101 Reasons to Stop Writing

Not to be construed as speaking ill of the dead, but the announcement of the death of Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan just dropped a massive turd into the bookselling trade’s bottom line, particularly as far as science fiction and fantasy are concerned. After all, Scholastic faces a long bleak Christmas now that the last Harry Potter book is out, and now Tor is going to have to scramble to find another author who can crank out nearly unreadable fantasy, of a subgenre that Michael Moorcock once referred to as “pixieshit”, on cue every year. And what of the innumerable loggers in the American Pacific Northwest, now facing unemployment when the last Wheel of Time book follows its predecessors in a direct path from the printer to the remainder bin?

– Paul Riddell once stole from Mike Royko in stating that Tor publisher Tom Doherty “has the habit of smiling as if he just evicted a widow.” He doesn’t think Tommy’s going to be doing much smiling in the next few months.