TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic by McIntee Review Thread (Spoilers)

[Christopher]

But Indistinguishable from Magic doesn't really have anything to do with the Typhon Pact arc. It works fine as a standalone.

[Lonemagpie]

Freman wrote:

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When does this book take place? Is it after the Typhon Pact TNG book?

From about February 2383, so, chronologically it's after Typhon Pact, but it's standalone - you don't have to have read TP.

[Freman]

Okay thanks. I'm working through all the TNG books chronologically from the A Time To...series up to the most current book.

[Relayer1]

I am afraid I really didn't like it, but having read through chunks of the thread I am glad to say that the majority of the things I didn't like are the fault of interference from further up the tree, not the author !

With that in mind, not a bad result !

[Lonemagpie]

Relayer1 wrote:

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I am afraid I really didn't like it, but having read through chunks of the thread I am glad to say that the majority of the things I didn't like are the fault of interference from further up the tree, not the author !

With that in mind, not a bad result !

That works for me!

[captcalhoun]

i don't understand why people don't like it. i thought it was brilliant. (i skipped most of the thread....)

[Lonemagpie]

captcalhoun wrote:

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i don't understand why people don't like it. i thought it was brilliant. (i skipped most of the thread....)

According to the poll, the vast majority did like it - but you can't, as they say, please all of the people all of the time, cos everybody has different tastes.

[MatthiasRussell]

Average is passing and this one is getting mostly "above average". I'll have to check the Amazon scoring.

When I read it, I did enjoy the read but had elements that didn't enthuse me. Now I'm finding my opinion improves with time. When TNG fans have asked me for a single book to get them into trek lit, I've been recommending IFM.

[j3067]

I thought it was a great book. I thought it was a shame that it was not allowed to be two books as it was initially envisioned. The next of Lonemagpie's books is on auto-buy for me. The Rasmussen episode of TNG has some sentimental individual value for me so I enjoyed seeing him dusted off. I've never liked Sela from the start, but she did not bother me in this book; that was a unique experience. Geordi's Galaxy class nostalgia was also very appealing to me. I think I will head over to Amazon and write my overdue five-star review.

[Lonemagpie]

MatthiasRussell wrote:

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Average is passing and this one is getting mostly "above average". I'll have to check the Amazon scoring.

When I read it, I did enjoy the read but had elements that didn't enthuse me. Now I'm finding my opinion improves with time. When TNG fans have asked me for a single book to get them into trek lit, I've been recommending IFM.

If only there was a facebook-style "like" button for posts like that...

[Lonemagpie]

j3067 wrote:

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I thought it was a great book. I thought it was a shame that it was not allowed to be two books as it was initially envisioned. The next of Lonemagpie's books is on auto-buy for me.

I sincerely hope there will be one! Though with all 2012's books locked in, I guess nothing of that sort will happen till at least 2013...

(Which may be just as well, as I've two *very* time-intensive nonfiction books due for delivery on June 30th next year, the Blakes 7 one and another one.)

[DorkBoy [TM]]

I loved it.

It had a real SCE feel to it.

There were only four things I didn't like. I didn't use spoiler tags (its been months) so if you haven't read it, just stop here:

1. "Beaming" Barclay back from the Delta Quadrant seemed silly to me. But it felt right to have him as a part of LaForge's first command, so I'm not too upset about it. It's better than just having him mysteriously there without explaining how he got there.

2. The relationship between Geordi and Leah. This is the part everyone (myself included) wanted to see. How they would go from the awkward state their relationship was in at the beginning to getting together, if they ever even would.

It seemed to me like they went from awkward friends to waking up in bed together (after a fairly long time jump), and the thawing of their relationship happened at some point in between? Or maybe I just missed it.

It was just weird, all of the sudden they're sleeping together and I didn't even realize they were a couple yet. It just felt like the part I was curious to see got skipped.

3. At the end, I was really disappointed to see the Challenger get destroyed and Geordi returned to the Enterprise. By the end of the novel I was really, really liking this ship and especially its crew, and hoping we might see Challenger novels pop up from time to time. Kind of like Ezri and the Aventine.

It makes sense though, I guess. The TNG series needs him. Enterprise has already lost too many of the original crew. If you take away too many more it'll end up like DS9... sigh.

4. Scotty's "death" at the end. It was another "mostly dead" (as Kirsten Beyer said about Janeway on the G&T show the other day) with an obvious "out" just in case he needs to be used again. Seems like we've seen a lot of this lately - Data, Janeway, etc...

