I certainly don't get why anyone would make light of the death of an author in a thread for people to memorialize that author, some of whom had their lives moved by his writings. Shame on you, Verithrax. That is needlessly cruel.

I will surely join the ranks of those who will miss Robert Jordan's writings. And I certainly sympathize with being shocked and grieving by an author's death. I recall when Robert Heinlein died that I felt as though I had lost someone close.

From what I've read, I am quite confident that the last Wheel of Time novel will be finished once all Jordan's drafts and notes are compiled--so do not fear the story will never conclude!

I think its possible that in the end he was not doing so well. His first 6 books were amazing though.


I hope instead of trying to finish the books, they just publish his notes. Would be much more interesting read, I think.

I have enjoyed Robert Jordan's books from the first to the last and was surely looking forward to see the closure of the series. Unlike many I really liked his longwinded writing where he touched all kinds of subplots that in their own right could of been different books. I hope that instead of editing his notes they will publish his current progress and notes like they did with Douglas Adams' Salmon of Doubt.

I have a feeling they'll do both. Have the "completed" version, and then you can also buy a book all of his notes and such.

Where am I making fun of him? I was just pointing out that, many many years ago, I "called it" by stating that WoT would never actually end and that people reading it would be left without knowing what happens. It seems I was at least partially right.

That is heartening at least. I know Christopher Tolkien did that for some of his fathers works as well. Though he mentioned that he would have been appalled that they had been published in such an unfinished form, they (and reading them I agree) were just to good not to show the world. In fact, I enjoyed the Silmarillion more then Lord of the Rings.

LotR was a good story, but the Silmarillion pulled it all together with all the hints and cryptic conversations and references dropped by the Wise in LotR. And in one case, the Hobbit. (Which was better than all of them, hah.) I'm a sucker for fully constructed worlds, okay? Good books, however, just touch through them, leaving a path you can see in the story and ilttle else.

True, and probabbly release them a few years apart.

I hate longwinded writing (it's why I could never stomach LotR for very long), but I'm all for completeness and worldbuilding. I'm just pro-conciseness as well.

Robert Jordan isn't long-winded. He strikes a very careful balance - on the one hand, there's lots going on and it takes a long time to describe everything that's happening (which goes with having 20 plot threads all happening at the same time), but on the other there's not getting bogged down in mindless details. That's the trouble with Tolkien - he could spend a paragraph or two describing one particular hill that you were never going to see again. I don't find that entertaining.

In summary, the amazing thing is that he could write eleven books with the same storyline and not bore me.

Huh?

I think there is more text in Robert Jordan's books describing coats and frocks and hair dues than there is plot development.

No, I do believe you think incorrectly.

There is a fair bit of it, and lots of arm-crossing all over the place, but certainly not more than plot development. Though the last few books did have very little plot development, especially one of them where it pretty much just repeated the book that came before it...

He's the only writer who has ever, ever made me hate every character of the female sex in a series. EVER. I just want to tear off their faces, arrogant whores!

See?

Edit: Alright, that's a lie. Moirane might be manipulating, scheming, convinced she knows best for everyone, but I didn't hate her.

*cough*

It's a tiny tiny itsy bitsy thing called exaggeration.

But I have skipped pages because it was just "descriptive text"

I have, too. Then I've gone back and reread them just to find that I skipped interesting bits in those pages. Heh. Hooray for re-reading.