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---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.
