Slashdot Mirror
Fantasy Author Robert Jordan Passes Away
willith writes "James Oliver Rigney Jr, author of the long-running fantasy series The Wheel of Time and better known to millions of fans by the pen name Robert Jordan, died on 16 Sept 2007 from cardiac amyloidosis. Jordan announced he had been diagnosed with the disease in March 2006 and vowed to beat the odds, but determination and gumption sometimes just aren't enough in the face of a disease with a median survival time of just over two years. Jordan was in the process of writing the twelfth and final book in the Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light, but the book was not slated for release until 2009 and is still incomplete. While there is hope that the book will still be finished from Jordan's notes, this is devastating news to all of us who have been reading the series since 1990."
While I don't like to be the one to "flog a dead horse". The Wheel of time Series has been in a downward spiral since about book 5. Disjointed, dragging out endless plot lines in a poor attempt to make it to book 12. Personally I hope they don't bother to put book 12 together, I stopped at 9.
Good journey Robert
And I'm pretty sure it wasn't Moridin.
God finally finished Book 11, said "Are you fucking kidding me?", and whipped out the Smite Stick.
But first they'll put out a plethora of prequels.
We'll see the final WOT in about 10 years.
I remember reading a Stephen King interview just after I had read The Gunslinger and he said that he didn't know if he would ever finish the Dark Tower series. I didn't touch any of them until after the last was published. I have avoided Jordan's series for the same reason - and it seems appropriate that I find out at slashdot that while King lived to finish his, Jordan didn't make it.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Not that it is a big surprise. Personally I expected this message for about a year now.
It would have been nice for him to be able to finish the series. True, a certain amount of foot-dragging in the middle of the series got him into this fix, but still I think somebody undertaking such a large venture, and mostly sucessfully, should have the satisfaction of seeing it finished.
It will be interesting to see how this is going to be finished. The material should be there, but writning style is a major part of these books and not too easily emulated. There are layers within layers.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The article appears to be slashdotted. According to wikipedia, he would have turned 59 next month.
Free unix account: freeshell.org
I've only had a chance to meet the man on two occasions, but that was enough to make me know that (regardless what you personally think of his writing), the world has lost another Great One here. :( Farewell, Robert Jordan. You will be missed.
First, let my condolences go out to his family.
The books started with such promise, action and just the right hint of risque possibilities. But by the 6th book it had taken on this horrific endless Days of Our Lives persona that you just knew would not end well. By the 9th book I was so sick of waiting for something, anything to happen that I was just about unplugged. My wife bought me the 10th book, and I did something I almost never do...I flipped to the end to see if he finally wrapped it up.
I put the book on a shelf and never read it.
Maybe wikipedia will post the ending someday, and I will chance across it.
Only tyrants and oppressors need fear a well armed populace.
The Google cache is old.
Rather than overwhelm the dragonmount.com servers with slashdotters (let other fans have a chance to see it), here's the full text from the blog post. I hope that I'm not overstepping by reprinting it here. Sometimes even when you've fought your best....
Sunday, September 16th, 2007
It is with great sadness that I tell you that the Dragon is gone. RJ left us today at 2:45 PM. He fought a valiant fight against this most horrid disease. In the end, he left peacefully and in no pain. In the years he had fought this, he taught me much about living and about facing death. He never waivered in his faith, nor questioned our God's timing. I could not possibly be more proud of anyone. I am eternally grateful for the time that I had with him on this earth and look forward to our reunion, though as I told him this afternoon, not yet. I love you bubba.
Our beloved Harriet was at his side through the entire fight and to the end. The last words from his mouth were to tell her that he loved her.
Thank each and everyone of you for your prayers and support through this ordeal. He knew you were there. Harriet reminded him today that she was very proud of the many lives he had touched through his work. We've all felt the love that you've been sending my brother/cousin. Please keep it coming as our Harriet could use the support.
Jason will be posting funeral arrangements.
My sincerest thanks.
Peace and Light be with each of you,
Wilson
Brother/Cousin
4th of 3
To Catalyst: Never, never loose faith. RJ did not. Harriet hasn't. I haven't. Going through what we have, our faith is only strengthened. Besides, if God didn't exist, we would have never had Jim. We did. God does. Remember my Brother/Cousin, my friend, think of him fondly and glorify God's name.
Editor's Note:
The entire staff of Dragonmount.com would like to extend its most deepest sympathies to Robert Jordan's family. He touched all of our lives in some way and we wish him the rest and peace he deserves. We will be posting information in the near future about where you can send condolences. Please check the News Section for these updates.
The guy died.. please, show a little respect for the dead.
The WOT was one of the best series ever, for most of its run. Though I have to admit, I did give up on it a few books back, when I realized it took nearly the whole next book for me to get back up to speed on the myriad subplots, and that the series was progressing more and more slowly each book.
Calls of WOT being "milked" have been rampant. Many of the same criticisms have been leveled at the Sword of Truth series, which also seems to be slowing infinitely, in a sci-fi version of the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise - given the amount of plot distance required to complete the overarching story arc, each book executes no more than half of that distance, requiring an infinite number of books to complete the series.
A moment, please, while we all tug on our braids in silence for a gifted author.
So this means I'll get to wake up my girlfriend like this tomorrow: ...."
"Well, I've got good news and bad news. The good news: Remember how you were worried the 'Wheel of Time' series would never end? Well, you don't need to worry about that problem anymore
I got into Wheel of Time fairly young--maybe just after the third book came out--and kept with it despite the punishing slowness of the books after, say, Lord of Chaos. But it really was something different, I think. It was epic, not a standard journey to slay the bad guy after this first couple of books, like so much of fantasy after Tolkien it seems. And though slow and a little tedious at times, it never pissed me off like the last couple of books of Dark Tower, which it seems is the standard metric for WoT.
Bastard. Now I'll never know how it ends.
Well, here's hoping he left enough notes (and by all accounts he would have) for the story to be finished off 'correctly'. I threw in the towel at the end of book 10 after none of the vital plotlines from book 9 were measurably advanced - in retrospect I should have stopped at book 7. Nonetheless, if it IS brought posthumously to some kind of conclusion it'd be nice to know what happens. A lot of wonderful storylines in an excellent fantasy world, if only he could have split it up into about 3-4 parallel series like Feist did with Midkemia.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Well, hope they bring out Book 12 quickly in some form, finished by someone with talent used to working other peoples universes (Michael A Stackpole?)
I say quickly, because the longer it is left the greater the expectation on the 'finishing' author, and the greater the perceived quality of Jordan's original proposals.
I do wonder if once he found out about the illness it caused him to change some of his attitudes regarding what he would do to his characters in Book 12.
