Revisiting the Golden VGR Relaunch + Full Circle

I guess I'm a long time off/and/on lurker on this board and its predecessors on AOL and Psi Phi. For about the last five years the only Star Trek books I've stayed up to date with were New Frontier, Vanguard, and Mirror Universe.

I originally had very negative experiences with the initial SCE eBooks' DRM and for several years refused to buy any more until I both acquired a Kindle and ended up living outside the US for several years. Boxes of books in a storage unit are useless a continent away.

Last week I was faced with a 12 hour bus ride when there were no award flights available (ie using air miles) and the normal seats were going for very high prices. Perfect use for an eBook or two to kill the time on a bus... especially ones I'd been putting off reading.

When Homecoming and The Farther Shore were released in 2003, I was very... underwhelmed. For some reason the preview in the "Endgame" novelization come off a lot better than the finished product. I even ended up skipping the B'Elanna/Boreth sections of the book on no-more-Klingon-honor-mysticism grounds. I bought the Spirit Walk duology and made it maybe 1/3 of the way into Old Wounds before I just gave up and set it aside. I had liked Christie Golden's earlier books, so just wasn't sure what had gone wrong.

I since read Before Dishonor, so I knew all about ~that~. I'm a Peter David fan (and especially appreciate how well he captures the 1990's feel of the 24th century series instead of trying to be revisionist about everything), but also know PAD isn't a VGR fan and never felt he did the Janeway part of that book the justice it deserved. I'm honestly neutral on this controversy, but do understand why VGR fans felt singled out as, say, no one would kill off Picard in a random VGR book. Then the Kirsten Beyer books came out, received a lot of praise, and I wanted to get around to reading them... but kept procrastinating because I wanted to knock out the Golden books first.

So, I managed to start Homecoming and finally made it all the way to finishing The Eternal Tide a week and a half later. Particularly interesting to read Enemy of my Enemy and Full Circle back to back despite obviously the very long publication gap.

I started with very low expectations, but was surprised to agree with several of Golden's choices despite others still being pretty bad. Promoting Harry Kim to security? Libby as a SI agent? Another crazy admiral, this one wanting to be the Borg Queen of Earth? Bringing in Picard and Data? Icheb being ~beat up~ but his Academy cadet friends? The whole holographic rights thing? Just one phrase about the Equinox survivors (granted the series had abandoned that one)? Having many Starfleet officers resenting Voyager missing the Dominion War and constantly bringing it up, despite it being over by 2 years at that point -- then go all "post 9/11" on Seven and Icheb?

Actually, I guess aside from some of the character moments my opinion of these two books still stands as fairly negative and very bad for all the lost opportunities. But... I thought Jarem Kaz was a very good character. I know Trills have been overexposed, but he was a cool way to bridge the Maquis with the present, without specifically being a former Maquis.

I guess what really surprised me was the Spirit Walk duology. I mean, it's nothing great, and only average at its best. It gets way too spiritual, and many things are retreads. But there are several good ideas here. How were most of the Maquis massacred? What happeend to Dorvan V during the Dominion War? How would Chakotay interact with Starfleet?

I really liked how Golden showed that after 7 years, the real divide on Voyager now was between the people who had been lost in the Delta Quadrant and the new crew members, not Starfleet and former Maquis. But again, this could have been done without the whole "you missed the Dominion War and had a vacation in the DQ" thing. Golden did find something for Janeway to do as an admiral using her skillset she developed in the DQ. Crell Moset was already done in the Battle of Betazed, but he was an Alpha Quadrant character on VGR so justifiably worth bringing back. And, yes, the Changeling is again overwarmed leftovers, but, at least it does provide Chakotay with a great antagonist related to both Dorvan V and the Maquis massacre. Dorvan V's inhabitants having Sky Spirit DNA is again something that would interest someone.

But, the whole medical horror experiments thing is over the top. Counselor Ashtall just... doesn't work, and Devi Patel is never developed beyond just a character description. Jarem Kaz and Lyssa Campbell are both great, but I'll leave this one for the Full Circle comments.

Then, the duology ends with the Changeling on the loose and B'Elanna still on bloody Boreth dealing with the Klingon thing -- which is a worthy continuation of the kuvah'magh plot thread, but again Klingons have really been done to death.

Whatever Golden planned next never happens. Janeway gets off-ed in Before Dishonor (hmm, it would have actually been much better to kill Janeway off in the climax of Destiny instead, but that isn't for this thread). VGR proper is abandoned for years.

