Robert Jordan

Template:Short description Template:Other people Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox writer James Oliver Rigney Jr. (October 17, 1948 – September 16, 2007), better known by his pen name Robert Jordan,<ref name="origin">"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 a 1997 interview he did on the DragonCon SciFi Channel Chat.</ref> was an American author of epic fantasy. He is best known as the author of The Wheel of Time series, which comprises 14 books and a prequel novel. The series is among the highest selling book series of all time, with 90 million copies sold.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In his earlier career he became one of several writers to produce original Conan the Barbarian novels; his are considered by fans to be some of the best of the non-Robert E. Howard efforts. Robert Jordan was the most well known of several pen names he used, adopting different monikers for different genres.<ref name="theoryland2005">Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life

Jordan was born in Charleston, South Carolina on October 17, 1948 to James and Eva Rigney (nee Grooms). Rigney Sr. was a World War II veteran and served as a police officer before working at the Charleston Naval Shipyard. <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He taught himself to read at the age of four years old, because his older brother did not finish reading White Fang to him and Jordan "wanted to know what happened," and at five was reading Mark Twain and Jules Verne.<ref name="torbio"/> <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He went to Clemson University, where he played football as a lineman, but dropped out after one year and enlisted in the U.S. Army.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Military service

File:HueyRigney.png

A Bell UH-1 Iroquois photographed by Jordan during his second tour in Vietnam, 1969-70.

He served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War as a helicopter gunner, from 1968 to 1970.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He supported Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters, and was deployed to Saigon and later Bien Hoa. Asked about his experiences in 2003, he stated that they flew in "Zone C, The Phu Rieng Rubber Plantation, down to Cu Chi in the delta, over to Nui Ba Dinh, Black Virgin Mountain, and we were flying into Cambodia long before the Parrot's Beak".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He survived a helicopter crash aged 19, which affected his views on mortality.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> During his time in the military one of his nicknames was "Iceman", in reference to an incident in which he intercepted a number of NVA troops crossing a river. Jordan strongly disliked the nickname. In a 2007 blog post, he stated that he "strangled that SOB, drove a stake through his heart, and buried him face down under a crossroad outside Saigon before coming home, because I knew that guy wasn't made to survive in a civilian environment." He preferred the nickname Ganesha he attained, as "the remover of obstacles".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with "V" and oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

After returning from Vietnam in 1970, Jordan studied physics at The Citadel Military College of South Carolina. He graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science degree and began working for the U.S. Navy as a nuclear engineer.<ref name="untitled" /> He designed tests and overhauled nuclear reactors for US naval vessels. In 1977 he fell during a walk between the dry dock and his office and faced a serious knee injury and an extended hospital stay. He found that he was bored by the work of other writers while in hospital, and believing he could do better, decided to begin writing himself.<ref name=writingontheweb>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Starlog>Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

Early works

Jordan began writing in 1977. His first writing project was a fantasy novel entitled Warriors of the Altaii, writing by hand over three and a half months and typing it up when he returned to work. He contacted Donald A. Wolheim at DAW Books and immediately received an offer, but after attempting to negotiate a minor detail the offer was rejected, citing his "excessive demands". Despite the lack of a publishing deal, he tendered his resignation from his nuclear engineering job- confident that he could write full time.<ref name=Starlog/><ref name=writingontheweb/><ref name="theoryland2003">Template:Cite web</ref>

A local bookstore owner put Jordan in touch with the editor Harriet McDougal, who read Altaii. Instead of editing this early work she asked for a new story, which led Jordan to write The Fallon Blood, published in 1980 by McDougal's personal imprint, Popham Press. Jordan began dating McDougal and his late 1970s Dungeons & Dragons game with her son Will would serve as inspiration for The Wheel of Time.<ref name="hornbostel">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Jordan wrote three books in the Fallon saga and planned it to be a longer series chronicling the history of the United States from the time of the Civil War to the Vietnam War. While the works sold fairly well, Jordan became bored after the third one and decided to explore other avenues.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Jordan stopped using Popham Press in the early 1980s as he was aware that it was owned by McDougal and he was about to marry his "only source of income". With this in mind, his future books would be published by other companies while McDougal would continue to edit his works.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He also wrote the western Cheyenne Raiders around this time, his only book to use a different editor.