Honestly I would be amazed if he could have brought it all together considering the meandering somewhat maddening pace of the previous 11 books.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
I never got past the 7th in the series, college and life wound up killing off my reading time. However, I do remember failing in love with Jordan's writing style in the first books that I read of his, which were the Conan the Barbarian titles he wrote. I find it interesting that now, another writer might be able to pick up that mantle, and move forward with it. I just hope that whomever does so has the same appreciations that RJ did, such as war history and military tactics. Always seemed to me to flavor the works. At any rate, he was talented, and was one of the authors that opened up my mind as a youth, and also thereby ruined my eyesight as well.
Rest in peace.
I'm sorry to hear this terrible news.
He have not quite managed to finish the series, but we can take heart that he at least he had time to write a sodding prequel while we were waiting.
Turns out the Wheel of Time really doesn't have an ending after all.
I hope George RR Martin is paying close attention.
I love his "Song of Ice and Fire" (The Dwarf, in the toilet, with the crossbow, heh.) There was some talk when his last book came out in 2 parts that he was starting to show signs of "Jordan's Syndrome" Maybe this will help him focus. (and get the damn thing written).
It seems like yesterday that David Gemmell passed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gemmell), although it has been a year at this point.
And now Robert Jordan passes. Say what you will about the quality of the later installments of the Wheel of Time, but the first five or six books (at least) are some of the most enjoyable and well-written fantasy I've read. Growing up, he was one of the authors who introduced me to fantasy, along with David Eddings, Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Anne McCaffrey, and Tad Williams. I'm grateful to them all.
(Perhaps) an appropriate Gemmell quote:
I've read a few interviews where he said that the ending had basically been written for years, so at least that's something. I hope they find someone to finish it. Despite losing a lot of focus in the middle it really has been a great series and was finally starting to look great again. It deserves an ending even if someone else has to fill in the gaps.
The Farewell Tour II
Not that James Rigney died, I'm sure his family will miss him, but that someone else will finish the last book. Ohh and you **can't** doubt that it will be released, it's worth too much money to the publisher.
I mean I too have the feeling that somehow it doesn't 'count' if you hear someone else's end to the story but why? Sure you might say they didn't have the original vision but why should it matter? Maybe their vision of the ending is better. It's not like there aren't plenty of authors who give an unsatisfying ending where you (an amatuer) are sure you could have done better so why shouldn't you believe the expert responsible for finishing it up won't be just as good as whoever wrote them originally?
Luckily I think in this situation enough info was communicated to make this a non-issue. Though I've never gotten past book 9 or so.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Whoever is doing the picking, and is thus the subject and not deserving of the 'm'. If you want to sound fancy try whosoever, but better yet if you don't understand when to use whom, just don't use it at all.
I apologise (sic) in advance, if you belong to a subculture to whom the rules of normative grammar do not apply.
Just goes to show you that everything dies. The lesson is to never live.
Those of us here are doing just that.
Even HE got tired of them.
This is a real shame. It sounds to me like he was beating the disease, but the damage to his heart was too far along and that's what killed him. Hopefully the publicity will help others who are similarly inflicted.
I'll buy the final book when it comes out. Not because I think it will be a great conclusion to the series, but just so I can have some closure.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Jordan had a particular vision for how he wanted the series to turn out (although many of the comments on this post suggest otherwise) and that he felt so strongly about not having someone else take his notes and direct his work in the event of him passing away that he had a set up in place to delete his notes should he die (whether this was some crude setup that could easily be defeated by booting from a device other than his computer's hard drive and then mounting the drive or something a little more complex I have no idea) - at the time this is one of the main reasons I didn't start reading the series. Did anyone else hear this rumor?
I gave up after book 7, and vowed to read the rest of the series once I knew it had an end. Now, I may never read the rest... this is really quite sad.
Yeah, he was dictating much of the story since he was too weak to write. Apparently he told the story in its entirety to his wife and his cousin just before he died. And he had an extensive library from which he used to create the series. It will only be a matter of time before all of this is compiled into the final book. Hopefully he recorded the complete story and all that will be needed is for the writers to put it down on paper. Either way, there are probably no major holes that need to be filled in (as with Dune or the Silmarillion).
how far I got. I think I liked the first four books, got annoyed with the fifth and when he kept spawning more and more plot lines instead of resolving some, any, please throw a mere cracker of a resolved plot line to your readers... I quit reading in disgust.
I quit reading David Eddings when he had a fight with his publishers half way through a series and now I don't like to start a series until I have all of them.
I was very happy with Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Though I feel I need to read a few history books to put it in context. And I really like the way Lois McMaster Bujold wrote the Vorkorsigan series. Each book stands as a complete story on it's own. She resolves almost all of her plot lines before spawning off dozens of new ones.
It's a really facile way to write. Hmm, lets make a quest. Ok what obstacle can we put in our questor's way? Write about obstacle - how can we make overcoming the obstacle harder, include travel companions, split them up, give them their own quests and multiple obstacles, obstacles to the obstacles.... etc etc and you never have to finish - every plotline can be infinitely subdivided... and ultimately - you just piss off your reader...
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
That joke might be funny next week, but it isn't funny tonight.
My condolences to Robert Jordan's family and loved ones.
While Robert Jordan's recent books have not been as engaging as his earlier works, Robert Jordan was and is one of my favourite authors. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series opened me up to epic fantasy and more importantly is largely responsibility for my and probably many others love of books and reading.
Robert, Rest in Peace your books will always have a place on my bookshelf.
As for the story, the author may change, but book twelve will come out, and have exactly the content that he originally intended. If the storytelling style changes a little bit, it may be a refreshing end to a fantastic saga.
"for those of us who don't know who he is and couldn't give a flying f*ck about a third-rate writer from a country famous for its complete lack of literary skill..."
So.. what.. did you emigrate or something?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
we see the inherent disadvantage of 'close-sourced' authorship.
People relying on Robert's output have now been left high and dry, without any guaranteed access to the source-notes.
If only people had followed the clearly superior 'open-authorship' model - i.e. a few thousand people simultaneously planning, writing, editing model - then this could all have been avoided.
When will we learn not to rely on this out-dated system of 'author' and 'reader'??
I am really sad to hear this. I have read and enjoyed a number of the WOT books and even though there is much to criticize about dragging out the plot too long with meaningless subplots and inconsequences in the story I really do not care for all replies that disrespect him and his work with empty puns or even plain harshness.
Yes, he is dead and is not hurt by these replies but he has given so much to the fantasy genre building up a huge fanbase with millions of readers of his books that I think that his work and his nearest should at least be respected. The mocking of the recently deceased is one of the clearest signs of lack of intelligence and compassion in my eyes and does not belong in any forum.
Please!
Safe journey Robert. I bow in respect to you. I am sure that you really tried to give us a grand and epic fantasy story even if it in the end was spoiled by meaningless commersial interests almost certainly forced by the publishing industry.
I admit, I stopped reading Jordan's series myself until I had some indication that he was going to actually finish it. When he chose the title "Wheel of Time," I was really hoping that he would do something along the lines of Ursula K. le Guin's trilogy of trilogies.