Eventually this mess needed to be fixed by someone. Enter Kirsten Beyer. When this choice was announced in 2008ish, I was underwhelmed. I'd never been able to finish her second book in the String Theory trilogy and just vaguely remember how it completely destroyed the Nacene (a lost opportunity for a much closer interpretation linked to what the series actually established), going in a completely different direction than necessary and having pages and pages of techno-babble. But her re-relaunch got rave reviews so I wanted to read it -- eventually.

5 years later I finally did. She had a very tough mandate to fill -- resolve the Golden story threads, account for Janeway's death, and have everything come... full circle by the end to where Marco wanted to take VGR. In John Ordover's day this may have been one trilogy -- or two, perhaps also tying into that year's mega series crossover. Instead Beyer has just one book, and one that clearly set off to be at least a duology yet was placed on a massive diet.

Beyer goes tripple down on the Klingon storyline while mostly handwaving the Changeling storyline away. The Klingon part actually works pretty well until B'Elanna decides to fake her and Miral's death, go into hiding, and tell none of her friends or family about it for years -- because there is one ship of crazy Klingons out there wanting to kill them. (Could a less heavy handed way been found to get B'Elanna to the DQ? Probably. Then a great chunk of Unworthy wouldn't have needed to be dedicated to fixing this one.) Chakotay suddenly has no interest in the Changeling despite the moon massacre storyline. Sure he would prioritize B'Elanna, but him suddenly losing total interest in that one is also problematic. Libby is quickly shoved away. Seven and the Doctor replay their Think Tank roles from Spirit Walk.

Again, this whole situation is a mess. With all the constraints present, Beyer makes the best of a bad situation. But, maybe the almost over the top Golden character culling to bring in her own new people goes to far.

I can see why she boots Ashtall of the ship faster than a David E Kelley show writes off a regular between seasons. Her replacement is amazing (more on that in a bit). Akolo Tare... well considering her only plot thread from the past 4 books, I can see why she was just killed off since that would be a mess to take on since the holorights thing is wisely getting some distance.

But I think Lyssa Campbell and Jarem Kaz should have been kept. I know Lyssa was Golden's main recurring character from her "during the series" books. But she is also the only "new" character in the relaunch to have actually been on Voyager in the DQ. With rather senseless death, the ship is now down to the only remaining main cast characters. Having an extra character who had been on the ship the whole time would have been very beneficial to future storylines -- and given us a new perspective on how past events were impacting the present. Instead it just feels like with the exception of the main cast, everyone else on the ship is now new with Vorik booted off too. A lost opportunity.

Sure, Jarem Kaz is a Trill, with basically a VGR Maquis spin on Ezri Dax. But, again, he was a good character, had experience interacting with the VGR crew since they returned, plus brought in a Maquis link that has always been part of VGR's DNA. Now that how angle has been closed off, and Cambridge basically takes over many of the things he was doing. I can see why Beyer wanted to bring in a Tamarian, but Kaz could have easily been sent over to the Galen medical ship instead of being killed off. Instead the only Golden character left standing is a cipher she introduced but never developed.

Cambridge though, amazing character, even though the "he's played by Hugh Laurie" bits may be too heavy handed. Great source of conflict, and the archeology angle gives him much more to do. Definitely the breakout character of the re-relaunch.

Then Chakotay pisses Starfleet off enough at the end of the Klingon storyline to be sentenced to almost 2 years of busywork allowing for a time jump to Destiny.

Okay, now we get to the really good parts of Full Circle. Amazing character development of Chakotay, even though I did wonder where his sister from the last books was during all of this. J/C... no objection. Seven and The Doctor both come out of their Think Tank funk. The idea of returning to the DQ with slipstream and a fleet... wow. Eden and Batiste, ehh, but decent.

So, from a very problematic beginning to something pretty amazing, albeit with some reservations.

Then things really take off from there

 

I do agree that Kaz was an interesting character who still had potential. He was the one thing from Golden's relaunch I'd have kept.

In Peter David's defense, Janeway's death was an editorial decision, and he killed her in such a way as to leave the door wide open for her return. The way he wrote it I never really thought of Janeway as dead, just away.

 

I despise Cambridge and was mad that they dumped Kaz, as he was a really neat character.

 

I was also a Kaz fan, but Cambridge is one of my absolute favorite lit-created characters. Kirsten made him so perfectly. He's one of the main reasons why her run has been amazing. Her characters come to life with each novel

 

Yep, and Cambridge is human after all. At first, he appeared to be high and mighty, but as we get to know him more, we find out how frail and human he is himself. Yet he still can do his job as a counselor.

I like his style too, direct to the point, and he's not a vulcan at all.

 

I dislike the whole B'Elanna and Klingon mysticism storyline across Golden and Beyer's novels. The concept of the episode "Barge of the Dead" was nonsensical, but lo and behold, B'Elanna and her mother really did experience a joint hallucination, something that makes no sense especially in sci-fi!

