Update, October 20: We’ve just published a 3,000-word tribute to Chris to augment the briefer write-up on his career.
Chris Meadows, the gifted writer and editor who played such an important role in TeleRead, is dead at 47. A quick overview of Chris’s professional life is here. Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, he was also well known in games circles. Next week, we’ll be publishing more on his life. Sympathy to Mark and Judy Meadows as well as Chris’s brothers and the rest of his family.
TeleRead, going back to the 1995, is the world’s oldest web site devoted to ebook news and views.
teleread.org 
“ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOMEDAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.
Death took a step backwards.
It was impossible to read expression in Azrael’s features.
Death glanced sideways at the servants.
LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man
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Thanks, Jon.
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Thank you for keeping us all up to date during a time that must have been terribly hard for you as well, David.
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You’re very welcome, Eric. And in the other direction, thanks for sharing the sad news on Twitter. Yes, this has been a difficult time.
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Wow – very sorry to hear this. I read who knows how many of his articles.
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I find the world of now, a bit poorer today, but the world to come is brighter by one.
I mostly regret the stories he had yet to tell, and cannot now tell this side of heaven.
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I’ve known Chris since the mid 90s, through Robotech fandom. I’ll miss him.
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I’ll miss you, Chris. Even the Space Station Liberty podcasts that you used to do.
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well, fuck
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Chris was, well, if something had happened to me, he was going to get my blog and all of my gadgets.
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Nate: Yes, I know – totally unfair. Chris was so kind.
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David, thank you for celebrating the life of Chris Meadows. He will be missed. 😦
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Mark: You bet he’ll be missed! As you know, he was a great friend of small publishers and independent authors.
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So sad to hear the news. Chris had good antennae for the publishing/digital media/cultural world. Funny, the last thing I read was a random review of a CZUR book scanner which Chris wrote about. Hey, if was good enough for Chris, it was good enough for me (I bought it).
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Not surprised, Robert. Chris was a rather discerning consumer of technology. I didn’t agree with him always, but as I may or may not have mentioned, I paid a lot of attention to what kind of phone he bought. On at least two or three occasions, I followed with purchases of similar models.
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My heart goes put to his family and friends. I had the pleasure of writing alongside him at Teleread for a few years and valued his insight and commentary. He will be sorely missed.
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Thanks, Susan. I was very lucky to be able to publish his work. Beyond that, as is already abundantly clear, he was a wonderful human being.
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Chris was a regular in our online game, City of Heroes, where he not only wrote guides and articles for the game but also became a GM, known as GM_Cyclone. In the game, I started a supergroup (aka guild) dedicated to cats, called the Feline Fellowship, but when I got too busy to run it, he stepped in and ran it wonderfully. He played with us several times, joined our Discord server, and made several cat-themed characters. He is being honored in-game by the other GMs, and will be sorely missed.
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Thanks, Kitty. I’d welcome further recollections of Chris from others in games circles. Remember, I was mostly familiar with him by way of his TeleRead incarnation. Among friends from all of his lives, Chris will be dearly missed.
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Although I butted heads with Chris in regard to his articles on Good eReader’s Indiegogo campaign, I was shocked and saddened to learn of his passing. I only learned of this tragic news when I came to post another comment… Now that all seems so inconsequential…
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Thanks for your expression of sympathy, Ian. I’m confident Chris would have felt the same way.
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Chris was a great guy. Never having met in person we met in Robotech communities nearly 30 years ago and I always respected and liked him. I am very sad to hear this.
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Thanks very much. I’m pleased to hear from Chris-related community outside TeleRead.
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I was similarly taken aback and saddened at this news. Chris and I first crossed paths in the Transformers fandom in the mid-90s, and I remember him than (and more recently, in that same fandom) as a kind and thoughtful individual, with great generosity of spirit. He was also a skilled debater, and a wonderful fan fiction writer. I’m sending personal wishes to his family, and I know that folks on alt.toys.transformers feel similarly.
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I just now found out about this and I’m still kind of in shock. I first came across Chris via part one of “The universe according to Chris” that he did as apart of the Eyrie Productions’ “Golden Age” section of their legendary Undocumented Features stories and it was through here that I also came across his work with Dave Deitrich on mecha work from Marcross.
I truly enjoyed all of his work from there on out when I could find it due to ever widening circles of life and I hate to say it that I lost track of him and after hearing the news today, I can only wish well for his family in this time. I’m sorry if this seems kind of bland, but the words are honestly escaping me that could do this man proper respect.
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Oh no! I can’t believe this! We weren’t very close, but used to exchange messages over our mutual interest in the Southern Cross. He came to my home town of Columbia, MO to study back in the late 1990s. I am so sorry to hear that this happened! I’ve not been keeping up on the Robotech world for the last decade plus, but this is really shocking. I’m so sorry this happened. Chris was a decent guy and I always enjoyed talking to him via e-mail and sharing little Southern Cross images and tidbits that I’d uncover. I don’t know what else to say… We’ve lost someone irreplaceable.
Nathan
a.k.a Hellcat, Webmaster Southern Cross Recruitment Manual.
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