William H. Keith

William H. Keith (born August 8, 1950) is an American author, who writes also under several pen names, such as Ian Douglas, Robert Cain and H. Jay Riker.

William H. Keith served in the United States Navy as a hospital corpsman during the Vietnam War era.

William H. Keith Jr. and his brother J. Andrew Keith had seen ads in Journal of the Travellers Aid Society that stated that Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was seeking authors; Loren Wiseman brought them on to begin freelancing for GDW in 1978 or 1979, and together the three of them set up a lot of the early tone for the Traveller universe. William Keith also helped to define the graphical vision of that era of Traveller books. The Keith brothers were making enough money that they were able to freelance full-time starting around 1979. The Keith brothers began working for FASA by the end of 1980, with William Keith providing art for the magazine High Passage beginning in 1981. FASA began getting into publishing adventures for Traveller beginning with Ordeal by Eshaar (1981) by the Keith brothers, who then wrote FASA's "Sky Raiders" trilogy (1981-1982). William Keith designed the role-playing game Behind Enemy Lines (1982), the first RPG set in the 1940s. When FASA ended its support of Traveller, the Keith brothers moved their Traveller writing to a new company called Gamelords, but continued working for FASA in other capacities. The Keith brothers wrote seven supplements for Gamelords, including The Mountain Environment (1983), The Undersea Environment (1983), and The Desert Environment (1984).

The Keith brothers did some work on the Chivalry & Sorcery line in 1984, and in 1985 they expanded into Fantasy Games Unlimited's other lines including Aftermath!, Daredevils, Flashing Blades, and Psi World. The Keith brothers also designed Freedom Fighters (1986), one of the last role-playing games published by FGU. William Keith authored Delta Force: America Strikes Back! (1986), the first role-playing game from Task Force Games. In 1986, FASA began publishing fiction, starting with William Keith's Decision at Thunder Rift (1986).Digest Group Publications' final publication, The MegaTraveller Journal #4 (1993), featured a huge campaign for MegaTraveller set in the Gateway sector, authored by William Keith.

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