Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney Jr., a decorated Vietnam veteran — two tours as a U.S. Army helicopter gunner, awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bronze Star with V for valor, among other honors — before he became one of epic fantasy's most influential writers. Starting with The Eye of the World in 1990, Jordan built The Wheel of Time around Rand al'Thor, a sheepherder who discovers he may be the prophesied Dragon Reborn, destined to fight the Dark One even if the fight itself drives him mad. Across fourteen sprawling volumes, Jordan constructed one of fantasy's most fully realized secondary worlds: a magic system built on gendered halves of the One Power, thousands of years of consistent history, and a cast that eventually numbered in the hundreds. Jordan was diagnosed with a rare blood illness, cardiac amyloidosis, in 2006 and died on 16 September 2007 with the series' final volume unfinished. Brandon Sanderson, a fantasy novelist in his own right, completed the story from Jordan's extensive notes and dictated outlines, splitting the planned final book into three — The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light — that brought Rand's story to its conclusion in 2013 largely as Jordan intended. New readers should start with The Eye of the World and read in publication order; the series was later adapted into Amazon's television series of the same name.