Speaking of finishing things. I am really happy that JL Rowlings finished her series. She was making so much cash, that there must have been pressure to push the book beyond the originally planned 7 volumes.
Sad,but commercial success can ruin a product.
I bet your real life is just like your online life. You get really angry that everyone isn't bowing down and serving your will, and then some little kid barfs up his ice cream cone and you have to barf it up.
If everyone online thinks you're a pathetic narcissist, then what does everyone in real life say that views your mediocre attempts at being a man?
- Yes, I am posting at a -1, and no I will not use a proxy to bypass my circumstances.
He'd spent less time reciting his works in Second Life, and more time finishing the series!
I think there's a lesson there for other authors. *glares*
People keep going on about how slow and long this series was, however it has been an inspiration to me and reminds me very much of the great George R. R. Martin series, A Song of Ice and Fire, which I've only just started reading. The only book I was dissapointed in was Crossroads of Twilight. In serial work not every issue can be a home run. Sometimes you need to make one be a sacrifice to set up the next issues which makes them even better. As a good storyteller, Robert Jordan realized this. Those that want EVERY thing to be issue, episode, whatever to be the BEST one there is, will of course not like this but I have a hard time thinking of any long pieces of serial work that they'll enjoy.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
I'd always seen this series in the book store but didn't start reading it until late last year. I was reading Goodkind at the time, but his character development was making me ill so I decided to switch. So far I've been quite happy with the series, with only a few characters being subject to speed reading.
When I heard the news RJ was sick, I was really hoping the series would be concluded. He sounded quite hopeful, as people usually do, but in the end succumbed. I hope someone picks up where he left off and truly makes book twelve an icon of a great series and gifted writer.
Just... shit.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
Wait, you're such a pussy you won't post the word "fuck" without an asterisk in an ANONYMOUS POST? Just what kind of a loser AC troll are you?
I met RJ at a book signing a few years ago. One thing he did say was that only he knew the ending to the series. He had never shared the ending with his publisher or even his wife.
He said that no one had come close to guessing the ending and it would be finished when it is finished.
I wonder if he really got that ending done?
No ending, or a bad ending?
I've read through both series (the trick to finishing the last 3 books in the WoT-series is to skip ahead when there is a chapter with just a subplot, 99% of the story-line with the Aesedai, then it becomes a riveting read). But I must say that it was obvious that Stephen King too got tired of the series and just hobbled together the ending. The Dark Tower climax is a gigantamondic inti-climax of ginormous proportions. I won't spoil what the ending is. Only that it suuuuux.
I had high hopes for the WoT-series though since I felt that he was picking up speed toward the end of book 11. There was something there, some big ending, a tie-together of all the story-lines into something satisfying. I doubt that anyone can finish the work now, not even with the help of his notes and knowledge of the original ending. Who can keep all those literally hundreds of different characters apart like he could? With different ways of speaking, dressing, behaving aso. There were no paper-thin characters in his books and you had to admire his dedication to fleshing out every character (at times completely halting the forward motion of the story, unfortunately).
This is sad news to me and a bright star in a sky full of fictional authors has gone out. Let's remember the good parts and blissfully forget the bad ones, for they were infinitely fewer and less significant.
Badgers, we don't need no stinking badgers! - UHF
Although some of the comments here have been fairly tasteless (what do you expect on the Internet) I think it is fair time to reflect on an author's works.
Obviously and unsurprisingly the Wheel of Time series dominates our impression of Mr Jordan. I'll start with saying that stand alone the first book is one of the best fantasy fiction books out there as far as I am concerned. I found the style and story imaginative and compelling, which is difficult to do in a heavily cliched genre.
However, like many others I went along for the ride with the rest of the series up until a point where I became frustrated with the author and I personally gave up at about book 9 though I had effectively given up on the series a couple of books before that.
I don't really know what Jordan's rationale for the length of this series was, I'm not a fanboy and don't follow any of the WoT forums for any insight into this, maybe I will do one day. I generally assume that he felt he had a story to tell and as far as he was concerned if it took many books to tell it - he would do so.
The lessons of the 'Wheel of time' series are that you need to bring all your readers with you, and that the value of literature isn't in the weight of paper. Readers are frankly puzzled that after 4 to 5 thousand pages why Jordan left his main characters in stasis whilst opening up new plots and new characters in the later books. The publisher and editors have a responsibility to help authors in this regard even if it causes tension. I'm left wondering if Jordan had a more focussed approach he would have been the top fantasy writer of his generation, but now I suspect he will be remembered as a curiousity.
RIP Robert Jordan
been reading his WoT books since the third was released, and enjoyed them a great deal.
Click here. Slow, but it loads.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
...Nynaeve won't be curing death after all.
No matter what one thought of his works, we should remember that what was posted was about the passing of a man that has touched thousands of souls. Whether for good or ill, the fact that he has reached so many deserves some measure of consideration and respect. If nothing else but to contrast our own passing in this journey, we could hope that our own foosteps will leave behind a fragment of the memory that this soul has done.
To the detractors I say, perhaps if you would look upon yourself and wonder what those you have touched would utter at your own passing, perhaps some charity and kindness would not be un-deserved.
I see many posts about his books (which I _have_ read), but none about Amyloidosis.
This is a little sad, because Amyloidosis is quite a hard disease to diagnose.
Not that its particularly hard with its symptoms, but because it has a low profile, including in the medical community.
A friend of a friend (did I actually write that?) had it, and it took years to be diagnosed (it was in the liver).
His widow travels the world to keep in touch with the latest developments, and promotes the support groups cause.
Have some compassion, people.
Its a sad thing to say, but perhaps greater understanding will come with greater exposure.
The Bible: Historically verifiable fact from an observers point of view
"Here's what Wilson (Jordan's brother/cousin, whatever that means...)"
I would guess that means they come from the deep south.
Sure they drifted off a bit between book 4 and book 10, but the endings were always epic and exhilarating.
This is not only sad because of his passing, but also because it leaves this grand epic unfinished, and without the promised prequels :(
I hope his notes will at least give closure to the tale... I wonder if they'll be released completely untouched as well as (no doubt) a conclusion completed by someone else.
RIP Robert Jordan, Thank you.
Ten years ago, I said that if he were to die before he finishes the series, I'd kill him. Suddenly, I am seeing logistical difficulties.
My thoughts go out to those who have lost more than a good author.
That really is too bad. The series definitely went down hill, but I kept reading it, waiting for it all to wrap up with book 12. I hope it can get finished.
Geeks strike again 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
...I went out on a first date with a girl who read all of the previous books (it came up during a conversation about our favorite authors). She told me about this guy's illness and how she was going to be really upset if she slogged through the previous 11 books only to have him die before he finished writing the concluding volume.
She went on to very rudely not return my calls or emails after that instead of being honest enough to admit to me that she wasn't interested. In light of that, all I can say about this news is... HA HA! You're not getting closure, either!
