"Robert Jordan" is actually a pseudonym for James Oliver Rigney, Jr. (he's written under other pseudonyms, including Reagan O'Neal, Jackson O'Reilly, and Chang Lung), but the Wheel of Time series is going to establish this name in the genre for some time to come. He's graduated from the "Citadel", which is a military style academy, and he seems to use much of his experience there to add color and depth to his stories.

  • The Wheel of Time - Lots of huge books filled with gripping adventure. It is basically a Messiah legend, which Jordan manages to embellish with a myriad of details, placing quirky characters in a patchwork landscape. I started reading the series because I thought I should, and I continued reading them because I wanted to. There is plenty in these stories to remind readers of Tolkien, but Jordan is usually as good a story teller as Tolkien. I found the series late - the series' first book, The Eye of the World, a thinly disguised and rather inferior imitation of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, came out in 1989 - but in the course of five weeks I bulldozed my way through all seven of the books. This wouldn't have been possible if the books hadn't improved markedly after the first.
  • The ninth, Winter's Heart, came out recently (late 2000, I think). It was one of the better books of the series, with some interesting and long awaited developments. Wheel of Time fans might find the famous FAQ of particular interest.
  • The most recent book in the series, number 11, is Knife of Dreams (2005). I haven't read it yet. Even ardent fans are complaining that Jordan seems to have forgotten about plot advancement. The first book covered about a year in Randland (what fans call the place where the story happens). The second book covered about half a year, and since then each new book covered about half the time of the previous book, so that the 10th one, Crossroads of Twilight covered barely a week's worth of events. By that pattern this latest book should deal with a couple of days, and by the time Jordan is ready to wrap things up we'll just finish breakfast in the course of 500 pages of prose. Yikes!
1