First Frontier, by DC and Dr. James I. Kirkland. I remember the general concepts of DC's "Piper" novels, and her "Robert April" novels, but I'd completely forgotten this opus.
Star Trek: The Red King (reread) The book had some stiff competition in the Trek sphere when it came out, and I may have judged it too harshly then. At Chapter 19, I'm on track to up its rating to three stars. The scene where Tuvok and Akaar reconcile is beautiful.
I'm no expert on string theory, but the discussion on pages 64-66 of First Frontier seems . . . wrong. Anybody else have a take on that?
String theory and cosmic strings are two different things. String theory refers to the idea that subatomic particles are essentially tiny vibrating stringlike loops, that different kinds of particle are strings that vibrate in different ways like the various strings of a guitar or harp. Cosmic strings are basically what the novel says they are, hypermassive one-dimensional deformations in spacetime like linear black holes, with only the bit about "cutting through dimensions" being fanciful, albeit plausible in Trek terms, vis-a-vis the cosmic strings featured in TNG's "The Loss" and in "Yesterday's Enterprise" (where the time vortex was called "the formation of a Kerr loop from superstring material," which is pretty solid physics aside from the erroneous use of "superstring" to mean "cosmic string").
So you're discussing strings on a thread? Is there another thread about "Fact-Checking Trek Fiction"? Sounds like it'd be a good one to start if not.
A couple days ago, as the month of April was rapidly disappearing, I realized that while I had indeed been reading through out the month (I’d read over two-thirds of Frank Herbert’s Dune and over a dozen 1942 Superman comic books and newspaper comic strips stories) that I was not going to *finish* anything by the end of the month. Not willing to have a “goose egg” on my monthly reading reports, I started looking to find a couple “quick read” comics collected editions. I discovered while picking up a novel on hold at my public library that they had gotten in two of the newest IDW Star Trek trade paperbacks that I’d asked them to get. Which was perfect, because both of them collected five-issue mini-series. Short enough for even me to read, one per day. The two were: Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Echoes Trade Paperback (March 2024; reprinting Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Echoes #1-5 (May 2023 to September 2023)) Writer: Marc Guggenheim. Art by Oleg Chudakov. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Dog of War Trade Paperback (February 2024; reprinting Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Dog of War #1-5 (April 2023 to August 2023)) Writer: Mike Chen. Art by Angel Hernández. I hate to say it but the one of these two that I was looking forward more when I first heard about it, Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Echoes, turned out to be quite a disappointment. The time period between Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a very interesting period for tie-in comics and novels to set their stories in as it’s one of Star Trek’s less explored time spans. But Echoes just isn’t very good in pretty much every way. Not a particularly good story. With art by an artist whose style is not conducive to actor likenesses (which is a major negative in regards to TV or film tie-ins). And especially in this story where there were also two “doppleganger” versions of main cast characters. The two versions of Chekov never did look a bit like actor Walter Koenig, or even like each other. Heck, at times I had to remind myself that I was looking at Captain (Admiral) Kirk! And Spock’s depiction was all over the place. Some times okay, while other times almost grotesque. (In at least one panel I would have sworn that the artist was drawing a Marvel Comics Skrull.) Which is not to say that I don’t think the artist has talent. I just don’t think this was the right project for him. I also felt that Guggenheim made Kirk too much of a smart aleck, tossing out witty comments on just about every page. That’s not how the Kirk was portrayed during in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Anyway, as much as Echoes (which I ended up giving two out of five stars on GoodReads, at that was me being generous) disappointed me, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Dog of War made up for it. The story was interesting. The art was great (including very nice likenesses of the original actors). The characters all acted and talked like they usually did on the television series. And the story followed the well established types of story beats that one would expect. Including a really cool moment at the end of one of the issues where they all depart from the space station in the Defiant, officially with their priority the recovery of a dangerous piece of Borg technology with vital stolen Starfleet intel on it, but with Sisko declaring, “And… we are getting our dog back” (or something like that). What dog? Well, you’ll just have to read it to find out. (That’s called a tease.) I gave Dog of War four out of five stars on GoodReads. — David Young
I'm rereading Star Trek: Orion's Hounds. Christopher, did you know while writing the book that this would be your only chance to do anything with Jaza?
I had to check my old records, but it looks like I didn't know what the next book was going to do, no. However, it's not quite the only time I wrote Jaza, since I featured his Mirror Universe counterpart in Shards and Shadows: "Empathy."
Now 200 pages into First Frontier. And still nothing rings any bells: reading it again for the first time.
Just published the latest episode of the Positively Trek Book Club podcast, in which Bruce Gibson and I discuss the final seven stories in Star Trek Explorer Presents: "The Mission" and Other Stories, which features authors James Swallow, Una McCormack, Michael Carroll, John Peel, Keith R.A. DeCandido, and Michael Collins. Definitely enjoyed the whole collection, but there are a couple of real standout stories that were truly excellent. Currently reading Star Wars: Dark Disciple, as well as a number of graphic novels, including The Dark Knight Returns. I keep hearing about how great and influential it is, so I'm finally checking it out.
Page 292 of First Frontier: ". . . rabbit-punched him in the ribs." A rabbit punch, by definition, is a chopping blow to the back of the neck, explicitly prohibited in boxing by the Queensberry Rules. Etymonline says that it comes from how gamekeepers euthanize injured rabbits. Clearly DC hadn't the slightest clue what a rabbit punch is, and neither did her copy-editor.
By DC do you mean it from DC Comics? As a life long dog person, I've been dying to read Dog of War since it was first announced, and it's really pissing me off that it's the only recent Trek comic that Hoopla, the free libarary app, hasn't gotten. Up until this weekend I had been reading The Art of Marvel Studios: Guardians of the Galaxy, but I decided to take a break from it to read digital comic collection Star Wars The High Republic (Phase I) Vol. 3: Jedi's End.
Thanks, @Christopher. Just finished First Frontier. Quite an ending. I've always found DC to be rather underrated, and this time, she managed to keep her anarchist tendencies under control. DC's descriptions of Clan Ru (especially towards the end) seem an awful lot like the Gorn from SNW. And they make me wonder: Could Ensign Telosirizharcrede (from Dreadnought) have been the Clan Ru ambassador's daughter, rather than the Gorn ambassador's? I forget whether she was explicitly identified as Gorn. And like whatever I was reading on vacation last Spring, Pocket was using some really lousy coverstock on this opus. Almost as bad as last spring. It's now in a zip-top bag, with two corners that fell off, awaiting a date with my roll of transparent archival book-tape. Now to finish the February 2024 issue of the NMRA Magazine, which I'd started on a train ride a week ago. I'd left off just before reading a 2-page review of a G-scale old-time narrow-gauge coach, from Bachmann. And I still have two volumes of Picard Season 3 to watch.
Oh OK, I've just never seen her referred to that way, and she's pretty far down on my list of things with the initials DC.
Probably the easiest author initialism to misconstrue. After all, I don't think there's a GC Comics or a CLB Comics. Could "KRAD" have been the first commonly used author initialism? I vaguely recall that there was an in-joke involving a Klingon. Or maybe "DD" (whom John M. Ford memorably Tuckerized as "Princess Deedee" in How Much for Just the Planet?).