Sword of Truth is done this November. At least the Story Arc that started with "Wizards First Rule". If Goodkind moves on from there I'll probably take a wait and see tone, pulling this arc out over something like 15 years was sorta painful. I enjoyed the books, but I think he could have cut to the chase here or there!
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
They did a pretty good Job picking up Frank Herbet's notes and extending the "Dune" universe. Perhaps they could get this one finished up.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
is your lives. I wasn't a huge fan of the books either, but the man died. I thought I was reading Kotaku's posts for a while. So many of you spit on his name, as if you've written, no, published a sentence yourself. Gratz on spitting on a grave, hope your kids get cancer. :D
Honestly, the 11th book was a whole lot better than 10; there were actual plot resolutions.
Murphy's Paradox... the more you plan for success, the more avenues there are for failure.
I will read the entire series in a week, no matter how much crystal I need.
I have great memories of being 15 and reading the first 3 books in marathon cover to
cover sessions, enthralled with the world created. I ended up stopping after book 6,
having enjoyed it, but, like friends sometimes do, we just drifted apart.
Thankfully, I didn't have to endure the decline that so many fans lament. It happens
in art all the time, although I agree with an earlier post that editors and
publishers should take most of the blame.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, I probably could, but only just.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I've only "known" Robert Jordan since January, when I started reading The Eye of the World, the first book in the Wheel of Time series. I started reading knowing full well that the series begins to go downhill, as my cube neighbor was a huge fan and has read the series through twice and began reading it again when I did (and even though he was a huge fan, he could admit pretty much exactly where the series falls off).
I have recently finished the sixth book, and I can begin to see a downward trend. But I so thoroughly enjoyed the first few books, I have to go on. Honestly, the first three books are amazing in my opinion, and you can always count on Robert Jordan to deliver a fantastic final 100 pages, even if the 600 before that were worth speed reading.
Even though I've only been in Robert Jordan's universe for a few months, I still feel his loss. It saddens me to know the series may never be complete, and if it is, it won't be completely his vision. Whether this is for better or worse, it still bothers me. I will continue to go on with the series, maybe at a slower pace so I can time the final release better if we ever hear a date.
Here's to you Robert Jordan, thank you for the little time we had together, I still look forward to the future.
Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Agreed, I got a definite sense that he was feeling his mortality and working hard to tie things up.
He almost lost me around book 10 because as others have pointed out, you could skip this book entirely and not be surprised by anything you read in book 11.
I would like to know how it ends though, I still think of the entire series fondly, even if I did feel like he was milking it for a while.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Despite what TFA says, I swear at some point I read that Jordan had said that if he died before finishing the book, he didn't want anyone else to finish it. Does anyone know A) if this is true and not just a figment of my imagination and B) if so, how/when he recanted on that?
I stopped reading about five books ago, but I'd thought to go back and try to finish the series once it was actually done. I have to assume somewhere in the collective throbbing brain of Slashdot geekery, someone's been following this more closely than I have and has additional details.
He should have just undergone cryonic suspension, in which case when he was revived he could pick up where he left off (for better or worse)...
(And for those of you chuckling in the wings in disbelief (with respect to whether cryonic suspension and reanimation will work -- I am more than willing to go head to head with you on the mats on that count.)
The failure to consider and recommend cryonic suspension as an option (compared with being buried or incinerated) is killing far more people a year that George W. Bush is. One is only really "dead" when the molecular disassembly process is complete. Before that point of existence, you are simply less alive.
good to hear since I hadn't the stomach for 11 after 10 did nothing but catch up subplots or start new ones, from what I remember. Sad he's died though, my first girlfriend got me into those books back in high school. They were good when you're not expecting high-grade fantasy and are just watching the characters, It's clearly ridiculous in places.
Now I will -never- get my Conan Books autographed! .. I mean.. at least his part in that series was actually completed....
suckas!
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
"There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning." Jordan
Good luck on your next adventure.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
The drawn out writing was not the big problem for me.
What eventually turned me away from this series was the way it felt like I was reading someone else's teenage masturbatory fantasy. Think about it:
- Main character had awe inspiring power which was corrupting him. Basic angst
- Main character had an injury which caused constant pain. Instant angst.
- Main character had 3 women who were in love with him and willing to share
Aside from that, I do not like it when an author will spend 3 books building up a character as surprisingly powerful, and then throw out a one line "Yeah, we found this other person who is even stronger than X!".
END COMMUNICATION
I stopped reading this series when he started ressurrecting dead bad guys for this very reason. I had no confidence that he would ever finish before he died. I find myself strangely comforted that my decision was correct.
I was really into these books for a few years, dutifully buying each new book in hardcover. I'd say it was great up until around book seven. The world was extremely well realized and Jordan left tantalizing clues as to what the world's past was like through the world's present cultures. So much history had been lost that there were deep mysteries Jordan kept hinting at. People had theories about the mythology, almost like people get obsessed about shows like Lost today (my take was always that the series took place in the distant future, and that the Age of Legends in the mythical past was actually our own high-tech utopian future). The series remained relatively consistent and culturally fascinating for many books, offering many revelations as Jordan peeled away the layers of the world one by one. At the culmination of one of the books a group of rebels finally laid siege to the corrupt Tar Valon, the Aes Sedai city ...
... and then the books suddenly collapsed. In the very next one, where you'd expect a battle to ensue, nothing happened. The rebel Aes Sedai waited around in their camp while laying siege to the city. And did the same in the next book. And the next one. After years of seeing major events unfold in each tome, suddenly Jordan became obsessed with the minutiae of minor characters he'd introduced relatively recently, while ignoring progress on the major events. And then he prolonged the agony by writing a prequel to the first book instead of another book in the series, and I gave up.
I feel terribly that he died and wish the best for those who survived him, but I hope they leave this unfinished and just publish his notes or something to let us know what he was getting at all those years.
And also, maybe, to his family. What you meant to say is that the hearts of millions of grateful fans go out to his family, right?
Liberty uber alles.
Jordan dies.
Tolkein's writing style wasn't for everyone, but Tolkein was arguably the first to create such an incredible fantasy world. Innovators always get considerably more points than the people who attempt to imitate them, all the while insisting imitation is better than original creation. Jordan was easily the most overrated fantasy author I ever knew, but I'm still sad to see him go.
For years I joked that Jordan intentionally dragged his series out longer than he needed to, and he would die right before the last book was finished. Now I feel pretty shitty for the joke.
I read the first six books, and everyone swore it was the greatest fantasy series ever. He threw in archetypical images from most every culture into a giant mish-mash with tons of side characters and side plots that rarely seemed to amount to anything, but the main plot was repetitive at best. Without spoiling anything too critical the plot of the first book is the protagonists being pursed. They go to one town, are attacked in the middle of the night (he writes continuosly how they never slept) hastily travel to another town, are attacked in the night, and hastily travel to another town, except this continues for 800 pages.
