Robert Jordan is dead:
The ‘Wheel of Time’ and ‘Conan’ author passed away Sunday according to his website (which seems to be down at the moment). While I have to admit that I haven’t followed the last two or three of the books, feeling that they were being somewhat drawn out, his ‘Conan’ are some of the best stories after Robert Howard’s and are well worth a look. Certainly it is a major loss to the world of Fantasy writing as he has to be at this stage one of the greats up there with Tolkien and the like. Here’s the opening passage to the first book;
“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose…. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of time.
But it was a beginning.”