Theoryland Resources
WoT Interview Search
Search the most comprehensive database of interviews and book signings from Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson and the rest of Team Jordan.
Wheel of Time News
An Hour With Harriet
2012-04-30: I had the great pleasure of speaking with Harriet McDougal Rigney about her life. She's an amazing talent and person and it will take you less than an hour to agree.
The Bell Tolls
2012-04-24: Some thoughts I had during JordanCon4 and the upcoming conclusion of "The Wheel of Time."
Theoryland Community
Members: 7653
Logged In (0):
Newest Members:johnroserking, petermorris, johnadanbvv, AndrewHB, jofwu, Salemcat1, Dhakatimesnews, amazingz, Sasooner, Hasib123,
Theoryland Tweets
WoT Interview Search
Home | Interview Database
Your search for the tag 'cheyenne raiders' yielded 13 results
-
1
Interview: Oct 21st, 1994
AOL Chat 1 (Verbatim)Jdieu
I was just wondering two things: one, what books do YOU read, and what are some of the titles and types of your other written books? I'm really interested in reading more of your writing!Robert Jordan
I read about four hundred or so books a year, half nonfiction, the fiction spread over almost every genre. I have written Westerns, historical fiction, international intrigue; I've ghostwritten some books; but everything except the fantasy is out of print at the moment.Tags
-
2
Interview: Nov 11th, 1997
Barnes and Noble Chat (Verbatim)Bob from California
I hear you wrote a Western? Is that true? If so, I'd love to read it. Any plans for any more Westerns or historical novels in the future? By the way, I just got The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time...what a gorgeous book. Great work!!!!!Robert Jordan
Well, thanks. As far as the Westerns go—yes I wrote a Western once. A little out of the ordinary, set in the 1830s and with only one major character who was not a Cheyenne Indian. I might do a Western one day or more historical novels. History and the American West in general interest me greatly. But for the moment, The Wheel of Time takes up all of mine—time that is.Tags
-
3
Interview: Jul 14th, 2005
ComicCon Reports (Paraphrased)Question
Someone remarked for Cheyenne Raiders how much they resemble the Aiel.Robert Jordan
The Cheyenne were originally farmers in eastern central North America. They were attacked again and again by more ferocious tribes from the east and pushed farther and farther west. They eventually lost the art of farming and became nomads. In a tribal council they decided to become warriors and defend themselves and they eventually became the finest light cavalry in the world—a pacifist society forced by circumstance to become warriors. The Aiel also include facets of Apache, Zulu, Bedouin and Japanese.Tags
-
4
Interview: Sep, 2005
Radio Dead Air Interview (Verbatim)Glas Durboraw
What other books have you written besides the Wheel of Time series? That's the one I'm most familiar with.Robert Jordan
Well, many years ago, for my sins, I wrote seven Conan novels, ah, novels of Conan the Barbarian. I had been asked to do those because 1) my publisher got the chance to do the Conan novels, 2) the first Conan movie was coming out soon, and he wanted the novel fast, 3) he knew that I had once written a 98,000-word novel in thirteen days—well, it was remarkable, but I already had it all laid out in my head and all the research when I started that one—and I said yes to the one, and had so much fun doing that one that in a weak moment I said yes to six more. You know, they kept the wolf from the door for a few years, and that was good, and I also learned some lessons about writing within constraints. When you're trying to find something original to do or say in a world that has been created by somebody else, using a character who has been created by somebody else, it's difficult, and you have to stretch some muscles to be able to do that. I think I actually grew as a writer doing that, by that exercise. I have written...Conan was originally created by Robert Howard in the 1930s. Howard was, as a short story writer, one of the richest men in his West Texas town. When his father died, he promised his father he would take care of his mother. When his mother died, he committed suicide. Now, the reason he committed suicide, frankly, I think was the fact that it was West Texas in the Depression, and I can hardly imagine a bleaker place, and Howard himself firmly believed in reincarnation, and I think he just decided he was going to see what came next.As for other books I've written, let's see...I ghost-wrote a novel, an international thriller that shall remain nameless. Well, not a bad book, but it is generally believed that somebody else wrote it, so we'll let it go at that. I wrote what I consider I guess a Western, although it was set in the 1830s and 40s; there was only one major character who was not a Cheyenne Indian. It has been reissued—five or six years ago, I think it was—in hardcover as a novel of the Western experience, and it was received quite nicely. And I wrote three historical novels, the first set during the American Revolution, following the same family. I had intended to do a Southern arc of history. The general arc of history that is studied in the United States and recognized is the move out of New England—Pennsylvania and New York—into the Ohio valley, and from there west to California, but there was a southern arc, which was the move out of Virginia and the Carolinas into Louisiana and Mississippi, and from there into Texas, and from there through New Mexico and Arizona into California. And I wanted to follow that in a series of novels that I originally intended to go from the American Revolution through the Vietnam War, but I'll tell you the truth...I got tired of them. They were doing nicely, but I just got tired of them and said, "I want to do something else."
