I've already pointed out the big one: They use the SFC timeline and put TOS six decades too early. And in skimming through it, I was reminded of several others. For instance, Final Frontier makes the odd claim that April's Enterprise was the first vessel to be called a "starship." It claims it was the first ship to be capable of continuous warp travel instead of successive short hops, making it some seven times faster than any other ship. It claims that transporters have only just become practical for human use. (Heck, a lot of this didn't even fit together with The Final Reflection, another book that was based on the SFC timeline.) Basically it's a lot like what Enterprise did a couple of decades later with NX-01, only it's putting those "first-time" breakthroughs just a couple of decades before TOS rather than over a century.
From the review: Kind of off-topic, but I just wanted to say... this is one of the things I love about humanity. I basically thought that this novel was pretty much the *worst* Trek novel I've seen in, well, a good number of years. That two people can look at the exact same work of art and have such polar opposite reactions to it... that's just awesome!
My review is coming out soon, but this is the most average book I have read this year. Just left with too many questions about how the "Fold" works and not in a good way.
I don't really enjoy the TOS era novels. The era just doesn't hold much interest for me, but I do keep up with them as they come out. Thankfully, some are pretty good stories but that said, Allegiance in Exile, Devils Bargain, Weight of Worlds and now The Folded World have come together and have proved to be a bit gruelling. And now The Shocks of Adversity just dropped through my letterbox ! Having just finished The Folded World I have to say it is the worst of the bunch. Allegiance in Exile was superior, Devils Bargain an unexpectedly pleasant revisit with the Horta and The Weight of Worlds a real romp. Whilst not being completely unenjoyable, The Folded World was a hugely missed opportunity. The cover grabbed me - I expected to explore an interesting spacial anomaly, resolve a mystery, some alien ships, another Constitution class and (most tempting) an older Starfleet ship. The anomaly remained an unexplained plot device, the fate of the crews likewise and the ships entirely unexplored. The story itself was O.K. - it would have been an average TOS episode. The author had a basic grasp of the characters, but the dialogue didn't always feel quite right. I really could do with a break from TOS - roll on the rest of the year ! Anyway, on to The Shocks of Adversity...
good review I was suprised about Ensign Tokolo's trauma I've been reading about in the first few chapters of this novel.
^ Thank you! It was a shocking element to see in a Trek book. I am still not sure how I feel about it completely.
I did not like this book. It felt like the book was done over a holiday weekend with a final result of let's name this Constitution the most out of place name for a ship, how about the McRaven, sure. The author set up the backstory of one of the characters, but I really did not care for her nor the others. If you have read any number of 80s and 90s Trek novels, you know the moment that they find the big ship that it was related to the brand-new aliens just introduced. Naturally, these brand new aliens try to fire on the Enterprise. I don't even know how I finished this book because I was rolling my eyes too much at the simplicity of everything in this book.
The love triangle was annoying mainly due to the two guys in love with Miranda were cardboard cutouts. Spock didn't really sound like Spock, his dialogue just seemed off. But other than that I enjoyed the novel. It wasn't anything special but it was a nice way to kill a few hours.
This was about as uninteresting a Star Trek book as I've read in years. Man this just didn't work for me. And I see this months book is by Mariotte. Considering he wrote the worst of the Lost Era books, Deny Thy Father, I'm really not looking forward to Serpents in the Garden.
Ensign Tokolo's backstory felt very dark, especially for TOS. Felt like something you'd see in Discovery. Her character also ended in a weird place; with her killing one of her lovers and not seem that worse for wear at the end. I also wasn't a fan of the McRaven being a Connie. I would have made that another type of ship. They also gave up on that crew too quickly. I would have liked to see them actually find out what happened to them.