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[qed]

For everybody who was reading the Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan passed away yesterday. The final book was slated for release in 2009, which means someone will try to finish it from his notes. At least he was kind enough to pad the middle of the series with those 3 or 4 incredibly frustrating books that had minimal plot advancement, I'd much

Comments

[taumeson]

some things to consider:

1. he's had the book finished in outline form for years.
2. both his wife (a frequent collaborator anyway) and his brother/cousin wilson (inside joke) know the complete plot anyway.
3. he was through a significant portion of the book.

[king_kai]

uh yeah, two words: brian. herbert.

[qed]

If Robert Jordan was the kind of singular author that Frank Herbert was that would terrify me. But I don't think Jordan's general style should be too difficult to imitate and his characters aren't really that complex. With 11 huge volumes of stuff to work from I think a good author should be able to do a passable imitation of his stuff. His characters tend to perform the same basic actions and make the same basic decisions over and over again anyway. As long as Jordan left definitive notes on the central plot developments of the last book it might be ok. And it certainly sounds like his planned ending is pretty well known and understood by his family.

Did you ever read any of th Brian Herbert novels? I ended up with one on an airplane one time, I think it was the only decent book in the airport store. Not terrible, but certainly not Dune.

[king_kai]

no, i've been too scared of kevin j anderson's hackery to give any of those a shot. but with the recent release of the final book in the (septology? octology? i can't keep track) series, i must admit that i am KINDA tempted, if only to see how it ends. although the rumor/fact/whatever that they tied the end of the series proper into stuff from their prequel novels definitely rubs me the wrong way.

i've never read any robert jordan, but the words "dead author," "outline," and "family member" just set my spidey sense a-tingling. and not in the good way.

i guess now george rr martin moves into the catbird seat in terms of "sci-fi/fantasy authors who will almost surely die before their epic series are completed."

[walther1]

I heard they might be tapping Margaret Wiess to finish it off, not the best author, but not horrible.