Robert Jordan (1948-2007)

[Ashiakin]

Robert Jordan (real name James Rigney), author of The Wheel of Time fantasy series, died yesterday. The series is obviously incomplete, with the last book still being written at the time of his death. Jordan has left notes and instructions should his wife and his publisher want someone to take up the task of finishing it.

I used to enjoy his books a lot, but grew to find them tedious and overlong as I got older. Still, the fact that me, Madison, and Leopold were all reading them when we were getting our early Althanas storylines together means that he influenced several of our unofficial site concepts a great deal--The Eternal Tap and the Forgotten Ones are obviously very heavily Jordan-inspired. So whether you're aware of it or not, Robert Jordan left his mark on our little website.

I live in the same city that he did and always meant to try to catch him at a book signing or something (I'm not really sure why), but I never did. What does everyone think of The Wheel of Time? How do you feel about an author leaving their work for another person to finish? Any thoughts on Robert Jordan?

[Reiko]

I never really cared for the Wheel of Time Books. They never really hit me and most the time annoyed me. It is sad to see an author die and I doubt there will be little good come out of continuing it. Look at what happened to Frank Herbert's Dune... well Dune's much greater than wheel of time so maybe it's not a big deal.

[Elijah_Morendale]

Strike me down where I sit, but I've never been able to really get into fantasy literature, and therefore never read any of the Wheel of Time books. One of my friends however is hardcore into WoT, and he really enjoys them.

But it sucks that he passed away before finishing the last one. And yet, I feel that it wouldn't be the same if someone else finished it for him... It would lack that certain touch and soul that he had.

[Kially Gaith]

I'm a cyberpunk geek myself, so, I stick to Gibson and the like, forgive me for saying I've never even heard of Wheel of Time or the author.

It is however, always a shame to see a good writer go.

[Sok]

I liked the Wheel of Time, I openly admit it.

Sure, it rather dragged on in places, and he tended to have the subtlety of a brick wall, and his historical references were a bit heavy handed, and his characterization tended to become MORE two-dimensional over time instead of less...

And probably some stuff I'm leaving out, but I thought it was a good series anyways. One that developed well over time. And the characters that he DIDN'T reverse characterize, seemed to have a logical progression of character development given their circumstances.

He will undoubtedly be missed. I can only assume his story would be good to be finished. One of the main complaints I hear about it is that it's so LONG, but y'know, stories of events aren't always all that short. (although you could tell that he was rushing himself with his latest book, too bad he didn't finish the last one.)

[Eyes of...]

I enjoyed it up to book 10, where I figured by that point it should have had SOME form of resolution. However, they were well written, though the plotline was way intricate, and the characters just wandered around trying to find each other (from book 2-10)...

It is sad, however, that he died. And it's always an odd concept to leave other people to finish work... since I personally wouldn't want someone to try to finish anything I started.

[AdventWings]

Aye, a sad day this be.

*Salutes*

I've never really gotten into Wheel of Times pieces, but it looks to me I've missed out on something. Maybe I'll see if I can pick up a copy from a nearby bookstore...

[Xilium Rupertus]

You have to understand how unhappy I am about this. One of my fav series ever, he was a big part of why I decided to take up writing at all......

[Shadar]

I love The Wheel of Time. The only problem that strikes me is that with the beginning and end so distant, most of the books are that low middle point in the story. I just try to take it as a whole instead of separate stories.

I kind of hope that they finish it, just so I can see how it ends. Though, I know it won't be the same.

My sympathies to his family. *sends 'em some good vibes*

(Yes, Shadar's name is taken from the city Shadar Logoth in the books. I remember getting picked at in registration for using too many WoT names for stock, unimportant characters in the history.)

[Seth_Rahl]

I honestly did not like them and only read two of his books. I found, after looking back, that maybe if I hadn't read the Sword of Truth series first I would have might have liked them, but like I said I never cared for the series.

[Thoracis]

Aside from the original Dragonlance Chronicles, I would have to say that the Wheel of Time series had the largest impact on me as a fan of fantasy literature and as a writer. Things certainly slowed after A Crown of Swords, but as a whole it's still among the best fantasy series of our generation.

[Xos]

It is just, wrong for another to try and finish the original Author's work. Fan fic is great, but that's all it really amounts to in my eyes if someone besides the original finishes it, fanfic. No one but the original can truely grasp the scope and depth of what the original Author wanted. I never read the Wheel of Time series, and now I never will, because the story remains unfinished. Quite a shame too, because it always looked so interesting.

[Sok]

It is just, wrong for another to try and finish the original Author's work. Fan fic is great, but that's all it really amounts to in my eyes if someone besides the original finishes it, fanfic. No one but the original can truely grasp the scope and depth of what the original Author wanted. I never read the Wheel of Time series, and now I never will, because the story remains unfinished. Quite a shame too, because it always looked so interesting.

