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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."
And I'm pretty sure it wasn't Moridin.
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 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.
Personally I hope they don't bother to put book 12 together, I stopped at 9.
There are thousands of people who have hung on for 17 years to reach the end of the tale, regardless of how much it had deteriorated in the later books. I have been unhappy with the most recent books myself, but I still wanted to find out what happens nonetheless. I probably speak for the majority of his readers in this. I'm saddened by his passing, and it would be even sadder if the story were never finished. It's almost certainly what he would have wanted.
I hope his notes at least reveal the outcome to whomever picks up the story. (Orson Scott Card, are you available?)
Card? It must really have gotten pretty bad.
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?
"In the spirit of the man, friends and family of the deceased have requested that his eulogy be tedious and poorly written."
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
I thought that he was finally getting back into form toward the end, especially the second half of #11. I'm sorry to see him go.
The Farewell Tour II
If Card took the helm, 60% of the final book would involve Olver as the protagonist, and Rand would become a thinly veiled allegory of Joseph Smith.
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.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Did you just say that the writer dying is a blessing? How fucking offensive, especially to those of us who were as close to him in the end as we possibly could be as fans. I hope the death of no-one you care about is called a fucking blessing.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
The curse of buying from a supplier with a single-source. If you're smart enough to buy a plain beige box made of parts from 30 low-bidders, that can run a variety of operating systems, you should be smart enough to buy novels written the same way. That way, if once of the writers dies, any number of other low-bidders can just pick up where he/she left off
Honestly, buying a novel from a series written by a single writer is like buying a Mac. Sure, the writing might be a little better than if it were written as a collaboration, but it's TOTAL VENDOR LOCK-IN!
Never buy a book from a series unless it has at least 3 authors!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Welcome to the internet, where nothing is sacred. Try not to let it bother you.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
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 agree with you. I just cant decide if that would be better or worse :)
It's so true. He should have done what R.A. Salvatore has done. Rather than taking his trilogy and making it 12 books long, he just wrote another trilogy using the same characters and then another. Then he wrote a prequel trilogy and so on ad infinitum. The end result is a story-line that is nearly as long as WoT, but is manageable because you take it in chunks. Each series of books is fairly self-contained, and tells a story in itself while still leaving enough loose ends on which to base another series of books.
Actually, now, as I am writing, I am reminded of the best at this, Terry Pratchett. You don't even have to read the books in order. He really is a genius at making every book completely self-contained, yet having them still sit in a larger story line. In many of his trilogies I have actually read the second or third before the first, and it made complete sense.
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
That's a pretty rough criticism of a man who wrote a story that would humble Tolkien himself.
I doubt it. Tolkien knew how to tell a story. In particular he knew that not everything that he ever envisioned happening on the face on the face of middle earth should be puked out into the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Tolkien could let characters like Gandalf go off on side quests without covering every detail. We only knew Gandalf was rescued by the eagles - that's about all that's in the book. Jordon would have taken us on that flight. We know he found his way back to Rivendell; Jordon would have taken us on that walk. At one point Sam is cooking some rabbits he caught - Jordon would have made damned sure we knew exactly how and where they were caught. And gollum? Jordon would have been sure to cover everything he did too... from leaving the mountains, to being captured and tortured, to his release, and tracked him all the way back to Moria. When the sword that was broken was remade, we didn't have half a book dedicated to the tale, nor the tale of its delivery.
Tolkien's world is famous because of its immense depth and detail. Lord of the Rings is good writing because while you get a sense of all the depth and detail, its history, and its complexity. Very little of it is actually in the book; you know its there because you can see its 'edges'; but Tolkien didn't try to tell EVERYBODY'S story. He knew better.
Consider that Tolkien had the fellowship break up. He elected to chase essentially 3 paths, not ALL of them. We could have had books dedicated to what Gandalf was doing, we could have followed Boromir's boat over the falls and into the hand's Faramir, and followed Faramir from there. We could have followed Wormtongue after he was cast out of Theoden's throne room back to Isendgard, or followed the Ents after they were roused... but we didn't.
And had we done so, it would not have improved the book.
At the other end of good 'epic' writing is the Foundation Trilogy by Asimov. Its the complete opposite of Tolkien - Asimov tells the story of the galactic empire seen through shifting perspectives at critical turning points. The effect works. You see Seldon's vision unfold, and though the vignettes are character driven and you connect with the characters, at the end of each vignette you see the big picture take another step forward.
