From The Archives: False Colors Interview (April 15, 2007)

Bandit LOAF

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
I was putting together a short article on 'lost' Wing Commander novels last night when I made an unpleasant discovery: the original interview we did with Andrew Keith, co-author of Heart of the Tiger and False Colors, was missing. The interview, conducted in 1996, was one of my favorite projects for our immediate predecessor, the Wing Commander Home Sector. It discusses how Wing Commander novels are written and provided the first details on the then-upcoming False Colors. Most importantly, it briefly outlines Mr. Keith's hopes for two sequel stories.

Mr. Keith died in August 1999, these books unwritten - but his kindness to the Wing Commander community will never be forgotten. Luckily, we were able to locate the original IRC log of the event and then put it back together from there! Please be kind when reviewing the questions... I was only fifteen (and completely star-struck) when I held this interview. You can read it, preserved forever online, here.
LOAF: Two new novels? Can you give away any information on those?
Keith: The book ideas are still vague. One I'd like to do would involve a Kilrathi prince -- a friendly one -- from False Colors. Sort of Bonnie Prince Charle in Scotland, with Cats and carrier support by the Karga. The other would put the Landreich at war with the Confederation. I'm thinking of following something like the Alamo/Goliad/San Jacinto model.
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Original update published on April 15, 2007
 
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He was a great guy. It was really strange actually how I came to know him and brought him to the rest of the community. He noticed an RPG, myself and a few others were a part of because he was curious about WC fans and their reactions to his work. After that he became a great contributor to the WC community.

One of my most prized WC possessions is my autographed copy of False Colors he sent me before it came out. I don't have anything but a phone camera but I'll see if I can snap a shot and post it for this.
 
Ok, will do LOAF.

So this is my first attempt at posting an image to the forums and it's from my cell phone so not sure how it will look.

If it's not clear it reads:

"For Jason. AKA Dundradal.
See, I did write it. Really. Honest.
J. Andrew Keith"

He said that because the cover carries his brother's name William H. Keith.
 

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Did I ever tell the story of how I ended up helping to edit False Colors?

The editor Baen hired for the book contacted me in '98 or so to ask some questions about Kilrathi words... we ended up going over a lot of material from the book, including the incorrectly named characters (Doomsday was still Andre Dumas and Sparks was Janet Sparkowski) and setting the start of the book after the end of the war.
 
I think you mentioned that to me before, you helped on the year setting and such, that's why there are some weird number of years mentioned by characters in relation to other events, namely BoT and the end of the war I believe. Good job by the way, I think Andrew did a great job with False Colors and it's really a great loss that he wasn't able to continue writing WC fiction because he definately enjoyed doing it a great deal.
 
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