Robert Jordan 1948 - 2007

Late last night I started seeing reports that Robert Jordan (James Rigney) had passed away. Most people who read this blog will know Jordan as the author of the Wheel of Time books for Tor. I read the first Wheel of Time book and enjoyed it quite a bit. But, epic fantasy is not my favorite thing to read, so I never picked up any other books in the series.

I never worked with Jordan while I was at Tor, but whenever a new book was coming out, it seemed the whole office was working on them. I only met him once, and he was extremely pleasant and polite. What I remember most about meeting him was when Tom Doherty came into the room, they embraced each other like wrestlers. You could tell that Jordan was much more than an author to Doherty. I can only imagine how this news has hit Doherty, or Jordan's wife and editor Harriet MacDougal.

Jordan was easily Tor's biggest seller. I think you could safely say that Jordan was fantasy's biggest seller. No one else, including Tor's Terry Goodkind (whom I did worh with), another fantasy giant, had numbers quite like Jordan. In fact, you can read Mr. Wheeler's statements about fantasy sales here to get a sense of what sort of impact Jordan has had on the field.

I also know that Jordan's books (of which there should be at least one more, the final installment of the Wheel of Time) gave Tor the freedom to look into new authors, strange books, talented authors who didn't have big sales, etc. Perhaps this is crass in this moment (I don't want to dilute his life into nothing more than sales figures), but I can't help but wonder what Jordan's passing means to Tor's future.

Yes, there are other authors at Tor who have strong sales numbers like the aforementioned Goodkind and Orson Scott Card. But together they don't total the sales from one Jordan book (I'm speaking generalities, I don't have facts to back me up so I apologize if I'm wrong). And I suspect that while Tom Doherty remains at Tor, there is little that will change. There is, as I said, at least one more Robert Jordan book to come out, so there are no concerns in the short term.