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Wheel of Time Encounter

Writer's picture: Maggie AndersonMaggie Anderson

This is a story about reviving my hope in humanity, haha. ;)


Last night, while on a business trip to Tampa, Florida, I ended up sitting at the bar next to Benton. Benton told me that he had what I would call a 'real job', but also was part-owner of a Brewery - Southern Lights Brewing Company. Check it out next time you're in Tampa, folks!


I told him that I too had both a 'real job' as well as an endeavor, involving fantasy writing and blogging. He was very nice and supportive about that. He then tells me that he is currently reading Knife of Dreams. He asked me if I had heard of it, and I replied regretfully that no, I had not heard of that one (though I was thinking that that sounded like a really cool book!). THEN Benton explains that it's Book 11 in The Wheel of Time. And I was of course like, 'WHAAATT?? Oh my Gosh! You're kidding me!' etc etc. If you refer to my earlier blog post about what I am reading, you might not be surprised to hear that I am currently reading Book 9 of The Wheel of Time.


So, it was just too fun to nerd-out at the bar and talk over all the characters we like or don't like or parts we like or don't like. Discuss the pronunciations of weird words, the likely ethnicity of certain characters and what they probably looked like, and such. It was fresh in both of our minds, and we were both currently jazzed about the series and achieving the same goal - to finish the series by this coming summer.


So, he said he made a first attempt to read the lengthy series in the mid-1990s, when he was at a book store and got a FREE copy of Book 1 - The Eye of the World. How cool is that? I think that would be a cool thing to do to introduce your series and get people reading your stuff. Neato!


However, what he failed to notice at the time, was the text at the very top (look at the image below). Notice 'The First Part of Book One....'. Also, see the other picture below of the inside of the book where it says 'Chapters 1 through 18'. He didn't catch that little hint.


Cover of FREE Book 1 (partial) - The Eye of the World

Inside the cover of FREE Book 1 (partial!)

So, the book was so great, Benton bought Book 2, and was a bit confused. Like, sort of like you'd be confused if you skipped several hundred pages of a book and kept going!


But he ended up backtracking when he figured that out, and re-read all of Book 1, and went on from there. However, somewhere around Lord of Chaos, Book 6, he ended up just losing track of the series.


For some reason, Thanksgiving of 2017, Benton decides he's going to get back into the series, start over, and read the whole thing.


He's got books 1 through 6, but he needs the rest. He ends up walking into a used book store somewhere in Florida to see if he can find some, and the guy working at the store tells him that this is mainly a sci-fi/fantasy used book store. So Benton is like - well, that's cool. Benton asks him if he happens to have any of The Wheel of Time. The book store guy says that he's sorry, but he only has one single copy of one book from the series. It's a hard-cover cop of Crossroads of Twilight, Book 10. AND, it's autographed by Robert Jordan himself! Holy Cow!! See the photograph at the bottom of the blog. Benton gets it for 50 bucks. I say that's a deal!


I'm obviously very impressed with this story, as I imagine few people could be, except that he happened to bump into somebody currently embedded in the world of Robert Jordan.


And we both totally are, which I'd say is fairly inevitable when you're reading a series like this and you've gotten this far. So of course, we both belong to multiple Wheel of Time Facebook Groups, and share one common group - The Wheel of Time Facebook Group. Therefore we were able to discuss the stupid things people post that we don't agree with. And, most importantly for me, Benton said that he totally disagrees that these later books of Robert Jordan's are slow. Without spoilers, he just said that there is a lot of interesting character development that occurs, and that I may come to like people that I don't currently like. I'm cool with a slow-burning character story (or I wouldn't be reading this series), so I'm sure it'll be all good. Phew! My biggest fear is relieved.


So, I guess my point might be that you never know who is around you, and maybe it's not horrible to be a little friendly to a stranger. You never know when you might be sitting next to a special sort of nerd, or artist or athlete, or whatever you happen to be in to. Not all strangers are jerks or creeps, some are cool. And if you're a bit of a pessimist and judgmental about people (which I can admit I am, especially about people down south!) - well, maybe lighten up and nerd it up a bit and you will find that actually a lot of people around you are pretty awesome folk. :)


Thanks, Benton, for the photos!



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6 comentários


Margaret Anderson
15 de mar. de 2019

I love my good readers!

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Maggie Anderson
Maggie Anderson
14 de mar. de 2019

It's a tough choice. My to-read list is long, and i could triple it easily.

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Dave Anderson
Dave Anderson
14 de mar. de 2019

I don't know if I have the mental energy to read such a long book series :) I'm pretty sure my Goodreads want-to-read list is over 100 books already. Not enough time to finish WoT :)

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Maggie Anderson
Maggie Anderson
14 de mar. de 2019

Katie, yup! I tracked down Benton on Facebook, and we are friends now. ;) Mom, I think you are reading the series at a fine pace! You just started! Yay!!!

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Margaret Anderson
14 de mar. de 2019

I am just on book 2. Man, I better get reading! I am enjoying the series, but I want to be able to read faster. I think that meeting interesting people with common interests is fun.

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