Right around the time FASA stopped paying him and outright stiffing him on the bills, leaving him working for free (as they were taking all his royalty money and sticking it in lawsuits) - something he put up with far, far longer than the other decent writers because he actually likes the universe and had a huge hand in shaping it's major events - I have to admit my respect points for him went up. I totally understand why he left.
While his novels might not have been A list, top tier sci-fi they did provide a lot of great fluff for the universe and had a huge focus on characters and politics over non-stop battles. Some of his books were thicker than most paperbacks I've seen only had a handful of pages dedicated to actual fighting. I liked that.
As soon as he departed, the universe storyline imploded (Steiner turned super evil, Davion turned super good and the Clans turned into Klingons shouting HONOR HONOR HONOR) leading to the crapfest that was the period between CBT and Dark Ages. While the loss of other writers hurt too, I think losing his hand in the canon was the real kick in the teeth.
Team Leader, on 26 June 2012 - 09:05 AM, said:
Is he still alive? If so, what if he was a member of this very site, reading this, RIGHT NOW? And what if he actually got a legenday pack? also Ive never read any battle tech books.
This was the 80s. Yes, he's still alive.
Edited by Victor Morson, 26 June 2012 - 09:07 AM.