Hi all...been a very, very long time since I've visited the site. Probably about 7 years or so. Ron, Mark and some of the members from the start may remember me but perhaps not. The site has change much (read as improved) and likely a lot of my content has been pruned. I'm shocked my login still works and I'm back to the ranks of a 1 post newbie
It had been a long time since I had read a Deathlands or Outlanders book. They both got just too formulaic for more...no one could live up to the work that Mark did on Outlanders and those post-Ellis books in the Deathlands series went downhill for awhile and then dropped off a cliff. I still have every one of the paperback copies in my basement including PTH with the color art insert. I actually read a few DL books recently for grins and while not the crap (sorry, DL got really bad for awhile) that they were a while back, they're still lacking any feeling of spontaneity and the plots aren't very robust or dynamic. Same old, same old. Like a favorite old sneaker, they are fondly comfortable but still stink a bit
Anyway, I didn't drop in to belittle either series nor the authors. I just wanted to say that while I'm sorry both series are ending, I also think it's time. I started reading both at their inception, Pilgrimage to Hell in my late teens and Exile to Hell much later. I'd love to see each series reach some sort of finale to bring closure but based on what I'm reading, it's not going to happen for DL at least. I wrote some fan faction DL stories, some of which I discussed with Mark on this site but never really pursued it...sometimes I wish that I had. Maybe they can live on as fan fiction contributions. I know Ron was big on that - did you ever get anything published? I hope so.
Good to see Mark and others still active here and kudos to Ron for persevering with the site this whole time. A labor of love I'm sure.
I'll probably stop back in here and there to see what's going on and bore you some more with my ruminations.
P.S. It's still hard to believe that the world blew out 14 years ago...