Robert Jordan of Wheel of Time is DEAD
Monday, September 17th, 2007 - 1:13am
Quote:
Robert Jordan died in a black polyester shirt, which was threaded with gold inlays of abstract patterns. The buttons were a shiny white gold, connected to the shirt using silvery white thread. His cuff links reflected the steel hard gaze of his wife, who shot him a look that could cut through rock. Her rich purple top was made with the finest Egyptian cotton...
http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=90
Before you ask, no, he did not finish the book.
The man wears a bucket of KFC on his head. I wouldn't expect anything less. - Pred
Damn
Elysium wrote:
XBL: elliottxW
Apparently, it's still going to be published though.
wordsmythe wrote:
Podunk on Jessica Alba wrote:
Maybe he'll finish the series when he's 5... i mean, if time is a circle and all that...
So many "celebrity" deaths recently...
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
This is why I stopped reading his books at No. 7.
And why I fear for Martin's Song of Ice and Fire.
Quintin_Stone wrote:
I hadn't realized he was so ill the last few years. No wonder the books were slow in coming.
I have been dreading this announcement for some time. I too gave up reading at around book eight, but I got a lot of entertainment out of the novels I did read.
Rest in Peace, Mr. Jordan.
I enjoyed your novels. Thank-you for writing them.
"I have not supped of Buffy, nor have I supped in any wise during the absence of Firefly. When Firefly returns again in glory, then shall I sup at the table of Whedon." - Fedaykin98
RIP Mr. Jordan. You'll be missed.
AnimeJ wrote:
Xbox Live: TheWalt2
Yeah, between being incredibly overweight and having a totally depressed outlook on life, he ain't the healthiest dude you know. Also, he's a Jets and Giants fan.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
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Well, that's a shame. I guess I should read the last few books.
“Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.” Atty Gen'l John Ashcroft, on secret NSC torture guideline discussions.
With all due respect to the dead...
This makes him sound pretty fruity.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
BF2142 Stats
This is sad news. I don't doubt they'll get a guest author to come and finish his work.
I'm one of the guys who swore not to read any more until the series was finished. I was fine until I got to book 10, which was just the worst of the bunch.
RIP
Fedaykin98 wrote:
This is really sad. I've been frequenting dragonmount.com pretty regularly since they announced this disease he had, and just last week his cousin posted that RJ was doing alright. I guess he spent a few hours telling his wife and cousin the whole story, and with her as the editor, they should be able to get us the finale. I have met his at two different book signings, he seemed to be a really great guy, very down to earth for someone so admired. Now I'm really bummed out.
Excuse me, I forgot. It's not innovation unless it involves another texture pass. - Tycho from Penny Arcade
Game journal - Infinite Ego
My Rock Band profile
Hysterical! Can't get to dragonmount at the moment, but it would be highly fitting if his obituary was an excruciating 900+ pages long monstrosity that could easily be boiled down to a handful of paragraphs.
XBL: MikeMac75
I thought that paragraph was a parody. It was serious?
Damn
I actually really liked those books. Got way too long and WAAAAYYY too confusing the past.. oh 3-4 books though. But I still enjoyed them.
Oh, and too bad he's dead too. Never want to wish THAT malady on anyone. RIP Mr Jordan
PAR
LinkedIN profile
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For all who live in such times, it is not for them to decide. All we get to decide is what to do with the time given to us
I'm not even sure which book I stopped reading the series in... might've been 10. I think they've all been pretty weak since book 7 or 8 or so. Things just stopped happening. It was like 800 pages of moving a pawn one square on a chess board.
I remember commenting to a buddy of mine back in the 90s -after we met him at a book signing in Chicago- that I hoped he'd be able to finish the series before he died. Even then he didn't seem very healthy. And even if my comment was a joke at the time. Not so funny now.
I never heard that he'd been sick for the past couple years so I was shocked when I saw a blurb on his passing in my RSS feeder. A damn shame. Even if I didn't like the direction he took The Wheel of Time, he was a supremely talented writer.
---Todd
The Nut and the Feisty Weasel: A place where a deranged Ohio State Buckeye and a rabid Michigan Wolverine fan come together... and air grievances.
Robert Jordan and the Wheel of Time books provided a sort of ice breaker when Karla and I first met. We shared in liking the series (this was around book six) and we actually went to the local book store for a book reading and signing he did.
Sure, his series went south over time, but I'll always be grateful for the connection it represents between Karla and I. It's one of the very first things we shared so he'll have a special place for me because of it. I hope someone can finish the series with some grace, fans who have stuck with it this long deserve some closure. It sounds like he was thinking of them quite a bit in his last days.
I'm going to miss seeing what he might have written next once he got out of that formula, his Conan books were awesome.
It's a parody of some of the more indulgent writing he did regarding the clothing his characters wear.
Certis beat me to it. - Elysium
George RR Martin had a nice blurb on his blog last night: http://grrm.livejournal.com/
Such a shame
PAR
LinkedIN profile
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For all who live in such times, it is not for them to decide. All we get to decide is what to do with the time given to us
Thanks for the link to the GRRM blog. George wrote up a nice statement about how RJ helped get him to where he is today, and how they were good friends.
