Spoilers VOY: Children of the Storm by Kirsten Beyer Review Thread

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by Thrawn, May 23, 2011.

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Rate Children Of The Storm.

  1. Outstanding

    72 vote(s)
    53.3%
  2. Above Average

    44 vote(s)
    32.6%
  3. Average

    12 vote(s)
    8.9%
  4. Below Average

    2 vote(s)
    1.5%
  5. Poor

    5 vote(s)
    3.7%
  1. MatthiasRussell

    MatthiasRussell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    I feel their pain, but you don't sacrifice all your relationships after the death of your best friend. I hope they will move past anger toward acceptance. I'm all for doing what I can to promote a good author and a great book. Keep 'em coming.
     
  2. MatthiasRussell

    MatthiasRussell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    I hope so. I've loved all those German covers I've seen. Don't know why we can't get such awesome covers in the nation they were originally written and published in.
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    I wonder if those Janeway fans who refuse to read anything set after Janeway's death have ever experienced a personal loss in their own lives. If they had, maybe they'd appreciate that it's possible to pay honor and tribute to someone even after they're gone, that they can still be a part of your life even if they aren't physically there. Maybe they'd understand that the grief and anger can't last forever, that loss is something that must eventually be accepted and coped with and integrated into your life as you move on. Janeway is a pervasive, influential presence throughout Unworthy and Children of the Storm. The books serve her character very well even though she isn't in them as a living person. I think these Janeway fans would appreciate the books if they allowed themselves to read them.
     
  4. Paris

    Paris Commodore Commodore

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    ^Amen :techman:
     
  5. bok2384

    bok2384 Commander Red Shirt

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Another outstanding Voyager novel by Ms. Beyer. Please, please, keep up the good work. :)
     
  6. T'Ressa Dax

    T'Ressa Dax Captain Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Seconded! Can't tell you how many times I thought, I need to put this down, just as soon as I finish this chapter... Can't stop yet, I have to see what happens next...
    ANd before I knew it I was done. Started reading late in the afternoon, and the only reason I stopped was because I was falling asleep!
     
  7. CaptainDonovin

    CaptainDonovin Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Well said. Trek fans can hold a grudge with the best of thembut you nailed it about her presence in Unworthy & even Full Circle (can't speak on the new one since it has been in transit for a few weeks). I loved them & wish the nay sayers would give 'em a chance.
     
  8. MatthiasRussell

    MatthiasRussell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    They take Janeway's death like it is a persoanal attack. PD told me he got numerous hate mail saying he doesn't respect women and hated Janeway whereas kiling her wasn't his call. 1) I don't understand why some people want to personally attack an author in a franchise where the author doesn't have the final say before publishing and 2) Why they can't accept that in this carer, sometimes people die. Many of the greatest explorers died on the job yet their expeditions went on, often with the men wanting to honor their captain. You dishonor the captain when you give up.

    "Well the books are missing Tuvok too." Well, do you REALLY expect someone to spend their entire career aboard 1 ship? The mission continues and the characters left are true to the way they were in the show. When you look at what the series has kept as opposed to what it has lost, it still has the majority of the elements that made it great. Beyer has kept VOY true to its roots and I think more of us appreciate these books than there are those who refuse to read because they keep publishing them.
     
  9. Brit

    Brit Captain Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Well you think wrong, go back and actually read the comments, you will see a good number have read "Full Circle" or at least tried. This isn't what we want to read. What is so hard to understand about that. We want Voyager Books with the "real" Voyager Crew. And we are not afraid to stand up and tell the people wanting our money just what it is they have to do to get it.

    Science Fiction and Trek are not about "real" life. They are escapist literature and I for one do not want to escape into death, destruction and one bloody devastating war after another.

    And as for death, well I buried my mother two years ago, after spending three and a half years caring for her, it was a slow losing battle all the way, it was heartbreaking and I have no desire to relive any kind of death for entertainment. There is no honor in death, you are only dead, the real honor is in living and doing what you can to make the world better and the world would be a heck of a lot better for a lot of people if we could read books for entertainment with a living Janeway.

    Brit
     
  10. Galekarens

    Galekarens Commander Red Shirt

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Thanks, Brit, for saying like it is. It would be nice if some in the Trek community would try to think more like human beings instead of "tough guy" cynics. I doubt Gene R. would be happy w/ the state of Trek lit today, such sadness is not what Star Trek is about. PS I read (most of) Full Circle and (most of) Unworthy and that's why I'm not interested in this new "Voy" book. Enough is enough, don't need to spend my time on more of the same, bring KJ back! (We know she lives.)
     
  11. Turtletrekker

    Turtletrekker Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Wow, I did a lot of reading yesterday. I blew through KRAD's newest novel, Under the Crimson Sun, set in the Dark Sun/D&D roleplaying world, and then read the first 260-odd pages of Children of the Storm. Kirsten Beyer has knocked it out of the park again. Voyager is more intertesting now than it has ever been.
     
  12. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    That's bull, and it's needlessly dismissive of an entire genre of literature. It's also incredibly ignorant of the diversity of science fiction as a genre. SF includes everything from pure escapism to deep social commentary -- and Star Trek does as well. Science fiction is very, very much about commentary on real life through the metaphorical filter of speculative worlds. A great deal of SF is meant as allegory, as social satire, as a critique of real-world trends by extrapolating them to their extremes. And Star Trek has always included that as part of its mandate. ST has told plenty of stories that involved death and loss and tragedy. The most beloved ST episode ever is "The City on the Edge of Forever," in which Kirk must let the love of his life die. It's beyond absurd to say that ST is nothing but escapist fluff.


    Who was talking about war? I was talking about Kathryn Janeway. I was saying that these books Kirsten has written, books set after Janeway's death, are even better tributes to her and more moving explorations of her as a person who's affected the lives of others than a lot of books set while she was alive. She lives on in these books through the way her memory inspires the rest of the crew. That's not depressing or painful.


    You have my sympathies, more than you know. I lost my father ten months ago after a similarly difficult period of decline, and we threw his ashes into Puget Sound just six weeks ago. I'm not speaking in the abstract here, I'm speaking from immediate personal experience. And I don't think there's honor in death either. But death happens. It hurts, you grieve... but then you move on. You accept the loss and remember your loved one fondly. You let their absence be part of your life and recognize the continuing presence of their influence on you. Yes, death is tragic. But remembering the departed can be an uplifting and rewarding experience. I actually feel closer to my father now than I did when he was alive, more aware of how much of him is in me. And in the wake of his passing, I've reconnected with the rest of my family, discovered new things about who I am and where that comes from, broadened my horizons through travel to visit my relatives across the country. Out of the loss came a gain. Alongside the grief has been kindness and belonging and hope. Not every story set in the wake of a death, real or fictional, has to be an unhappy story.

    If you've only read Full Circle, then you've only seen the part of the story that was about the pain and grief in the short term after Janeway's death. That's not what Unworthy and Children of the Storm are about. They're more about moving on to the next phase of coping with loss. They're about paying tribute to the positive aspects of Kathryn Janeway's legacy and the way her presence in people's memories leaves a continuing mark on the lives they lead. I'd say they're rather upbeat books overall, especially CotS.
     
  13. CaptainDonovin

    CaptainDonovin Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Were people this upset over the changes of the DS9 relaunch crew? I wasn't on any Trek boards at the time so I honestly don't know.

    Also, Sisko 'died' & went off with the Prophets & came back; who's to say someone won't find a way to get around what Lady Q told Janeway about coming back.
     
  14. Turtletrekker

    Turtletrekker Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Nope. And nobody went off the rails follow the deaths of...

    ...Scotty or Selar either.
    This is totally a Janeway-fan thing.
     
  15. MatthiasRussell

    MatthiasRussell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Actually, PD told me he got some hate mail when Selar died. I believe he said some of the most vengeful stuff was from one of the VOY fans who was still angry he wrote the book where Janeway died. Interestingly, he told me that he didn't start out "Treason" with the intent to kill Selar but as the story progressed, that seemed to be the way the story would actually play out, same with when Cwan was killed.
     
  16. MatthiasRussell

    MatthiasRussell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    I don't read Trek to escape, Trek was never meant to be an escape into utopia. It was supposed to show the better world man could create for himself and provide social commentary on our modern world. I read Trek to be inspired socially and technologically while hoping to find nuggets to help me grow individually.

    Janeway's death was a lesson in over-confidence for me. Just because you are very knowledgable and resourceful, doesn't mean you can cheat death forever. I like the Q twist in Before Dishonor. The Q was trying to teach Janeway a valuable lesson about over-self-confidence, a humbling I thought she could use. Q tried to teach such lessons to Picard. Just as Q taught Picard a valuable lesson and gave him a real heart, female Q may choose to restore Janeway once she has learned the lesson; part of that lesson being Voyager can survive without her mothering. I'm sure she will be restored, myself, but the story can't be forced; VOY fans need to be patient and keep up with the story so they are ready when it happens.
     
  17. Kathryn J.

    Kathryn J. Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    @ Christopher Bennett: I wonder about your colorful metaphor with which you started your post. Reminds me on less intelligent people when they don't have any arguments anymore while recognizing to lose a disput.

    The love of his life Kirk had to let die (you mentioned above), is only a character whom we see only in this episode and barely know anything else about.
    We talk here about main character death.
    All top main characters which ever died in Trek like Kirk, Spock, Sisko, Data - they were brought back. So isn't it a logical demanding of the Janeway fans wanting to have their Voyager main character back?
    Why are a woman and her fans treated differently that men and their fans?

    Nobody shouted at Spock's fans when they demanded to get him back.

    And Christopher... I think you are the one who is arrogant in an offending way. YOU want to judge who had a lost and true reason for grief in his/her life and who not??? Your small window to the "world" is supposed to be right one for thousand and millions of people? Or are you even THE all-mighty one?

    Do you know that a whole part of these people who are posting here are significantly older than you and might have more experiences in their lives than you have?

    The same you seem to know, that all the people who say they don't like the ST books around and after KJ's death, wouldn't have read them. Are you GOD that you can be so sure about that?
    Again, you were offending to those people, who tried to read and like the books (at least you were paid from their money!) and yet decided NOT to like them in the end.

    I read FC and even when I liked K. Beyer's style to write, so I don't like the content of the book. I looked at Unworthy, but it was too boring, so I didn't want to waste my precious spare time on it and in the future I also won't waste any of my money for books which content doesn't interest me at all.
    Don't tell people now, you would blindly read every book without getting information before what the book is about. There is a book summary and advertisement made by the publishers to just that purpose.

    You say, "Read the book, then you will love it!" I say, "Read our fanfictions then you will love them!" in return. You will discover that there are enough gifted people among them, who can nicely compete with you prof writers.

    So for me it is over with ST books. I only worry about the direction Roddenberry's Trek is going. Too many precious things of this universe, which was built up over more than 40 years, were destroyed in these last few years and replaced by shortsighted solutions and papermade characters.

    I only want to add: There is no glory and honor in war and death. No matter on what side you die. I doubt, that the parents of those soldiers who died in Vietnam, Iraque or Afghanistan are reveling in the honor bestowed on their children by the government posthum? Just think about that.

    Kathryn J.
     
  18. Brit

    Brit Captain Captain

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Christopher, you can talk and talk and talk. You can assume and you would still be wrong. You can mouth the Trek Philosophy and yet what Trek writers are producing now is the antithesis of it.

    What this boils down to is that I don’t like the use of the death of a major character to sell books. Then you have the unmitigated arrogance to expect us to praise your efforts and to put money in your pocket for something we hate. You are acting like the school yard bully not only demanding our lunch money but expecting us to like giving it to you.

    But your suggestion that because we don’t like death and reading about death makes us somehow inferior is insulting.

    We want Janeway alive, we want her with a lover (just like Picard and Riker), and access to her family and loved ones and nothing less will do. We also demand respect because we deserve it, you cannot dictate taste so stop trying and finally we are your potential customers and you should start acting like it.

    Matthias, maybe one day when you have matured you will understand that just because you like something doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone will like it. Your attitude in this is also insulting.

    We are not crazy, or stupid, we are mad as h*** and we are not taking it any more. You should respect that too.
     
  19. xortex

    xortex Commodore Commodore

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    So who's the genius who's keeping her from coming back. I was a t S $ S the other day and the guard told me, oh, they're not doing Star Trek anymore because it's not making any money.
     
  20. Turtletrekker

    Turtletrekker Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Star Trek: Voyager: Children Of The Storm Review Thread

    Wow. My "Ignore list" grows larger with each and every Post-Janeway Voyager thread.