 

And beyond that, everything parapsychological - telekinesis, visions of the future, telepathy, ascending to higher realms of existence - is already non-scientific mysticism anyway if you're being strict about it, so what's the problem with introducing another aspect of that sort of thing? I mean, the only reason psychic phenomena feels like a sci fi concept nowadays is pure inertia at this point.

 

I never read the Spirit Walk duology, I skipped straight from Further Shore to Full Circle and used Memory Beta to fill in the gaps. I think that helped lessen the confusion, as I didn't get to the loose ends that were left after Spirit Walk, and they aren't mentioned much, if at all.

To me, Golden's writing seems almost half-hearted compared to Beyer's - she's a very intense writer and a clear passion for the characters. I know she tried to write for the show while it was still airing, but never got any of her scripts read. But I don't know about Golden's Star Trek past.

Then again, they were both given very different tasks. Golden had to bring Voyager into the Alpha Quadrant for the first time, and deal with their arrival home; but Beyer had an entirely different set of circumstances to deal with, which no doubt influenced their writing.

 

I would have loved to read Kirsten's take on Voyager first getting home. I was so excited for Golden's books, and liked them fine, but Kirsten would've probably done a much better job. If only

 

I always considered the way that Goldens new characters were "alpha flighted "to be rather callous to both the characters and Golden herself.


I have since given up on Voyager altogether,years of waiting for it to get better and well...it just doesn't.

 

I like the use of "alpha flighted" as a verb.

 

I think Homecoming isn't actually bad but there are some really skewed priorities in it. The Farther Shore was a rather big blow in terms of quality. I think the Spirit Walk books are readable, if they perhaps would have been better as a single story with less side trips. That said, Kirsten Beyer's work has opened me up to Voyager in a way Golden's novels never did. Character driven drama with an emphasis on what made Voyager unique as a show.

It is fair to say that Golden may have been given a raw deal in establishing an Alpha Quadrant Status quo for the characters which stripped them of their uniqueness a bit. As much as I enjoyed how much Full Circle undid everything, I did think the way in which Golden's quasi-Mary Sue was dispatched was perhaps a bit much.

 

Unfortunate is'nt it?
For those not in the know,the term refers to Marvel's team of Canadian superheroes.Bereft of ideas what to do with Alpha Flight and unwilling to give the a " happy ever after", Marvel seemingly had all the characters wiped out in one fell swoop( since retconned I believe).

 

I don't give Golden a pass because she had to use the Voyager crew in the Alpha Quadrant, I think there were interesting stories to be told in that setting. I could see where maybe if the two two book arcs had been done as one book each the plot could've been tightened up. I've liked some of her other books, so I don't know what went wrong.

 

When you look at the entire Voyager novel line, from the Caretaker novelization, right upto present, Christie Golden and now Kirsten Beyer have been the two main authors. So back in 2003 it was only natural to have Golden write the Voyager return stories. And I still think she did a good job with them, although the "Spirit Walk" books, out of all her Voyager novels, may have been her two weakest, but it would've been interesting to have seen where Golden went after SW had she been able to continue the series.

 

I would like to see a follow-up to Oliver Baines's holostrike. That is one plot thread that has been left hanging by Beyer's novels.

 

I'm happy to let it lie. In general, both canon and Trek Lit seem to indicate that true holographic sentience is a rarity, that most holograms are just simulations and game characters. (Certainly that's the stance Marco Palmieri took when he was editing Trek Lit.) I've always figured that Baines's insistence on treating all holographic characters as sapient beings was the delusion of a fanatic. They didn't really "go on strike"; he just reprogrammed them to act that way.

Certainly the question of equal rights for AIs of all types is worth investigating, but Baines's "movement" was not a legitimate component of that debate -- more just a distraction.

 

Zimmerman says as much in Full Circle. He considers it near-enough a "non-issue", given the rarity of holographic sapience. Of course, since Baines' stunt catapulted the matter into the public mind it has become an issue in the Federation, whether it should "objectively" have been one or not. The holographic rights matter was noted as significant in A Time for War, A Time for Peace; granted, that was only a year after the holostrike, so public interest has probably died down significantly since then, now that the Federation has...other things to worry about. I suppose it was a big "I'm bored, what shall we elevate as the Thorny Problem today?" issue in 2378-9, but people are more concerned about issues with actual substance now, like refugees and rebuilding, Typhon Pacts and Andorians, etc.

 

Well what about the plot point of Baines apparently uploading his mind to a holographic matrix and faking his death? And he has Lieutenant Vassily Andropov in his influence. And Allyson?