The finale of each book is vague and anti-climactic, sometimes really completely absent from the book with the excuse that the main character passed out and didn't remember the conflict.
The story is told third-person, so regardless of whether he passed out or not, you should still write the end of your books.
I thought maybe it started to go somewhere at the end of book 3, but after reading 6 books at near 1,000 pages a pop, I couldn't believe how ultimately he hadn't told much of a story at all yet, while churning out the same crap. Then fans insisted the next 2 or three books were horrible, but they started to get better at book 9. I didn't intend to both ever again, and so I started with the joke. And 13 was the big number in the series, and for as long as I can recall the series was slated 13 books.
I'm pretty sure he altered that huge master plan of his to wrap things up in 12 because of his illness, and now that remains unfinished. Robert Jordan was known to be full of himself, regularly compare himself to Tolkein, and regularly insist he was writing the most important work of fiction in history. His Conan work was pretty horrid, and trashed by even some of his biggest fans. The worst part is that if he hadn't been taking so much time between books doing side stuff like Conan, he probably could have churned out all 13 WoT books, and let history decide. Or maybe he could have told his story in a much shorter cycle, and not stretched needlessly for books.
With all that being said, it is never a good die to see an author die so quickly from a disease, nor is it good for an audience to be now eternally tortured.
The greatest irony is not that the series wasn't finished when Jordan died, but rather that for a man who wanted so very much to be Tolkein, he emulated him even in death. People seem to forget that Tolkein's work had to be finished after his death as well.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
On a serious note, my sympathies to his families, friends, and fans.
:)
On a not-so-serious note, if you lament the lack of new WoT books, just read the first four over and over again. It's like he's still there cranking out books.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
If you take a good or many people think so book such as LoTR or WoTW and make a movie of it, people will complain that its not as good as the book.
But if the book(s) are a bit below scratch the movie could be better! But it could be even worse too.
I will have a sig when the market demands it.
Pip and Flinx novels are getting antsy about him at least finishing the Pip and Flinx arc.
I'd be even more offended if some 'friend' comes out of the closet to finish them over his rotting corpse.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Blasphemer! Worship the dihydrogen monoxide!
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
King did warn you not to read it. I personally liked that story all the way through.
sorry, but i just can't comment on RJs literary virtues (or lack thereof) on article with news of his death... Rest In Peace friend...
Ahh, come on. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the "Wheel of Time" series...If you didn't figure that out by the 9th book, when he was STILL ADDING NEW GODDAMN CHARACTERS...
I liked the first three a lot. I liked 4-6. I read 7 and 8. I read the last chapter of 9 and 10 just to keep track of what was going on. I didn't even read the last chapter of 11.
There is a reason why there is no word other than "Series" to describe a collection of more than 6 books. You have GOT to wrap it up at some point.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Shit shit shit shit goddamn bloody hell shit.
I loved the Wheel of Time books...all of them. This was one of my favorite series. I loved the length and breadth of the stories. I loved the character development. I never thought of it as great literature, but I thought it was a great story. Anything can be critiqued, and the WoT series is no exception to that rule. But I loved it. Period.
I think it's incredibly sad that he died before he could finish the series. And I admire the way he fought the disease and refused to give in to despair (at least based on the public face he portrayed).
Xiard
PS: I also love Orson Scott Card. He remains one of my favorite authors. I've seen a lot of (tangential) critique of his work on this thread. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so I won't suggest that those people are "wrong". I just wanted to voice my opinion that he think his work is generally fantastic, and I love the moral questions he raises. Maybe I'm just not discriminating enough...but the end result is that I get a lot of pleasure from reading his books, and I'm not going to argue with that or try to convince myself that I should hate them based on any of the criticisms I've read here.
Reading a lot of the comments for this article, the thought that occurs to me most often is that many here (on all sides of the various issues) would stand to remember that not everyone is the same. Some people love the whole series, others though it started off strong but then lost its way, others couldn't get past page three of book one. Some people find humor and death are perfectly appropriate together, others think such is the lowest of low blows. People should stop assuming that just because someone doesn't think the same way you do, it's a personal attack on you or yours.
I find "The Robustness Principle" applies to human interactions as well: Be conservative in what you do, and liberal in what you accept.
(My personal opinions (unlikely anyone cares, but in the interests of full disclosure): I thought "The Eye of the World" was fantastic, with the alluded-to backstory appearing fabulously rich. I thought the series had the makings of the next major fantasy classic. But after that, I felt WoT quickly developed problems with pacing and repetitiveness, and lost interest around book three and stopped reading at the end of book five. My opinion. I also enjoy gallows humor, and I often cope with grief and stress by cracking jokes, so I laughed at the humor here. That is also part of my personality, and I do not demand that others be the same as me.)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Jordan's stories are wonderful IMO. RJ is also a decorated combat vet. RIP old friend.
"As a soldier it's always better to be tried by twelve, than carried by six."
Hurricane Island Outward Bound
OB
Frank Herbert was WELL into raping the series once he moved on.
Anything that happened after the one with the emperor sandworm of ages was total shit.
The prequels were actually kind of fun, if you weren't expecting exactly the same thing as before (if you were, you're a dumbass).
I've read a few interviews where he said that the ending had basically been written for years...
My friends who read the WoT series and I always had a theory that he'd written the ending years ago, and that in some strange, literary mockery of Zeno's Paradox, he just wrote the plot half-way there each time he churned out a new book.
It certainly seemed like some sort of plot time-dilation was happening in the last few books by their accounts.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Obviously, in Robert Jordan's case, you do NOT need to wrap it up. You can keep stringing people along until you pass away. You've got more stamina than I do, I stopped reading by book seven. It's not even the interminable and unchanging plots, it's his amateur command of the English language. I read one too many sentences describing a woman smoothing the front of her damn dress, flipped out, through book seven against a wall and haven't looked back.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Agreed wrt Eddings...I read enough of his work to find it repetitive, and then went back over the older stuff, and was amazed at how pat it was. It definitely speaks to a younger audience.
Martin is interesting, and his scope is epic, and his tone is adult. I never really got hooked on the series though. Not enough characters that I really enjoyed.
Brooks is kind of a must-read if you're into fantasy epics...Certainly one of the big names. I'm not going to rhapsodize about the works, because they aren't all that, but they're original and interesting, with good tone and interesting settings. It's harder to read as an adult, however (similar to Eddings).
Bujold has made a recent foray into fantasy, and while the current "Sharing Knife" series doesn't thrill me, the three previous books (Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and Hallowed Hunt) were some of the best fantasy I've read in a very long time...Her sci-fi is top notch as well.
Terry Pratchett has grown on me as well; I read the first few discworld books when they came out and was unimpressed, but I got back into them later, and the last 10 or so have been phenomenal, and, better still, while related, they all stand alone.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
The WOT was one of the best series ever, for most of its run. Though I have to admit, I did give up on it a few books back, when I realized it took nearly the whole next book for me to get back up to speed on the myriad subplots, and that the series was progressing more and more slowly each book.
