James Oliver Rigney Jr. (October 17, 1948 – September 16, 2007), better known by his pen name Robert Jordan,[1] was an American author of epic fantasy.

[2] Jordan also published historical fiction using the pseudonym Reagan O'Neal, a western as Jackson O'Reilly, and dance criticism as Chang Lung.

Robert Jordan was a history buff and enjoyed hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool, and pipe-collecting.

[10] He listed John D. MacDonald, Jane Austen, Louis L'Amour, Charles Dickens, Robert A. Heinlein, Mark Twain and Montaigne as his favorite authors.

[11] 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.

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.

[20] Because of his health problems, Jordan did not work at full force on the final installment A Memory of Light (later split into three volumes beginning with The Gathering Storm), but blog entries confirmed that he continued work on it until his death, and he shared all of the significant plot details with his family not long before he died.

The bulk of the text was written by Teresa Patterson based on notes and information provided by Jordan, who also served as the overall editor on the project.

It was fun writing something completely over the top, full of purple prose, and in a weak moment I agreed to do five more and the novelization of the second Conan movie.