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Coffee House => Coffee House Boards => CH / General => Topic started by: McVenco on September 18, 2007, 05:50:50 AM
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Two days ago Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time fantasy series and one of my great heroes, died after fighting a rare blood disease (amyloidosis) for some 1.5 years.
As a true freak of his WoT series (I've read the books 6 or 7 times by now I think) this came as an absolute shock to me. He will truly be missed...
http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=90
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jordan
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:\.
I never managed to get into the WoT-series though, Feist killed off my joy of reading fantasy I think.
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Feist actually restored my interest after Jordan succesfully ran his series into the ground, and only managed to pick up some steam with book 11---by very rigorously curtailing plot lines, I should add. Books 7 to 10 can be easily condensed in a single large volume. With hindsight, his medical condition may have been a contributing factor to this slacking off, but this is pure speculation on my behalf. Feist actually gets somewhere with his stories. That said: I don't read fantasy anymore. Nor SF, for that matter. I've lost my interest for it. There's one or two authors I 'track' because I simply like their writing style and originality of ideas, but apart from that I am content with restricting my reading habits.
(I was at the American Bookstore Center in Amsterdam the other day and picked up a novel from a newcomer: it had a picture of a big-breasted female à la Lara Croft---something like this (http://www.guildwars.com/products/eyeofthenorth/default.php)---in skintight black latex with all sorts of Borg machinery attached to it. Supposedly it was about a post-catastrophe Earth where wormholes to other realities had opened up, bringing with them magic and a lot of weird alien technology. Anyhow, if this sort of cover artistry is what it takes to get people to buy your work, simply open up a porn site. I'm sure that will bring in cash a helluvalot quicker, and provide much more 'satisfaction' with the fans.)
It is ironic to say the least that fans have been dreading the fact that Jordan always said that he would take the ending of the series with him to the grave. If it weren't for some hints that he would be leaving notes so that his wife and publisher could (can!) decide whether they would to hire someone to write the last book, their fears would now be a reality. In view of the finish line, adding insult to injury.
All of the above said: I'm sorry to see him gone. His works introduced me to the world of fantasy literature, they got me involved in the MORPG (not MMORPG :)) computer games, and thus lead to this weird collection of books on compiler design, parsing, and language theory staring at me right now. For me, his books put me through a 'phase' as these things go, and despite the fact that I got into another 'phase' years ago, I'm saddened that Jordan won't be the one to close the previous 'phase' for good.
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I agree that his pace of telling the story slowed down very much in books 7-9, but for me, book 10 was already a start in taking quite some plotlines to the end.
He disease head nothing to do with this though, since he only was diagnosed with amyloidosis *after* book 11 was published.
About the end of WoT - there has been indeed a lot of speculation during the series about how long it would take to come to an end, but in recent years, RJ declared that he would finish the whole story in book 12, with maybe some very minor plotlines being told in a sequel book, but none which are relevant for the main story.
Not too long ago, he told his wife Harriet and cousin Wilson the complete storyline of how everything would end. He apparently spent a few hours telling this, so it's not just some hints and notes I think. So I guess, although it still might take quite a while, that the final book will be published someday. It's very sad though that it won't be from his own hand anymore...
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My god, reading 10 books about weirdos going from a to b while avoiding or slaying some monsters...
Or am I just a bit prejudiced...
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Such a shame, I'm sure he'll be missed by many.
I read up until about book 9 or 10 (IIRC) before losing interest, finishing what's left of the series is something I may get around to someday... although, I too haven't read fantasy in years.
When you guys say Feist... are you referring to the Riftwar fellow? I read a number of his books about 15+ years ago (sometime in my early/mid teen years) and recall the Riftwar series to be my favorite. (After a quick Google, it seems he's still writing all sorts of books... interesting.)
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Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
My god, reading 10 books about weirdos going from a to b while avoiding or slaying some monsters...
Or am I just a bit prejudiced...
LMAO... that's basically what it is, though it can pretty difficult to put down once you've been sucked in. ;) (Which is the prime reason I have to stay away now a days, no time!)
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-D- wrote:
Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
My god, reading 10 books about weirdos going from a to b while avoiding or slaying some monsters...
Or am I just a bit prejudiced...
LMAO... that's basically what it is, though it can pretty difficult to put down once you've been sucked in. ;) (Which is the prime reason I have to stay away now a days, no time!)
Don't get me wrong, I was a huge fan of fantasy. But I am a bit disappointed now...
The very idea of fantasy, the promise it beholds, has revealed to me as being anything but fantasy.
There is very little fantasy being used in making such stuff.
Though I was pleasantly surprised by the Gormenghast trilogy (by Mervyn Peake). Now that's what I call fantasy, because it has it's complete own feeling, quite bizarre, and gave me a feeling of question, so to say... what is it?
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That's sad news, indeed.
I've been a big fan of fantasy for as long as I've been reading novels, but it's only this year that I've started reading WOT. It always seemed like too much of a mission with all those titles in the collection. Now that I've read all by Robin Hobb, I needed something else to start and WOT seemed like the right thing.
A sad loss.