Path: pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk!server1.netnews.ja.net!server5.netnews.ja.net!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!newsfeed.icl.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!newsfeed.nacamar.de!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!portc01.blue.aol.com!audrey01.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: vanan@aol.com (Vanan) Newsgroups: alt.fan.eddings Subject: Re: alt.fan.eddings Frequently Asked Questions Part 3 NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder05.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Date: 6 May 1999 06:57:50 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com References: <19990506025340.24942.00004672@ng-fi1.aol.com> Message-ID: <19990506025750.24942.00004674@ng-fi1.aol.com> Lines: 306 Xref: pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk alt.fan.eddings:89036 3) EDDINGS RESOURCES 3.1 IRC #eddings Thanks in large part to the efforts of Ian Hutcherson and Rumor, afe has its own channel on IRC. #Eddings channels are certainly welcome to be formed on any net, but the one that seems to be the unofficial one is on Espernet. The following information describing how to connect was contributed by Kamion and describes how to connect to #eddings on Espernet. First, you need an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client. This enables you to access IRC servers, which operate like your news server in distributing messages among all the people using it, but in a matter of seconds rather than minutes or hours so that it's possible to chat more or less at random without the bandwidth restrictions on the newsgroup. The most popular IRC clients by computer seem to be: PC: mIRC - can be downloaded from the following sites: UK: USA: South Africa: Australia: among others. Macintosh: IRCle - can be downloaded from the following sites: USA (CA): Australia: among others. X Windows: Zircon - can be downloaded from: UK: Acorn's RISC OS: LIRC - IRClient - iXRC - There are lots of others. has a fairly good selection if none of the above suit you. Once you've downloaded and installed your client, you need to configure it to connect to Espernet, which is a group of IRC servers that all co-operate to allow anyone using one of them to talk to anyone using any of the others. The way you add a server depends on your client. In mIRC, for example, you click on File / Setup / Add. You will then be prompted for some information. The only important and/or obscure bits of this will be the server and port number. You should ideally choose the server that's geographically closest to you; you may pick a port number at random from those that are available (or your client may allow you to enter several ports between which it will choose each time you connect - check your help files for more details). The official list of Espernet servers, geographical locations, and ports can be found at , and at the time of writing runs as follows: adastra Reston, Virginia, USA 5555, 6667, 7000 chocobo.esper.net Sacramento, California, USA 5555, 6666 - 6669, 7000 dragonfire.esper.net Salt Lake City, Utah USA 5555, 6666 - 6669, 7000 dream.esper.net San Diego, California, USA 5555 excalibur.esper.net Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK 5555, 6666 - 6669, 7000, 8000 weyr.esper.net Salt Lake City, Utah, USA 5555 If you want, you can also connect to irc.esper.net, port 5555 (and possibly others); this will connect you to a random server. However, I recommend choosing one manually because, while you presumably know your geographical location, irc.esper.net does not. You will not necessarily be connected to the most appropriate server this way. After you've filled in the nickname you want (and, if you want, an alternative should your first choice be taken) press "Connect", or the equivalent on your client, and you will (I hope) be connected to your chosen server. You'll see a welcome message of some description, and then either you will be presented with a list of channels (the IRC jargon for a chat forum) or you will see a vaguely unfriendly-looking command prompt. In the first case, look for #eddings in the list with which you are presented. Click on it, and press "Join" (or similar). In the second case, or if you can't find #eddings in the channel list (in which case you can probably press something like "Cancel" to get you to a command prompt), you will need to issue an IRC command. These can be recognized by the fact that they start with a slash (/). The particular command you need in this case is "/join #eddings" (without the quotes). There may not necessarily be anybody on the channel when you arrive. This is quite normal. Just wait a while, or try a different time of day. In my experience, late evening and the early hours of the morning UK time are quite popular, though, given the fact that AFE posters and lurkers are distributed all over the globe, other times may well be popular too. If you need any further help, you should be able to get it from #eddings itself. 