The Associated Press reports that
David Eddings, the acclaimed fantasy novelist and author of such series as The Belgariad and The Malloreon, has died at the age of 77. Eddings was predeceased by his wife and writing partner Leigh two years ago.
When I worked at a used bookstore, I shelved all fourteen thousand, two hundred, and forty-three of his novels more times than I care to remember. But I never read any of them. Even so, I want to go on the record and declare that he deserved better than to be killed by his wife two years before he died.
(Need I remind you that grammar matters?)
I'm pretty sure that I've seen "predeceased" before in that "they died before him" sense.
But the image of being prepped for death by his wife, and living the last years as a semi-undead novelist....
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Thursday, 04 June 2009 at 07:03 AM
I predeceased back in 92, in order to catch the dip in burial-plot prices -- my plan is to pre-reanimate in 2016 when I'm thinking there is going to be a huge demand for zombies. It's like the stock market, your essence can be earning valuable returns while you go about your daily life unimpeded by ensoulment. You gotta be in it to win it.
Posted by: The Modesto Kid | Thursday, 04 June 2009 at 07:42 AM
Although it's not necessarily the best dictionary, merriam-webster.com defines predecease as a transitive verb that means "to die before (another person)." What's wrong with that usage? It's a bit weird to see it used in the passive voice, but that was necessary to maintain the topic of that paragraph as the subject.
As for his books: they're much less annoying to shelf than Robert Jordan's.
Posted by: Mike | Thursday, 04 June 2009 at 08:55 AM
Does that make her his predeceassor?
Posted by: tomemos | Thursday, 04 June 2009 at 10:03 AM
Just on the merits of his work - I read them in high school, and even then I could tell how bad they were. Thing that always grabbed me was the extreme lack of danger felt at any time. The heroes generally had a Magic Blue Rock (in two different series, mark you) that gave them actually unlimited power, the bad guys never actually got anywhere, and the good guys mostly rode around making snarky comments (very anachronistic ones) while dispatching huge numbers of the enemy.
Even as a rather unsophisticated teenager, I thought that there was something sociopathic about that.
Sorry he's dead tho.
Posted by: StevenAttewell | Thursday, 04 June 2009 at 03:48 PM