[Darkwolf377]

Spider Robinson is a limited talent who's been foisting his gawdawful Callahan's Bar stories on the world for decades because he can't come up with anything else. He's a minor writer at best, and it's too bad someone like Jerry Pournelle or Larry Niven or Gregory Benford wasn't given this assignment, if indeed it needed to be written, anyway, which I don't think it did. Those other writers have too much going on in their own careers to need to attach themselves to Heinlein's name for a few bucks.

That the book "reads" like Heinlein makes my point: A writer with a distinct, individual style wouldn't be spending his time mimicking someone else.

[Fire_on_High]

A writer with a distinct, individual style wouldn't be spending his time mimicking someone else.

I dunno...Todd McCaffrey seems to pull off Anne McCaffrey's _Pern_ very well, at least from the two stories I've seen so far.

Some of the best of MZB's _Darkover_ books were the ones released a few years after she died, co-written by Deborah Ross from MZB's notes and outlines. The style is like the best of MZB. I've even seen a fanfic written by a random nobody who likewise picked up her style perfectly.

Really, for me a co-author or fanfic author is judged on how closely they can pull off the original author's style...it really becomes a part of the way the world itself is presented, at least for the worlds I know best.

Roleplays are another extension of this. Bending canon a little is one thing...female blueriders in Pern, for example...but when roleplayers "rush" the story or completely trash any feel of it being canon Pern, that ruins it for me.