RIP: James Oliver Rigney, Jr. (Robert Jordan)
By John DeNardo |
Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at
9:26 pm
Sad news…
James Oliver Rigney, Jr., who wrote under the pen name of Robert Jordan, has passed away.
From Andrew Wheeler:
According to a post this evening on his blog, bestselling fantasy author Robert Jordan died this afternoon at his home in Charleston, South Carolina after a long battle with a form of cancer. He had been diagnosed with primary amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy in March of 2006 and had received several rounds of chemotherapy treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for his condition.Jordan was best known for the still-unfinished “Wheel of Time” series: eleven novels and a prequel had been published before his illness. The status of the projected final novel, A Memory of Light, is unknown at this time. Jordan had also written a number of well-received “Conan” novels and a number of historical novels under the name Reagan O’Neill.
See also:
Official Robert Jordan website
Robert Jordan’s Wikipedia entry
Internet Speculative Fiction Database listing for Robert Jordan
Related posts:
- A Brief History of Robert Silverberg
- Robert A. Heinlein Centennial
- Robert J. Sawyer’s SF Picks for Non-SF Readers
- A Big-@$$ Collection of Robert A. Heinlein Links
- Robert Silverberg Interview Excerpt
Filed under: Books
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That is so sad. Plus a major bummer for those who have been keeping with what are major sized books.
I met him, and acted as his “gopher” at SciFi Happening, a short-lived SF not-quite-convention held at the Springfield Science Museum in the early 80s. Fallon Blood had just come out. I met Fredric Pohl and Robert Thurston as well, but Jordon stood out. I remember NASA had brought an actual space suit for a display, and Jordon and I discovered it unattended near a cargo elevator.
“Should we take it?” he asked me.
The picture above is not of Jordan, but of his cousin.
Yikes! My sincerest apologies. I’ve corrected the mistake. Thanks, Jeff.:-S
Yes, a real shame that he didn’t finish the Wheel of Time series, one can only hope that enough of the plot has been hashed out to be crafted into the final book by another writer chosen by Jordan.
Despite his penchant for repetition and dire need of an honest editor he wrote some very engaging stories.
What a drag.
The early WOT books were great. I lost interest around book 6 or so, but read up through to 11 before simply not being able to follow it with any interest anymore.
Other than my exposure to those books I knew squat about the guy personally or professionally. Even though I felt the later books were not as great as the early ones, I can’t help but wonder now that perhaps the illness that finally took him that was the cause of the slip in quality. I heard rumors of his illness long after I lost interest in the stories, so never followed along with that.
Still, after reading about this I can’t help but remember the early books with nostalgia and shake my head at why all the real talents in the world seem to be taken from us too soon.
I’ve read Robert Jordan’s books, and have enjoyed them very much. During his illness, I checked his blog regularly to keep up to date on how he was doing. I really appreciate the time he spent letting his fans know how he was. When he died, it was like loosing a friend. He will be missed.