Robert Jordan’s Kind Words for A Game of Thrones back in 1997

“A Game of Thrones grabs hold and won’t let go. It’s brilliant.”

These were the words of James Oliver Rigney, Jr. better known as Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series. Over his long and storied career, Jordan wrote 14 Wheel of Time novels, including a prequel, with the final three books in the series posthumously co-authored with Brandon Sanderson. To say that Robert Jordan is one of the greatest authors of our time would be an understatement.

What people may not know, is that he and A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin had a friendship that lasted up until Jordan’s death in 2007. When Jordan passed away, Martin took to his Not A Blog to lament his friend’s passing:

"He was also unfailingly generous towards other fantasists, always ready to offer them support and encouragement. My own ICE & FIRE series might never have found its audience without the cover quote that Jim was so kind as to provide, back when A GAME OF THRONES was first published. I will always be grateful to him for that."

Martin has also paid homage to Jordan in his A Song of Ice and Fire books:

• In A Storm of Swords, Lord Trebor Jordayne of the Tor is mentioned by Tyrion Lannister as being one of the great lords of Dorne. Robert Jordan was published by Tor Books for most of his career.
• In the Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, Lady Rohanne Webber of Coldmoat has her hair tied in a long braid and tugs on it in moments of high stress, similar to the character of Nynaeve al’Meara in Jordan’s Wheel of Time novels.
• Archmaester Rigney is mentioned as theorizing that time is a wheel.

The two men were good friends, and thanks to Redditor OldWolf2, who dug-up a letter from Robert Jordan to Martin’s publisher Anne Lesley Groell, we can see just how much Jordan supported Martin.

I love that Jordan supports the fact that Martin no longer wanted to keep A Song of Ice and Fire a trilogy. Perhaps it was this letter and Jordan’s support that pushed Martin into creating a seven part book-series. My favorite line of this letter is:

"Writing what you want to write, in the way you want to write it, isn’t easy when lost of people are telling you that you can’t do it that way because it isn’t done that way."

George R.R. Martin apparently has held onto those words, because he has written what he wants to write, the way he wants to write them. And, despite the fact that it seems like ages between books, I for one am glad he’s doing it his way, and it’s possible we have Robert Jordan to thank for that.