Permit to Operate
The Wheel of Time MUD has personal permission from the late Robert Jordan to operate. MUDs are amateur affairs and copyright is not always sought from the rightful owners. We are extremely grateful to RJ and his estate for their generosity and willingness to foster the creative spirit.
Robert Jordan, the author of the Wheel of Time Novels, passed on September 16, 2007, after a protracted struggle against amyloidosis.
The staff and players have much to thank Robert Jordan for. We collectively hope that he now rests in the Light, accompanied by the finest pipes and a grand set of bookshelves filled with outstanding works of history, his favorite reads.
Image credit: tor.com
A brief synopsis of the man himself
James Rigney, better known as Robert Jordan, was the author of the Wheel of Time series of fantasy novels, which focus on the messianic figure Rand al’Thor and his struggles to save an alternative world from evil, embodied by Shai’tan or the Dark One.
Unheard of by most readers of mainstream literary fiction, the series (abbreviated by fans to WoT or, less commonly, tWoT), attracted a huge and dedicated following both in Britain and the US. Books 8-11 all reached No 1 on The New York Times bestseller list. The series later spawned computer games and a soundtrack album. Only works by J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, C. S. Lewis and Terry Pratchett have outsold Jordan’s books in the fantasy genre.
Jordan wrote at a time, after the boom of fantasy fiction in the 1970s, when critics had limited patience with the genre, and on the rare occasion that his work was reviewed, it was often with hostility. “The book is strictly unreviewable, being bilge from beginning to end,” the TLS wrote of A Crown of Swords in 1996. It became an instant bestseller.