OneAndOneIs2

Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series, died on Sunday.

Insert all the obvious "Poor guy, it's a tragedy, heart disease sucks" statements here. But I have to say, although the first I knew of his health problems was when I heard they'd killed him, I gave up reading his series several books ago for basically this reason.

Whether because I'm deeply cynical, or because I have an uncanny instinct for these matters, I didn't want to read a series that would never end because the author died.

That's genuinely the reason I stopped reading them.

The fact that the story was getting WAY too long was a factor, I admit. The rot started to set in when I read an entire book cover-to-cover and then was unable to think of a single answer to the question "So what happens in the new book then?"

A factor, yes, but not the deciding one. For whatever reason, for no reason I'm aware of, I always expected him to die with the series unfinished.

It's a damn shame I've been proved right. I hope that the notes he left behind are enough to allow somebody else to finish the job: I can't believe he'd be happy in his rest if his magnum opus went unfinished.