This is an interesting family. These characters really aren’t written about outside of the mainline Baen novels. Even passing mentions are rare. As high-level characters with major political implications in pretty much anything they do, that makes sense, but they really are incredibly well-developed and interesting, given how little “screen time” they really get. – Bethanne Kim (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) Baen’s Bar Comment: David Weber needed a character to become a serious naval expert and influence in 1633, and Simpson was the best choice. That led to Simpson and his wife, Mary, being “rehabilitated.” 12 October 2018 04:44 It’s more complicated than that. I would have “rehabilitated” Simpson even without the naval and ironclad developments. In 1632, he’s simply a foil for Mike Stearns. He and Mary only appear on stage in two chapters out of 61. For a stand-alone novel, that’s fine. But once the decision was made to turn this into a series, keeping Simpson and his wife Mary as the one-dimensional characters they were in 1632 would have just gotten boring after a while. Keep in mind that Simpson’s “villainy” in 1632 was not really all that villainous. It’s not as if he betrayed anyone or gave aid and comfort to the enemy. All he did was advance a political program for Grantville that was wrong-headed. So it wasn’t really that big of a stretch to have him get reconciled with Mike by the end of 1633. The ironclad program and the navy was just a very convenient way to do it, as well as killing two birds with one stone since we needed a naval expert anyway. But I would have done it anyway. About the only major American character in 1632 who winds up drifting the other way was the mine manager, Quentin Underwood. But even that was a pretty limited “drift.” At no point did he betray anyone and he winds…