Robert Jordan (James Oliver Rigney Jr., 1948 to 2007) was an American fantasy novelist best known for creating The Wheel of Time.
Robert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney Jr., born in Charleston, South Carolina, on October 17, 1948, and he became one of the defining voices of late-20th-century epic fantasy.
Before his writing career took over, he served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army, then graduated from The Citadel with a physics degree. He later worked as a nuclear engineer before turning to fiction full time.
His early novels were published under different names for different genres, including Reagan O’Neal for historical fiction and Jackson O’Reilly for a western, before his fantasy work under the Robert Jordan name became the centerpiece of his career.
That fantasy legacy is The Wheel of Time, a vast secondary-world epic that began with The Eye of the World and expanded far beyond its initial scope, eventually reaching fourteen main volumes plus a prequel novel. Jordan completed the series up to Knife of Dreams (2005); after his death in 2007, the concluding volumes were completed from his notes by Brandon Sanderson and published from 2009 to 2013.
The Eye of the World (1990, Tor Books; release date Jan 15, 1990)
The Great Hunt (1990, Tor Books)
The Dragon Reborn (1991, Tor Books)
The Shadow Rising (1992, Tor Books)
The Fires of Heaven (1993, Tor Books)
Lord of Chaos (1994, Tor Books; release date Oct 15, 1994)
A Crown of Swords (1996, Tor Books)
The Path of Daggers (1998, Tor Books)
Winter’s Heart (2000, Tor Books)
Crossroads of Twilight (2003, Tor Books)
New Spring (2004, Tor Books)
Knife of Dreams (2005, Tor Books)
The Gathering Storm (2009, Tor Books; completed by Brandon Sanderson from Jordan’s notes)
Towers of Midnight (2010, Tor Books; completed by Brandon Sanderson from Jordan’s notes)
A Memory of Light (2013, Tor Books; completed by Brandon Sanderson from Jordan’s notes)
The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time (1997, published in the U.S. by Tor Books; written with Teresa Patterson)
The Wheel of Time Companion (2015, Tor Books; edited and compiled from Jordan’s notes by Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons)
Conan the Invincible (1982, Tor Books)
Conan the Defender (1982, Tor Books)
Conan the Unconquered (1983, Tor Books)
Conan the Triumphant (1983, Tor Books)
Conan the Magnificent (1984, Tor Books)
Conan the Destroyer (1984, Tor Books; adaptation of the second film)
Conan the Victorious (1984, Tor Books)
The Conan Chronicles (1995, Tor)
The Conan Chronicles II (1997, Legend UK)
The Further Chronicles of Conan (1999, Tor)
Warrior of the Altaii (2019; written in the late 1970s and published posthumously)
The Fallon Blood (1980, Popham Press)
The Fallon Pride (1981, Popham Press)
The Fallon Legacy (1982, Popham Press)
Cheyenne Raiders (1982, published under Tor’s Forge imprint)
Recorded awards and major nominations attributed to Robert Jordan and his work include the following (selection from ISFDB’s award bibliography):
Lord of Chaos: won the 1995 Locus Award (Best Fantasy Novel) ISFDB
The Wheel of Time (series): nominated for the 2014 Hugo Award (Best Novel, treated as a multi-part serialized single work under WSFS rules)
Multiple Locus Award appearances for Wheel of Time titles are listed in the ISFDB award record (including nominations/placements for The Eye of the World, The Shadow Rising, The Fires of Heaven, Winter’s Heart, Knife of Dreams, and others).
Below, you can find links to hubs of information on the brilliant works of Robert Jordan
