TNG: The Body Electric by David Mack Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[JD]

Very cool. Congrats!

[Corran Horn]

Well deserved. Congrats!

[David Mack]

Thanks, everyone — no matter in what format you purchased the book.

[Kertrats47]

Finally posted my review!

[Patrick O'Brien]

Congrats Dave! The recognition well deserved

[Reanok]

Congratulations David.I really like the first novel about Data and can't wait to read the last 2 books in this series.

[Ronald Held]

Congratulations on making that list.

[Lord Lunacy]

Interesting read, especially seeing another construct from the machine race that upgraded Voyager...nice touch.

[Lord Lunacy]

David Mack wrote:

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Thanks, everyone — no matter in what format you purchased the book.

Congrats on the list, well deserved.

This is unrelated to the book, but I remember a galaxy full of Dyson's shells in it, will you be revisiting that particular galaxy in the future? Have I missed it in another novel perhaps?

[Thrawn]

I really liked this one. I'm surprised at the bleh reaction from a lot of people. I loved snarky, sure of himself Wesley Crusher, I thought the threat was poetic if not especially scary, and Data was fascinating.

This whole trilogy felt like a novelization of the best three episodes from a whole TV season, in a really good way. Kept that TNG balance nicely of character piece / politics / sense-of-wonder in roughly equal parts (only leaving out the Planet Of The Week trope, which I'm thankful for), gave everyone a chance to shine or have some real development, lots of morality and contemplation of what it means to be human. Very TNG, very well done.

The only thing that ends up bothering me in the final analysis is the Breen. I know Mack loves them, but it would've felt a little more TNG-like if we'd had a classic TNG adversary; the second book felt like it could've just as easily been Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Silent Weapons. But the political element there is consistent with a lot of political episodes on TNG, and so in the end it's still a nice balance.

Great stuff. Not Destiny-great, but really solid.

[BillJ]

Average.

Incredibly underwhelming end to the Cold Equations trilogy. Much like the Breen storyline from the prior books, the Data story seemed over thought.

Why didn't Data simply build a new positronic brain to house Lal's memory?

I did think Wesley was well-written in the book but found The Machine dull and sleep inducing. Data really seemed out of character. It enforces my feelings that this is Data 2.0 vs. a continuation of the original character. I guess the housing makes all the difference in how a computer program runs?

At the end of the day, I really had trouble staying interested in this book. Which I don't think I've ever said about a David Mack book before.

[Mage]

Hm.... finished it two days ago, letting it all simmer for a while....

Not my favorite book from the trilogy I'm afraid. Certainly not bad, a well written novel with good pacing. But the entire galaxy/universe threat was so massive, it became a bit to much for me to believe, I couldn't be fully terrified about it.
Although I fully realize Data's not completely the same Data we've always known, he felt out of character here at times. Again, I know he's not the same Data anymore, but still.... On the other hand, it was very interesting to see how far even Data is willing to go for his loved ones.

I wasn't really touched by

the death of Rhea. Somehow I never really thought she'd make it out in the end, and somehow, she felt less then a character and more like a plotdevice.
Gatt's entire turn-around at the end also did not have me convinced at all. I kept hoping he would pull one more trick out of his hat and try to escape or something.

As a whole, I really love the trilogy, with the last novel being the weakest in my opinion. I suppose part of that has to do with my own expectations. After Destiny, I somehow suspected that a new trilogy by Mack would be a complete gamechanger like Destiny was. And certainly, the return of Data will have quite an impact, both in-universe and for fans.
Still, the entire trilogy showed again that David Mack knows how to tell a story. And that's what matters.

[King Daniel]

I voted "average". The last third was an action-packed thrill ride, but there was a lot of underwhelming stuff as well. Data's being forced to torture Akharin, the contrived situation where Data had to choose who to let die with the split tractor beams and the comically stupid death count.

TEN HUNDRED VAGILLIASQUIALLIAKABILLIAKAKILLION DEATHS. Hundreds of thousands of galaxies. With no sense of scale and very little sense of urgency. If the entire book had been about saving Wesley's mushroom alien friends and their planet, would it have made much of a difference?

That Data got his wish at the very end was unexpected and nice.

[BillJ]

King Daniel wrote:

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That Data got his wish at the very end was unexpected and nice.

I'd rather have had Data learn that sometimes death can't be undone.

[Markonian]

[QUOTE=BillJ;7490104]

Why didn't Data simply build a new positronic brain to house Lal's memory?

As far as I can tell from pro- and epilogue, the cascaded hardware lost the memory. There was nothing to retrieve. Akharin somehow reversed the cascade (instead of merely repairing the brain).