3.2 Web pages EDDINGS HOME PAGES: Donal Fellow's Eddings Page Eddings trivia, voting on items of interest to Eddings fans, and links to other sites. His site also contains a copy of the a.f.e. Recommended Fantasy Author List. Paul Farris' Eddings Page - "The Vale" Contains Paul Farris' original Eddings FAQ, and well as links to other sites and lots of other useful stuff. U.K. fans should note that Paul's FAQ has the ISBNs of the *British* editions of David Eddings' books. Sparhawk's Eddings Web Site Guardians of The West Maintained by Kamion, this contains many excellent features, including Eddings in the Real World. It also has some good links to other Eddings web sites. Be warned this contains many advanced HTML features and may only be used with some of the later browsers. Aphrael's Isle This site concentrates on the Elenium and Tamuli series, which makes it unique in itself. It has a very good character list. The AFE Codex More about alt.fan.eddings rather than Eddings' himself. It has descriptions of many of the regulars on AFE and also contains a history of the newsgroup. The Happy Bunny Sanctuary Contains the Trivia Quiz and also a graphical display of the Rivan line family tree. The Eddings Web Ring This collection of web sites is a link to 18 different sites. Aquarius' Site This site contains the fanfic archive, the nvFAQ and the AFE Code decoder and creator. It also gives an explanation of afec, and contains a copy of the afec FAQ. The AFE ICQ Site This site contains the ICQ numbers of various regulars to AFE Jakob Persson's Site A large site about Eddings and their work mainly focused on the Belgariad/Malloreon series. There are also a message board for discussions, a chat, and a lot of fun facts and info for the Eddings fan such as the YKYRTMEW list and several interviews. 3.3 Other sites of interest: The Recommended Fantasy Author List Listing of fantasy authors recommended by readers of the alt.fan.eddings newsgroup. Contains descriptive listings on more than 150 authors, forthcoming titles, book news, and numbers of recommendations. Del Rey homepage Del Rey is Eddings' publisher in the U.S., and their site often has news about his upcoming work. They also publish quite a few other fantasy authors, and you can find sample chapters and all kinds of goodies there. 4) CREDITS AND THANKS (Amy Sheldon) Special thanks and my eternal gratitude to Paul Farris, Donal Fellows, and Jonathan Yen, who let me use information that they had already gathered and pounded into useable form. I am grateful for their hard work, and their graciousness in allowing me to swipe^H^H^H^H^H utilize their efforts. And, of course, I could never forgive myself if I forgot to thank Anthony Chan, who 'waaaay back in 1994 began the grim task of hacking together an Eddings FAQ (he eventually gave it up and decided to do something a bit easier - complete his medical degree.) Thanks also to: Daniel Peters, for the original list of German titles, and Denis Aumueller, who sent the titles of Eddings' other works and added ISBNs. Raul de Vincenzi, Geoff Hunter and Ginger941, who provided help with ISBNs, as well as a few encouraging words. Joy Green, who provided the descriptions for _High Hunt_ and _The Losers_ Arto Repola, who provided the Finnish version of the titles. Francis Cornet, who provided the French titles and ISBNs. Patrik Montgomery, who provided the Swedish titles. Marcello Manicardi, who provided the Italian titles. And, of course, Kalten, who provided the best commentary I've received on this FAQ since it came out (unfortunately, much of it isn't suitable for a family publication...) Aphrael's thanks: Amy Sheldon, for entrusting me to take over the maintenance of the FAQ and for having it so well written to begin with so that all I had to do was add a few things. Rumor and Peta Young, for their parts in hammering out some of the theories I've added to the FAQ. Ian Hutcherson, for all his work organizing the #eddings channel. Sarabian's thanks: Aphrael and Amy Sheldon, the previous two FAQ maintainers, for making the job of doing an update so easy. Having such an excellent base to work with made the job so much easier. Vanan, for getting the whole update moving and also for setting up the IRC channel for discussion about the FAQ. Kamion, for provided some excellent information especially regarding the foreign titles. Both Vanan and Kamion had HTML versions of the FAQ, but special thanks must also go to Ian Hutcherson for creating the original version and setting up the Geocities site. Aquarius, Rumor, Charles Meigh, Simon Nickerson, Itagne, Daniel Peters, Dominic Wynn, Aslade, Ce'Nedra, Bernadette Crumb (aka Taiba), Anna Davies and Kalten, all for providing valuable information, being excellent reviewers and finding all my mistakes. And many, many more people on alt.fan.eddings for thinking of the questions and making my job simple by providing the answers. Dave's thanks Amy Sheldon, for putting in all the work towards creating the document in the first place and for maintaining it for so many years. Aphrael, for writing the majority of the Elenium/Tamuli section herself. Sarabian, for creating the FAQ addendum and thus making this a great deal easier as well as for helping review and edit the final document. Kamion, for contributing the IRC helper section, among many others, and for going a long way towards recovering the FAQ from its MIT autoposting status, and for reviewing and editing the final document. Itagne, for contributing various additions and corrections to the FAQ, especially additions to the foreign titles section, and for continuing to find the most blatant mistakes that the rest of us missed. Jaycey, for helping fix some spacing problems in the document (a more boring task, I have trouble imagining) and for further editing the document by fixing grammatical errors and removing personalizations that had been missed by the earlier editors.