David Gemmell: missing him

[dianeduane]

Dammit, another old friend lost. 2006 is really starting to get on my nerves.

Dave Gemmell died yesterday morning in the aftermath of heart surgery.

He and Peter started their careers together at the same publisher, and were always very fond of each other. Dave was a pleasure to know -- witty, full of stories, interested in everything, and with a dry sense of humor that never seemed to fail him. I remembering him laughing when I would tease him about being "persistently tall".

He was a great house guest, too, the kind with whom you stay up talking into the wee hours about life, the universe, and everything. I still remember one time when he holed up for quite a while in the big bathroom in one of the houses we rented in Ireland, because all the Calvin & Hobbes and Far Side books were kept in there, and he'd never seen the Calvin stuff before. He must have spent a couple of hours in there, curled up in the bathroom easy chair and roaring with laughter.

Dave didn't do as many conventions as he might have, since he had some difficulty with crowds. But at signings he was another of those indefatigable types who will sign absolutely everything no matter how long it takes, make sure that every fan is taken care of, that everyone gets a kind word. A gentleman: a wry, dry, dark-humored, sometimes ironic guy: that was Dave.

Missing him.

 

 

Comments

[satismagic.livejournal.com]

How sad! He was one of the very few fantasy authors I discovered in recent years that really amazed me, thrilled me, left me in awe.

[navigatorsghost.livejournal.com]

....

At times like this it's easy for us little fan people down here to forget that the guys we admire are *real* people, who have friends and families of their own who will miss them for much more personal reasons than we will. I'm so sorry for your loss.

[sesquipedeviant.livejournal.com]

Truly sorry to hear you've lost your old friend.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear of this. He sounds like a great guy.

But, wow, do you ever have large bathrooms in Ireland.

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

Bathrooms are usually, er, sensibly sized (when they're not inconveniently small and cramped.)

This was just a largish room that happened to have a bath, handbasin and WC looking a bit lost at the top end. So we put in an easy (actually a director's style) chair and a shelf to hold all the Calvin & Hobbes, Far Side, The Broons, Oor Wullie, Bloom County.

The Bathroom books.

And appropriately (maybe it was the tiled acoustics) Dave laughed like a drain.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Just before you posted your item yesterday about how JK should go to heaven, I was reading the tributes from Gemmell's fans on the BBC. Many of those were saying how his Legend in 1984 really turned them on to reading again.

I will admit to being surprised that it was given full prominence by the Beeb site, being the top story for a while in the Entertainment section. Not because I don't think he deserved the recognition, but just because I would expect most fantasy writers to be outside the Beeb's circle of awareness.

[petermorwood.livejournal.com]

I'd say it's because Dave ranked high enough to be noticed above their usually-myopic horizon. That he was British was probably also a factor. They know about J.K. Rowling, Terry, Ian Banks, and a few others. The rest of us will vanish without causing so much as a ripple.