parfois la folie est sagesse

F: Well, you said you're gonna do a book about Numair's history, and is it gonna have his ex? I don't remember her name...

T: Varice.

F: Yeah, Varice?

T: Oh yeah.

F: What--how is Daine gonna react to that?

T: Daine? No--it wasn't--she won't even know about Varice. It comes--It'll come up to that moment in Wild Magic when they meet.

F: Okay.

T: So, she knew about Varice when she went with him in Emperor Mage and she's like [Tammy makes a face, laughter], but they hadn't had a relationship then.

Umm... okay, yes. [calls on audience member]

F: What was your favorite book to write?

T: My favorite book to write... Well, they all have to be my favorites, in one respect, because otherwise i--it would be agony to write them. I'm always caught up in them. I-I literally, honestly couldn't tell you. I--there are certain things I like about every one of the books I like that the other books don't have. Umm... one character will do one thing for me, another character will do another thing for me.

Right at the moment--and don't yell at me, okay--right at the moment my least favorite book is Trickster's Choice. [gasps] I believe I put in a request here! [laughter]

F: No one yelled, we just gasped. [more laughter]

T: You didn't write That Thing. You weren't dealing with the first female hero ever who sneaks around, is manipulative, is flirty, and who doesn't kill anybody. [laughter] It isn't even really the killing that I miss... I-It was the combat. 'Cause when there's a fight scene, I have something to write about! And if there isn't a fight scene, then it's all... uh, sneaking around, and eavesdropping... and talking, and looking at papers with words... and then they go to sleep and then they wake up and there's more talking... a-and then the crows show up, and... they talk. [laughter] I just want somebody to kick butt again! [laughter]

A-and she does, in a limited way... sort of, there toward the end. She has a little bit of a scrimmage there. A-and Trickster's Queen, there's some of that stuff going on. She doesn't get to do most of it. She's sneaking around! [laughter] She's eavesdropping. She has friends to help her with her eavesdropping in Trickster's Queen. You probably--eh--it's oging to be a really weird concept and you probably won't like them. They're really weird. They're these little, round, black, blobby things.

F: Darkings? [everyone cheers]

T: Including the smallest one, that Aly puts in the king's bedroom to eavesdrop just because... she can. [laughter] Not because the four-year-old king is going to be talking about matters-of-state secrets, but she--he doesn't--it doesn't get to stay with the king very long, because the captain of the King's Guard comes in and finds the king and the little darking, Spot, at that point, bouncing up and doiwn on the king's bed. [laughter] And--and when-when he asks this creature what it is doing, Spot cheerfully tells him "Secret!" He brings Spot back to Aly, says: "Not in the king's bedroom." [laughter]

Umm... but I'm almost done, and then, no, Circle Reforged is gonna be more interesting. Yeah. [mumbles something about galloping?!?]

You, in the grey shirt?

F: Yeah, uh, one of my friends just read In the Realm of the Gods, and she wasnt to know why you killed Leaf off.

T: Why I killed Leaf. It wasn't my pick, it was Leaf's. Characters let you know what they want to do, and you let them do it because stories, yes, you do have a certain amount of control over them, um, it-it wouldbe horse-manueur if I told you that you didn't have control over the story--but, when you know that things are supposed to go a certain way, you really have to go with that, because otherwise it's going to be wooden and awkward.

But there were Darkings that remained in the Realms of the Gods. Goldstreak actually stayed there. These are all new Darking, 'cause they split up a ;pt. I think Aly gets, like, thirty-two of them, from her Aunt Daine. Courtesy of Basilisk Mail. [laughter]

Um, but that was just what Leaf demanded.