Robert Jordan

[tmcg]

A few minutes ago, I heard from another author on the phone that Robert Jordan had died.

I started copyediting his books with The Shadow Rising, in 1992. When you work on a long-running series for so many years, you develop a strangely personal relationship with the author even if you never meet face-to-face or speak over the phone, and I feel...bereaved, in a way that's hard to articulate. And frustrated, with a shake-your-fist-at-the-universe kind of anger. The Wheel of Time was the grand work of a lifetime, and he should have had the lifetime to complete it.


Making Light, with many more links in the comments

Dragonmount (server appears to be overwhelmed)

Associated Press release, via Google

The longer AP obituary via the New York Times

A mirror of his cousin Wilson's statement

The Robert Jordan Memorial Forum at TarValon.net

Comments

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for your loss, Terry.

Big virtual hug from here.

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Thanks, D. I feel strange accepting condolences, but it's no stranger than anything else in this whole strange mix of personal and professional, writer empathy and reader empathy and relationship with the sentience behind the words on all those many, many pages, and I am very sad. Your hug is much appreciated. {{{hugs back}}}

[webfarmer.livejournal.com]

Our large number of distance relationships seems to make this a lot more "normal" a reaction it might have been in bygone eras. These days, I often feel closer to many of my on-line friends than I do with friends in the so-called real world.

For example, I'd only met Grace Paley a couple of times in social settings but when she died it was a sadness. I'd spent more time with her husband Bob at Camp Social Ecology and feel badly, albeit at a distance, for him as well.

I wasn't a "fan" of either. Just an acquaintance. Good people both.