Conan the Barbarian

Tom Doherty at Tor Books obtained the rights to Conan the Barbarian and needed a novel very quickly. McDougal recommended Jordan because she knew he had written his first novel, Warriors of the Altaii, in a very short time span. Jordan initially turned down the offer because he was concerned about writing in an established fictional universe from another author. He later accepted and enjoyed the project, though he found it difficult to be creative within the strict format rules of the books.<ref name=Starlog/> Jordan would go on to write seven of these from 1982 to 1984. Template:Blockquote

The Wheel of Time

Template:Main On the back of the successful Conan books, Doherty asked if he had any other book ideas, and Jordan discussed his plans for an epic fantasy series, of up to three books in length.<ref name="thewertzone">Template:Cite web</ref> Jordan's work on The Wheel of Time began in 1984 and ballooned in scope from the initial three book vision.<ref name="thewertzone"/> The series would occupy much of his writing time for the remainder of his life. He completed 12 books in his lifetime, including the prequel New Spring. 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.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Diagnosed with a terminal heart condition in the mid 2000s, he became concerned that he might not live to complete the series and compiled additional notes beyond those he already had so that another could finish the "final" book, A Memory of Light.<ref name="Forbes">Template:Cite web</ref> He shared all of the significant plot details with his family not long before he died with this in mind.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He maintained that in doing so the book would get published even if "the worst actually happens".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After Jordan's death in September 2007, Brandon Sanderson took on that role, splitting the final book into three volumes, and completed the series in 2013.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

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Jordan's office in Charleston, South Carolina, where much of his writing was done

Robert Jordan was a history enthusiast and enjoyed hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool, and pipe-collecting. He described himself as a "high church" Episcopalian<ref name="untitled">Template:Cite web</ref> and received communion more than once a week.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Politically, he described himself as a "libertarian monarchist".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Jordan's favorite authors were John D. MacDonald, Jane Austen, Louis L'Amour,, Charles Dickens, Robert A. Heinlein, Mark Twain and Montaigne.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was a prodigious reader, reading around 400 books a year in the early 1990s, and his home library had over 14,000 books at the time of his death. <ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Jordan acknowledged in interviews that as a younger man he had been in a relationship with two women who would arrange a dating schedule between them. This inspired the non-monogamous relationships seen in his writing.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Jordan later met the editor Harriet McDougal, whom he married in 1981. Among other material, McDougal edited Jordan's work.<ref name="torbio">Template:Cite web</ref>

Illness and death

On March 23, 2006, Jordan revealed that he had been diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis and that, with treatment, his median life expectancy was four years.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He began chemotherapy at Mayo Clinic during early April 2006.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He participated in a study of the drug Revlimid, which had been approved recently for multiple myeloma but not yet tested for primary amyloidosis.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Jordan died on September 16, 2007.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His funeral service was on September 19, 2007.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was cremated and his ashes buried in the churchyard of St. James Church in Goose Creek, outside Charleston, South Carolina.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Jordan's papers can be found in the special collections of the College of Charleston.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Access to some records including Jordan's correspondence papers is restricted, and will not be available for viewing until thirty years after his death (September 2037).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Pseudonyms

Born Rigney jr., he published his works under pseodonyms or "pen names", of which Robert Jordan was his best known. He used different titles for different genres:<ref name="theoryland2005"/>

• Robert Jordan- Fantasy (The Wheel of Time, Conan the Barbarian, Warriors of Altaii)
• Chang Lung- Dance criticism
• Reagan O'Neal- Historical fiction (The Fallon Saga)
• Jackson O'Reilly- Western (Cheyenne Raiders)

Jordan never published any books under his actual name. This was reserved for a hypothetical book about his experiences in the Vietnam War which he never wrote. <ref name="Locus">Template:Cite web</ref> He also claimed to have ghostwritten an "international thriller" that as of 2005 was still believed to have been written by someone else.

External links

• Robert Jordan's Official Blog
• Robert Jordan at the Internet Book List
• Template:ISFDB name
• Robert Jordan at Tor Books
• Robert Jordan at Worlds Without End