He was one of the funniest and definitely one of the most intelligent and the absolute wittiest person I have ever met. As for "representative of his style," that's the funny think about Mike: he never repeated himself. He didn't do sequels. He would write something absolutely brilliant, and then go off and do something completely different. He designed games, he wrote amazing poetry (he won the Reisling Award for best Science Fiction poetry), he won the World Fantasy Award for a book about Richard III, he wrote two of the best Star Trek novels ever written: How Much for Just the Planet, which is Star Trek done as a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta (complete with libretto), ending with a pie fight, and The Final Reflection, the story of a small group of Klingons who prevent a war between the Klingon Empire and the Federation while the regular series characters are relegated to cameo appearances. He wrote Web of Angels one of the first cyberpunk novels ever written. He wrote lyrics. He wrote one of the best things written about 9/11, a poem called "110 Stories." He was a wonderful game master. He knew everything possible about railroads. He wrote incredible epic poem chatbooks that he sent out to his friends every Christmas. He was a fabulous actor in my Shakespeare group. He had a comedy routine that he did at conventions called "Ask Dr. Mike" that ran for years that made people roar, where he pretended to be a scientist and had people ask him questions, and he would make up the most incredibly witty, hilarious answers right there on the spot--fabulous comic impromptu speaker. He had the backbone of a rigorous classical education--totally self-taught, mind you, since he dropped out of college probably because he was just ahead of everybody--and yet he also delighted in dreadful television and trashy movies. He loved to watch the weather station--with the sound turned off--all the time. "I like the plot." Intellectually, I would agree with Gaiman: he was probably the most intelligent of all of my friends.

He deserved to be rich and famous, because he was brilliant, but he wasn't because he just didn't really market himself. He was so humble and kind. He struggled with ill health for so long--he was diagnosed as diabetic at age 11.

He was amazing. I will never ever meet his like again.