How can a series be one of the best series ever if it makes you give up part-way through it? Do you regularly abandon good series without finishing them?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Who will Terry Goodkind rip off now?
Yea, I held on just in the hopes that he would wrap it up, though I stopped enjoying anything at 5, I believe. And the language I could handle, though the Eddings-esque character-typing, where you know the default reaction of every character to every situation by about the 4th book, was seriously annoying. All the women acted one way, all the men acted another way. The men never understood the women, the women never understood the men, blah blah blah hilarity fails to ensue.
But when he starts adding wildly unnecessary characters in book 6 and 7, that basically said to me, "Hi, I'm never going to wrap anything up, EVER! Ha! Sucker!"
I'll even admit to a grim chuckle when I found out he was diagnosed with a terminal disease...I don't wish him ill or anything, but stringing out a series that far, just because you can...Well, you're courting nonsense like this. And all the diehard fans, who bought your work eternally, and waded through entire books that didn't hardly advance the plot at all...Well, you screwed 'em. Hard core.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
How dare you say that Tolkien didn't know how to tell a story? Are you insane?
I love good stories. I've read books, watched movies and tv shows, listened to my grandmother's tales and a good story is a good story. You know it's good because it takes you to another place and you cherish the experience when it's over, period.
Tolkien does this better than the vast majority of published storytellers.
It's a pity you were never able to finish his books and I understand that writing style can turn people off (it happens to all of us) but what you claim is preposterous. Next time, just say you don't like his writing style.
Well, both part of the charm and the frustration to the details of Jordan's writing is the insane amount of detail given to the characters and environment. In terms of character development, it makes them very human, however sometimes it goes to the point that you've pretty much devoted 5-10+ pages to the fact that Rand had eggs for breakfast this morning... poached... with butter, etc.
Detail is good, too much can lead to a bit of drag, especially when you're devoting almost half a book in cases to filling in small parts of the plot (with little action). Often enough, many authors will do what has been suggested elsewhere under this article: make a spin-off series with a prequel, or with a more detailed look at a particular persona/plot-segment.
I picked up his first book at a used book store around 1992 or so. It was around about 1000+ pages long, I read the first 450 pages, and not a damn thing happened, just like a Stephen King novel. His prose was just like Nora Robert's, (i.e. complete schlock). I stopped reading less than halfway through the first book. I don't like Nora Roberts or Stephen King and put Jordan in the same pop category as those two.
:)
He seemed to ascribe to the theory, "Why use 5 words to describe something, when 35 words can be used instead?". I thought then, with his very first book, that he was being paid by the publisher per page, not per book. My wife actually finished this first book, because one of her friends absolutely raved about the series. She didn't much care for it either, even after reading the whole book.
I just don't understand why people liked him. I don't understand why people like Nora Roberts either, for that matter. Stephen King, on the otherhand, I can understand people liking, but I will only bother to read the Reader's Digest condensed versions of King, or just wait for the movie.
I have one question. If the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture is not in charge of Gundam, then who is?
He's even more long winded and also writes chapters which must be intended to be read out of order.
It was stated on his blog awhile back that RJ disclosed the entire story to his with and cousin. So with his notes and them knowing the story it will most likely be finished. http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/ The site is down currently (no doubt due to his passing)
~Vexed and loving it!
Oh well, so it goes, I guess...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I bought The Eye of the World in hard cover when it was first released. I'd read some of his prior works, Conan stories and so on and liked his writing. Each year, I'd wait for that next book and buy it hard cover the first week it appeared on the shelves.
The first three books were incredible. Then I read four and five, and grew disenchanted. Waiting for the books, then finding out he wasn't wrapping up threads but rather further expanding.
Finally I bought book six, got about half way through and then just quit. I couldn't take it any more.
I'm sorry to see him pass away, but I never understood what he was trying to accomplish with this series. It had such potential, and then was just pissed away. Sad. I wonder if we'll ever know why, or what he had intended.
The Light shine on you and the Creator shelter you. The last embrace of the mother welcome you home.
Yeah, I have to agree on his amateurish writing -- I'll put up with a lot from a book if the story is great and the writing is not, or the reverse, but his books lacked both. That's not to say the idea and concepts that were the basis of the story weren't great, he just didn't have the skills to bring off his vision. A number of my friends were fans of the first 3 or 4 books, and they harangued me into reading them, but like others who posted here, I basically read the last chapter of 9 and 10 and didn't read 11 at all.
Hopefully a good writer like L.E. Modesitt or someone else (please, no hack writers!) will be asked to complete the last book in the series and give it the treatment that Robert Jordan couldn't. I'm sorry he passed away without finishing it, not because I wanted to read it, but more so because he was obviously so invested in bringing it to completion.
I'm currently re-reading Earthsea for the 4th or 5th time. I highly recommend the original trilogy. They're written in the 1970s, so they're relatively short, and these days you'd probaly see the entire trilogy as one novel.
The later books are vastly different. They sort of have to be, since book 4 was written 15 years after the original trilogy, and the next two books a decade after that. Tehanu is neither adventure story nor travelogue, but an examination of the implications of what we see in the trilogy. My last re-read was around the time that Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind came out, so I've only read each of them once, and I'm currently about a chapter into the first story in Tales. I do remember not liking The Other Wind as much on first read, thinking it retread the themes of The Farthest Shore too much, but I'm interested in seeing how I react on a second read.
I was still angry at him for killing off so many great main characters that had such potential. In his ultimate act of frustrating the reader, I think he intentionally died while writing his last book. He refuses to give any satisfaction to the reader except to point out that life is short and you can't always get what you want.
He was a great author that will be missed.
My respects to the late departed; I feel genuinely bad that, for years, I've panned the guy. I never liked his books. I read the first one, found it incredibly bad, and tried to no avail to get through the second. I think his work is overly derivative and trite, lacking much subtlety of characterization. I think, in fact, it reflects quite well the lack of real socialization of most people who were attracted to it - but that is my (humble) opinion.
I don't begrudge that you enjoyed the book. Nor your friends. But not everyone thought it was wonderful. I genuinely feel bad that I've ripped into Jordan as an author, especially after Martin - who is, by contrast, in my (humble) opinion an excellent fantasy author - gave him such a sweet remembrance. Nevertheless, simply because some set of people enjoyed the books do not make them good. In my observation, they failed to be enjoyable. In many others, this seems to be true, too. In yet others, it seems false. So, no, they're not universally enjoyable - even if they are enjoyable to some.
[Ego]out
Wait! I was thinking of George RR Martin, nevermind. This post is officially rescinded.
I know I'm not alone in finding his writing unbearable.
Nor are you in the majority.
