Introduction: July 13, 2008
Hello, and welcome to the Reality Break podcast. I’m your host Dave Slusher.
This episode we have an archived interview conducted with the late James Rigney, who is better known by his pen name, Robert Jordan. I spoke with him in his hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1994 while he was on tour with the sixth Wheel of Time book, Lord of Chaos . His bibliography hardly needs introduction as he is one of the best-known fantasy authors of all time, but let’s do it anyway. He was the author of the Wheel of Time series, of which eleven volumes have been published, and the twelfth and final volume is due in late 2009. He was the author of eight Conan novels and a number of other novels outside of the fantasy genre. Sadly, he passed away from cardiac amyloidosis in September of 2007.
A few words about the circumstances of this interview. Because I overheard him as I was about to knock on his hotel room door, I know that right before we sat down to do the interview, he thought I was an idiot. Despite that, and despite the fact that I was kind of lost after having read 500 pages of Book Five of the series—I still didn’t really know what was going on—this interview turned out pretty well. I learned some interesting things about him and his work. And about a month after we conducted this interview, I got a nice hand-written note from him, thanking me at some length for taking the time to sit down with him and interview him.
He lived in Charleston, South Carolina, which is about 90 miles from where I am right now, and he was every bit the southern gentleman. He is mourned by his legion of friends and fans, and I consider myself lucky to have met the man. And now, without further ado, here is the 1994 interview with author Robert Jordan.
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