Robert Jordan diagnosed with amyloidosis (a rare blood disease)

[Trippy]

His letter to Locus magazine:

http://www.locusmag.com/2006/Features/03JordanLetter.html

His post on his blog:

http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=38

[Shockeye]

He'll do anything to get out of finishing that damn series.

[TheWalrus]

Wouldn't you?

[WayAbvPar]

That sucks. As frustrated with him as I have been over the years, I certainly didn't wish him any ill.


I reserve the right to change my mind about that if he dies before he finishes the series.

[Merusk]

Deus Ex Machina ending for the series in 3, 2, ...

Which, of course, would be just perfect.  He started writing the damn thing knowing and having-written the exact ending scene he wanted.  Having to ham-fist it in would be ultimate testament to how the series has gone.

[tazelbain]

Simply cut out the skirt fidgeting and just write the damn story.

Note: faggoting is in the spellchecker :)

[Riggswolfe]

Actually, the last book published was the next to last. So unless he croaks real soon he'll get it finished. That said, I've had the book for 4 months or more and haven't worked up the desire to read it.

[Xilren's Twin]

Actually, the last book published was the next to last. So unless he croaks real soon he'll get it finished. That said, I've had the book for 4 months or more and haven't worked up the desire to read it.

Ultra fast spoiler summary in black....
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Matt finally marries Daughter of 9 moon who is default empress after her mother & family back home gets murdered offstage by Semiherge
Matt's band will have cannons by the last battle
Perrin rescures Faile by teaming with Seachean; prophet flees
Rand dicks around and loses a hand to Semiherge, who his team captures
Semiherge calls rand crazy, people will now look at him funny
We learn Morraine is not dead, matt thom and the old guy is is apparently Jain Farstrider will try to rescue her next book
Egewin is still prisoner in white tower, but stage is set for her to assume control when people get pissed off enough at the bitch in charge now
Elayne wins enought polictical support to be queen, is preggers with twins
Lan is heading east across the entire freaking borderlands tricked into raising an army to lead through Tarwin's grap by his scheming wife
Taim is apparently either one of the forsaken or working for them
Logain is on rand's team
Rand still has to figure out how to die and lie at the same time
Add in 20,000 words about clothes, furniture, sniffs and general female bitchiness and you've got it


There.  Generally another pretty bland book.
Xilren

[Riggswolfe]

You know, that is about what I expected. How depressing. The only characters I care about anymore are Min, Matt, Perrin, and Faile. And I can't bring myself to wade through the rest.

[Mortriden]

My bigest gripe is that in the process of making Rand this new and improved character he's turned him into someone you don't care about anymore.  Nice.  He's supposed to be the main character in the series and... I just don't care.

[Wolf]

I still haven't finished the last one, it only came out here last week, but I'm a big fan. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that when I started reading the series, it was already up to number 9, so I had to wait for only two. What I love about WoT is the world - no fucking elves, dwarfs, goblins, gnomes, whatevers - only humans and stuff created by men. And the second thing about it is the level of detail and the whole feeling of stuff happening according one "plan". Something hinted at in book 1, mentioned in book 5 and finally unfolding in book 11 - you don't have that anywhere else. I'd be seriously bummed out if he can't finish it :(

[Zetor]

I still haven't finished the last one, it only came out here last week, but I'm a big fan. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that when I started reading the series, it was already up to number 9, so I had to wait for only two. What I love about WoT is the world - no fucking elves, dwarfs, goblins, gnomes, whatevers - only humans and stuff created by men. And the second thing about it is the level of detail and the whole feeling of stuff happening according one "plan". Something hinted at in book 1, mentioned in book 5 and finally unfolding in book 11 - you don't have that anywhere else. I'd be seriously bummed out if he can't finish it :(

Read the Song of Ice and Fire series... you won't be missing WoT after that, I promise. :P


-- Z.

[Murgos]

What I love about WoT is the world - no fucking elves, dwarfs, goblins, gnomes, whatevers - only humans and stuff created by men.

The Troll-Orcs don't bother you?  In a series full of derivative fantasy elements that name has always stood out as supremely lazy.

[Xilren's Twin]

I still haven't finished the last one, it only came out here last week, but I'm a big fan. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that when I started reading the series, it was already up to number 9, so I had to wait for only two. What I love about WoT is the world - no fucking elves, dwarfs, goblins, gnomes, whatevers - only humans and stuff created by men. And the second thing about it is the level of detail and the whole feeling of stuff happening according one "plan". Something hinted at in book 1, mentioned in book 5 and finally unfolding in book 11 - you don't have that anywhere else. I'd be seriously bummed out if he can't finish it :(

While I agree that I love the world setting, the story itself is way way way too drawn out with tons of unimportant characters you could just skip over.  Plus the clothing, furniture crap.

Seriously, with a decent editor not afraid to cut liberally you could weed the series down to like 5 books that had decent pacing and not miss any of the major stuff at all.  The author just keep introducing minor character after minor character every book in some bizarre exponential equation so now there are just way too many.  He has diarrhea of the pen.  We really shouldn't get one chapter let alone dozens from the forsaken's point of view, or the sitters for the rebel tower, or the rogue general fighting the Seachean, or various darkfriends, or whitecloaks, etc.  Stick with the main characters and to quote Monty python "get on with it!"