While it may be difficult to follow the individual plots of dozens of major and semi-major characters, that is a shortcoming of the readers mind and not the author.
What is the Wheel of Time about exactly? Its not really about anything because its about everything. And its not about everything because its spends to much time focused on the minutia of individuals. It tries to paint a forest by telling you the story of every tree. And in the end you have neither a good sense of the forest, nor any decent connection to any particular trees.
That's not the failure of the reader, that's a failure of the author. Because its a poor way to tell a story.
Unless you prefer to measure quality, not kilograms.
Card is an author that started out great and somewhere decided to market to the lowest-common denominator and churn out endless sequels. It was certainly that way with the Alvin Maker series. Red Prophet is one of the finest fantasy books I've ever read, but all home that the Alvin Maker series would continue at such a high level were dashed when Alvin Journeyman came out, and it only got worse from there. Perhaps Card's turn for the worst happened around 1994-1995 when he was at work on both Alvin Journeyman, the last Homecoming book, and the fourth Ender novel, all of which were very disappointing. Now, this author who started out making real contributions to science fiction as legitimate literature is just an airport paperback writer.
Similarly, Jordan started out very fine, but around the fourth book of The Wheel of Time, when the series really took off and every high-schooler was reading it, he started to meander and stretch things out. One does wonder if Tor, the publisher of both Card and Jordan, put any pressure on them to produce unnecessarily long material.
Hundreds or thousands of decent people died in the last 24 hours. If *you* have had enough of an effect on the the world that random nerds care enough about you to make a reference to your legacy, count yourself lucky.
Robert Jordan wrote some great books. Then he turned 1 great book into 4 shitty ones, and unfortunately died before the end. Sucks. But if you can't laugh about shit, what's the point?
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Tolkien knew how to tell a story.
Well, to be more accurate, Tolkien knew how to construct a plot. As far as actually "telling a story", the man pretty much stunk up the page. His prose is so dry and boring and hard to read that I've never been able to finish the books. I know I'm not alone in finding his writing unbearable.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
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.
I have only read the first book of the series and found it quite great. Does it get worse later on? Why are you saying this?
Yeeeeeep. The first three are pretty good, they probably could have stood on their own as a quite decent, though incomplete, trilogy. The fourth one is usually when people feel it starts to dip in quality, and the nadir is about the ninth book. I understand that the eleventh book is something of an improvement, but then you've got to get through the increasing amounts of filler from four through ten.
Respect for the dead is not inteaded to comfort the dead, it is to comfort the living left behind.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Rule #1 of reading Tolkien: Skip the poetry.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Actually, now, as I am writing, I am reminded of the best at this, Terry Pratchett. You don't even have to read the books in order. He really is a genius at making every book completely self-contained, yet having them still sit in a larger story line. In many of his trilogies I have actually read the second or third before the first, and it made complete sense.
There are two author's that I have almost all their books: Terry Pratchett and Lois McMaster Bujold. Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles books (http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=lmbujold) aren't usually as funny as Terry Pratchett, but if you are into space opera scifi at all you can easily pick up any of the Miles books and be enjoyed without having to worry about entire back stories of characters. Oh, the books are much better if you have read them all and do know all the ins and outs of the backstories, but you can lend any book of the series to a friend and usually get them hooked.
But there's a difference between writing multi-volume epics that cover multiple story lines and padding out the books with ad-nauseum descriptions of camps/jewellery/men and women arguing.
Robert Louis Stephenson once wrote that his motto was "Death to the optic nerve" meaning that he wanted books where the situation of the protagonists were presented as the story went along, doing away with the need for large chunks of descriptive exposition.
Jordan wasted his story-telling abilities with huge (try 11 pages of description of walking from one side of the camp to the other) tracts of petty details and description that did nothing to further the story or enrich the characters. This was the blatant padding that pissed of so many people that were huge fans of the first 5 or so books and then became disenchanted with the rest. It wasn't the multiple story lines or the massive number of characters - it was this repetitive (here's a camp description, here's another camp description, and here's another camp description) rubbish that polluted the later books. Winters Heart could probably be replaced by a 20 page synopsis and the first 400 pages of Crossroads at Twilight is just the rehashing of the last (admittedly important) chapter of the previous book. This isn't a stylistic style but a a plea - don't waste my time and my money.
It is a great shame that he is no longer with us but I wonder how successful the series would be if a real editor was let loose on it? It would be condensed to about 6-8 books and may well be the greatest piece of sci-fi fantasy ever written.