This is a later post than would be ideal, but it's been a busy bunch of weeks. Peter David, Writer of Stuff, died over Memorial Day weekend after several years of failing health.
Peter David was arguably my favorite writer over my teenage years, as during that era he churned out some of the very best Star Trek novels (Q-in-Law, Q-Squared, Imzadi, and the New Frontier series, among others), the post-Crisis Supergirl revival, the Aquaman "hook-hand" era, and the original Young Justice team. And that was a small fraction of what he actually produced: Described by his peers as "an inhuman writing machine," the man could put Steven King to shame with the number of novels, comics and TV scripts he could produce in a year. Spider-Man, Hulk, the DC vs. Marvel crossover, Buffy tie-in comics, dozens of original characters, multiple series of original novels, several direct-to-video movies, episodes of Babylon 5, and the original Nickelodeon show Space Cases. (He noted on occasion that he made Jewel Staite the engineer on a starship long before Joss Whedon thought of it.)
I met him personally a number of times; he was a delight at cons (though if he was assigned to a panel I was moderating, I needed two sets of notes for whether or not he showed up--he dominated any panel he was on and the audiences love it) and fun at parties. He and my dad weren't close, but they were both close friends with Bob Greenberger, so we crossed paths reasonably often even outside of con circles. I actually saw him in a community theater production of Man of La Mancha in the early aughts, where he played Sancho. (Regarding his performance, my mother quipped, "It's a good thing he can write.")
The fact that he needed to run GoFundMes and sell old comics art to pay off debts in his later years was frankly a travesty and a condemnation of the way our society treats creatives. But anyway.
A lot of David's best work is still available through electronic means; a lot of the best comics and tie-in novels are on Kindle, and most of his original novels are available through Crazy8Press. They're often tongue-in-cheek and the man loved a good pun; and even when he was writing Star Trek he was still kinda writing superheroes. It's pretty much always a good time, and you should check out his work.
Peter David was arguably my favorite writer over my teenage years, as during that era he churned out some of the very best Star Trek novels (Q-in-Law, Q-Squared, Imzadi, and the New Frontier series, among others), the post-Crisis Supergirl revival, the Aquaman "hook-hand" era, and the original Young Justice team. And that was a small fraction of what he actually produced: Described by his peers as "an inhuman writing machine," the man could put Steven King to shame with the number of novels, comics and TV scripts he could produce in a year. Spider-Man, Hulk, the DC vs. Marvel crossover, Buffy tie-in comics, dozens of original characters, multiple series of original novels, several direct-to-video movies, episodes of Babylon 5, and the original Nickelodeon show Space Cases. (He noted on occasion that he made Jewel Staite the engineer on a starship long before Joss Whedon thought of it.)
I met him personally a number of times; he was a delight at cons (though if he was assigned to a panel I was moderating, I needed two sets of notes for whether or not he showed up--he dominated any panel he was on and the audiences love it) and fun at parties. He and my dad weren't close, but they were both close friends with Bob Greenberger, so we crossed paths reasonably often even outside of con circles. I actually saw him in a community theater production of Man of La Mancha in the early aughts, where he played Sancho. (Regarding his performance, my mother quipped, "It's a good thing he can write.")
The fact that he needed to run GoFundMes and sell old comics art to pay off debts in his later years was frankly a travesty and a condemnation of the way our society treats creatives. But anyway.
A lot of David's best work is still available through electronic means; a lot of the best comics and tie-in novels are on Kindle, and most of his original novels are available through Crazy8Press. They're often tongue-in-cheek and the man loved a good pun; and even when he was writing Star Trek he was still kinda writing superheroes. It's pretty much always a good time, and you should check out his work.
