Howard Miller, RIP

An old friend, Howard Miller, has passed away from respiratory failure after being admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia.

Howard lived on Long Island, New York, but in a very real sense he actually resided in Cyberspace. He was severely physically disabled from a very young age, being both deaf and blind. But he could use a computer via a braille reader, and literally spent his entire waking life online. He maintained a large number of long-distance friendships with people from all over the world, most of whom he had never met in person. I was privileged to be one of them.

I first ran into Howard online about ten years ago on CompuServe. He was one of the existing players in an ongoing Fantasy PBeM I’d just joined on the RPGAMES forum. Although that game folded shortly after I joined, I was sufficiently impressed by his writing and imagination to recruit him into my own game on the same forum, playing two different characters for several years. He was a founding member of the Dreamlyrics community. Although he later dropped out of that forum, he maintained email correspondences with many past and present members. The last email I received from him was just a few days before he was taken ill for the last time.

Despite his severe disabilities, Howard always had a sharp intellect. He might occasionally have been annoying, but his wit and humour always shone through. His short life was an example of overcoming severe adversity. He’s touched the hearts and minds of many.

There’s a nice tribute to him from Robert J Sawyer, and further tributes on the Deepspace Forum.

‘Heroes never die, they sail forever’