Robert Tine

He was born Robert S. Tine in Providence, Rhode Island, and he grew up in Barrington, the Bahamas, Wales, South Africa, Swaziland, and Argentina. He was a graduate of Columbia University in New York. He also lived in Italy in the 1980s, where two of his novels were set: State of Grace (1980) and Black Market (1992).

In 2005 he moved from New York to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he died in 2019.

Throughout his life Tine published six novels of mainstream fiction, the latter of which garnered good reviews—particularly Black Market, set during the liberation of Rome in 1944.{{cite web |title=Black Market |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-tine/black-market/ |website=Kirkus Reviews |publisher=Kirkus Reviews |accessdate=19 September 2019}} Publishers Weekly, in its review of Black Market, called Tine "a genius at characterization."{{cite web |title=Black Market |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-312-06907-0 |website=Publishers Weekly |accessdate=19 September 2019 | quote= "A genius at characterization, he indelibly etches the personalities of this wildly diverse cast of players."}}

However, Tine's larger output by far was in the field of novelizations from movies (mostly science fiction, action, and neo-noir, but also four tie-ins to the John Hughes' Beethoven franchise) and TV shows such as JAG and Touched by an Angel.

Tine is most remembered today for his hard-boiled "Outrider" series, comprising five mass-market survival fiction novels published by Pinnacle in 1984 and 1985 under the pseudonym Richard Harding (not to be confused with author and war reporter Richard Harding Davis, 1864–1916).{{cite web |title=Tine, Robert |url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/tine_robert |website=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |date=31 August 2018 | access-date=19 September 2019}}

Heavily inspired by George Miller's 1979 film Mad Max, "The Outrider" series is set in what is left of a dystopian United States following a nuclear apocalypse. The hero, the lonesome, rugged survivalist Bonner, is based in the ruins of Chicago, although his adventures take him through much of the ravaged country. He has been compared with other vigilante types such as those in Jerry Ahern's Survivalist and Defender series, James Axler's Deathlands and Outlanders series, and D.B. Drumm's Traveler.{{cite book |last1=Mengel |first1=Bradley |title=Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction: An Encyclopedia from Able Team to Z-Comm |url=https://archive.org/details/serialvigilantes00meng |url-access=limited |date=21 October 2009 |publisher=McFarland |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |isbn=9780786454754 |page=[https://archive.org/details/serialvigilantes00meng/page/n16 8]}} Instead of being on the search of loved ones, however, Bonner is "more like the stereotypical retired gunslinger who still finds himself pulled into one job or another."{{cite book |last1=Cobb |first1=Jim |title=The Prepper's Complete Book of Disaster Readiness |date=2013 |publisher=Ulysses Press |location=Berkeley, CA |isbn=9781612432199 |page=235}} Each story is awash with pulpy clichés, machismo, and gory action scenes. Genre fans hold the series in high regard.{{cite web |title=The Outrider Series by Richard Harding |url=http://claytonsahib.weebly.com/books/the-outrider-series-by-richard-harding |website=Phantom Empires |date=18 May 2014 |access-date=19 September 2019}}{{cite web |title=Outrider #05 – Built to Kill |url=http://www.paperbackwarrior.com/2017/12/outrider-05-built-to-kill.html |website=Paperback Warrior | date= 26 December 2017 | access-date=19 September 2019}}

The fifth and last book in the series actually ends with the announcement of a sixth entry, titled Black Death.{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=Michael |title=The Outrider #5 Built to Kill by Richard Harding |url=https://mcsmith187.wordpress.com/tag/the-outrider/ |website=The Books that Time Forgot |date=2 June 2014 |access-date=19 September 2019}} It was never published due to Pinnacle's bankruptcy in 1985.{{cite book |last1=Hendrix |first1=Grady |title=Paperbacks from Hell |date=2017 | publisher=Quirk Books | location=Philadelphia | isbn=9781594749810 | page=231 }}

"The Outrider" series was included as a feature presentation on the January 5th, 2018 episode of the [https://projectentertainmentnetwork.com/2018/01/05/library-at-the-end-of-the-world-episode-12/ Library at the End of the World] podcast.[https://projectentertainmentnetwork.com/2018/01/05/library-at-the-end-of-the-world-episode-12/ Library at the End of the World], Ep. 12. Library at the End of the World. 5 January 2018. Retrieved 24 December 2019.

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• State of Grace (Viking, 1980){{cite web |title=State of Grace |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-tine-2/state-of-grace-3/ |website=Kirkus Reviews |publisher=Kirkus Reviews |accessdate=19 September 2019}}
• Uneasy Lies the Head (Pinnacle, 1982)
• Broken Eagle (Pinnacle, 1985)
• Midnight City (New American Library, 1987)
• Black Market (St. Martin's, 1992)

• The Outrider (Pinnacle, 1984)
• Fire and Ice (Pinnacle, 1984)
• Blood Highway (Pinnacle, 1984)
• Bay City Burnout (Pinnacle, 1984)
• Built to Kill (Pinnacle, 1985)

• Footloose (1984)
• Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
• Red Heat (1988)
• Tucker (1988)
• Rooftops (1989)
• Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)
• Basic Instinct (1992)
• The Bodyguard (1992)
• The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)
• Universal Soldier (1992)
• Forever Young (1992)
• Beethoven (1992)
• The Last Action Hero (1993)
• Hard Target (1993)
• Demolition Man (1993)
• Drop Zone (1994)
• Outbreak (1995)
• Assassins (1995)
• Mulholland Falls (1996)
• Eraser (1996)
• Chain Reaction (1996)
• Beethoven's 2nd(1996)
• Beethoven's Puppies(1996)
• Beethoven's Puppies: Family Vacation (1996)
• Blood and Wine (1997)
• Warriors of Virtue (1997)
• Desperate Measures (1998)
• JAG (1998)
• My Dinner With Andrew (1998)
• Tough Love (1999)
• The Astronaut's Wife (1999)
• JAG: Clean Steel (2000)

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Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:American male novelists

Category:1954 births

Category:2019 deaths

Category:Writers from Providence, Rhode Island

Category:People from Newburyport, Massachusetts

Category:Columbia University alumni

Category:20th-century American male writers