Jordan, the pen name of 52-year-old Charleston, South Carolina, author James Oliver Rigney Jr., should be forgiven if he feels a tad caught in the whirlwind.
Publisher Tom Doherty Associates (Tor Books) released Book Nine, Winter’s Heart , on November 7. Since then, there have been interviews, promotional appearances and book-signings aplenty. Fans pepper him with questions. The first one nearly always echoes the 1965 film about the painting of the Sistine Chapel, “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” as the pope demands of the artist: “When will you make an end?”
“In the beginning, I truly thought it was going to be four or five books,” said Jordan, a tall, burly man with a salt-and-pepper beard, a shock of unruly dark curls and a seeming perpetual twinkle in his hazel eyes. “When I finished The Eye of the World , I thought I had a good chance of doing it in six.
By the end of Book Two, The Great Hunt , also released in 1990, Jordan was no longer sure. “I thought I’d better keep my head down and push on,” he said. “Now, I think it will be at least three more books.”
Jordan hastens to add, however, “That’s not a guarantee it will be done in three books.”
A slight pause for the gnashing of teeth. Even so, Jordan’s fans will probably wait, if not always patiently.
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