There is litterally no way in hell he can write an adequate ending to tie up all the loose threads he has running all over the place.  Reminds me of the Sun Sword series in that respect; great series but the last book just flat out ignored a few major sub-plotlines to finally finish the main one which just left the whole thing unsatisfying even though I greately enjoyed the first several books.

Xilren
PS One thing which I'm firmly convinced of but can't be bothered to find is I am quite sure Jordan has had non-black Aes Sedai sisters lie in his books, breaking one of their 3 oaths b/c even he can't keep track of all his own rules.  I mean how often has a sister introduced themselves with a false name anyway?

[Jeff Kelly]

Well I wish him the best and hope that he overcomes the illness  but I don't care any longer if or when he finishes the wheel of time series.

It was a great anthology until about book 5 or 6 but after that he lost it and even in Books one through 6 there are a lot of passages that you can hardly bear reading if your perception of relationships between men and women is beyond that of a tenth grader. Last time I read it I accidentally started with book 8 after finishing 6 and didn't even realize it because there is nothing worthwhile happening in 7.

You could probably cut the whole series down to 6 or 7 books without sacrificing anything apart from frowning women that think men are stupid and detailed descriptions of clothing

[Merusk]

PS One thing which I'm firmly convinced of but can't be bothered to find is I am quite sure Jordan has had non-black Aes Sedai sisters lie in his books, breaking one of their 3 oaths b/c even he can't keep track of all his own rules.  I mean how often has a sister introduced themselves with a false name anyway?

There's a few ways around this.

  1) If an Aes Sedai repeats a lie she believes to be the truth, she's lied but doesn't realize this.  My recall of details is fuzzy but I'm fairly certain this has happened a few times.

 2)  Aes Sedai don't introduce themselves with "My name is..."   They usually say "Call me.. "  It's not a lie, but it's not the truth.  The oath to never tell a lie doesn't force them to only speak the direct truth.  This is why as the series goes on you see note people with experience in dealing with AS asking direct short-answer questions.  The less wiggle room the more they're held to that oath.

 3) There's channelers out there who may not have been forced to take the oaths on the rod, but are called Aes Sedai.  The 3 main women and any of the AS raised in Salidar since the tower split are among these.  They're not supposed to lie, but nothing's stopping them.  Last I researched there was also a lot of supposition that Casudane and Verin have managed to free themselves of the oath rod at some point.   This accounts for Verin's shiftiness and Casudane's extremely long-life (since the oath rod artificially shortens lifespans, since it was a tool of punishment in the AOL.)

[Polysorbate80]

So, has he kicked the bucket yet?  Or is he going to taunt me with a death that takes as long as his bloody series?

[Wolf]

Murgos - It's a name. Out of 11 books, you can't really say the only thing that makes you hate the world is a name that's been there since day one. I agree it's irritating, but by the end of book 1 you get used to it :)

Xilren - The multiple POVs and the one page long description of two statues in a throne room in the Stone can be skipped, I agree. But that's exactly the detail I'm talking about. You learn to live with it, for the small but very good bits. Like that short piece of a chapter with Nyneave and the malkieri trader in Saldea in the last book. Plus I have a friend that fucking LIVES for the dress descriptions. She says it really makes her feel the world better. Than again she skips over the battles, so whatever :P

About the ending - we'll see. I'm sure it will be half-assed, but than I can hate him and say it's half-assed. Until it's out I still like what he's done so far.

What I don't get is why people are so in love with Song of Fire and Ice? I liked the first one, because it was so different from WoT. But that's about it. The next two just felt shallow. Pr0n, Battle, Pr0n, Battle, Bastards, Pr0n, Battle, Let's kill a couple of main chars, Pr0n and some more battles. Whateverthefuck?

[schild]

I think I read that one once.

I think a cute movie idea would be about a parrot who is raised by eagles. It would be cute because the parrot can't seem to act like an eagle. After a while, though, to keep the movie from getting boring, maybe put in some pornography. Later, we see the happy parrot flying along, acting like an eagle. He’d see two parrots below and starts to attack, but it's his parents. Then, some more pornography.

[Murgos]

Murgos - It's a name. Out of 11 books, you can't really say the only thing that makes you hate the world is a name that's been there since day one. I agree it's irritating, but by the end of book 1 you get used to it :)

I started that series in the late 80's so obvioulsy what bothers me about the series is the fact that it is 18 years later and the plot has barely advanced.  I am just pissed at the Troll-Orc thing because it should have clued me in earlier that he wasn't always going to try very hard to tell a good story.

[Abagadro]

Having never read any WoT books these occasional threads on them remind me of battered women support group meetings.

[HaemishM]

Having never read any WoT books these occasional threads on them remind me of battered women support group meetings.

WoT is the literary equivalent of Diku.

[WayAbvPar]

Having never read any WoT books these occasional threads on them remind me of battered women support group meetings.

If the women in this world behaved like the women in Jordan's world, I would support the battering of women!