DS9's 20th Anniversary

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by toughlittleship, Jan 4, 2013.

  1. toughlittleship

    toughlittleship Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    The Section 31 novels were each labelled with the series logo, so there isn't a reason The Fall couldn't be the same.
     
  2. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    That's not a very good analogy, since the S31 books were all completely independent of each other, connected only by the fact that they all involved that group in some way. (Not unlike the first four Typhon Pact books, in fact, showing that whether the series titles are used or not has more to do with the marketing department's decisions than with story content.) The Fall sounds to me like it's more akin to Gateways, in that its volumes are exploring different phases of a single quadrant-spanning event.
     
  3. Thrawn

    Thrawn Rear Admiral Premium Member

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    Gateways, which also featured each series' title.

    That said, I think in a lot of ways it's better when they leave it off. The whole "Star Trek: The Next Generation # (whatever): Invasion #2: The Soliders Of Fear" chains of titles thing is a bit cumbersome. With Typhon Pact, for instance, it was fairly trivial to tell looking at the covers which series got focus in each entry. As long as they keep doing that, and don't just throw ambiguous space scenes or something on the cover, I say keep the text simple.

    I realize this is an extremely minor detail either way.
     
  4. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Which, as I already said, doesn't prove anything, because the title choices aren't about a difference in content, but about a difference in marketing strategy between then and now. Years ago, before Destiny came out, something like Typhon Pact would've had individual series titles. But Destiny was a crossover that wasn't subdivided by series, and it sold big, so the sales department wanted to make Typhon Pact look like Destiny even though the initial four books were really more of a loose thematic crossover like Section 31 or Day of Honor had been.

    So since The Fall is another Big Event miniseries, I'd expect it to have no individual series titles.
     
  5. Thrawn

    Thrawn Rear Admiral Premium Member

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    A slight misunderstanding of the point you were making; I apologize. We're on the same page here.
     
  6. Odo

    Odo Commander Red Shirt

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    :lol:

    Regarding the whole how much a logo really matters thing - I don't really care normally about such things, it's just a logo, what's important is the story.


    However, in this case, the fact that novels haven't been labeled as DS9 for so long is indicative of that series' stagnation, for reasons which have been discussed at length before. Fortunately, DS9 has continued on in TrekLit crossovers/events, with great writers continuing those stories. But I would still like to see the continuation of DS9 outside of the wider TrekLit events (which themselves owe much to the DS9 relaunch in some ways), not for DS9 to be simply subsumed into the wider TrekLit world and loose its identity.
     
  7. Defcon

    Defcon Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Only slightly related to the topic of the thread, but this was the most fitting recent thread:

    KRAD has confirmed that he will do a DS9 rewatch for tor.com, once his TNG rewatch is done.
     
  8. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Wow for a second there I hoped you were going say "do a DS9 novel". Then my hopes were dashed.
     
  9. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    Another way of looking at it (and bear in mind I'm an unashamed Niner) is that rolling DS9 into the wider Trekverse has improved the rest of the Trekverse !
     
  10. Defcon

    Defcon Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I would have definitely opened a new thread for that. :(
     
  11. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah I guess so.
     
  12. Spocky8492

    Spocky8492 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    I rewatched in a row the first three DS9 episodes of the mirror universe which was fun. Then I rewatched a few episodes of the season 3, particularly the one about the Dominium. Then I started a complete rewatch from the season 4. Maybe after the rewatch I'll start the DS9 relaunch novels which I never read. :)
     
  13. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    You won't regret it.
     
  14. Spocky8492

    Spocky8492 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Do you mean the DS9 relaunch novels?

    Maybe I will start reading them before finishing the re-watch because this week I watched Rejoined and it makes me want to read The Lives of Dax. Is it good?
    And also, I thought that The Lives of Dax is listed as part of the relaunch novels but chronologically speaking, the short stories of this anthology do not happen after the last episode of DS9, like it is the case for Avatar for example.
     
  15. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Chronologicaly, no, they aren't post-finale, but the events of one or two of the stories (particularly the Audrid one) do come into play in the post-finale DS9 storyline.
     
  16. Spocky8492

    Spocky8492 Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Ok thanks for the explanation, now I understand why it's listed in the post-finale novels.

    But I'm starting to be lost :rommie: When is it better to read The Lives of Dax? :cardie:
    Sometimes it is listed between Mission Gamma, Book Four and Rising Son like in http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/DS9_Relaunch, sometimes it is listed at the beginning of the post-finale novels like in http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=7584406&postcount=8
    With what I read on Memory Beta about the Audrid short story that you mentionned, I guess I have to read it at least before Unity.

    Do I need to wait re-watching all the DS9 series? Ok you will tell me, it's a rewatch, so no spoiler problem, but honestly I first watched DS9 in 1998 so I don't remember it very well.
    I read on Memory Beta that the Torias short novel explains events mentionned in the Rejoined episode, it's why I thought to read The Lives Of Dax. But if it's better that I watch at least to a specific episode/season, I can wait.
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    The Audrid story should ideally be read before Trill: Unjoined, but otherwise I don't think it matters much.
     
  18. MvComedy

    MvComedy Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    To clarify:

    The Lives of Dax anthology was first published in 1999, shortly after DS9 ended. It was a trade paperback novel (with a cream-colored cover, incidentally). It was not until Avatar a year and a half later that the major relaunch story got rolling. For the 10th anniversary of DS9, The Lives of Dax was reprinted, with a new, gold cover that included the relaunch logo. It was at this point that the books in the relaunch began including LoD in the reading list in the inside cover, along with A Stitch in Time which did not receive a reprint.

    Memory Beta lists the relaunch books in print order, but goes by the 2002 reprint date for LoD. So in terms of print order it is the first book in the relaunch. It was just that it was not explicitly identified with the relaunch until the reprint was issued, which seems to be what the list on Memory Beta goes by. Indeed, the relaunch itself did not really exist at that point, although the Ezri story coda in LoD makes it clear that the publishers were planning to continue the DS9 storyline.

    As has been mentioned, several of the stories in LoD are referenced at various points although the Audrid and Joran stories are the critical ones to the relaunch saga. I think it helps to read LoD first since the anthology is referenced as early as in Avatar but you will not be lost if you don't read it first or even if you skip it altogether (not that you'd want to).
     
  19. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Rather, it was a trade paperback anthology. The term "novel" refers to a single fictional work at least 40,000 words in length. An anthology is not a novel, because it's a compilation of multiple shorter works. (Although there is such a thing as a "fix-up" novel which is essentially a collection of multiple stories by the same author, rewritten to form a loose story arc or connected by a framing structure. Asimov's original Foundation trilogy and I, Robot were fix-ups, as was Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Granted, The Lives of Dax does have a framing structure tying the stories together, but since they're by different authors, I think it lands on the anthology side of the line and not the fix-up side.)