Boing Boing reports that Robert Jordan, the author of the best selling fantasy series WHEEL OF TIME, has died at age 58, leaving the series unfinished. Jordan’s epic series was among those adapted by The Dabel Brothers, appearing as NEW SPRING.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Holy crap. I gave up on the series after book number 10 (after Jordan had slowed the narrative to a mind-numbing glacial pace).

    So…the “Wheel of Time” is now literally the unending saga.

  2. Wow, I feel so bad for all the people invested a LOT of time in that series. Maybe they can pull a Tolkien and finish it from his notes (hopefully he has some).

  3. I read the first three books (which, for readers who are unfamiliar, every book in this series is like 500 pages long) all the way back in high school. I liked them, but I just couldn’t keep it going and I was coming to the end of my fantasy-book reading years.
    I remember walking into a bookstore a little while back and seeing “Book Eleven” or something and thinking “No way. It’s still going?”
    Anyway, I had a lot of friends back then who lived and died for those books. I feel really badly for them. It really sucks.

  4. Brian, I read that he had prepared notes in the event that he died so that the final book could be completed. The task has fallen, I guess, to his wife and the president of Tor, his publisher.

  5. I’m sure his family would be happy to have him back for a few days so he could make a formal apology to all the mistreated fans.

  6. I was surprised when Book 11 came out and suddenly the plot started moving again. It was as if he’d decided book 12 was going to be the finale and started clearing away anything that didn’t feed directly into the endgame, wrapping up one thread after another.

    It’s a real shame he wasn’t able to finish his magnum opus.

  7. Darn it,

    After books 7 thru 10 crawling and over-stuffed, book 11 was Fast, Fun, and much like the first books that had drawn me in to his “Wheel of Time” universe with such gusto. I was really looking forward to Book 12 with a renewed passion.
    I can only hope that his notes are complete enough to finish the series .. Matt, Perrin, the girls, and Rand (the characters that have grown before my eyes in Mr. Jordan’s Series) are worth the effort.

  8. Do I detect sarcasm, Tom? Of course it’s sad that he’s passed away, but I’m sure his family would honestly like to see him finish a book series that was obviously his life’s major work. Putting so much effort into a series to not see it finished is a serious tragedy.

    Stop making yourself feel important by calling the rest of us shallow.