Robert Jordan is dead

Author Robert Jordan, whose Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels sold millions of copies, has died of a rare blood disease, his aide said Monday. He was 58.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2007-09-17-jordan_N.htm

I have given up on this guy, I never read his last two books. Truth be told, I should have given up on him after about book 4.

What scares me is how his work parallels GRRM. Now, the first 3 ASOIAF books beat the literary pants off of RJ and then some, however, GRRM's latest book left me feeling disapointed, and it has been oh so long in coming for the 2nd half. This makes me worried.

Truth be told though, had GRRM died in a carcrash days after finishing book 3, I would have been glad I had read it even if everything was left up in the air, to me it was that damned good.

I almost wish GRRM would say 'That's it folks, I realize this is my swan song, my life's masterwork. I am going off to some hidey hole and writing this thing, this whole thing, until I am done or I die. May take five years or fifteen years, but I am going to get the whole thing done, and not publish a single thing until the whole flipping thing is done. If I die before I am done, publish what I have done, make my storyline notes avaible, then leave it be, don't have some hack come finish up my works.

I like to think this would allow him to improve the quality of the work, rather than worry about how some guy is going to split it up into managable booksized pieces, and it would be an all-or-nothing wait. Some day tento fifteen years from now we would all hear about books 5-17 all coming out in 3 month intervals and we could luxuriate in the complete story rather than getting one book every 2 years and then going back into waiting.