It's full of politically incorrect statements and random inside jokes that you won't get, but I'll send you the whole 250,000 word document if you want me to...
Hehe, that is very true. I wonder if, back in the day, they ever considered making Sulu the Security Chief and adding Ilia as Helm Officer?
There's no evidence of that. The Phase II bible and the first-draft script for "In Thy Image" (the pilot episode that became TMP) both specify Sulu as helmsman, Ilia as navigator, and Chekov as security chief/weapons officer.
I just finished the four Golden Re-launch books. Homecoming and The Farther Shore weren't bad but Spirit Walk Lost me. The Klingon bits were mildly interesting but they didn't last all that long.
I think what pains me most about Golden's VOY novels receiving tepid reviews is that I enjoyed (and enjoy re-reading) some of her other fiction. It seems in this case she may have just not been well-suited for the material.
Ironically, Golden's VGR novels written during the series were by far the best-received books in the VGR line, which is why she was picked for the post-finale series in the first place. I wonder if maybe the real problem is that VGR just doesn't work as well when it's taking place within the Federation.
There is that problem with it, certainly. If they're not in the Dairy Queen, they're just another Starfleet ship bumbling about. I think that was even alluded to in Full Circle - Chakotay all but said "We've done absolutely nothing interesting for the last three years. I'm looking at you, writers!" .
On the other hand, you couldn't just immediately turn around and send Voyager back to the Delta Quadrant without dealing with the homecoming and its consequences. So those first few books may have had the deck stacked against them no matter who'd written them.
I dunno, though; Full Circle was received really well, I thought, and it was entirely set before the titular project started.
Homecoming and The Farther Shore would be much better remembered if they hadn't been followed by the misstep that was Spirit Walk. If those books had been great, people would have been more forgiving of the first two. Instead they are all four lumped together in people's minds as horrible. The first two really weren't that bad.
But its plot was largely catalyzed by the plan to send a fleet back to the DQ. So even though it wasn't set there, it was informed by the idea of going there. That's different from just open-endedly being back in the Federation. Honestly, I've never seen the problem with Spirit Walk. I wouldn't say it's Golden's best work, but I don't think it's bad. And I gather the duology sold very well.
Fair enough, though it was mostly the second half that was catalyzed by that, the first half was all about the Kuvah'magh plotline. Though I do have to admit that personally I was more interested in the second half, so the point does still stand for myself I suppose.
I remember liking Spirit Walk when it first came out. I think the biggest problem with Spirit Walk is that it made Voyager too much like TNG/DS9 but with Voyager characters. Golden understands the characters well, that's why Homecoming and The Farther Shore work. The problem is that she didn't know where to take them. Part of what made Voyager more than TNG-lite was the quest to get back home. It drove so much of the show. I think that's part of why Endgame ends so abruptly. Once they're home what can they do that compare to the amazing journey they just had? Golden's answer was to have them carry on like any ordinary crew. Part of what makes Beyer's books so good is that she found the best possible answer to this problem: send them back. The crew belongs in the Delta Quadrant, but this time on their terms. She gave them a new mission, a purpose beyond just boldly going. Both Golden and Beyer get the characters, but Beyer gets what makes Voyager something more than "just another Star Trek."
Yeah, most stories involving Chakotay's heritage are unfortunate... It's still better than the early numbered novels where he went on a vision quest just about every book and it always resulted in a vague warning about the aliens of the week.
I just read The Murdered Sun by Golden and I enjoyed it very much. It was the first book in the numbered series that I felt captured the characters as I knew them on the series. The earlier books were alright but the characters came across as a bit of blank slates to me but that was more than likely not the fault of the authors. It was probably just early in the TV series and things hadn't been established yet. I admit I had a laugh at Paris' thing about Lizards. I wondered if it was a joke or just a coincidence. For the record I'm part Native American. Rez born card carrying casino check cashing Native and while I like that Chakotay's heritage is respected in the show and in the books there are other ways of getting out of situations apart from taking a spirit walk. There are times when you need to find other ways to work around the problem because sometimes your animal guide likes to take a nap.
I honestly haven't yet gotten to Golden's relaunch Voyager books myself yet, largely because of the quality issues I've heard around them, but I know that's probably not fair to her so I do have them on my list. I am curious, though: are they bad for Christie Golden, or are they just bad in a general sense? Because I did like her Gateways entries and I thought "Seven of Nine" and "Hard Crash" were great (and going outside Trek, I thought her Ravenloft books were the best of that series, and I've always heard she was the best writer among the Warcraft novels) so I was always a little disappointed to hear that her Voyager relaunch stuff was generally considered below par.
I don't think they were 'bad'. I believe the problem was addressed earlier in the thread that Voyager does not belong in the Alpha Quadrant doing routine Alpha Quadrant things which would essentially make the ship another version of The Enterprise. Voyager needs to shine in her own space and for her that's the Delta Quadrant.