TP: Rough Beasts of Empire by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Smellincoffee]

Angstromdweller wrote:

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Order 1701-E? Is that just a coincidence?

I may have edited the order number just a bit for my own safety and amusement. (I don't know what mischief someone could do with an order number, but better safe than sorry, eh?)

Edit: Well, mine is on the way as of this morning!

[fleetcaptain]

Mine came in yesterday at my local B&N. I wasn't suspecting it til next week. Now I gotta order the last book. I'm currently reading Zero Sum Game right now. Wanted to read the books together.

[fleetcaptain]

Got my copy this morning. Did a skim and love what happens. We get to see what happens to Vaughan and also David uses the Akira class USS James T. Kirk again like in the recent Myriad Universe story he did.

[KingstonTrekker]

Picked it up Christmas Eve and finished it late in the evening on Boxing Day (I had plenty of time to read in between several Xmas dinners and family events.)

I really liked the Romulan/Spock portions of the book. Very engaging stuff.

The Sisko parts didn't work as well for me. I felt that several of his actions (e.g. how he left Kassidy) didn't align with his character. He also came off as whiny and more than a bit of a jerk (this element continued through to his command of the Robinson). I also felt that the flashbacks to the earlier Tzenekthi War didn't meld effectively (or at all) with the present-day story.

My major beef with the book is that it is really two books in one --- the Sisko and Spock stories never come together (except for Sisko's meeting with Donatra). This could very easily have been two separate books --- with each story being fleshed out in more detail and receiving more comprehensive treatment.

I rated the book "Above Average" due to the excellent Spock story. The Siskso plot, in my opinion, was Below Average.

There just seems to be something missing from these Typhon Pact books --- like each book just never really comes together in the end...

[Ronald Held]

about 100 pages into it. Too soon for an evaluation.

[crotig]

Amazon.co.uk has the Kindle edition date as 28/12/10 which is earlier than previously stated. The paperback edition has a 03/02/11 release date.
I'll be attempting to get the Kindle edition on Tuesday so I suppose I'd better get Unspoken Truth finished for then.

Hope they stick to it,

[KingstonTrekker]

crotig wrote:

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Amazon.co.uk has the Kindle edition date as 28/12/10 which is earlier than previously stated. The paperback edition has a 03/02/11 release date.
I'll be attempting to get the Kindle edition on Tuesday so I suppose I'd better get Unspoken Truth finished for then.

Hope they stick to it,

I had a physical twinge when you mentioned Unspoken Truth...it is one of only a handful of Trek novels I was not able to finish (I have read 100's...)....good luck with it!

[TerraUnam]

I didn't expect the Imperial Romulan State/Romulan Star Empire conflict to be resolved so soon.

All eyes in the Federation turn to the Cardassians next....

[KingstonTrekker]

TerraUnam wrote:

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I didn't expect the Imperial Romulan State/Romulan Star Empire conflict to be resolved so soon.

Same here. I also felt that Donatra fell much too easily for the trap set for her. The author tried to stress that she had few other options available to her, but she was much too bright to travel to Romulus and to trust the Praetor.

[TerraUnam]

ISTM that she was set up several books ago to be the Federation's Romulan and then that didn't happen. That could be an editorial decision, I don't know. But you can't win everything.

I also agree with the new Praetor that Vulcan/Romulan unity is a pie in the sky dream.

The launch of Typhon I was also cool. That also seemed to be an editorial mandate. DRGIII mentioned he had two and I'll wager that was one of them.

[Truth]

TerraUnam wrote:

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ISTM that she was set up several books ago to be the Federation's Romulan and then that didn't happen. That could be an editorial decision, I don't know. But you can't win everything.

I also agree with the new Praetor that Vulcan/Romulan unity is a pie in the sky dream.

The launch of Typhon I was also cool. That also seemed to be an editorial mandate. DRGIII mentioned he had two and I'll wager that was one of them.

yeah , yeah yeah , thats great , but what i want to know is does sisko , finlly get some direction, casue this limbo thing has played itself out..

[David R. George III]

KingstonTrekker wrote:

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I really liked the Romulan/Spock portions of the book. Very engaging stuff.

Glad to hear it.

KingstonTrekker wrote:

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The Sisko parts didn't work as well for me.

I felt that several of his actions (e.g. how he left Kassidy) didn't align with his character. He also came off as whiny and more than a bit of a jerk (this element continued through to his command of the Robinson). I also felt that the flashbacks to the earlier Tzenekthi War didn't meld effectively (or at all) with the present-day story.

