James Oliver Rigney Jr. (October 17, 1948 – September 16, 2007), better known by his pen name Robert Jordan," Robert Jordan" was the name of the protagonist in the 1940 Hemingway novel ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'', though this is not how the name was chosen according to
1997 interview he did on the DragonCon SciFi Channel Chat
was an American author of

epic fantasy High fantasy, or epic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy defined by the epic nature of its setting or by the epic stature of its characters, themes, or plot. Brian Stableford, ''The A to Z of Fantasy Literature'', (p. 198), Scarecrow Pres ...

. He is best known as the author of ''

The Wheel of Time ''The Wheel of Time'' is a series of high fantasy novels by the American author Robert Jordan, with American author Brandon Sanderson as co-writer of the final three installments. Originally planned as a trilogy, ''The Wheel of Time'' came to ...

'' series, which comprises 14 books and a prequel novel. He is one of several writers to have written original

Conan the Barbarian Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero created by American author Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) and who debuted in 1932 and went on to appear in a series of fantasy stories published in ''We ...

novels; his are considered by fans to be some of the best of the non-

Robert E. Howard Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American writer who wrote pulp magazine, pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He created the character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sor ...

efforts. Jordan also published historical fiction using the pseudonym Reagan O'Neal, a

western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

as Jackson O'Reilly, and dance criticism as Chang Lung. Jordan claimed to have ghostwritten an "international thriller" that is still believed to have been written by someone else.

Early life

Jordan was born in

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

. He went to

Clemson University Clemson University () is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university near Clemson, South Carolina, United States. - The blue-shaded pattern denotes university property. This shows Clemson University is ''out ...

after high school, but dropped out after one year and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served two tours of duty during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

as a helicopter gunner. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with

oak leaf cluster An oak leaf cluster is a ribbon device to denote preceding decorations and awards consisting of a miniature bronze or silver twig of four oak leaves with three acorns on the stem. It is authorized by the United States Armed Forces for a spec ...

, the

Bronze Star The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...

with "V" and oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm. After returning from Vietnam in 1970, Jordan studied

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

at The Citadel. He graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science degree and began working for the U.S. Navy as a nuclear engineer. He began writing in 1977.

Personal life

Robert Jordan was a history buff and enjoyed hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool, and pipe-collecting. He described himself as a "

High church A ''high church'' is a Christian Church whose beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, Christian liturgy, liturgy, and Christian theology, theology emphasize "ritual, priestly authority, ndsacraments," and a standard liturgy. Although ...

Episcopalian Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protes ...

and received communion more than once a week. Politically, he described himself as a "

libertarian Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according ...

monarchist Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. C ...

". He lived with his wife, Harriet McDougal, who works as a book editor (currently with

Tor Books Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates), a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles. History Tor was founded by Tom Doherty, ...

; she was also Jordan's editor) in a house built in 1797. He listed John D. MacDonald,

Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...

Louis L'Amour Louis Dearborn L'Amour (; né LaMoore; March 22, 1908 – June 10, 1988) was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels, though he called his work "frontier stories". His most widely known West ...

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

, Robert A. Heinlein,

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

and

Montaigne Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne ( ; ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), commonly known as Michel de Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularising the essay as ...

as his favorite authors.

Illness and death

On March 23, 2006, Jordan revealed that he had been diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis and that, with treatment, his

median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

life expectancy Human life expectancy is a statistical measure of the estimate of the average remaining years of life at a given age. The most commonly used measure is ''life expectancy at birth'' (LEB, or in demographic notation ''e''0, where '' ...

was four years. In a separate weblog post, he encouraged his fans not to worry about him and stated that he intended to have a long and creative life. He began

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (list of chemotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard chemotherapy re ...

Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic () is a Nonprofit organization, private American Academic health science centre, academic Medical centers in the United States, medical center focused on integrated health care, healthcare, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science ...

during early April 2006. He participated in a study of the drug Revlimid, which had been approved recently for

multiple myeloma Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibody, antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone ...

but not yet tested for primary

amyloidosis Amyloidosis is a group of diseases in which abnormal proteins, known as amyloid fibrils, build up in tissue. There are several non-specific and vague signs and symptoms associated with amyloidosis. These include fatigue, peripheral edema, weigh ...

. Jordan died on September 16, 2007. His funeral service was on September 19, 2007. He was cremated and his ashes buried in the churchyard of St. James Church in Goose Creek, outside

. Jordan's papers can be found in the special collections of the

College of Charleston The College of Charleston (CofC or Charleston) is a public university in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Founded in 1770 and chartered in 1785, it is the oldest university in South Carolina, the 13th-oldest institution of higher lea ...

