John M. Ford: Difference between revisions

'''John M.Milo "Mike" Ford''' (1957 - 2006) was an SF writer, game designer, and poet, noted for his intelligence, wit, and originality. This last was in a sense also his greatest weakness, since a writer who never repeats himself can be very hard to market effectively, and he never achieved the fame many feel he deserved.

Probably his widely-known work is in a sense his least original -- two novels in the [[Star Trek Expanded Universe]], but even here he broke new ground: ''The Final Reflection'' is a historical novel of the early years of Federation-Klingon interaction, with a Klingon as its hero, and ''How Much For Just The Planet?'' is a musical comedy. He also co-wrote the Klingons sourcebook for FASA's ''Star Trek'' [[Tabletabletop Top Role Playing Game]]RPG, which was for a time the most complete and in-depth source on Klingon language and culture available. Much of it has been [[Jossed]] since the screen canon got serious about exploring Klingon culture, but there are still fans who think Ford's version was better, and not just in the sense that there will always be fans who think the old version was better. Even so, many feel that Ford's explorations directly influenced the evolution of the canon Klingons into their modern, honor-driven pseudo-Samurai form.

Ford's other work in the realm of RPG design includes several sourcebooks for ''[[GURPS]]'', and the classic ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'' supplement, ''The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues''.