I suspected that the Sisko aspect of the tale might prove a tougher sell, for several reasons. Sorry it didn't work for you, but as a reader and fan of the continuing Deep Space Nine story, I felt satisfied by my choices.

KingstonTrekker wrote:

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My major beef with the book is...

My major beef with the book is that it is really two books in one --- the Sisko and Spock stories never come together (except for Sisko's meeting with Donatra). This could very easily have been two separate books --- with each story being fleshed out in more detail and receiving more comprehensive treatment.

The book could have been longer, of course, but from my perspective, it ended up precisely as long as it needed to be in order for me to tell the story I wished to tell.

KingstonTrekker wrote:

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I rated the book "Above Average" due to the excellent Spock story. The Siskso plot, in my opinion, was Below Average.

Good news, bad news, huh? Oh well.

TerraUnam wrote:

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I didn't expect...

I didn't expect the Imperial Romulan State/Romulan Star Empire conflict to be resolved so soon.

For me, as both a reader and a writer, I like the unexpected.

TerraUnam wrote:

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All eyes in the Federation turn to the Cardassians next.

You might be surprised.

KingstonTrekker wrote:

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I also felt...

I also felt that Donatra fell much too easily for the trap set for her. The author tried to stress that she had few other options available to her, but she was much too bright to travel to Romulus and to trust the Praetor.

Another aspect of this development comes from the fact that Donatra truly wanted an undivided Romulan Empire, and so wanted to do what she could to make that happen. Note that she decided that if the summit appeared as though it would fail, she would assassinate Tal'Aura herself, even at the cost of Donatra's own life, because removing the praetor from office, even in that way, would be in the bests interests of the Romulan people.

TerraUnam wrote:

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The launch of...

The launch of Typhon I was also cool.

That also seemed to be an editorial mandate. DRGIII mentioned he had two and I'll wager that was one of them.

How much did you wager? And shall I tell you where to send me a check?

Truth wrote:

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...does sisko , finlly get some direction, casue this limbo thing has played itself out..

I believe that he does.

[TerraUnam]

I didn't say my expectations were unmet. I just said I didn't expect a resolution to that issue so soon. I liked how you did it, actually. It always seems on Romulus no good deed goes unpunished. Conspiracy and duplicity are the coin of the realm there. What you did with Donatra was good. I just thought that might have been a source of tension for a while longer. But things move on.

The book was excellent. I have always liked the Romulans, that's one reason I like the ENT novels. More Romulan time is good.

I await Paths of Disharmony eagerly.

As a personal view, whenever Spock talks his unity line in the books (not just yours) I always think "Yeah, so you're going to throw two centuries of Federation membership and Vulcan's relations with Earth out the window now?" Cue Trys Chen.

[KingstonTrekker]

Thanks for replying to my posts David. I think you may have missed the meaning of one of my comments. I was not criticizing the length of the book or advocating that it should be longer. I expressed the opinion that it seemed like two separate books since, to me, the very separate stories (Spock/Sisko) never converged. That led to my comment that they could have been separate novels -- which would have allowed additional exploration with each story if that had been your wish.

[David R. George III]

TerraUnam wrote:

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I didn't say my expectations were unmet.

^ Sorry if I implied that you had unmet expectations. Well, actually, I guess I said that you did, but I was really only trying to be clever with the spoiler tags. I didn't mean anything negative by it.

I find your take on Spock's press for reunification of Vulcan and Romulus fascinating, in that I didn't know if anybody else felt the same way about it that I did. Writing such a perspective into Rough Beasts of Empire actually felt liberating and, at least for me, politically interesting.

Anyway, thanks for the kind words.

KingstonTrekker wrote:

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Thanks for replying to my posts David.

Always happy to chat with readers, whether or not they like my work.

KingstonTrekker wrote:

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I think you may have missed the meaning of one of my comments. I was not criticizing the length of the book or advocating that it should be longer. I expressed the opinion that it seemed like two separate books since, to me, the very separate stories (Spock/Sisko) never converged. That led to my comment that they could have been separate novels -- which would have allowed additional exploration with each story if that had been your wish.

I understood what you were saying, but I guess I didn't respond in a way that made that clear. I agree that there are two separate, though related, story lines in the novel, but I'm not sure that individualizing them into their own books would have allowed me to expand either tale. I mean, I essentially told the story, or stories, that I sought to tell; there's nothing more I really wanted to add (with the possible exception of expanding on Sisko's role in the last Federation-Tzenkethi war).