few times since 1990. Mirroring something he has said, I most certainly don’t want him to go down in history as being the guy who ruined The Wheel of Time either. Within minutes he had me roped in. I believe. This is our (lower case) messiah.

He spoke with obvious and heartfelt passion about Wheel of Time and mission in front of him. I asked him a direct question: Where is Demandred? On whom or on what did the Dark One order him to use balefire in book 6? I answered my own question: Surely he is with the Borderlander Army waiting to use balefire on Rand directly. Rand would be burned out of the Pattern and the Pattern would unravel because it it couldn’t exist without him. The Dark One wins. Brandon went into Aes Sedai mode, refusing to answer my questions by correcting me on my understanding of balefire. Brandon said someone killed by balefire could be reborn and woven back into the Pattern later, but the Dark One cannot resurrect that person. What a cool moment! I wish we could have talked all night.

7pm arrived and we moved to the back of the large bookstore. Well over one hundred people came to listen to his reading and talk about the Gathering Storm. The manager of the bookstore said it was the largest book signing she had ever had, we kept the place open till 10:30pm, an hour and half past closing. The crowd applauded when Brandon told us that sales of the Gathering Storm was No. 1 on the New York Time Bestsellers list. Sales are 10% better then Knife of Dreams. We knocked Dan Brown down to No. 2!

There is an hour long plus video that can be found here: http://public.me.com/paulgrow

The book signing was awesome. One-by-one about 100 fans had about 400 books signed over a three hour period. I listened close for any nuggets I could get about WOT. SPOILER ALERT!! FROM THIS POINT FORWARD I WILL HOLD NOTHING BACK!!!!! I have one more warning which I will tell after this:

One fan said his favorite character was Padan Fain and ask if we would see more of him. Brandon responded that he could not say, but joked that he may or may not have been writing about him on the train. I laughed and said as I was typing that “Brandon said Padan Fain will be in the next book.” Brandon looked at me with little humor, saying “I did NOT say that.” So let that be a warning to you and to me. I take full responsibility for this media report, I hope I get everything right but anyone can make a mistake or misunderstand something, so reader beware.

The first group of 5 fans had driven all the way from Cleveland! Another US vet from Afghanistan stated that Brandon and/or Jordan did a great job of capturing the actual mental state of being in combat. Another proud parent pointed out that his 14 year old earned an A in reading because of WOT. Like myself, many fans thanked him for accepting the task of finishing WOT.

Brandon talked at length about Mat, saying he is undergoing great changes having just been married which might explain some of his behavior in TGS. He talked about Jordan’s use of time in the series, explaining that Perrin’s storyline is maybe a whole month off the other story-lines. Brandon explained that the True Power can only be used by someone that the Dark One has allowed to use it. The True Power is perhaps more powerful then the One Power in the way a drugged up person is more powerful then someone not drugged up. In the moment the drugged up person may be, but in the long run maybe not. Further explaining the True Power he said the guardian in Far Madding cannot stop it. One fan asked him not to make us wait another book for Moraine rescue. Another asked him, considering how the TGS ends, if he will miss writing in Lews Therin voice, Brandon said probably, but he was not 100% sure that we will not see Lews Therin voice again. Another fan asked if the balefiring of Grendeal could bring back Asmodean, if in fact Graendal was the person who killed him. Brandon essentially said no, because it happened much too long ago. At best balefire burns someone out of the pattern 3 days to a week at the absolute most. But usually more like 5 minutes. Brandon named many of the characters that we did not see in TGS and pointed out the need for three books to wrap the series up.

Brandon did point out his desire to have the next book, Towers of Midnight, (to some extent a reference to 13 towers somewhere in Seanchan) published at this time next year. I, for one, cannot wait!