One of my new year resolutions is too broaden my reading horizons (expand both with in the Trek Universe of Novels and also in wider Fictional realms), so while thinking about this on my lunch break earlier, I went into my local Waterstones which has had for months all three titles in the String Theory Trilogy, but before I actually take the plunge and buy the first one, what doe's everyone who have read them think of them? I'm not really looking for a break down in plot summaries, just your opinions on them, whether positive or negative. Cheers for the help.
It's been a year or two since I read them, but I remember Book One being good, Book Two being awesome, and Book Three being somewhere in between. Overall I think all the characters were nailed down and the writing was superb.
I thought the first book was excellent, one of the best Voyager novels I've ever read, with great character work. The second book was all right but a bit plodding and less effective with the characters. The setup for book three at the end of book two left me with no interest in finishing the trilogy, and nothing I've heard since then has made me regret the decision.
Reluctantly agreed. The first book (Jeffrey Lang's, I believe) was a completely unexpected burst of awesomeness. Zoomed through it in three or four hours. The second wasn't great, but it had a decent structure to it, and told a story that was passable. The third book's a mess though. Virtually unreadable in parts, overlong, and boring, topped off with the most asinine ending I've ever read in a Trek book.
I have to agree. I was expecting Lang's to be pretty average, and it was unexpectedly totally badass. I was curious to read Beyer, a newcomer, and was pleased enough that I'm really looking forward to Full Circle, but the book wasn't anything especially wonderful. And for the last one I LOVED Jarman, based on her DS9-R work, and couldn't wait to see what she'd do with Voyager...but was completely disappointed. Overall, though, it's probably worth a read; it's at least Voyager written for people that take themselves and the series seriously, which it's hard to say about a lot of the rest of the VOY books.
Overall, I have to agree with the consensus that seems to be developing here. The first two books were pretty good reads. The third book tried to do a few interesting things (making sense of some of the inconsistent characterization in certain Voyager episodes), but I found it a bit of a disappointing mess. As I blathered on my blog: Spoiler: String Theory The first two books are solid work, though the use of string theory is ultimately about as important and meaningful as the use of dark matter in the Trek novels several years ago. It's just something neato and magical and unconvincing. But the nuts and bolts of it all don't matter in the first two books. In those, there are character conflicts and mysteries and tragedies. I was disappointed by the third book, Heather Jarman's Evolution. It tested my willing suspension of disbelief a little too often, a little too much. The Doctor is presented as a photonic lifeform who can exist independent of his hardware and software. If the software isn't running on either sickbay's computers and holoemitters, or the ship's other similar hardware, or his 29th century lightbee (oh, wrong show, sorry), then the Doctor doesn't exist. Period. He's not going to be in some dimension where he can hear the strings of string theory as an orchestra string section he can conduct, and he's not going to find himself in the body of an Ocampa several centuries back in time. Granted, this is Star Trek, not Carl Sagan, but there's just too much magical stuff going on. You can get away with a lot of weirdness in the Q Continuum by explaining that the characters are seeing what's going on in a way they can understand -- but when you throw in a lot of stuff about the Caretaker's people, Q, Kes, string theory, and photonic energy, you can get seriously bogged down in layers of technobabble. You can even end up with a Nacene in human form complaining about the weakness and frailty of the body she's in, having just flown through space like Superman at a speed Voyager couldn't outrun and even being able to answer Voyager's communications while zooming along. No ship. Just that darn frail humanoid body. So I felt let down by the story, but I was also disappointed by the prose. I remember thinking that Jarman's first novel, This Gray Spirit, was a little clunky at times. I don't remember having issues with the prose of Paradigm, her Andorian story. But the prose of this book struck me as being in need of a little more polishing. Sometimes Jarman tries to capture something of the quality of the viewpoint character's speech, most noticeably in the formal and stilted Seven of Nine sections, but then there'll be a phrase or a sentence that jars with the tone. There are ill-considered word choices, with simpler words avoided in favour of fancier ones. Or words that are perhaps too informal. Or both, when Jarman refers to alleviating someone's mopeyness. Jarman also repeatedly uses the kind of tactic I might have used as a kid desperately trying to reach the number of required words for a school essay, stating not only what's implicit but what's obvious. Example (paraphrased): "she had only a few minutes to make an important decision, not an indefinite amount of time." A few minutes is not an indefinite amount of time, and most readers probably understand that. It's like saying, for example, Kes wore a red dress, not a green one. The second clause adds no information. It just fills up space. There's also too much of what seemed like poor grammar as opposed to stylistic choices: subject-verb agreement issues, run-on sentences, and subordinate clauses taking over sentences. (This glass house has a lovely view. Hey, look, stones! Want to throw one with me? Never mind.) The book's not all bad; the Harry Kim and Tom Paris and Q storyline has some entertaining moments, and I'm glad to see Kes again. I can imagine a lot of fans thoroughly enjoying the book. But for me, it was a little too reminiscent of the bafflegab and confusion that too many Voyager episodes suffered from.