Also, great update on GRRM's work about halfway down the blog (love the animated gif)...
AnimeJ wrote:
Xbox Live: TheWalt2
You know... as I read more about Martin (and read his blogs) I really like that guy. He's so down to earth and available to the public unlike so many other artists. Yea he's overweight... yea he can get quite depressing sometimes... but really... who doesnt? And I love the fact that he is passionate about the things that interest him and is willing to share it with his fans. Hell.. he even ANSWERS users' comments in his blogs... not many people do that, let alone I think he is a fantastic writer.
PAR
LinkedIN profile
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For all who live in such times, it is not for them to decide. All we get to decide is what to do with the time given to us
That animated gif made me laugh out loud. People in other cubicles are now staring at me. Heh.
"I have not supped of Buffy, nor have I supped in any wise during the absence of Firefly. When Firefly returns again in glory, then shall I sup at the table of Whedon." - Fedaykin98
That is extremely sad news. I know I've been reading The Wheel of Time for 15 years (I remember only the first and second books were out when I started back in high school) and while we've always known it was a possibility that the series wouldn't been finished it is still hard to have that sink in.
Sure the later books slowed down tremendously and were all over the place with details about characters and groups that you really didn't care about, but I always found time to slog through them and could still appreciate the history and depth of the world he had created.
I hope those that finish the series are able to do it justice with the type of finale it deserves, and I still look forward to seeing Tarmon Gaiden unfold.
AoC- Indozola (Guardian), Bauchelain (Bear Shaman), Aphesian (Demonologist)
There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.
James Rigney will be missed.
Posting on the boards is easy. The trick is to kick someone's ass the first day, or become someone's bitch. Chiggie Von Richthofen on how to transition from lurker to poster.
When I first got to college, my extremely hermit-like roommate and I never spoke. He read feverishly, and I always wondered what it was, so one day I asked. He was reading book four of the Wheel of Time for something like the 8th time. He reread the series once a year. I figured the series had to be at least decent, so I picked up the first book and was immediately entranced. I personally loved the series and, while I agree that some of the later books were a bit too heavy on the political-fantasy bent, I've never felt more attached to characters than some that Jordan created in that universe. Not only that, but once I started reading the books my roommate and I actually got to be great friends, as we had this great universe to talk about at endless length.
Knife of Dreams, the last book that was published in the series, was actually quite good and felt like a return to form for the series. I was really looking forward to the final chapter of the Wheel of Time, and hopefully it will still see the light of day.
I wish only the best for his wife and anyone who was close to him. He seemed like a wonderful and down to earth guy. He posted regularly to Dragonmount and knew many people by name who, by all rights, should have been strangers to him.
XBOX Live: doogiemac
I didn't know he was sick either. I agree with Certis that his Conan books were great and I read them before finding the Wheel of Time series, which I stopped around book 6 or 7.
My understanding is that it won't actually be a guest author. The last book is supposedly a little over halfway done, with the bulk or all of the rest of it given to his wife and some others.
wordsmythe wrote:
Podunk on Jessica Alba wrote:
Similar story here. It was pretty early in high school when I was at the county library and saw the first three books on a shelf somewhere in the wrong section. This was back when they were published as 700 page full-size paperbacks like a phone book. Although I'm very much not the same person that read them back then, I'm sad that even if the series comes to a close, it won't be exactly the way he originally intended.
Xbox Live:Kurrelgyre | PSN:Kurrelgyre | Steam:Kurrelgyre
To be honest, even if he had written every word, chances are pretty good that it wouldn't end anywhere close to how he originally intended. Writing is funny like that.
I got tired and frustrated with those books at about six... somewhere along the way, after Yet Another Middle-Aged, Severe, Formidable Woman showed up, I realized the story had gotten away from him. Six books would have been about right, with plenty of room for all the important characters. The first three or four books are some of the best fantasy I've read. It was really wonderful how he grew their horizons, and yours, by sort of zooming and out and out as he went. If he'd packed the rest of the series into the last two, he'd have just about nailed it, but as is, he takes eight books to tell two books' worth of story.
Still, I suppose I shouldn't kvetch too much: that's about twelve more highly successful books than I've written.
If his family happens to read this, my best wishes to you and yours. Mr. Rigney entertained many millions, and the world is lessened by his passing.
It`s too bad he couldn't finish his books I enjoyed the first 6 but got pissed that nothing ever was resolved and he seemed to have diahhrea of the mouth. Years from now you will be lucky to find a beaten up copy of his books in a library, unless his books take on some kind of unfinished cult status. An unfinished series, especialy one this long, will not be high on peoples 'to read' list. I wonder if my Hardcovers are worth anything on ebay? (just checked, nope!)
Poor guy...it must suck to die and have your life`s work unfinished. That's why I keep my goals low.
oh well, RIP
Is it true sailors are "every ounce a seaman?"
Someone has to put all that together. If he'd already done so, the book would be, well, done.
Fedaykin98 wrote: