TNG: The Persistence of Memory by David Mack Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[JoeZhang]

Complaining about this sort of stuff in corporate fiction is like complaining that McDonalds burgers are standard.

[RPJOB]

Thrawn wrote:

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This isn't a judgement one way or another; I think your point is pretty valid. I'm just curious - have you read either of the books in question, or is this a more philosophical thing?

I've decided that I'll read the book where a character is resurrected, just so I can speak directly to it. However, I won't be picking up any further books that have the resurrected characters in them. They're well written to be sure but I have no interest in reading about immortals for whom death is a minor setback. At least in TSFS and TVH there was a period of time where Spock had to recover. Janeway basically came back and stepped right back into her old position. She might as well have been away on shore leave for all the lingering effects coming back from the dead had on her.

Data's a special case, being an android and all but it's still annoying. Now that he's metged with Soong, someone who took steps to avoid his own death, you'd think he'd be working on a way to keep a back up of his hardware and software, just in case.

[Enterprise1981]

The latest contributions to "Cast the Characters of Trek Literature" led me one big spoiler.

It had me thinking, "Can't Worf catch a break?" along with the reminder that Q said in "Q&A" that the Enterprise-E goes through security chiefs like Janeway goes through hairstyles.

[Thrawn]

RPJOB wrote:

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I've decided that I'll read the book where a character is resurrected, just so I can speak directly to it. However, I won't be picking up any further books that have the resurrected characters in them. They're well written to be sure but I have no interest in reading about immortals for whom death is a minor setback. At least in TSFS and TVH there was a period of time where Spock had to recover. Janeway basically came back and stepped right back into her old position. She might as well have been away on shore leave for all the lingering effects coming back from the dead had on her.

Data's a special case, being an android and all but it's still annoying. Now that he's metged with Soong, someone who took steps to avoid his own death, you'd think he'd be working on a way to keep a back up of his hardware and software, just in case.

He has other priorities first, but yeah.

In general, I think I'd have agreed with all of this before I read these two books but... hm. Let me see if this makes sense.

IF these were only book series, and there wasn't any obvious difference in importance between the TV show people and the novel-original people, I think I wouldn't have any objection to these two stories at all. They both make complete internal sense (which I wouldn't have ever thought possible with Janeway, but Beyer is just brilliant).

KNOWING that the TV characters and novel characters are different, it's irritating that I know the original character deaths are permanent but that TV characters almost certainly won't die and, if they do, they'll come back eventually. But that's external to the logic of the stories themselves, which track surprisingly well.

Does that make any sense? I feel like my only objection here is meta-fictional, but the novels themselves kick ass.

[RPJOB]

In one of the Shatnerverse novels there's a convention of people who have travelled through time. How long before people who were once dead are numerous enough to have one as well?

"I remember once when I died..."

"Hey, I've been dead before too!"

"Wow, small world. We should have a convention sometime. Swap stories with other former deaders"

Would the SCE story Wildfire have the same emotional impact that it did of we knew that Kieran Duffy would be returning? Good thing for the story that while he was a canon character he was also a minor one.

[Thrawn]

I mean, that'd be a fair point if Nemesis and Before Dishonor weren't both kind of terrible.

[zarkon]

I thought before dishonour was a pretty fun read.

The very idea of trophy world cracked me up, and one of my favourite authors killed off one of my least favourite characters.

Good times

Enterprise1981 wrote:

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The latest contributions to "Cast the Characters of Trek Literature" led me one big spoiler.

It had me thinking, "Can't Worf catch a break?" along with the reminder that Q said in "Q&A" that the Enterprise-E goes through security chiefs like Janeway goes through hairstyles.

On the plus side, the baseball team got one of its regulars back

[Defcon]

Thrawn wrote:

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I mean, that'd be a fair point if Nemesis and Before Dishonor weren't both kind of terrible.

I think between Before Dishonor and The Eternal Tide, Before Dishonor is actually the better novel.

[RonG]

Defcon wrote:

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I think between Before Dishonor and The Eternal Tide, Before Dishonor is actually the better novel.

That's two statements I disagree with: While I like TET quite a lot (despite my original reservations on the return of You-Know-Who ), I found Before Dishonor to be quite a fun romp - didn't hurt at all that it also revisit my very first Trek novel - Vendetta

ant, On-Topic - I just finished TPoM and loved it! a great start to the trilogy and another winner from David Mack (though, let's face it - what else could it be? ).

Though not quite on the same level of Destiny IMO (and again, what could be? ), TPoM was a great page-turner and (though I'm against character resurrections as a plot device) a great way to continue the story of a character once thought lost..

[RPJOB]

Thrawn wrote:

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I mean, that'd be a fair point if Nemesis and Before Dishonor weren't both kind of terrible.

So you're OK with bringing back dead characters as long as the story they were killed in doesn't meet a certain standard? Death doesn't work that way.

Bringing back Spock should have been a one off. However, Genesis gave them an out. As Carol Marcus said "life from lifelessness". It was a totally impossible way doing it from a scientific point of view but Trek isn't and never has been a hard science series. For all of Roddenberry's claims that the science should be correct it's played fast and loose with scientific reality from the very first episode. In that context, the resurrection of Spock worked for the story.

Now we've got millions and billions of deaths with the Dominion War, Destiny and others. We still get characters coming back from the dead but just the "hero" characters. Kirk, Janeway, Data. Either death is reversible as long as you're a highly regarded Starfleet officer or there's been a lot more people coming back from the dead than we've seen. Either way, death is no longer The End. It's down to a case of deciding who's worthy. Are the 60 billion dead from Destiny less worthy than Janeway? Or Kirk? Or Data?

Star Trek may not be hard science but it shouldn't be a super-hero comic series either.

[Thrawn]

I don't actually disagree with anything you're saying, but in these particular stories I don't actually think any of those complaints apply.

Data is obviously a special case, if Spock was then Data certainly must be, and

Janeway is resurrected by characters that obviously have that ability, because *they* think that she's more worthy. The book doesn't present that as necessarily true, either.

Again, weird for me because I generally agree with you, I just think these two particular stories were really nicely handled.

And as for my point about Before Dishonor and Nemesis, you'd mentioned that it removes emotional impact from death if it's later reversed, and mentioned the shocking and profoundly affecting death of Duffy as your example. Which, again, I agree with. But I didn't feel any emotional impact from Data's death or Janeway's, in their particular works. So I don't think their resurrection is in any way making Nemesis or Before Dishonor worse. Really, BD was a preposterous comic book romp; I don't think anyone was getting to the end with a tear in their eye!

Full Circle does a much better job at making Janeway's death Really Mean Something, but I've got enough faith in Kirsten MF Beyer to believe that all of that character growth won't be reversed just because she's back again. I could analyze that more deeply if you like but I don't think it'd make much sense if you hadn't read the story to see what I'm talking about. (Again not a judgement! Not trying to be snarky! Feel free to skip any book you don't want to read, it just makes it harder to talk about the specifics...)

[Paper Moon]

RPJOB wrote:

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So you're OK with bringing back dead characters as long as the story they were killed in doesn't meet a certain standard? Death doesn't work that way.

Bringing back Spock should have been a one off. However, Genesis gave them an out. As Carol Marcus said "life from lifelessness". It was a totally impossible way doing it from a scientific point of view but Trek isn't and never has been a hard science series. For all of Roddenberry's claims that the science should be correct it's played fast and loose with scientific reality from the very first episode. In that context, the resurrection of Spock worked for the story.

Now we've got millions and billions of deaths with the Dominion War, Destiny and others. We still get characters coming back from the dead but just the "hero" characters. Kirk, Janeway, Data. Either death is reversible as long as you're a highly regarded Starfleet officer or there's been a lot more people coming back from the dead than we've seen. Either way, death is no longer The End. It's down to a case of deciding who's worthy. Are the 60 billion dead from Destiny less worthy than Janeway? Or Kirk? Or Data?

Star Trek may not be hard science but it shouldn't be a super-hero comic series either.

I'd like to respond to a couple of things in your post, RPJOB.

According to Memory Alpha, the following characters have been "resuscitated":

1. Scotty ("The Changeling")
2. McCoy ("Shore Leave")
3. Spock (TSfS)
4. Yareena ("Code of Honor")
5. Lyndsay Ballard, kinda sorta ("Ashes to Ashes")
6. Neeliz ("Mortal Coil")
7. Rao Vantika, though I'm not sure I agree with their interpretation here ("The Passenger")

They omit, but frankly should also include Kai Opaka in "Battle Lines." (And, hell, even Kirk's first death, as recorded by history, in Generations wasn't so permanent after all. Though I grant that this case is rather different.)

I woud also add that Tasha Yar was brought back in a kinda, sorta way, in "Yesterday's Enterprise," enough that she left her mark on the prime timeline with Sela, and similarly, we had a version of Jennifer Sisko brought back in "Through The Looking Glass" and "Shattered Mirror," and a version of Bareil in "Resurrection," enough to have significant emotional effects on their prime universe loved ones.

Frankly, it seems clear that death just ain't what it used to be in the 24th century. Death hasn't been "The End," as you say, for quite some time in the Trekverse. Sure, most of the time it's shown to be as permanent as it ever has been, but we see numerous exceptions. (And the TrekLit authors have provided many fewer by comparison.)

Honestly, I'd love to see a story that examines the effects that these incredible exception to deaths have on characters. Impermanent death is a two-edged sword emotionally; great for those around the resuscitated at the time, but bad for everyone else, who are given false hope for their deceased loved ones, and then ultimately problematic for the resuscitated's loved ones, when permanent death really does arrive. (Is it real this time? I'll never know.) David Mack touched on this in his discussion of Geordi's emotions about the returned Data (particularly his anger at the "wasted grief").

You identified three hero characters who were brought back: Kirk, Janeway and Data.

Kirk: was brought back by the actor who played him. These stories are ignored entirely by the present authors and continuity. As far as I can tell, the current authors don't even stick in easter eggs about the Shatnerverse. The large majority of TrekLit treats Kirk as dead in the 24th century (save for a few minutes in 2371) and the stories reflect that.

Janeway: *sigh* I don't know what to feel about this. The story Beyer told with it was epic in scope and was quite moving in some ways. Her death was anything but conventional (assimilation by wacky Borg and then, apparently uniquely, going to live with Lady Q?) and so, arguably, should be treated differently than the 60 billion tragically conventional deaths from Destiny. On the other hand, I think the stories have greater potential with her existing in memory only, so I don't know what to feel about it. I agree with Thrawn in that the story was very nicely handled, though I'm not sure it needed to be told. But I digress.

Data: is not human. Never was. Never will be. He downloaded his freaking memories into another brain. That does not happen in real life, nor did happen for (presumably most of) the people who died in the Borg Invasion.

So, setting aside Kirk for the purposes of discussing stories from the current continuity, we're left with Janeway, whose death was never really quite a death for her (obviously it was for everyone else, but they were ignorant of her actual fate) and Data, whose death in Nemesis was never intended to be treated as a conventional death, thanks to the B-4 back door.

I agree that the "return" trope feels overused at this point. But I don't think it's fair to use these incredible examples (that were written to be incredible, ie unbelievable examples) to argue that the folks at Pocket have unilaterally and suddenly made Death ≠ The End.

(Also, I agree with Thrawn's point about emotional impact.)

[JD]

A lot of people keep talking about whether or not the characters who've been brought back are "more worthy" of being brought back than all of nameless faceless numbers who we've been told were killed in the wars and invasions of the last few decades worth of Trek stories, and if you approach it from a real world perspective they certainly are. They are very popular characters, who a lot of people were upset to be see killed off, so it makes sense that they would be brought back.
Even if you look at it from an in universe perspective you could make an argument that they are more worthy. These people are fairly prominent members of Starfleet, serving on top of the line Starships who've saved the world and the galaxy several times. IMO that makes them pretty worthy. Now, that's not to say that they are the only ones who are worthy, there are probably a lot of other people who've done the same thing, and for all we know some of them could have been resurrected too.
I really don't have a problem with resurrections as long as the reasons and methods make sense in-universe.

[Christopher]

Paper Moon wrote:

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...and Data, whose death in Nemesis was never intended to be treated as a conventional death, thanks to the B-4 back door.

