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Redmond Simonsen is dead
19 May 2008
[indent]It's always a shock to find out an old friend has passed away. I am upset that I had lost contact over the years and was so lax in staying in touch. In the interim, a once-close friend died.
Redmond Simonsen died of heart problems, at age 62, in 2005. I only found out today. It is a shock and a great sorrow. We were once good friends.
I met Redmond in the late 1970s when I submitted an article to Strategy and Tactics Magazine, in New York. I soon became a regular columnist and writer for S&T and its sister publication, Moves, as well as a playtester for the associated wargame company, SPI. Redmond was their graphics designer and magazine editor, sometime game designer and general business wizard who - from what I saw - held the companies together in the heady days when wargames were the pinnacle of intellectual and historical gaming.
Redmond essentially created the concept of a professional game designer. Before him, game designers were amateurs, part time hobbyists. Redmond turned game design into a profession. That has had lasting impact on today's computer industry.
Redmond liked my style and set me up with a regular column reviewing computer games and trends in technology. I owe him a great debt for helping me develop my writing and getting me on the path as w writer that continues today. We corresponded regularly and spoke on the phone a lot. I really liked Redmond - he was a professional in his art, a brilliant designer, and had a great sense of humour. Most of all, he put up with me and still remained my friend.
My newspaper job took me to New York City regularly, and I was able to meet Redmond and his cohorts in the SPI offices many times, after the newspaper business was done. We - Redmond and his coworkers and I - had dinners, we went to bars where we argued, we discussed, we solved the world's problems. Redmond was a gentleman and a scholar throughout.
Susan came with me to NYC a couple of times and met Redmond - he was the perfect host. We both remember fondly the time when he took us to a Mexican restaurant in Greenwich Village and we had flautas for the first time. We walked through New York listening to street jazz, taking the subway with him, exploring the downtown with Redmond beside us.
Redmond even came to Canada to help us celebrate our wedding, in Toronto, in 1985. He stayed overnight in our home, helped us compile music for the next day's party. We all stayed up late at night and drank, making music, dancing and talking all night. He joined us for our dinner and party after the wedding, but we both remember the night before most of all. Redmond was allergic to cats, but suffered for us for several days, just to be able to be with us. That is how we remember Redmond best.
Redmond was in Toronto as a speaker at a computer trade show I organized in the early 1980s, joining Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven as guest speakers in panels about the future of technology. He stayed with us as our guest at our home, then, too. We both remember the dinners we had with Redmond and the two sci fi writers, and how well he shone in comparison to them.
He was forced out of his home in New York by gangs, and he moved to Richardson, Texas, in 1984. SPI was bought out and many of the employees - as well as freelance writers like myself - were turfed. Redmond got into Amiga computer development, but that folded and he meandered around the periphery of the gaming industry - now PC based - for years. He continued to write, to draw and to moderate some online computer games. We corresponded fitfully, but tried to remain in touch.
But things overtake us, I got busy here, and it had been four or five years since we last corresponded. Only today did I decide to try and reach out again and contact him - only to find to my sorrow he had died years earlier. I didn't know. When I found it it was a shock.
Redmond Simonsen was a wonderful man, one of the smartest people I've had the privilege to know. I am deeply sorry we had lost contact with him and I will miss his wit, his insight and his friendship. For you, Redmond, whererever you are, I raise a glass in toast of a fine man and a friendship I treasured, but sadly assumed would last much longer between absences. We will both miss you.[/indent]
Redmond Simonsen died of heart problems, at age 62, in 2005. I only found out today. It is a shock and a great sorrow. We were once good friends.
Redmond essentially created the concept of a professional game designer. Before him, game designers were amateurs, part time hobbyists. Redmond turned game design into a profession. That has had lasting impact on today's computer industry.
Redmond liked my style and set me up with a regular column reviewing computer games and trends in technology. I owe him a great debt for helping me develop my writing and getting me on the path as w writer that continues today. We corresponded regularly and spoke on the phone a lot. I really liked Redmond - he was a professional in his art, a brilliant designer, and had a great sense of humour. Most of all, he put up with me and still remained my friend.
My newspaper job took me to New York City regularly, and I was able to meet Redmond and his cohorts in the SPI offices many times, after the newspaper business was done. We - Redmond and his coworkers and I - had dinners, we went to bars where we argued, we discussed, we solved the world's problems. Redmond was a gentleman and a scholar throughout.
Susan came with me to NYC a couple of times and met Redmond - he was the perfect host. We both remember fondly the time when he took us to a Mexican restaurant in Greenwich Village and we had flautas for the first time. We walked through New York listening to street jazz, taking the subway with him, exploring the downtown with Redmond beside us.
Redmond even came to Canada to help us celebrate our wedding, in Toronto, in 1985. He stayed overnight in our home, helped us compile music for the next day's party. We all stayed up late at night and drank, making music, dancing and talking all night. He joined us for our dinner and party after the wedding, but we both remember the night before most of all. Redmond was allergic to cats, but suffered for us for several days, just to be able to be with us. That is how we remember Redmond best.
Redmond was in Toronto as a speaker at a computer trade show I organized in the early 1980s, joining Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven as guest speakers in panels about the future of technology. He stayed with us as our guest at our home, then, too. We both remember the dinners we had with Redmond and the two sci fi writers, and how well he shone in comparison to them.
He was forced out of his home in New York by gangs, and he moved to Richardson, Texas, in 1984. SPI was bought out and many of the employees - as well as freelance writers like myself - were turfed. Redmond got into Amiga computer development, but that folded and he meandered around the periphery of the gaming industry - now PC based - for years. He continued to write, to draw and to moderate some online computer games. We corresponded fitfully, but tried to remain in touch.
But things overtake us, I got busy here, and it had been four or five years since we last corresponded. Only today did I decide to try and reach out again and contact him - only to find to my sorrow he had died years earlier. I didn't know. When I found it it was a shock.
Redmond Simonsen was a wonderful man, one of the smartest people I've had the privilege to know. I am deeply sorry we had lost contact with him and I will miss his wit, his insight and his friendship. For you, Redmond, whererever you are, I raise a glass in toast of a fine man and a friendship I treasured, but sadly assumed would last much longer between absences. We will both miss you.[/indent]
