Quote:
Originally Posted by RWood
Well, it worked on me. I discovered a few authors that I had missed over the years including the late Keith Laumer.
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Worked for me, too, as it got me reading some authors I'd heard of but hadn't yet tried.
Laumer wasn't one of those: I'd been aware of him and reading his stuff long before the Free Library (and before Baen Books existed, for that matter.) I knew him slightly before he died, and frankly, his death was a mercy. He'd suffered a massive stroke a few years previous. He'd reached the point where he could get around with a cane (and credited acupuncture more than medicine with that level of recovery), but the stroke had damaged the sections of the brain that moderate behavior. The pre-stroke Laumer was a courtly, old fashioned gentleman. The post-stroke Laumer was a nasty, embittered soul prone to violent rages who alienated many people who had been his friends because they just couldn't deal with him any more. He continued to write after the stroke, but the work never matched his previous output.
At his peak, Laumer was one of the best in the field, and one of a very few authors whose work has made me cry. Even mediocre Laumer was better than many writer's good stuff. If he hadn't suffered the stroke and had remained in good health, I think he'd be considered one of the established SF Grand Masters today.
As it is, I'm happy to see Baen returning his stuff to print, so new generations can discover it. There's a lot of stuff like that for which the Free Library is a natural fit. The Free Library may just wind up becoming classic SF's backlist.
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Dennis