Posted By silentalbino on 11 Jul 2012 04:48 PM
When does the quality of Outlanders start to "tail off".
Well that can be seen in reviews and in older posts on this site regarding the OL series. I have not read any OL book that Mark Ellis did not write or was involved in with the exception of Sargasso Plunder. But from everything I have noticed over the years, it was the fill-in books by Victor Milan that was a sore spot for many readers originally, mainly because of his doing his own thing without working with Mark to make the books more in continuity and more accurate in terms of characterization and such rather than his talent as a writer. Even some disagree on his writing talent as well, but personally I think Milan is a good writer, as I have very much enjoyed his Rogue Angel stories.
As for the books written by Doug and Rick, I can only say that it seems like the series has been handed by GE over to writers that are not going in the direction Mark was going to take it, and it really is more of a fan fiction series now, as is the case with all the other GE series out there when you think about it.
The books not written by the series creator nor any involvement thereof are just not going to be the same as the whole overall quality and continuity and story arcs and character development. Individual books may be good, some really good, or maybe not so good, but It just isn't and probably never will be like it was, so I would say as far as the series having a "tail off", I would just conclude that any book not written or at the very least have some kind of cooperation or input from the original writer and creator would be classified as a tail off book.
So basicly OL is like DL now, with it being like Forest Gump said, it's like a box of chocolates, you don't know what you're gonna get.