VOY: The Eternal Tide by Kirsten Beyer Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Relayer1]

I'm going to defer reading that post until I've read the novel. If Amazon ever get it to me. Shouldn't take much longer than the novel to read...

[Enterpriserules]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=454AuTCioys just something really funny!

[Defcon]

^ Still think this is the best/most fitting Voyager/comedy theme mash-up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H987xPZuD1o

[Hartzilla2007]

Defcon wrote:

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Finished the novel last night and IMO it's definitely weaker than the last novel. I haven't voted yet, since at the moment I'm not clear yet if I should give it an average or above average, the tendency is strongly going toward average, though.

My main problem is that I feel that the series status quo is a lot less interesting after the events of TET than it was after CotS. Almost everything of the good work done in the last few novels has been undone to pretty much return the series as near to TV series Status quo than possible.

Another thing is that I don't see yet is why it was necessary to bring back Janeway beyond her role in this novel, if all she does is pretty much swapping back places with Eden. I actually think the more interesting move (if you feel the need to return Janeway to the living) would have been to have both Eden and Janeway around.

Anyway, to make it short: A little disappoinment after the great CotS. But Kirsten Beyer undoubtedly is a talented author, and I will definitely check out her next Voyager novel if/when it comes out.

Tirius wrote:

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Thank you Defcon for putting into words what I failed to do.

Nothing against the premise of the story, but with the exit of Eden and over half the fleet I too feel we've lost too much of the "Full Circle Project" concept and associated characters that I so enjoyed. I'd rather have seen a further exploration of Eden's character before we got to this point and am hoping we will not end up with Janeway just taking over Eden's place - the character deserves better than to be remembered as the one who "kept Janeway's seat warm".

I think Kirsten Beyer made a good effort with what she had to work with though. Being handed the task to bring back Janeway is something I wouldn't have wished on anyone, given what there was to work with and the obvious controversy of the subject among fans. So I too am still looking forward to the next book, to see where the story goes next.

Yeah, I'm not too happy about the whole reset button premise of this thing. I was kind of hoping Janeway would stay dead because it makes Star Trek more mature that actually deal with the death of a main character, but this just comes off as treating death like a minor temporary annoyance which I find kind of insulting.

And yes, I would feel the same way if they went through this with another Trek captain.

Well at least DS9 isn't (hopefully) letting me down in this area.

[JD]

EDIT: Never mind.

[Square]

I'm giving this an "above average."

RE: "Death."

No, I'm not disturbed by the so-called "reset button." Look, ST is filled with alternate timelines, other dimensions, alien super-technologies, ect. It's not surprising that mortal "death" doesn't hold quite the same significance as it would in a universe without the aforementioned. The "nature of existence" is fair game for science fiction to explore, and it's been referenced in many ways throughout the series. It's canon. "Death" =/= "end."

Is it a bit of "fanservice?" Sure, but, I don't see how anything in the novel gave the impression that the characters were getting off scott-free. There were heaps of angst and emotional upheaval. As for KJ's resurrection "undoing" the character development thus far, Beyer isn't stupid. One particular conversation between B'elanna and Tom ("You can't put the genie back in the bottle.") hints strongly that Lady Beyer is very much aware of that potential issue, and has no wish to return the VOY gang back to the "status quo." Besides, as Chakky said, there's more the Federation has to worry about than the Alpha and Beta quadrants now, and the DQ is replete with potential.

BTW, I really enjoyed the way the novel lays out the pro-resurrection argument along with smacking down some anti-Janeway sentiment ("Janeway was selfish! Boo-hoo.").

Ultimately, this novel did exactly what novels are supposed to do: it kept me entertained and put me at the edge of my seat waiting for the next one. If there was one thing I hated most about Janeway's demise, it was that we wouldn't get to see Beyer writing for her. Kirsten M.F. Beyer has show a remarkable talent for characterization, plus a love for VOY that makes me confident that we're heading in the right direction.

Lastly, there's no point in "reviewing" novels that haven't even been written yet, so I say we just wait and see, huh?

[Ronald Held]

Only mildly surprised at how Janeway was resurrected. I think it was unnecessary to the limit if what I have read.

[Square]

Ronald Held wrote:

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Only mildly surprised at how Janeway was resurrected. I think it was unnecessary to the limit if what I have read.

So what's the "necessary" way to bring someone back from the dead?

[Hartzilla2007]

Square wrote:

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So what's the "necessary" way to bring someone back from the dead?

I'm going to go with not to.

[Mage]

Hm.....

Need to let this sink in a while. I liked it, a lot. I suppose there's no need for me to put anything in spoilertags, since appereantly no one seems to bother with this anymore and people felt it neccesary to spoil the return of Janeway quite early in this topic.

