Actually she says: "There are now two definitions, and the positive one is: Yes, she's a Mary Sue, but the writer's actually doing it right." And then her definition of "doing it right" in the following paragraph includes NOT warping the other characters. "... and second, it can't warp any of the other characters. You can't change the characterization of known characters and make them unrecognizable." This entire discussion is really interesting to me. I've always said that if Piper is a Mary Sue, she's a Mary Sue done right. These books were some of my early favorites. On the other hand, its been decades since I've read them. I've had both Dreadnaught! and Battlestations! on my "to reread" pile for years now, just to see if they're as good as I remember. This discussion has (once again) made me really want to dig back into them. So has watching Into Darkness, because some elements really felt familiar. That made me want to reread Dreadnaught! too, just to see how close the connection is.
I just think that lumping Piper into the Mary Sue category glosses over all the things that make the Piper books unique and innovative, like the first-person narration and the shift in focus to an ensemble of junior officers a la "Lower Decks." The Mary Sue trope may have some things in common with what Carey did in those books, but it's not adequate to convey everything that characterizes them.
Oh, I totally agree. They were something different during a time period when "something different" was almost unheard of in the trek novels. They were a real breath of fresh air. These days there are all kinds of interesting experiments with original characters and settings, but back then stuff like that just didn't happen in trek lit.
Dreadnaught and Battlestations were amongst my favorite Trek novels when i was a kid. I've not read them for many years but I have fond memories of them. When I got back from ST: Into Darkness I was thinking about the plotline (such as it is) and I immediately thought of Rittenhouse and Star Empire and the similarities with the movie story. Like DorkBoy, I feel I need to reread the old books to see exactly how similar the ideas are. On an earlier point made above: Piper's a Mary Sue, I agree but she's one done well.
Actually, it did. "Web of the Romulans" was quite innovative in its day. Probably the first time, IIRC, that 50% of the narrative was coming from the antagonist race. The ST III novelisation took about one third of the book to get to the adaptation of the script. Then there was the book-within-a-book concept. "The Final Reflection" did it so well, "Strangers from the Sky" did it too. "Spock's World" was the first hardcover (excluding the YA "Mission to Horatius") and it sat on science fiction hardcover "new releases" shelves without "Star Trek" on its spine! It also alternated chapters of a 23rd century story with a historical look at ancient Vulcans. "How Much for Just the Planet?" was a musical comedy, without the sheet music.
Good point. Several of those are others I have fond memories of. (Except Web of the Romulans, I don't remember that one.) And I haven't read any of the movie novelizations (yet!) I guess I should have said "Hardly ever" instead of "No never." "The Romulan Way" is another example of a "thinking outside the box" novel that I really enjoyed. Still- we didn't get novels focused on original characters nearly as often back then as we have in the years since New Frontier made it mainstream.
Not musical, but here is a live-action version of the "Dilithium and You" infomercial from HMFJTP?: [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hemM8rrx2Yw[/yt]
A few years ago, TrekBBS members helped me track down some of the tunes: http://therinofandor.blogspot.com.au/p/how-much-for-just-planet-search-for.html
not FIGHTING, per se, but more all interested/smitten to various degrees. Kirk and Mccoy both had their thing going on, and Spock's interest was, i'm sure, purely intellectual... Yeah, trickster of some mythical variety, take your pick. Only other offical name she gave us was that she wanted to be known to the locals as Tail-Kinker