Peter David

Whenever Star Trek: New Frontier line of novels launched in 1997, I was a Star Trek geek. I bought an Inquest magazine at a Babbages just because Spock and Kirk were on the cover. That led me to buy the Star Trek CCG, which led me to the Battletech CCG and--eventually--to Magic. It's no surprise that the only times I didn't pick up New Frontier the moment the latest installment hit shelves was because either I was too broke or my father had beaten me to it.

And the captain looked like a young Alec Baldwin. Could never figure that one out.

It was the finest sort of continuity porn. Special guest stars that never quite made it out of The Next Generation washed up into the cast as a disparate collection of personalities trying to deal with situations far over their heads. It was fanfiction. That's not an insult. It was high quality, fun, published, not-not-canon fanfiction written for fans to deliver more of their favorite characters to them in a highly concentrated dose.

I noted that the author of the series was named Peter David. I learned early that if I liked a book and I wanted more the same, that's where you go. It was only years later that I learned that the X-Factor books I'd had the fortune of getting a brief subscription to--falling in love with them instantly--were penned by the same guy. Those years were during the recent X-Factor relaunch which he also wrote. I adamantly read those until strange SORAS dating issue which totally creeped me out. Even still I constantly check because the moment that relationship is over (or one of them is dead), I'm back in.

What I'm saying is that Peter David is a good writer who does work I enjoy. Odds are pretty good that if you like the comics I enjoy here, you would probably like Peter David's work, whether it's serial fiction like X-Factor, Star Trek, The Spectacular Spider-Man, and The Incredible Hulk, or TV shows like Babylon 5, Ben 10, and Young Justice, or even video games like Spider-Man: Edge of Time.

And he's not exactly handsome, but admit it: you've seen uglier babies.

Okay, probably not Ben 10, but you get the point. Peter Allen David is a writer who writes good stuff, but the downside here is that he is a mortal. Just before the new year he suffered a stroke. He's alive, but as is often the case with strokes, he has a long road to recovery. His website has a post on how you can help him cover the medical expenses here. In a nutshell, if you buy his books from his creator-owned Crazy 8 Press. Books like Pulling Up Stakes, The Camelot Papers, or Darkness of the Light.

Even if you aren't moved to/don't care quite enough/can't be arsed to buy a book for money, but you think other people might be, you can also lend a hand by passing it on via social media. If you're a geek, you probably like something Peter David has done.

Or you hate some of his work with a white-hot passion because...geeks.


Either way, if you're interested in helping out the folks who write comics in a more general sense, visit The Hero Initiative.