[Ego]out
I do admit that the books fell in quality for awhile. Book seven wasn't great, and book eight was almost just bad. Nine wasn't terrible, though, and I honestly thought books ten and eleven were very good. I was excited while reading Knife of Dreams, and that's the mark of a good book; one that excites you.
Of course people will have different opinions. If you think that every book after five was terrible, then you think that. If you hate the entire series, then fine. That's your opinion. But don't speak for everyone else, and remember that regardless of whether or not the books were good, a man died. He brought happiness to a great many people, even if it wasn't everyone.
I do hope his wife is ok.
I've read thousands and thousands of books in my life, and there have only been a handful of times that I couldn't finish a book that I really wanted to finish.
A book a day for three years will get you a thousand. Thousands and thousands you say? So... a book a day for, what, twelve years? Fifteen? What do you do for a living? Are you independently wealthy? Because, frankly, I find it unlikely that you've read that many books in twelve years. Four books a week, perhaps, seems more reasonable. That's 200 a year, or a thousand every decade, and a lean four thousand in forty years.
What is my point? That regardless of the numbers, or whatever reading prowess you have, you're puffing yourself up for the sake of an argument - giving yourself an authority (I've read thousands and thousands of books! I know!) that, even if it's deserved, is beside the point. You've never read writing that felt like wading through molasses like Tolkien? Ever read Cervantes? "A Brief History of England"? Any organic chemistry book? Or any of the thousands of published authors who, in fact, are worse writers than Tolkien? If you have the authority you claim, you'd never put Tolkien at the bottom. And the authority is a stretch, so I am forced to come to the conclusion that you don't actually have a useful observation on the issue.
[Ego]out
Ah! Another Pratchett and Bujold fan.
My family has most of the Disc World books as well as all of the Miles Vorkosigan series. We reread them frequently, especially after each new book arrives. The characters are like distant relatives that we care about but can't visit often enough.
Both series could be considered addictive IF you like the genres. (We prefer them to main line fiction, which is depressing and predictable in our opinion.)
It is, in fact, the very definition of literature when each time you go back to a story, you find something new and awe-inspiring about it. Tolkien had that, I think, and I suspect that by and large the people who fail to recognize that are, themselves, limited or otherwise crippled in their understanding and knowledge of the world.
[Ego]out
I'm a casual fan of fantasy though I've usually stayed more on the scifi side of the divide. The thing I never understood, why do fantasy books always have to be giant doorstops and trilogies at minimum? Whatever happened to just writing something good and solid and wrapping it up nicely? I liked Raymond E. Feist's fantasy. Got into it as a kid and was stoked. I reread the original Riftwar series a few years back. While it wasn't as immensely gobsmackingly awesome as when I was 14, I think it structurally holds up. Beginning, middle, end, soundly executed. His stuff really started falling apart with Serpentwar and the dirty dozen rip-off. I don't think I've read anything by him since. Oh, and the Empire series was good, that was written with Janny Wurts and came before the Serpentwar crap.
It seems like an inevitable literary law: the longer a series runs for, the crappier it will be. The better the original book, the greater the disappointment in the end. And what really gets me, these books are stretched out for ages with nothing but filler! How can anyone write a thousand pages with action only occurring on three of them? The Honor Harrington series is guilty of that. The last one of those I read, a revolution happened that had been hinted about occurring for previous books and it all happened off-screen! Then there's the deterioration that was Dune, going from three good novels to a sea of crap, and that's before Kevin J. Anderson got his meathooks on it.
Sorry to hear we lost a writer but damn, if he hadn't stretched the whole fucking series out to infinity and beyond, he might have managed to finish it in time.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Don't worry, the wheel of time will keep on turning, and in a new age, which some men will call the third age, Robert Jordan will be reborn and finally finish the series.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
There is an entire industry around short stories. They tend to be much better executed than the big long doorstops, and when they aren't, no loss because you only spent 20 minutes reading the thing. Plenty of subscription based magazines if you like SF/Fantasy short stories (I like "Analog", but there are a few others).
The disadvantage to short stories is that you won't be able to enjoy the same characters over and over again, the advantage is you won't be subjected to the same characters over and over again.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
if you can't take a joke at your own expense then being dead is the least of your worries.
Your call, but personally I'd rather have a bad sense of humor and be alive.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
> Bastard. Now I'll never know how it ends.
You know, I think there's some justice in leaving the readers hanging forever, being that they're the ones that funded Jordan's descent into filler that was just milking the series for the benjamins. Something of a lesson in what you get when you let someone delay your gratification forever.
On the other hand, it might be even greater justice to just do it half-assed, like oh, all of books 5-10.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I'm not one to mourn the dead. When a movie star or a musician dies, I usually just shrug and don't care much. Yeah, I'm heartless like that. But writers, well, I have a special respect for them.
Aside from being a programmer, I'm an amateur writer (One day I'll get my first novel published), and from the perspective of an aspiring author, the WoT series is just amazing. From a technical point of view, think of the number of characters and subplots he managed to keep afloat, all interacting and twisting in unexpected ways.
Some of you complain that he was too wordy. I agree somewhat, but what I've found is that there's a sort of balance you need to find when writing a story of this sort. If the action moves too fast, then people start to miss things, and the story might look amateurish because it lacks detail. If it moves too slow, then you get the kind of comments I've spent my lunch hour reading here. In my own novel, I think I'm leaning a bit to the other side, but that's beside the point.
Sorry if this is wordy (Great, now I'm falling into the trap), but I'm trying to figure out how to properly describe it. Here, think of a horror movie... A good one, if you can find one... Would it really be interesting if it was nothing but constant action? The guy walks into the house, and you just cut to two seconds before the monster jumps out at him. We don't really need to see him (Well, more likely "her") creeping through the house, one step at a time, checking a few rooms only to find absolutely nothing... Wait, you DO need that! Because no one wants to see one battle after another after another. You need the slow parts to accent the fast parts...
Ah hell, maybe I'm dead wrong about this. I'm no great author or filmmaker. I just hate to see people bashing one of my favorite writers (Along with Donaldson, Pohl, Asimov, and Anthony)...
So, sad to see him go, and sad to see the series interrupted... Book #11 will have to sit on my shelf, unread, until I see what happens next...
"The amount of intelligence on this planet is a constant. The population is growing." -Cole's Axiom
So. Farewell then, Robert Jordan.
Your books gave many
people
pleasure.
Though some did not like them.
You were also a baseball player
and a kind of shoe.
Not many can claim that.
Sorry for being late.
Though not in the sense that you are, obviously.
(Age 17 1/2)
The thing that pissed me off the most is that his ideas were really good, and he had the capacity to create decent plots. But he kept stringing us along and his plots went to hell, and then there was basically nothing because his character development and skill as a wordsmith are seriously lacking.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You know how WoT ends. RJ was kind enough to include it in the first book.