I really think its too soon to be killing off Scotty, since his character got to skip so much aging when he was brought forward, but if we have to kill him off can't we just have him be dead with finality?

One last bonus question. (Apologies if it was answered upthread, there's too much to read.) Nurse, er Doctor Ogawa was pulled out of Titan to be in this book. Now that Challenger has been destroyed, will she return to Titan? Or will she find some other planetary duty somewhere else, and not be seen in the novels again?

[Lonemagpie]

DorkBoy [TM] wrote:

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I loved it.

It had a real SCE feel to it.

That's entirely deliberate...

There were only four things I didn't like. I didn't use spoiler tags (its been months) so if you haven't read it, just stop here:

1. "Beaming" Barclay back from the Delta Quadrant seemed silly to me. But it felt right to have him as a part of LaForge's first command, so I'm not too upset about it. It's better than just having him mysteriously there without explaining how he got there.

It was kind of a necessity because he was fairly integral to it and nobody had mentioned to me that he was in the DQ fleet until the day before delivery! I considered having him be a hologram, a transporter duplicate (like Tom Riker) or having been dropped off by Q at some point, but in the end decided that a Pathfinder/transporter experiment would work best.

Not in spite of his transporter-phobia, but *because* of it - who else would it be funnier to have done it to. (and it meant I could get an A Team reference in)

2. The relationship between Geordi and Leah. This is the part everyone (myself included) wanted to see. How they would go from the awkward state their relationship was in at the beginning to getting together, if they ever even would.

It seemed to me like they went from awkward friends to waking up in bed together (after a fairly long time jump), and the thawing of their relationship happened at some point in between? Or maybe I just missed it.

It follows on from where they were in the Genesis Wave books

3. At the end, I was really disappointed to see the Challenger get destroyed and Geordi returned to the Enterprise. By the end of the novel I was really, really liking this ship and especially its crew, and hoping we might see Challenger novels pop up from time to time. Kind of like Ezri and the Aventine.

It makes sense though, I guess. The TNG series needs him. Enterprise has already lost too many of the original crew. If you take away too many more it'll end up like DS9... sigh.

Exactly - though this is part of the reason why it was originally pitched as two books - so you could have a length of time for further adventures in between them. C'est la vie.

4. Scotty's "death" at the end. It was another "mostly dead" (as Kirsten Beyer said about Janeway on the G&T show the other day) with an obvious "out" just in case he needs to be used again. Seems like we've seen a lot of this lately - Data, Janeway, etc...

I really think its too soon to be killing off Scotty, since his character got to skip so much aging when he was brought forward, but if we have to kill him off can't we just have him be dead with finality?

It was commissioned with him properly dead, (because surely not everybody lives to over 200, how can he top jump-starting the universe, and since the actor is no longer with us there's no danger of a screen cameo retconning it) but midway through writing it, CBS asked for an out, just in case. Can't really tell them to bugger off.... (Apparently this is exactly the same as what happened with Janeway)

One last bonus question. (Apologies if it was answered upthread, there's too much to read.) Nurse, er Doctor Ogawa was pulled out of Titan to be in this book. Now that Challenger has been destroyed, will she return to Titan? Or will she find some other planetary duty somewhere else, and not be seen in the novels again?

That's up the editors and writers of Titan. Again, she was a CBS choice of CMO (I'd asked whether I ought to use Pulaski or Ogawa, or a new character) but I don't see why she couldn't have returned to Titan.

[Christopher]

DorkBoy [TM] wrote:

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1. "Beaming" Barclay back from the Delta Quadrant seemed silly to me.

Well, it wasn't strictly necessary, since slipstream drive means that Voyager could return to the Federation in a matter of days if needed and Barclay could've been dropped off the old-fashioned way. But silly? I don't know about that. Given the existence of long-range subspace transmission methods like the beacons laid by the Voyager fleet and like Project Pathfinder, it doesn't seem out of the question that they could be adapted for carrying a transporter signal.

[DorkBoy [TM]]

It was kind of a necessity because he was fairly integral to it and nobody had mentioned to me that he was in the DQ fleet until the day before delivery!

That is hilarious. I actually wondered if it wasn't something like that. "He's WHERE? Aw crap."

And yes I got a kick out of it being Barclay being beamed halfway across the galaxy. The irony was not lost on me.

Thanks for the answers!

I read the Genesis Wave books but it was a long, long time ago. I guess now that I think about it they were both in those, too.

It doesn't surprise me that CBS asked for the "outs." I didn't know that was the case with Janeway as well but that sounds about right. Your instincts about having him be DEAD dead saving the universe were dead-on - that would have been much better.