That's misunderstanding the intentions behind that "back door." The filmmakers did intend Data's death to be permanent. The whole reason Brent Spiner proposed the story was because he felt he was too old to keep playing Data and had decided this would be the last time, period. The movie went to considerable lengths to establish that B-4 couldn't become like Data, that the memory download failed because B-4's brain was just too simple. They gave Data that big speech about how B-4, like Shinzon, was incapable of learning or growing beyond his limits. The bit of song B-4 remembered at the end was just meant to offer hope that maybe Data had given him the ability to grow a little after all.

Sure, at the studio's behest, the download had the secondary purpose of being an "escape hatch," a way to bring Data back just in case the film did well enough and the studio offered Spiner enough money to convince him to change his mind. But that doesn't mean it was the intent all along. Putting airbags in a car doesn't mean you intend it to crash. Building an escape tunnel in your castle doesn't mean you intend it to be occupied by raiders. The backup plan is what you resort to when things don't work out as you intended.

JD wrote:

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Even if you look at it from an in universe perspective you could make an argument that they are more worthy. These people are fairly prominent members of Starfleet, serving on top of the line Starships who've saved the world and the galaxy several times. IMO that makes them pretty worthy. Now, that's not to say that they are the only ones who are worthy, there are probably a lot of other people who've done the same thing, and for all we know some of them could have been resurrected too.
I really don't have a problem with resurrections as long as the reasons and methods make sense in-universe.

It would help make it more credible if we got occasional resurrections for the Third Redshirt on the Left or somebody -- if methods of cheating death were just established to be something that's part of the universe and can happen to anybody, rather than something reserved only for the core cast. (Although Mr. Leslie seems to have been resurrected at least once, since he was declared dead in "Obsession" but was fine the next week.)

[Paper Moon]

Christopher wrote:

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That's misunderstanding the intentions behind that "back door." The filmmakers did intend Data's death to be permanent. The whole reason Brent Spiner proposed the story was because he felt he was too old to keep playing Data and had decided this would be the last time, period. The movie went to considerable lengths to establish that B-4 couldn't become like Data, that the memory download failed because B-4's brain was just too simple. They gave Data that big speech about how B-4, like Shinzon, was incapable of learning or growing beyond his limits. The bit of song B-4 remembered at the end was just meant to offer hope that maybe Data had given him the ability to grow a little after all.

Sure, at the studio's behest, the download had the secondary purpose of being an "escape hatch," a way to bring Data back just in case the film did well enough and the studio offered Spiner enough money to convince him to change his mind. But that doesn't mean it was the intent all along. Putting airbags in a car doesn't mean you intend it to crash. Building an escape tunnel in your castle doesn't mean you intend it to be occupied by raiders. The backup plan is what you resort to when things don't work out as you intended.

Well, yeah, it was the studio who intended that Data's death have a backdoor and therefore not be a conventional death. I know it wasn't the writers' original intent. That doesn't change the fact that, in its final form, Data's death was not intended to be a conventional one, nor should it be treated as one subsequently. (I concede that that wasn't "always" the intent; mea culpa.)

And I didn't say that the intent was that Data would return; I said that his death was not intended to be treated as a "conventional" one– simply by virtue of the existence of a back door. Any death that leaves a back door is not a conventional death. That's all I meant. To use your analogies, usually deaths don't have escape tunnels or air bags.

It would help make it more credible if we got occasional resurrections for the Third Redshirt on the Left or somebody -- if methods of cheating death were just established to be something that's part of the universe and can happen to anybody, rather than something reserved only for the core cast. (Although Mr. Leslie seems to have been resurrected at least once, since he was declared dead in "Obsession" but was fine the next week.)

Lyndsay Ballard, Yareena, Vantika.

But really, Spock, Data and Janeway are in a category of their own in terms of returns (the latter two in particular), due to the extraordinary circumstances involved. Data's case is unique in-universe; basically no one else had a back-up set of memories around, along with the ability to transfer them to a new body. Janeway's return was only made possible by the actions of multiple superpowerful beings, and then it was only in a situation where the entire universe was at stake.

I know it seems like I'm arguing both sides of the coin here, but my point is that, while incredible returns/resurrections/resuscitations have been part of Star Trek since the beginning (and are not the result of lazy or death-cheapening TrekLit writers or editors), the examples of Data and Janeway are clearly presented as extraordinary exceptions to a rule that, even 350 years in the future, is still active 99.99% of the time.