Mittopia

What a sad week…I read about it Monday morning and was going to give you a call. I must have been in denial about because I found excuses or things to keep me busy instead of calling Monday night. I remeber seeing EOtW at the Booksmith in the Hanover Mall back in 1990. I decided at that time not to buy it because it didn’t have a half-naked woman wielding a broadsword slaying a dragon on the cover. It wasn’t until you suggested that I read it. The old cliche held true for RJ…don’t judge a book by its cover. He definitely has been a part of my life and a big influence on my “literary lense”. What makes him amazing is that even in the last year of his life he shared with his readers the struggle of fighting amliodosis. Up until the last few weeks he was still occasionally responding through his blog that not to worry and that if he did pass away he had made sure that his Harriet and Wilson knew of his plans so AMoL could be finished. A sad day. Anyways, I should be on WoW this afternoon…probably around 4pm. We’ll have to drink a toast to the Dragon on Saturday.

We most certainly shall drink a toast to the man. And then I will quietly wonder to myself if I will every find out how this whole thing was supposed to end. The fact that I might never know hurts almost as much.

RJ had enough foresight and love for his fans that AMoL (A Memory of Light) will still get published. There’s a touching blog from Wilson at wotmania.com that points out RJ telling the family the story of AMoL. Unfortunately the site that hosted RJ’s blog is down at the moment. I believe that despite RJ being sick this past year, AMoL was well on its way to completion. I think we will see it in the next year or two and that it will knock our socks off. I have to admit though, I never thought his death would have this effect on me. Amlyodosis is a death sentence so I knew it was coming….just didnt think it would be this sudden.

Thats good to hear, but will it be the same? I can’t imagine it will. I think it will be subtly off. I was kind of hit hard as well for the same reason. Add to that how the different posts had been saying how he had gotten his numbers back in the normal range, and all of that stuff made this announcement more unexpected. Man, it just sucks.