Classic Keith Confusion Continues

The seventh and final Baen Wing Commander novel has a pretty famous error: the cover incorrectly credits the novel to William Keith instead of his brother and fellow author Andrew Keith. Fans caught the error just as the book was going to press; it was too late to change the cover. Andrew Keith had a sense of humor about the mistake, Baen apologized profusely and updated all of their digital marketing material. When False Colors was issued as an eBook, a corrected cover was included.

Andrew Keith tragically died several months after False Colors was published. He was a friend of the Wing Commander community and is greatly missed. His brother William provided an obituary for the October 1999 issue of Locus (#465) and took the opportunity to make sure the world knew that False Colors was his brother's work. It's a lovely read:

[John] Andrew Keith, 41, brother of, and some-time collaborator with, William H. Keith, died August 7, 1999 of double pulmonary thrombosis — massive clots in both lungs.

"...The onset was extremely sudden; he called me late Friday night complaining of nothing more than a slight weakness and shortness of breath. I got him to the hospital, and he died two hours later. He was not married; with our parents' deaths these past two years, I was the last family he had.

"Like me, Andrew was a full-time novelist, with most of his work in science fiction and military technothrillers. He collaborated with me on a time-traveling action/adventure series from Berkley, Freedom's Rangers in the late '80s, by 'Keith William Andrews,' and on the well-received military series Carrier, also from Berkley, by 'Keith Douglass.'

"He went on to write three books in the Fifth Foreign Legion SF-military series from Roc, also BattleTech: Blood of Heroes, and to write several of the military history books in the Seals: The Warrior Breed series by 'H. Jay Riker.' Seals: Navy Cross, the fourth book in that series, was his, as well as another manuscript still in the publishing pipeline. Silent Service: Grayback Class was the first in a new H. Jay Riker military series. The manuscript arrived for copyedit the day he died; I took over and have it back in the pipeline as well. So at least two more titles by Andrew are forthcoming from Avon.

"Recent military-SF work includes the popular Wing Commander novels. He wrote two or three — not sure how many exactly — for Baen, some in collaboration with William Forstchen. The first was Heart of the Tiger. His last-published SF book was Wing Commander: False Colors. Through an almost inconceivable screw-up, my name appeared on the front cover of that one, instead of his. [His name appears, correctly, on the title page, fortunately!] I appreciate the opportunity to get the news out that False Colors was his, not mine. He wrote a damned fine book, and he deserves the credit.

"There may have been other novels; I'm afraid I don't recall the details offhand, but I seem to remember a book set in Williamson's Legion of Space series, a long way back. The above are the ones I remember. I know he had worked, and was working on, several other series through book packager Bill Fawcett.

"In addition, he had several SF short stories published, including his first, a 'Fifth Foreign Legion' story, in Amazing and 'Legacy of Leonidas' in an anthology of Bolo stories published by Baen.

"Andrew will also be remembered for the excellent work he did before graduating to novels — writing game modules and adventures in several SF game universes — most notably Traveller, from GDW.

"Though most of his work was in military fiction, I know his real interest, as mine, was in SF.

"I will remember him as a promising writer tragically just on the verge of breaking out into a larger world, as a brilliant armchair historian, as a gentle friend, and as a loving brother. Damn it, I miss him."

- William H. Keith, Jr.

The crazy update to this story is that against all odds it actually happened again! I was thumbing through Bastei Lübbe's 2000 German translation of the Wing Commander IV novelization, Der Preis der Freiheit, and noticed something funny. In a reverse of the False Colors error, the German WC4 book correctly credits Ben Ohlander on the credit… but accidentally credits Andrew Keith on the title page (and in the list of books). A real "two nickels" weird-that-it-happened-twice situation!