Robert Jordan (born James Oliver Rigney, Jr.) died this past Sunday from complications of primary amyloidosis (a blood disease) that he disclosed and tracked in his own blog. He was 58 and also wrote under the names Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reilly.

Jordan was a decorated two-tour veteran of the Vietnam war (1968-1970). He earned a degree in physics from The Citadel when he returned from the war and then served in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear engineer. In the late seventies he began writing science fiction and fantasy which would later define his public identity. Thousands of websites and millions of readers are devoted to his work.

Jordan, probably the most popular fantasy writer since J.R.R. Tolkien, is known best for his twelve volume The Wheel of Time series, eleven of which have been published. Jordan named the 12th book A Memory of Light and warned that the final volume of the saga "could be a 1500-page monster" because there were so many hanging plot threads to resolve in a single volume. He maintained that A Memory of Light would remain one volume regardless of its length. Jordan's blog entries relate that he continued work on this volume until his death, and that he shared all of the significant plot details with his family prior to his death.

You may wish to take a look at Robert Jordan's Official Blog, although an overabundance of traffic has been it unreachable this past week. If you have not read The Wheel of Time series, or even if you have, you should take a look at Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time. I am not a science fiction fan but after looking at this site, I jumped into the NPL catalog to reserve the first book of the series, The Eye of the World. Another site that should be of interest is Wotmania. (It did take me a bit of time to figure out that this is an acronym for Wheel of Time Mania.)

Our library has all of the eleven published volumes of the Wheel of Time series. We also have such other books of his as The further chronicles of Conan and The fallon pride which was written under the name Reagan O'Neal.

Do not hesitate to stop at or call our Reference Desk (589-4611) if you hear of any other Robert Jordan books of interest to you. We will be glad to borrow or purchase them for you to read.