The first two books are enjoyable reads. Book 1 is basically a 'planet of the week' story, but thrives on strong characterization, particularly Torres and Seven. The second book ups the stakes and is, if I recall correctly, largely focused on Janeway. The third book went off in a number of truly strange directions that left it feeling disjointed, to say nothing of trying to 'fix' perceived problems in the series itself that came off heavy-handed and less credible that what was simply seen onscreen. Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
I have to agree with most of the other people here. I really enjoyed the first two, but the third one was just ok. Overall I would recommend the trilogy as a whole though, because IMO despite the problems it is a very good Voyager story. Although I do agree that the attempted explanation in the third book was unnecessary.
I'll add my voice to the "yea" crowd. It was very interesting to see alot of little problems left over from the series all tied up, and a cool epic story as well.
I didn't really care for them. I think you enjoyment of them may depend on whether you agree with what they are attempting to do with Janeway's character in them. Personally I would have left it alone. They aren't terrible or anything but they weren't my cup of Earl Grey.. Give the 1st one a try and see what you think. The Voyager Relaunch is starting up fairly soon, you could just hold out for that.
Personally I like the Trek material written by Jeffrey Lang and thus I would say the first book is the strongest. I wish that all three had been able to maintain the momentum of the first novel but alas, like so many other series (sequels), it was not to be so. However, I do think the series as a whole is worth a read. Kevin
Actually the Relaunch has already been going for a while, there are already four books in the series. But it has been a few years since the last one came out though.
For the record, the trilogy was invented by Beyer and Jarman, and they (or maybe Marco?) invited Lang to participate. You make it sound like he had this awesome first book that they followed up on poorly, but it really works the other way around; they had this idea for a series already that he happened to introduce particularly brilliantly. It doesn't change the value of the books at all (the first is still the best), but I thought you were being a bit uncharitable to the other two.
According to Heather Jarman's comments in VoI, it was Marco's idea for the three of them to do the trilogy, but Jeffery Lang was having a number of personal issues and another writing project at the time, so Jarman and Kirsten Beyer wrote the outlines for the three books and Lang helped later on with more details on the world building and technology, and, obviously, the first book. Of course, she puts it much more eloquently, but I don't want to spoil it. Go buy VoI.
Makes sense. I just remember comments in Lang's acknowledgments to the effect of "thanks Kristen, Heather, and Marco for inviting me along to the party you were already having". And HE put it much more eloquently than that, I'm sure, but that's the jist of what I remember.
(Not to resurrect an old thread, but I didn't want to create a new one since this one fits the bill...) I finally got around to reading this trilogy last weekend, and finished the entire thing within 6 days. Wow, I was very impressed with it. While Evolution was not, IMO, on-par with the previous two novels (which were excellent, with Beyer's being my favorite), but it had some great moments that helped soften the blow. Very glad I read this and it helped change some of my prior "prejudices" regarding books that fit in-between episodes, etc. I liked it enough I wrote a review on my site: http://www.voxbomb.net/?p=676 Great job, all.
I agree the third may not have been the strongest of the three but I enjoyed the entire series and think it worth your while to read all of them. The third book did puzzle me at many points and I found it running around in my mind unlike the other two which I felt like I was duct-taped to a bulkhead for a very bumpy and crazy fun ride. In other words the frst two were a thrill ride but book three made me think.