Selected works

The Wheel of Time

Jordan published 11 books of 14 in the main sequence of the Wheel of Time series. Reviewers and fans of the earlier books noted a slowing of the pace of events in the last few installments written solely by Jordan owing to the expansion of the scale of the series as a whole. Because of his health problems, Jordan did not work at full force on the final installment '' A Memory of Light'' (later split into three volumes beginning with '' The Gathering Storm''), but blog entries confirmed that he continued work on it until his death, and he shared all of the significant plot details with his family not long before he died. He maintained that in doing so the book would get published even if "the worst actually happens". On December 7, 2007, Tor Books announced that

Brandon Sanderson Brandon Winn Sanderson (born December19, 1975) is an American author of high fantasy, science fiction, and young adult books. He is best known for the Cosmere fictional universe, in which most of his fantasy novels, most notably the '' Mistb ...

had been chosen to finish the Wheel of Time series. Harriet McDougal, Jordan's widow, chose him after reading '' Mistborn: The Final Empire''. All paperback (PB) page totals given are for the most widely available mass-market paperback editions. The page count for the hardback (HB) editions does not include glossary or appendix page counts. '' The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time'' is an encyclopedia for the series about the unnamed world where the plot takes place, which is often referred to by fans of the series as the World of the Wheel or less formally as Randland in reference to the main character. It is published in the United States by

and in the United Kingdom by Orbit Books. The bulk of the text was written by Teresa Patterson based on notes and information provided by Jordan, who also served as the overall editor on the project. While the information in the guide is broadly canonical, the book is deliberately written as an in-universe work with vague, biased, or even downright false (or guessed) information in places, as Patterson felt this would reflect a key theme of the series (the mutability of knowledge across time and distance). This ~300-page encyclopedia was published in 1997, when only half of the main series had been published. The book is commonly referenced as the "Big White Book (of Bad Art)" in reference to the printed version's substantially larger height and width compared to the books of the main series. This name is also in reference to the various artworks printed in the book's fourth section which is titled ''Some Narrative Paintings of Questionable Authenticity''. '' The Wheel of Time Companion'' (often referred to simply as "The Companion") is a more comprehensive encyclopedia published in 2015, more than two years after the completion of the main series. It was compiled by Harriet McDougal and Jordan's assistants Alan Romanczuk and Maria Simons using Jordan's notes. This ~800-page encyclopedia is more comprehensive than ''The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time'' and consists almost entirely of entries describing particular characters, locations, items, and concepts from the series. The Companion is not written as an in-universe work and is generally written from a more objective, authoritative perspective than the earlier encyclopedia. As a result, information from the Companion is generally considered more reliable than information from the Big White Book.

Conan the Barbarian

Jordan was one of several writers who have written

stories. When Tom Doherty obtained the rights, he needed a novel very quickly, so Jordan's wife Harriet McDougal recommended him because she knew he had written his first novel, ''Warriors of the Altaii'', in thirteen days.

So he thought I could write something fast, and he was right, and I liked it. It was fun writing something completely over the top, full of
purple prose In literary criticism, purple prose is overly ornate prose text that may disrupt a narrative flow by drawing undesirable attention to its own extravagant style of writing, thereby diminishing the appreciation of the prose overall. Purple prose i ...
, and in a weak moment I agreed to do five more and the novelization of the second Conan movie. I've decided that those things were very good discipline for me. I had to work with a character and a
world The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...
that had already been created and yet find a way to say something new about the character and the world. That was a very good exercise.

# '' Conan the Invincible'' (1982) # '' Conan the Defender'' (1982) # '' Conan the Unconquered'' (1983) # '' Conan the Triumphant'' (1983) # '' Conan the Magnificent'' (1984) # ''

Conan the Destroyer ''Conan the Destroyer'' is a 1984 American epic sword-and-sorcery film directed by Richard Fleischer from a screenplay by Stanley Mann and a story by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway. Based on the character Conan the Barbarian created by Robert ...

'' (1984) (adaptation of the '' movie of the same title'') # '' Conan the Victorious'' (1984) They were packed into two separate volumes par ''Conan the Destroyer'': * '' The Conan Chronicles'' * '' The Further Chronicles of Conan'' ('' The Conan Chronicles II'' in the UK, different contents) Jordan also compiled a well-known Conan Chronology.

References

External links

Robert Jordan's Official Blog

*
Robert Jordan at Tor Books

Robert Jordan
at Worlds Without End {{DEFAULTSORT:Jordan, Robert 1948 births 2007 deaths 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists 20th-century pseudonymous writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American novelists 21st-century pseudonymous writers American Episcopalians American fantasy writers American male novelists Anglican writers Conan the Barbarian novelists Deaths from amyloidosis Novelists from South Carolina Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) The Citadel alumni The Wheel of Time United States Army officers United States Army personnel of the Vietnam War United States Navy officers Writers from Charleston, South Carolina