Not true, if the author left notes and messages detailing what and how he wanted things to happen, as we're told he did.

In this case, the author knew his end was coming, and made preparations for it.

I would wait before casting judgement. Especially as not only did he have plenty of notes as to what he wanted to happen, he'd actually been writing the thing already.

[Artifex Felicis]

As sad as it is, I hope his family is doing fine. I've never really read the WoT series myself. It was around that time I had to decide between WoT and A Song of Fire and Ice, and went with the latter. It's a series I've always meant to pick up, and I am sad that I never got a chance to do so. Hopefully the series will be finished well and not what happened to Frank Herbert

As Tycho Brahe put it "They are raping his corpse."

[Atzar]

Robert Jordan was undeniably a good writer. That said, I just couldn't get into his books. I struggled through the first one, and that's as far as I ever made it.

Perhaps it's the lack of humor. I tried to compare Jordan to David Eddings, who had great characters like Prince Kheldar and Beldin for comic relief whenever things started to get dry and over-involved. Jordan had no such reprieves.

Regardless of how you felt about his work, though, it's truly a sad thing to see one of the great writers of fantasy die.

[The Bard]

NOOOOO this is terrible he never got to finish his last book on the wheel of time series.....also did anybody here about the books he was going to do after that, they seemed really cool it was set in a Bushido kind of era.

[Winter's Lady]

It's always a shame when a much loved author dies. I think 2007 must be a year for great people to die. Madeline L'Engle, Pavarotti and Robert Jordan, all people that made a impact through their crafts.

[Sighter Tnailog]

I grew dissatisfied with Jordan more and more, but I will admit that I enjoyed them while I read them.

But one thing, regarding another author finishing them, that I would say: Jordan was many things, but a writer to shake souls and shatter worlds he was not. It would not be a great literary stretch for a decent writer to emulate his style and finish the work.

Maybe And Kevin J. Anderson?

[Kovalai]

This thread hasn't been posted in in a while, and perhaps I shouldn't be posting in it now, but it's something I thought a lot about, and as an opinionated jerk, I want to hear myself talk =P

I loved WoT, for a while. I read them all, (twice), and that's a lot of pages of the same story. I grew out of it though, and when I reflected, and listened to people who couldn't get into it, I realized several things. As is often said, the books are just too long. Now, the story itself isn't too long, but every writer can due with trimming their work before it's published in any way, because writers just write *too* much. Jordan was a writer who could spend twenty pages describing a wall. I mean come on!

The beginning was good, then the characters split up, then split up more, and it just stopped. Nothing truly important happens between the fourth and tenth book, especially the 8-10th. You could cut out every scene of from 6-10 where Perrin sits around going 'Grr, my wife be stolen, stop trying to seduce me' and every scene with Elayne in the bathtub doing nothing. What occurs to me is that WoT is a soap opera. I read them because I loved reading about his characters doing the same things over and over. If you look at the 11th book, when he knew he was in trouble, the pacing is infinitely better, so much more happens in that book than the 5 before it.

Recently they cut the WoT series in half and started selling it as even more books. I think instead they should've just cut out half of each book. half of the first half, when he's just recapping, and half of the second half when he's being redundant and the plot isn't advancing. If he had done that, and kept moving forward just a little faster, he could've been one of the greatest writers I've read. As is, I remember his books fondly as a furthering of my beginnings in reading fantasy.

On the topic of another author writing it... Think about it. Who here who's read the first 11 books doesn't know *exactly* what's going to happen in the 12th? Hell, I could probably write it, and I'm not even very good.

Lastly, Jordan's two greatest strengths, I think, were the ability to create believable, realistic cultures and peoples (Aiel had a very realistically built culture), and the mapping of the story he must've done, the true arcing expanse of his story is beyond anything I can really conceive of.

[Vampiric Angel]

I think it's sad to see such a great author die. But then again, as they say, when one door closes another opens. Now is an exciting time. Who will take his place? Who's to know.

And I think that any series, if left to the right person, can be continued on to greatness. I mean, look at J.R.R. Tolkien's The Children of Hurin. Tolkien had left more than enough notes for his son and grandson to piece together, and what did they get? Another great addition to the Middle Earth saga. As long as someone of like mind with the author, that can truly interpret his notes and guidlines well, takes up the task, the series will end as if he had never died.

[Sighter Tnailog]

I think J.R.R. Tolkien's notes were of a different color and flavor, though, than whatever Jordan left behind, and I speak as one who has spent a lot of time reading them.

In a sense, J.R.R. Tolkien did not write books, he wrote notes. The notes that Christopher Tolkien compiled were enough to fill more pages than Jordan published, and many of them were on nothing more than the philological derivation of a sentence from an elvish script he developed. In some ways it was mental illness, in other ways brilliance.

