Better authors than him have died and still had their material released. Robert Jordan passed and we got 4-5 more books to finish the wheel of time. At this point we just need to wait for him to go and some other author (Sanderson?) To finish the series. Hell, another author like really like I preordered a book 5 years ago but he has major health issues and puts out a news letter about every other month communicating what's going.
