Robert Jordan dies, Age 58

[cdbeck]

Just saw this over at Wargamer forums. Famous for his legion of "Wheel of Time" books and a very prolific Fantasy author. I never read his stuff (but I have heard them talked of very highly). Sad day for fantasy readers.

CNN Article

SoM

[Challerain]

I've been reading the Wheel of Time books for years. They started off really good but sort of fell off of a cliff for awhile. The last couple were much better and I was looking forward to the last one.

I'm sure someone will finish out the series, but I guess that isn't the point right now.....

RIP

[Sardonic]

He finished the series long ago.
It is the publisher that is dragging it out.

[cdbeck]

No Sardonic, he was in the process of writing the next book (book 11 I believe) according to the CNN article (oops I mean this article).

SoM

[Plodder]

ORIGINAL: Sardonic

He finished the series long ago.
It is the publisher that is dragging it out.

It's the other way round. He was told by his publisher to finish the damn thing.

[Nikademus]

His Wheel of Time series is fairly good, especially at the beginning but suffers heavily from Jordan's overly verbose writing style which seems at times designed to inflate the page count and stretches things to the point of frustration. (His facination with gender conflict also got old fast and was distracting)

By the end of somewhere around Book 9 I was ready for him to finish up the dang story but there seemed no end in sight. Looks like the Reaper decided to step in. (not to be insensitive about it but kind of true. Madeline L'engle also died recently ......to be honest I felt her loss more so than Jordan's as I'd read her books as a kid and i'd like to have seen some of her stories expanded on more vs. the WoT series which was bloated)

[ilovestrategy]

I read the first two books of the Wheel of Time stories and couldn't go on. It was just too heavy for me. I felt like I was getting a sermon in church.
But 58? Thats young! [X(]

[Arctic Blast]

I can't remember what it was exactly, but Jordan had contracted a pretty nasty disease...that's what finished him off.

I guess it's all arranged that his wife will be finishing this book, which was supposed to be the series finisher. She's been his editor and his creative consultant for the whole series, so there's a chance ti might actually be decent.

[cdbeck]

Very rare blood disorder that caused his arteries to clot when they were not supposed to.

SoM

[Hanal]

Might as well paste my Wargamer comment here:
 
 
It is always sad when someone passes but I cannot refrain from being critical of the way Robert Jordan handled the Wheel of Time series. He was interviewed at about the time when the third or fourth book came out. At that time, the books were well structured and kept a nice pace. They were a very good read. In the interview, he was adamant that the series would end by the 6th or perhaps 7th book. He said that he had the ending already plotted out, and how to arrive there. He scoffed at the idea that the series would go on any longer than that.

Then something terrible happened along the way, success and money. Now it was not terrible for him, but for the readers it was. His writing style changed and he even became more protracted and disjointed in his storytelling abilities. He was never one to be concise (he could take 10 pages to get to a point that it would have taken Terry Brooks 2 paragraphs to reach) but it was becoming worse as each volume piled up in the series. Worse to come was his veering away from his main objectives, and writing numerous new plots, subplots, and characters in the story which would have made video game RPG writers blush. There is no doubt in my mind that he, along with the editors of TOR made a conscious effort of milk this cow for all that it was worth, and so his original creative vision was lost in the process and we the readers, who supported his series through our wallets, were left out in the cold.

Now I will admit that I probably would have done the same thing if lured by success, so I'm not passing judgement on the man, just expressing my feelings on how a potentially great piece of Fantasy literature, turned into pulp.....

[105mm Howitzer]

Got as far as Book 5, pulled out my pistol from my desk, looked at it, contemplating things, then shot the book dead.
No sorry, as true as the first 3 books were well written, suspenseful and organized, it just got too drawn out.
Sad to hear of his passing away, though

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

Very rare blood disorder that caused his arteries to clot when they were not supposed to.

SoM

Sounds rough.....inverse hemophyillia ?

[fallout]

ORIGINAL: 105mm Howitzer

Got as far as Book 5, pulled out my pistol from my desk, looked at it, contemplating things, then shot the book dead.
No sorry, as true as the first 3 books were well written, suspenseful and organized, it just got too drawn out.
Sad to hear of his passing away, though

Agreed...Unfortuately I struggled on til halfway through book 7 before I gave it the "heave ho" into the trash bin. The first 3 or 4 were excellent, then became to wordy, confusing, and disorganised. In the end I could only take so much braid pulling and I pulled the cord instead.

[USSAmerica]

I have been an avid Wheel of Time fan since the first book was released in 1990.  I was hooked, and then ended up waiting for each new book to be released.  It is true that the series got quite large and unweildy, but I actually enjoyed that.  (I play and love WitP for God's sake!  [:D])  I did wish for things to move along, and Jordan really picked up the pace and quality with the most recent two books.  I looked on the release of the last one as the finish line of a marathon, but also with that, "There won't be any more" impending loss.  The last book will be finished up and released at some point, and it will likely be very close to Jordan's vision. 
 
Sad to lose someone so early in life.  [:(]