The Wind...

James Oliver Rigney Jr died yesterday. He was better known as Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series.

It started in 1990 with Eye of the World, and now, 11 books later, the author has succumbed to cardiac amyloidosis. My initial thought? "Son of a bitch, now it will never be finished." He continued to work on the final book in the series, but it was far from finished. His cousin stated that he sat down with him and was told the whole story a couple months ago, but knowing the plot and knowing the details are two different things. Here's hoping somebody is able to finish it off and offer closure to the people who have put up with the series for 17 years.

It's sad that he's passed, and I mean no disrespect, but his landmark tale should have been finished years ago. From book 5 onwards the whole thing went downhill. What started as a detailed and engrossing story became a long, drawn-out mess that went into excruciating detail about the smallest minutiae. He chased endless characters when he should have stuck to maybe 3 or 4. People very definitely killed were brought back to life. The same, asinine running jokes continued through all eleven books loooooong after they'd become tired.

The general theory is that he decided to stretch out a popular and profitable series as much as possible. Whether this was due to his own greed or that of his publisher isn't known. What is known is that the books approached 1000 pages in length, and NOTHING happened in them after book 4 or 5. This should have been a trilogy, or at worst a decology, but it ended up being 12 books, with the last still unfinished. Maybe his editors just stopped doing their job.

RIP Mr. Rigney. By all accounts you were a nice guy, and a talented storyteller. I just wish you'd cut out the crap years ago and finished your series finished before you did.