A repost of this sad news I just passed onto another forum:

Robert Jordan, author of the phenomenally successful (and controversial due to its length) Wheel of Time series, has announced that he is suffering from an exceptionally rare blood disease called amyloidosis. This disease is invariably fatal, but with treatment can be held at bay for many years. The treatment he is undergoing will extend his median life expectancy to over four years, with a high likelihood of him living longer than that.

This news can be found here:

http://www.locusmag.com/2006/Feature...danLetter.html

and additional information from Robert Jordan here:

http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=38

The final Wheel of Time book, A Memory of Light, is slated for publication in late 2008 and The Wheel of Time Encyclopedia shortly afterwards, so the WoT main series at least will be finished (crosses fingers), but the prequels, the side-novels and the Infinities of Heaven series may be more in doubt.

This is seriously bad news. After discovering Tolkien the next few authors I read were the likes of Eddings and Brooks (and Goodkind's first book) and for a while I wondered if epic fantasy was entirely just BS. Then I read the first six volumes of The Wheel of Time and was blown away by it. The sheer scale of the story, the constant inventiveness and clever re-use of old ideas and, yes, the deeper level of detail than was normal in an epic fantasy story all drew me in to the world. I've probably spent more time talking and writing about this series than any other, even my current favourite, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. As with many I began to lose faith around the eighth book and by the tenth I was pondering if the story was ever going to be ended. Then Jordan brought the plot threads back together in the eleventh volume and restored hope the series would end soon and, hopefully, in a worthwhile manner.

Jordan may long have been replaced in my appreciation by the likes of Martin and Erikson, but he thought big at a time when few writers would do so and paved the way for both the above authors and countless others since. Best wishes to him and his family.