Glas Durboraw
I can sympathize. Some day I hope somebody does something very similar that also tracks the settlers as they came through Knox Landing, along with the Scottish/Irish settlers up there in northern Alabama, because you had of course Mobile, three hundred years old in the south, in southern Alabama [?].Robert Jordan
I had gotten as far as the late 1820s or early 1830s and the family I was tracing, I'd reached as far as Texas, and you could see revolution on the horizon, but it had not arrived yet.Glas Durboraw
[?] That sounds wonderful, and if you ever get inspired to write that again, that would be great.Tags
-
5
Interview: Mar, 2006
Steven Steinbock
Ten of the Wheel of Time novels are available in unabridged format from Books on Tape and Audio Renaissance. All of these are co-read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading.Robert Jordan
"It was my suggestion in the first place," Jordan admitted, "that we have a male and a female actor to do this, a woman to read the female point of view and a man to read the male point of view. And we lucked out in that they both do voices as well. So it is as close as I can come to having an ensemble doing the reading."
Steven Steinbock
In addition, Jordan's Western novel, Cheyenne Raiders, available as a digital download from Books on Tape, is read by Michael Kramer.
Tags
-
6
Interview: Mar, 2006
Locus Magazine Interview (Verbatim)Robert Jordan
Before I start a book I always sit down and try to think how much of the story I can put into it. The outline is in my head until I sit down and start doing what I call a ramble, which is figuring how to put in the bits and pieces. In the beginning, I thought The Wheel of Time was six books and I'd be finished in six years. I actually write quite fast. The first Conan novel I did took 24 days. (I wrote seven Conan books—for my sins—but they paid the bills for a number of years.) For my Western, I was under severe time constraints in the contract so it was 98,000 words in 21 days—a killer of a schedule, especially since I was not working on a computer then, just using an IBM Correcting Selectric!
I started The Wheel of Time knowing how it began and how it all ended. I could have written the last scene of the last book 20 years ago—the wording would be different, but what happened would be the same. When I was asked to describe the series in six words, I said, 'Cultures clash, worlds change—cope. I know it's only five, but I hate to be wordy.' What I intended to do was a reverse-engineered mythology to change the characters in the first set of scenes into the characters in the last set of scenes, a bunch of innocent country folk changed into people who are not innocent at all. I wanted these boys to be Candides as much as possible, to be full of 'Golly, gee whiz!' at everything they saw once they got out of their home village. Later they could never go back as the same person to the same place they'd known.
But I'd sit down and figure I could get so much into a story, then begin writing and realize halfway in that I wasn't even halfway through the ramble. I'd have to see how I could rework things and put off some of the story until later. It took me four years to write The Eye of the World, and I still couldn't get as much of the story into it as I wanted; same with The Great Hunt. I finally reached a point where I won't have to do that. For Knife of Dreams I thought, "I've got to get all of that into one book: it's the penultimate volume!" And I did. Well, with one exception, but that's OK. That one exception would probably have added 300 pages to the book but I see how to put it in the last volume in fewer.
