R.I.P. Robert Jordan

In his bestselling Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan proved that the imagination is limitless. In spite of that, he fearlessly probed its edges and sought its boundaries. He refused to be shackled by the confines of history or convention. Through his books, I spent countless hours in exotic places with people who were both real and yet far more than real. The best authors have that ability to distort your perception of time and place, making you come out of their books dazed and blinking, wondering where that world you were just in had vanished to. The best stories are the ones that become, at least for a time, more real than your living room. Those are the stories Robert Jordan wrote, the stories that find a place inside you where they stay forever.
The Wheel of Time series is unfinished, and will remain so-- at least by the man who created it. Internet rumor is that he left notes for its completion, and I hope that is the case. He died on Sunday in South Carolina.
Farewell Robert Jordan, and thank you. May you always find water and shade.