What happened to Dafydd ab Hugh?

[Captain Dax]

Not seeing any publishing since 1999, does he have an online presence? wondered if he's publishing under a different name these days. Just re-read Final Fury and Balance of Power. Loved his wacky take on TNG and VGR. Fallen heroes was also a standout.

 

[Greg Cox]

Did he go into politics or something?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

ab Hugh used to (say, fifteen years ago) have an sff.net newsgroup/forum known as Big Lizards. I visited it on occasion, last probably around 2006-7. He was into libertartian/right-ish politics, as I recall. Haven't really thought of him since then.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I don't recall ab Hugh regularly wearing his politics on his sleeve. At least not to the extent that Diane Carey was so infamous for doing (especially with the Piper novels).

 

[DonIago]

Huh. I thought quite highly of Fallen Heroes (still do, just haven't read it in a long time), but thinking on it, I can see how it might betray ab Hugh's political leanings a little bit. I never did read anything else of his; my recollection is that he wrote one other Trek novel that wasn't especially well-reviewed.

 

[Lynx]

I found his books about the Furies interesting and exciting, even if they were a bit heavty-read from time to time.

I'm happy that he never made them political. personally I try to avoid running my political beliefs down the throat of those who might read my simple fanfiction.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I can see how it might betray ab Hugh's political leanings a little bit.

But not like DC's hard-libertarian, borderline-anarchist Vulcans.

 

[Greg Cox]

I mentioned his politics only because of a vague memory that he might have turned his focus from writing to politics over the years, not that his Trek books were particularly political at the time.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I think I remember him being announced as one of the “A Time to…” duologies, but then the announcement was revised and he seemed to vanish.

 

[DonIago]

I think I remember him being announced of one of the “A Time to…” duologies, but then the announcement was revised and he seemed to vanish.

Given what he did with Fallen Heroes, I can't help wondering how he would have handled the Tezwa affair. Not to suggest that those are the books he would have ended up handling.

 

[Christopher]

Given what he did with Fallen Heroes, I can't help wondering how he would have handled the Tezwa affair. Not to suggest that those are the books he would have ended up handling.

Certainly not, since Dave came up with the Tezwa plot himself. They hire us to come up with the plots as well as write them; they don't come up with the plots and then hand them out to writers.

IIRC, the original plan was to do a dozen books, but one duology was dropped and the final duology was reduced to one book. If ab Hugh was on the initial list, he was probably slated for the one that got dropped. I doubt the specific plots had even been settled on yet at the point that it was trimmed back. I think that happened very early in the process.

 

[David Mack]

Certainly not, since Dave came up with the Tezwa plot himself. They hire us to come up with the plots as well as write them; they don't come up with the plots and then hand them out to writers.

IIRC, the original plan was to do a dozen books, but one duology was dropped and the final duology was reduced to one book. If ab Hugh was on the initial list, he was probably slated for the one that got dropped. I doubt the specific plots had even been settled on yet at the point that it was trimmed back. I think that happened very early in the process.

^ Correct on all counts.

 

[KRAD]

Yeah, Plan A was to do twelve books, which was later cut down to nine. The original six authors were to be John Vornholt, Dafydd ab Hugh, Dave Galanter, Robert Greenberger, J. Steven York & Christina F. York, and me. It was cut down to nine, Dafydd's duology was the one dropped, then Galanter and the Yorks also dropped out for reasons I no longer remember 20 years later, and were replaced by David Mack and the Ward/Dilmore gestalt being.

 

[otomo]

ab Hugh is apparently a Welsh version of Friedman, and I found a guy who has a libertarian substack blog who also has fantasy novels credited to him who would be about appropriate age, can't tell if it's the same person though. His DS9 books were great!

 

[The Wormhole]

Whoa! That's a bold statement.

 

[Steve Roby]

Yeah, he changed his name from David Friedman to Dafydd ab Hugh for some reason, and later on he went into political web commentary. He basically seemed to fall into the same hole as Diane Carey, Sarah Hoyt, and Kevin J. Ryan.

Those of us who've been around TrekBBS for a few years will remember the days when people would say, as fact, that Dafydd ab Hugh was Peter A. David under a pseudonym. There didn't seem to be much more grounds than that Dafydd as a first name and David is a last name means they're obviously the same person, because their writing styles weren't really similar.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Yeah, he changed his name from David Friedman to Dafydd ab Hugh for some reason, and later on he went into political web commentary. He basically seemed to fall into the same hole as Diane Carey, Sarah Hoyt, and Kevin J. Ryan.

Those of us who've been around TrekBBS for a few years will remember the days when people would say, as fact, that Dafydd ab Hugh was Peter A. David under a pseudonym. There didn't seem to be much more grounds than that Dafydd as a first name and David is a last name means they're obviously the same person, because their writing styles weren't really similar.

To complicate matters, David Gerrold's birthname was Jerrold David Friedman, plus there is Michael J Friedman.

 

[Christopher]

To complicate matters, David Gerrold's birthname was Jerrold David Friedman, plus there is Michael J Friedman.

The reason I chose to include my middle initial in my author's byline was because I didn't want to risk being mistaken for Christopher E. Bennett, the son of Star Trek movie producer Harve Bennett (whose real name was Harvard Bennett Fischman). Yet in the -- egad -- more than two decades since I started writing Trek fiction professionally, nobody has ever brought up the similarity of names.

 

[Stevil2001]

The reason I chose to include my middle initial in my author's byline was because I didn't want to risk being mistaken for Christopher E. Bennett, the son of Star Trek movie producer Harve Bennett (whose real name was Harvard Bennett Fischman). Yet in the -- egad -- more than two decades since I started writing Trek fiction professionally, nobody has ever brought up the similarity of names.

Today I learned.

Many academics use their middle initials when publishing to make sure they are distinguished correctly from other academics with the same name when citing, but I decided to forego this as there is only one other "Steven Mollmann" in the entire world and he is pretty unlikely to be confused with me. (He's a retired business executive and former president of the Columbus, Ohio Ski Society... doesn't seem like the kind of guy publishing articles about H. G. Wells.)

 

[Christopher]

Many academics use their middle initials when publishing to make sure they are distinguished correctly from other academics with the same name when citing, but I decided to forego this as there is only one other "Steven Mollmann" in the entire world and he is pretty unlikely to be confused with me.

I actually have a paleontologist cousin named S. Christopher Bennett. I read articles about his study of pterosaurs before I even learned we were related.