Tags
-
7
Interview: Oct 21st, 1994
AOL Chat 2 (Verbatim)Question
Have you written any books previous to the Wheel of Time set?Robert Jordan
Yes.Tags
-
8
Interview: Oct 21st, 1994
AOL Chat 2 (Verbatim)Question
What other books have you written under your other pen names?Robert Jordan
A number, in other genres, and they're all out of print at the moment.Tags
-
9
Interview: Nov 14th, 2009
TGS Signing Report - Aubree Pham (Paraphrased)Question
What medieval Arthurian texts were in RJ's library?Harriet McDougal Rigney
Harriet didn't remember anything specifically Arthurian, but there were a lot of books on mythology, religion, Asimov's guide to the bible, Norse, Greek, Cheyenne Indian. RJ wrote about the Cheyenne under the name Jackson O'Reilly. The Aiel are based on the Cheyenne.Tags
-
10
Interview: 2001
Author's Table Interview (Verbatim)Rochelle O'Gorman
I know you have used the pseudonyms Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reilly in the past. Why?Robert Jordan
To keep different genres separate. The other books were written before I began The Wheel of Time, and my publisher has re-issued them and insisted on doing them as "Robert Jordan writing as." But, I made them put the other pen name as large as possible on the cover so that they didn't do "ROBERT JORDAN writing as." As it was, I didn't want anybody to think that they were getting a new Robert Jordan novel, when what they were getting was a historical novel or a western that I wrote 15 or 20 years ago.
Rochelle O'Gorman
You're not doing those anymore, then?
Robert Jordan
No. I'm not saying I won't ever do them again.
Tags
-
11
Interview: Sep, 2000
Tahir Velimeev
I am very glad to meet you, dear Mr. Jordan! Welcome to St. Petersburg.Robert Jordan
Thank you! I'm also glad for the chance to visit your beautiful city. I’ve been to not a few places, but this is my first time in Russia. Many thanks to the organizers of the Wanderer Fantasy Convention who invited me to St. Petersburg. And my special thanks to them for the opportunity to visit Peterhof and admire its magnificent fountains. Fountains have fascinated me since childhood ...
Tahir Velimeev
What is the proper way to address you?—Mr. Robert Jordan? Or Mr. James Rigney ... Or in some other way?
Robert Jordan
Call me, as we do it in America, just James.
Tahir Velimeev
Or Robert? ...
Robert Jordan
Robert is fine too. I'm used to it. I’m often addressed exactly so in meetings with readers.
Tahir Velimeev
By the way, how many names does the multifaceted James Oliver Rigney, Jr. have?
Robert Jordan
Not very many, but also not a few. Under the pseudonym Reagan O'Neal the historical novels The Fallon Blood, The Fallon Legacy and The Fallon Pride were published. The events in them takes place during the American Revolution, around my hometown of Charleston. The name Jackson O'Reilly is on the cover of the western Cheyenne Raiders. My critical pieces on theater and dance I signed Chang Lung. And under the pseudonym Robert Jordan the novels of the Conan series and the The Wheel of Time series were published.
Tags
-
12
Interview: Dec 7th, 2012
The Robert Jordan Story (Verbatim)Harriet McDougal
I've edited every single one of his books except for his Cheyenne Raiders. An agent said to me once, "What if he gave you a real piece of [crap]?" And I said, "But he never would!" Tom Doherty called me; he had gotten the rights to do a Conan the Barbarian novel. And I said, "Well, Jim could do it." And he liked doing it so much, he ended up writing seven of them.
Tom Doherty
He was using a new name. As you know, Jim used pen names.
Narrator
Over the next decade, Rigney wrote under many pen names: Jackson O'Reilly, Reagan O'Neal, and of course, Robert Jordan.
Harriet McDougal
J.O.R.—That was his initials, and I guess the rest just grew because, the way his mind worked, he'd be working on current stuff, but on the back burner, things were cooking away.
Tom Doherty
Jim said that he had just dreamed to write a big fantasy.
Harriet McDougal
He said his first thought was just, how would it be to be told that you are going to be the savior of the world, but you're going to go mad and kill everyone you love in the process?
Tom Doherty
We bought the book in the mid-80s.
Harriet McDougal
It was four years of actual work, with words on paper, before he finished The Eye of the World.
Tom Doherty
God, I fell in love with it. I read it, you know, and I said, you know, boy, this is big. This is the first thing I thought could sell like Tolkien.
Harriet McDougal
The New York Times called Robert Jordan the American heir to Tolkien.
Tom Doherty
Pretty strong statement for the times.
Jason Denzel
In a matter of three books, Robert Jordan had developed an international following.
Brandon Sanderson
Robert Jordan was a genius. He kept so much in his head. He had so much depth and wealth of worldbuilding for this series, it's mind-boggling. We've got somewhere around three million plus words of text. The notes are just as big.
Tom Doherty
There are very few things to which people had been willing to give this enormous commitment.
Tags