It's a wheel. There are no beginnings in the Wheel of Time.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Yea, I thought a lot of his ideas were very clever, very original...But that was quickly swamped by the sheer quantity of prose. For the first three books, which were very dense, you could hold out hope for an actual resolution...It really seemed like he was pushing toward something.
The ending of book three however, and the beginning of book four dashed those hopes. The only thing that kept me going past that was Matt, and as he became a less significant character I became less interested overall.
Rand never grabbed me as a protagonist. The "reluctant hero" archetype can only be played for so long before the hero has to man up and take some responsibility...Rand never did that (in any book I read)...The closest he came was trying to be what he thought a hero ought to be, and that's not the same at all.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
"Jordan was in the process of writing the twelfth and final book in the Wheel of Time series."
BWAAAaahahaha! The FINAL book in the series? I think we've all given up the idea that there would ever be a final book.
Hopefully a good writer... will be asked to complete the last book.
Alan Dean Foster?
I drank what? -- Socrates
It seems a bit silly to have 'throughn' the book against the wall due to someone ELSE'S lack of command of the english language.
Now, repeat: threw. threw. threw. threw.
There ya go...
-knewter
Don't even start me on how many women were described as being "plumply pretty". What was he, a chubby-chaser?
I wrote that not everyone is the same. That not everyone thinks the same way. So you are either stating the blindingly obvious (that you are one of the many people who do not find gallows humor funny), or you just do not grasp what I am saying (that not everyone thinks the same way you do). Either way, you are doing nothing productive.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Fuck! David Gemmell is dead? Now THAT is a fucking tragedy. How the hell did I miss that?
You've spoiled the ironic amusement I felt at RJ's death...I knew he'd pull something off to avoid finishing the series. That's why I stopped reading it...A decade ago.
I read all the same people you read, but alas, my enjoyment of them has dimmed since I was younger. Williams has held up best, in my mind, followed by McCaffrey and Brooks. I never liked Goodkind (always viewed him as a Robert Jordan rip-off, actually), and Eddings, who I would have put near the top once...After you've read enough of his work, it all pales.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Now I'm 25 and I still haven't read it. I tried a few times and never even got to the halfway point, having given up out of boredom and apathy. 100 pages to tell me that a guy in a hood is following them on a horse through the woods, and a monster is standing outside their cabin.
This is not a knock on Jordan. Several people have told me how great the series was.
Seemingly it only rated as mediocre humour, but I can live with it.
Following on your second point - I have no soul and am bemused as to why the dead require respect.
Lots of people die. In fact it's one of those things that most of us seem to end up suffering from at one time or another - in fact along with population growth it seems to definitely be on the rise, but I digress. The reason Robert Jordan made it onto slashdot was that people liked buying his books and therefore is granted greater presence than the rest of us few mortals. Flipside of that is that I feel entirely entitled to attempt a humorous pop - please don't imagine that I urinate on the lowering coffins of plebs.
The only thing that's sacred is nothing.
Not if there's Wiccans around, for Mother Nature a'whores a vacuum.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Are the immediate family of Robert Jordan hanging about on slashdot, reading my posts and being offended.
If they are - sorry, I didn't expect you to be about and I'll vanish off into the void.
If in the case we like to call 'probable' there aren't, would you consider getting off your high f'in horse and quit the cries of "Will somebody think of the Jordans?".
Either way, I think I shall leave this thread to whither, I'm way too old and supposedly mature to induldge myself in bickering.
s/Trollusks/orcs/g
Now, I know you need baddies, but it just seemed derivative and stale. There are some problems with the Song of Ice and Fire, but it has texture, characters, fractal conflict. Jordan seemed to offer page count.
The Wheel of Time is the World of Warcraft on paper. No, really. Everything good about WoW is pretty much true of tWoT. Conversely, anything frustrating or just plain bad about WoW is also true of tWoT.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
You're saying that he cracked a chubby about chubbies? Popped a pringle over plumpies? Had a hard-on for heavies?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I'm not saying that I don't enjoy L.E. Modesitt, but you've got to admit that his books are rather formulaic. Do we really want the last WoT to end with some long essay about ethics?
Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.
Crikey, I only lasted three. When the guy devotes pages and pages of dense text to the act of getting up, saddling the horses and buggering off, you know that the book has now turned into complete filler.
Since then, I've held the view that Jordan fans are easily-pleased and lacking any kind of discrimination. Those books really are incredibly boring.
Oh come on. Everybody knows fat chicks are dirty sluts.
You might want to visit http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/ where there is a good tribute to Robert Jordan. People have already started leaving their own tributes to him as well on the site. Thanks
You people are stupid.
I read the first book and figured out the author was taking waaaaay too long to say what he wanted to say. I have never read another in the series and my life is not measurably any worse.
So much for RAFO.
Perhaps not, but I would like the damn thing to end -- and what could be more formulaic than the Wheel of Time series? The repeating cycle of good and evil that was touched on in Tolkien, explanded on by Eddings and others including Modesitt, is a pretty standard fantasy formula. Jordan came up with some interesting twists, but the whole thing is just on long twelve volume morality play -- I still think Modesitt would be a good pick.
Whomever gets the nod to complete it though -- I'm much more likely to read it than if Jordan had lived to complete it.
Hah! I stopped for very nearly the same reason. I made a deal with myself somewhere around book 6 that if he introduced another new female character in the next 100 pages and described her as having "rose petal lips" that I was done. So I was done...
I completely agree with you. It seemed like every even book after #2 was spent setting up a big event in the odd one to follow. I stopped in the middle of 10 because book 11 hadn't been released yet and I kind of lost momentum. All things considered, whether you like his books or hated them, he kept on writing until the end like he promised and that's something worthy of respect.
Mod me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
If you got up to half way through book 10, I'd recommend you try book 11, even if you never finish book 10 (I think you'll be able to pick up fine). A lot of things start to come together in this book, it's definitely not one of the slower ones.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
Oh I definitely intend to read book 11 and 12 if it gets released. In fact I've recently started reading the series from the beginning hoping that book 12 would be released by the time I was ready for it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I am saddened by the news that Robert Jordan has passed away. I am a huge fan of The Wheel of Time Series. I would like to offer my fellow fans an opportunity to celebrate his memory, by giving to a great cause. I am running a marathon as a part of Team in Training, which is the largest fundraising organization for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. This society funds research and offers financial support to individual patients. The Society aims to eradicate blood cancers, and sufferers of myeloma often experience amyloidosis, which is what Robert Jordan ultimately died from.
The donation process is incredibly simple. You can donate online. If you go to my Team in Training Website at: http://www.active.com/donate/tntma/tntmaJJobel you can donate with a credit card or debit card by clicking on the "Donate Now" button on the left of the page and then fill in your information when prompted. It's that simple. To learn more about the blood cancers or The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society you can go to http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/hm_lls If you would like to learn more about Team in training specifically, you can go to http://www.teamintraining.org/ If you have any questions or comments feel free to e-mail me at jml37@unh.edu