Star Trek: Typhon Pact: The Struggle Within (ebook) review thread

[Christopher]

Thrawn wrote:

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I feel like it was a really great Christopher novel sadly compressed down to an outline + moral lectures. A story that could really have demonstrated all the stuff it wanted to, but was prevented from doing so by rushed pacing.

If you felt the pacing was rushed, the blame should lie with me rather than with the format. I was very slow getting into the swing of things on this one, and I had a lot of other stuff distracting me during the writing process -- the Forgotten History outline, revisions on Only Superhuman, and my first-ever trip to Seattle for my sister's wedding (I actually e-mailed the manuscript from a hot spot in Seattle Center because the hotel's Internet service was overloaded by a convention or something). So I didn't manage my time very well and didn't get to refine the pacing of things as much as I ideally should have. So it's not the format that's at fault.

[Thrawn]

^ I get where you're coming from, but I really disagree. There was just so much going on in this... cultural explorations of two races we haven't really seen before, major soul-searching character arcs, discussions of principle, etc... that I don't think it was ever going to fit in a story that short.

Which is mostly a compliment, really: there were so many good ideas here, I wanted twice as much exploration of them

[Christopher]

^Hmm, maybe. My problem with short fiction has always been a tendency to cram in too much worldbuilding.

Personally I would've been happy to focus the whole thing on the Kinshaya story, but an e-book focusing solely on characters and species created for the literature wouldn't have sold too well, so I had to give Picard and the Enterprise something to do.

[VDCNI]

Mage wrote:

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Question: I have a Samsung Galaxy S, which has an e-reader on it. It says something about ePub. Is ths available in ePub, and if so, where?

Not sure about the S but on the SII you can download a Kindle App for free from the marketplace and get it from there. If you already have an Amazon account it's very easy to purchase the book.

[VDCNI]

Overall I enjoyed it though I don't think the format did it any favours.

We have had a few Trek books of late with big political issues, dissident movements etc that have taken a novel to solve. As there was relatively so little space to explore these issues here then they did feel a bit inconsequential in comparison. That applied to both storylines really but the Talarian one in particular - everyone having a nice chat in a room seemed a bit too easy.

As always in CLB's work the character work was spot on with lots to enjoy and it was nice to see Crusher given stuff to do - it's easy to overlook her when we go into diplomatic territory. With Riker & Troi gone she and Worf really should be Picard's main advisors/sounding boards and that worked well here. Nice to see the new crew get some more attention, I've always liked T'Ryssa but this really made me more appreciative of Jasminder who has felt a bit bland to me up till now.

Oh and not the authors fault but I would really love to see Picard in a different type of story soon. He seems to spend his life negociating problems at the moment and doing the right thing while the Federation forget their values. I know Titan & Voyager have plently of exploration but it would be nice to see these characters get something a bit different next time round.

[Christopher]

VDCNI wrote:

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We have had a few Trek books of late with big political issues, dissident movements etc that have taken a novel to solve. As there was relatively so little space to explore these issues here then they did feel a bit inconsequential in comparison. That applied to both storylines really but the Talarian one in particular - everyone having a nice chat in a room seemed a bit too easy.

Well, that was kind of the idea -- that certain outside factions were trying to make the conflict more extreme than it needed to be, when all that was really needed was for both sides to listen to each other.

[GalaxyClass1701]

Just ok I enjoyed the Kinshya story but not the other. The two stories were too similar.

[Corran Horn]

I enjoyed it. The cost was a little too high for how brief it was though.

[AN_D_K]

Thrawn wrote:

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Jasminder's character arc was awesome (though Christopher does rely a bit much on having characters decide that their earlier characterizations by other authors were wrong and they need to get better, but I digress)

I don't think that's really Christopher's fault. The alternative would be far worse.

Remember that one of the books he wrote was following up some badly PADded out characters :P

[Defcon]

^ And what's your point? GttS, the novel where Christopher "fixed" the characters, ended up with the worst characterizations of the whole series in my opinion. They fit neither PAD's nor KRAD's characterizations and ended up the most uninteresting for all of them. I for one would have happily read another Peter David novel instead of the utter failure that was Greater than the Sum if I had to choose between those two.

But FWIW I have downloaded TSW, and will read it once I've finished What Judgments Come.

[elaithin]

I rather enjoyed it - and despite comments to the contrary, I think the short form suited this particular story well. It was very nice to see how the Typhon Pact is changing it's own members, and the character progression for Jasminder and T'Ryssa both was excellently done.

Back to the length - this story felt more like a single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation than anything I've read in a long time. And that's not a minus.

[OverlordSpock]

I agree that this story had a lot of potential, but the short-form let it down. I greatly enjoyed the Kinshya story, at least as much of it as we got, but it could almost have been a novel on its own. The Talarian story was okay, but again rushed.

This story felt more rushed to me. Jas and Chen show up in their disguises and within a few paragraphs, Chen falls hopelessly in love with a Romulan she's never met before. There's a peaceful protest that goes horribly wrong. We spend a few paragraphs talking about what went wrong and then we have another protest that starts the beginning of the end for the Kinshya regime. Honestly, I kinda felt like everything happened in the span of a few days, but find out later that it was over four weeks. This story was way too rushed.

When Crusher gets kidnapped, Picard goes into an internal struggle about his obvious need to rescue here vs. political reality and there's a brief conversations with Worf about it, but then the Crusher storyline is resolved before it actually really becomes an issue for Picard and he has to make a decision. Again, something that could have been explored more in a longer form.

Don't get me wrong. I LIKED what I read. But I wanted more—a lot more. While that's obviously a sign of a good story, this should have been a full novel. Christopher's skills at world-building and plot development were wasted here. If he had more length of story to play with, I think this would have been something I LOVED.

[ToddCam]

I don't think Trys was in love with him. She just liked him. And she's quick to jump in the sack. Personally, I think she worked best with Konya, who is a personal favorite of mine.

Add me to the list of people who wished it were longer. It was really good, but so short. Crammed.

[Keptin J D Reed]

It seems a tad strange that I can preorder Brave the Storm which is a full novel for £3.99, exactly the same price as the short novella The Struggle Within. Having said that, £3.99 is a bloody good price for Brave the Storm. Oh well, I'll still be buying both

[timothy]

picked up you're book today on my nook can't wait to read.