Yes, the mistake was that TP left the Earth. They never did. In reality, they just hung around, looking to get drunk and get laid.

None of the books that featured TP happened in the official Outlanders chronology, except for part of Awakening and the prologue of Dark Goddess.

They were cliched ass hole characters shoved into my series by a fill-in writer hoping to ride Outlanders coat-tails into a new series.

Never happen now. TP are not just thoroughly dead, they're most sincerely dead.

Sorry to necro bump this post but I was really confused as well on this and actually quite pissed off to see Team Phoenix not only brought back but then brutally killed off. Though in my mind they already had their ending in book 40 and book 43 doesn't count whether they somehow didn't fit into the original story where do you get that information from?

I personally really like those characters and was pissed to see them go in 40. I can't get enough of this series though! I need to go back and get into Deathlands.

I think I have been more open-minded than most on this board regarding other writers working on Outlanders, but in the case of "TEAM PHOENIX FOR AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!" I really have to side with Mark on this one. The Team Phoenix characters were taken directly from another series the author had written, with the serial numbers just barely filed off. They did not fit in with the fabric and framework of the ongoing story, and they were presented as the lead heroes while the OL regulars were relegated to also-ran status. You just don't do that, it's offensive. If you want to contribute to an ongoing series, you take it all in and work within the themes and style of the existing series. If you want to come in with some kind of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern type of re-framing, it had better be brilliant. Team Phoenix was... not brilliant.

Posted By Ron Miles on 12/7/2013 5:35:59 PM
I think I have been more open-minded than most on this board regarding other writers working on Outlanders, but in the case of "TEAM PHOENIX FOR AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!" I really have to side with Mark on this one. The Team Phoenix characters were taken directly from another series the author had written, with the serial numbers just barely filed off. They did not fit in with the fabric and framework of the ongoing story, and they were presented as the lead heroes while the OL regulars were relegated to also-ran status. You just don't do that, it's offensive. If you want to contribute to an ongoing series, you take it all in and work within the themes and style of the existing series. If you want to come in with some kind of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern type of re-framing, it had better be brilliant. Team Phoenix was... not brilliant.

Well said Ron, I cant agree more, and I can fully understand why you have had to have the open minded approach to other writers on all the series not just OL.

Team  Phoney just stank of sour grapes  and jealousy on the part of Victor Millan towards the series creator Mark Ellis. They both just got what they deserved in my opinion

Jim

 

 

What was Team Phoenix?

I’d like to think the way I bumped off Team Phoenix had the saving grace of at least being funny.

But yeah…with all these years of hindsight I’ve no choice but to conclude that Victor Milan was using my series to try to launch a TP series by relegating the OL characters to the status of a supporting cast…and he also rewrote them to make them seem inferior to the TP lummoxes…as well as ignoring important parts of the established OL series canon.

At the time, I was unaware of The Guardians series by Milan…I didn’t realize that TP were Guardians dopplegangers until it was pointed out here by some perceptive readers.

Therefore, I felt justified in ignoring Milan’s final TP/OL book and just killing ‘em off in the opening of DARK GODDESS. It was a case of good old fashioned Quid pro quo, sauce for the goose, tit-for-tat and balancing the scales…or books.

The OL books by Milan really damaged OL sales in the aggregate…readers would check the copyright page and if they didn’t see my name but saw his, they wouldn’t buy it. Reader backlash and dropping sales became so extreme that the then GE editor breached my contract and removed all contributor names –including mine, which as the series creator was contractually insured of inclusion. I had to threaten legal action to have my name restored. GE is in breach again on that score, but that’s another story.

On another level—in my opinion, with TP, Milan was trying to turn my series into something it was never conceived of being—a standard issue, fake chest hair, gun-porn, male power fantasy.

I have to agree with what some reviewers said about TP—they didn’t come off as soldiers or even a team, but as a gang of thugs, what with all the knuckle-bumping and juvenile catch-phrases they spouted. Smooooooth, my ass.

I never did read Milan’s final OL contribution…mainly because, like most of the other books that I didn’t write, I don’t consider it canonical. At the time, it wouldn’t have made any difference. Team Phoenix was still gonna die the way they lived (as Ron pointed out): Stupidly. 

 

Come to think of it, I killed off another one of Milan's utterly pointless characters: the Brigid-clone, historian Sally Wright in GRAILSTONE GAMBIT. 

Posted By Jax2 on 12/8/2013 2:00:46 PM The OL books by Milan really damaged OL sales in the aggregate…readers would check the copyright page and if they didn’t see my name but saw his, they wouldn’t buy it. Reader backlash and dropping sales became so extreme that the then GE editor breached my contract and removed all contributor names –including mine, which as the series creator was contractually insured of inclusion. I had to threaten legal action to have my name restored. GE is in breach again on that score, but that’s another story.

I remember they removed your name from a couple books even before Milan entered the series.

[post edited by Ron Miles for formatting only]

edited due to Ron fixing post above.

Jim

Posted By )3az )3aziah on 12/9/2013 5:46:18 AM
Is your reply some sort of secret code that we have to work out how to read

Jim

The reply ended up in the upper box instead of the lower one. 

 

Fixed