In any case, whiping out half the fleet.... Wow. That kinda went far. I mean, out of nowhere, Project Full Circle is Project Less Then Half A Fleet. I thought that with the destruction of Planck in CotS, and the near-destruction of Quirnell (spelling??) we wouldn't see so much destruction that quickly again. No sure how I feel about all this just yet.

Q's involvement (all three of them) was very interesting, but sometimes felt a bit odd. Still, it was welcome seeing them again, and Junior's ultimate fate was interesting, if not a tad out of the blue to me.

Janeway.... I hadn't expected to find her return gratifying. I thought I would hate it, since I'm not a big fan of bringing people back from the dead. And although the entire storyline about how and why still has me feeling a bit 'I dunno' about it all, Kirsten does write Janeway very well, and that made it feel good, I suppose.

And that would be my biggest plus for this novel. Again, Kirsten pulled that part of so well. The Voyager characters feel like the people we got to know on the show. Just as DRGIII knows DS9, Kirsten nows Voyager. It's a very comforting thing, like putting on your favorite slippers.
The only downside to that is, I really wish she would explore the new characters a bit more. The only two non-tvshow characters getting a lot of attention are Nancy and Cambridge. She introduced more new officers then just those two, I'd like to see a little more focus on them. Like the new doctor... I can't even remember his name. There was such a big fuss about him being the first of his species in Starfleet, but he only gets a few cameo-like appereances so far.


I suck at writing reviews, so this is where I'm going to stop. In any case, I'll vote above average. I feel there were certainly a few things not quite right, and few ascpets I really did not like. But overall, I really enjoyed. I'm still looking forward to more Voyager, and that's what a novel should make want; more.

[zarkon]

Really didn't like this one, especially after how good COTS was. Didn't like how the Q were used, didn't like how the eden story arc finished off and all the O stuff, didn't like either how or why Janeway came back.

Also, quick question for those who follow this kind of thing better then me, why were people acting like the fighters were something the federation had never countenanced before given that they used something fairly similar during the dominion war? Just because it was during war?

[Mage]

zarkon wrote:

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Also, quick question for those who follow this kind of thing better then me, why were people acting like the fighters were something the federation had never countenanced before given that they used something fairly similar during the dominion war? Just because it was during war?

Well, the 'fighters' we saw during DS9 were basicly the same as the Maquis were using. And they were basicly nothing more then shuttles with weapons slapped on them, right? Civilian ships with weapons mounted on them, not actually designed to be fightercraft. I seem to remember something similair said during the double-episode that introduced the Maquis in DS9. Perhaps Starfleet thought 'what they could, so can we', and decided to bolster their attackforce with some of these fighters.
Then, after the war, they decided to actually design some fighters from the ground up.

Again, this is just speculation, probably not right.

[Jedi_Master]

Surprised by some of the negativity here...

Well not really.

First my review.

In a word: Amazing.

Kirsten Beyer has handled an impossible task with skill and grace. The Eternal Tide was exciting, interesting, and engrossing. She handled multiple story lines, did a fantastic job with the Q (and the Q, Q, Q, and Q) which is always a challenge, and even managed to get me to like Chakotay. She handled a deep scientific concept with a Christopher Bennett like - skill, and was able to convey the deep emotions experienced by the families (Voyager's, Q's, and Eden's) that were the heart of the story. She even managed to use the "mysterious anomaly" story structure without an eye - rolling moments. Kudos to you Ms. Beyer.


This book places Kirsten in my mind as an equal to David Mack, and she was able to repair a hole in the Star Trek universe in a way guaranteed to make both sides of the "Janeway" debate a little peeved, which is the best way to handle the whole situation, in my opinion.


This book is a fitting conclusion to the Voyager quadrology (?) and I hope that Kirsten will please grace us with another wonderful story very, very soon.

[Jedi_Master]

As to the whole "keeping the seat" warm issue.

Janeway is a canon character with 7 TV seasons of episodes and character exploration. It would be very difficult for a non - canon character introduced in the novels to EVER have the story potential that she does. So even though the character of Afsarah Eden was fascinating and interesting and undoubtedly fun to write, an author that loves Voyager as much as Ms. Beyer does would likely give up a lot to get a chance to write a story with Janeway in the starring role.

As much as the fleet exploration concept was interesting, in practice it had to be a bear for the author to keep track of and organize. There are literally dozens of minor characters in that fleet that would have been difficult for any new author to depict properly and would have sent most readers to Memory Beta just so that they can remember who Lieutenant Wehardlyknewyee was. So the easiest way to fix that problem is to cause half the fleet to be lost in a titanic struggle, and now we can go back to the main characters - which is why we bought the book in the first place.

[Christopher]

^Well, except that the Full Circle fleet wasn't all together at any one time. Usually it was split up into thirds, or would've been if it had existed long enough to have a "usually." So they could've just acknowledged that the other ships were out there but focused just on Voyager and its two support ships. So whatever the reason was for this change, I don't think that was it.