[Reiko]

I know I mentioned Dune but I think it might be better to let Wheel of Time fall away. There's plenty of other great fantasy writers out there and tons of stories. Back to the point with Dune but I'd feel sorry for the author that would fallow the story, Brian Herbert seems to be holding him self back by trying to keep the Dune Universe going. It's really just better to let the Authors make their own universes and when they die the series dies with them. It just seems to do everyone more justice that way.

[Saxon]

Errr... no?

If a writer feels that his or her work should be continued after his or her death and compiles notes for people to follow in their footsteps, then by all means.. follow! There are many, many, many writers who didn't become famous until after they had died. Why? Fear of publishing companies? Lack of inspiration? Personal greviences? Who knows. But I'd like to point out that if it weren't for those writers who took up the courage and the initiative to emulate their heroes or predecessors, we wouldn't have half the literature we have today.

I'll give an example. Up until his mid-twenties for a period of about five years, a young man, Robert E. Howard, wrote stories and he wrote them well. He wrote fiction, he wrote westerns, he wrote fantasy, he wrote mysteries. Up until the day of his tragic suicide, Howard was already a legend among writers and readers with some of his finished pieces of work that had been published in magazines. He had set the bench mark high, and with his creations such as Solomon Kane or Conan the Barbarian, he practically fathered the action-adventure genre. The thing about all of this was that the majority of Howard's work was unfinished. He, like Tolkein, had taken many, many notes of his universe he had created, and Howard himself hadn't given his work enough time to blossom before he fell into psychosis.

In fact, if it hadn't been for the diligent, almost fanatical efforts of L. Sprague de Camp, Bjorn Nyberg, as well as hundreds of other writers, Robert's work would probably have never been completed for people of future generations to enjoy. Hell, I have a hard time imagining how the genre of action-adventure, even fantasy, would've been like without Robert's contribution. You see, a writer's legacy isn't something that dies with them, it lives on. It lives on in the pages of the books they write, and the impressions or ideas they manage to instill in people while they themselves were still alive and probably long after the writer themselves are gone.

Time consumes all things eventually, but theres no reason we as a society have to help that process along. If Mr. Robert Jordan wishes for his work to continue on after him, please, by all means! A writer's career isn't any more shallow or any less meaningful if they try to help other comrades along to complete their work, I'm willing to even argue that it bolsters one's reputation. The only reason a writer will ever fade away and not meet their potential is by their own doing. Some of the greatest writers to ever walk the planet have tried and successfully completed someone else's legacy because they were no longer around to do so.

If you look in works such as Dune, or LoTR, or Conan, you'll see that everybody has their own flavor to what this writer has done to inspire them to follow in their footsteps. In fact, that very well be one of the greatest lessons most of us will ever learn;

Writing isn't just a hobby or a job, it is a culture.

Some of the most brilliant minds have made an effort to jot down their ideas and crafted works of art for the world with the understanding that those pieces will be around long after they've gone. Its almost as if writers, artists, or musicians have developed a collective conciousness for the world to delve into. We live and breathe nowadays the words and lessons of our forefathers even if we no longer realize it. Its an astonishing feat to be a writer, but even more so if you understand and acknowledge your fellows for who they are. There are very few things in this world I think to be unforgivable, but letting your heroes or those that inspired you die and become forgotten?

How could you possibly live with that?

[Mathias]

I mourn the loss of every writer, no matter the genre, the goal, the message, the substance. Anyone with the firm belief that their words can change someone else, from political commentators to dreadful pennies, and from biographers to fantasists, and all the in betweens.

Personally, my biggest fear is not dying, but dying before I can accomplish something. I don't particularly trust anyone else with my universes, unless I'm working closely.

But, other times, I can't help but feel that some writers have an obligation to finish someone else's work. Like, Michael Buonauro, if anyone knows the name, published a novel in segments, through his website www.unknownhero.com

But, he committed suicide, and his parents started an anti-suicide foundation and took his novel down from his site. He was best friends with Brian Clevinger, of 8Bit Theatre, Nuklear Age, and nuklearpower.com fame.

Brian said he envisioned Marvelous Bob as a comic, sometimes, rather than a novel.

I still don't know what's going on with the actual book itself - it was an amazing piece of work, and I wish I could go back and re-read it. I can't help but feel his parents aren't living up the obligation of finishing or publishing or tying up the loose ends of his work.

It might be callous, but it's reality; Eventually, the work takes precedence over the author. And I don't think that's wrong, because people die, but they've left something behind, and that lives on for as long as the written word exists.

I've personally never read Wheel of Time - I've just never had the impulse to buy the series, nor have I really had the time to read, much, in the past two or so years. But, I eventually will, and I hope, by then, someone will have taken on the task of completing the final book, because it would kill me to have a series unfinished.

[Bloodrose]

Tor announces that the final novel in bestselling Robert Jordan’s legendary Wheel of Time® fantasy series will be completed by author Brandon Sanderson.

Press Release (http://www.dragonmount.com/News/?p=326)