VOY: The Eternal Tide by Kirsten Beyer Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[miraclekid]

Mage wrote:

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Voyager wasn't about Janeway. It was about a group of characters, and different kind of stories. I will never understand why people will deny themselves good stories about interesting characters, just because one character died. And this is coming from someone who only really started liking the Voyager characters thanks to Kirsten's books.

Janeway was/is only one character (and in my opinion not a very interesting one) in a whole ensemble. Go and read the novels by Kirsten, especially the ones without Janeway, and you'll see that this crew, this group of people, are AS good as they are without her, then with.

Everyone enjoys a show in different ways and for different reasons. Please don't assume I enjoy things the same way you do and that everyone else should too.

One of the Treks I grew up on was Voyager and Janeway was a huge part of it because seeing a woman in a role like that as a girl made a great impression on me. So excuse me if Janeway is a huge part of Voyager for me and factors into my choices for enjoying fandom outside the show itself.

Annnnnyhow, thanks to everyone who replied. I'll probably go ahead and give starting with Full Circle a try first.

[Thrawn]

^ They're so good. You're about to be seriously impressed

[Christopher]

miraclekid wrote:

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Everyone enjoys a show in different ways and for different reasons. Please don't assume I enjoy things the same way you do and that everyone else should too.

One of the Treks I grew up on was Voyager and Janeway was a huge part of it because seeing a woman in a role like that as a girl made a great impression on me. So excuse me if Janeway is a huge part of Voyager for me and factors into my choices for enjoying fandom outside the show itself....

But there's a middle ground. I like Janeway, I think that for the most part she was a great female role model, but she was still just the lead character in an ensemble, not a solo heroine. No matter how important she was, she still wasn't the only worthwhile character or element to the series.

Back in the days when there was only TOS, Spock was by far the most popular character, the one who overshadowed all the others in the eyes of the public and many of the fans. But Spock died in TWOK, and the DC comics that followed had to carry on without him; even after he was resurrected, DC had to keep him marginalized for the most part because they didn't know where the studio would take him in the next film. So for several years, the TOS comics proceeded without Spock. Yet they still told worthwhile and engaging stories and found a way to adjust to the change. It helped that Spock's legacy (in the person of Saavik, and in the ways his friends and colleagues had been influenced and affected by their interactions with him) was still a strong part of the stories, even without him being physically present in them.

[Mage]

miraclekid wrote:

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Everyone enjoys a show in different ways and for different reasons. Please don't assume I enjoy things the same way you do and that everyone else should too.

One of the Treks I grew up on was Voyager and Janeway was a huge part of it because seeing a woman in a role like that as a girl made a great impression on me. So excuse me if Janeway is a huge part of Voyager for me and factors into my choices for enjoying fandom outside the show itself.

Annnnnyhow, thanks to everyone who replied. I'll probably go ahead and give starting with Full Circle a try first.

You should certainly enjoy it your own way, I won't say you shouldn't. I just feel that saying you love Voyager but then don't read certain novels because one character out of several is missing, makes no sense. You are robbing yourself of a great reading experience that way. I actually rewatched Voyager after reading the Beyer-novels, and enjoyed the show so much more, since Beyer made the character far more believable to me then the show itself ever did.

You enjoy whatever way you want, definatly. But don't deny yourself something because of one missing character.

[captcalhoun]

got this for christmas and i have tosay, despite my previous stance that i hated the idea of Janeway being brought back, this book handled it very well and i really enjoyed the whole novel. despite my previous vow to stop reading all the novels if she was brought back, i am going to continue reading them - especially VGR - just to see where it goes next.

i should've known KMFB would knock it out of the park and make it awesome.

[Enterpriserules]

captcalhoun wrote:

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got this for christmas and i have tosay, despite my previous stance that i hated the idea of Janeway being brought back, this book handled it very well and i really enjoyed the whole novel. despite my previous vow to stop reading all the novels if she was brought back, i am going to continue reading them - especially VGR - just to see where it goes next.

i should've known KMFB would knock it out of the park and make it awesome.

I am really glad you gave it a chance and that it won you over. Beyer is a fantastic writer!

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

Hey, didn't captcalhoun also say he'd quit reading Trek forever if they blew up Deep Space Nine?

[Brit]

Christopher wrote:

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Back in the days when there was only TOS, Spock was by far the most popular character, the one who overshadowed all the others in the eyes of the public and many of the fans. But Spock died in TWOK, and the DC comics that followed had to carry on without him; even after he was resurrected, DC had to keep him marginalized for the most part because they didn't know where the studio would take him in the next film. So for several years, the TOS comics proceeded without Spock. Yet they still told worthwhile and engaging stories and found a way to adjust to the change. It helped that Spock's legacy (in the person of Saavik, and in the ways his friends and colleagues had been influenced and affected by their interactions with him) was still a strong part of the stories, even without him being physically present in them.

Except those of us that were huge Spock fans, didn't read those comics. For us they were neither worthwhile or engaging. This is the whole point. Everyone, everyone has a deal breaker. I am not trying to say the comics were badly written, nor that they didn't have people that liked them. What I am saying is that there are those of us that would have never gone to another Trek Movie, if Spock had not been brought back in the "Search for Spock." It was a deal breaker for a lot of people. I don’t want to read how characters are dealing with the loss of another major character. I hate those kinds of stories.

The death of Data was not a deal breaker for me, but the deaths and exclusions of both Spock and Janeway were exactly that.

I told Kirsten that I would purchase all of her books if she wrote one bringing Janeway back, and I did that and I've read all of them but one. There is one that I just can't, try as I might get into and I've seen it praised here. I am glad you guys liked it, but for me it is wrong. I don't like the plot, and I don't like the action.

Maybe if I take this out of the realm of Trek Literature to say this in another way. I used to enjoy Orson Scott Card. I liked the Ender books and I liked the first couple of Alvin books but the deal breaker for me was "Lost Boys." That book hurt my heart and I found that I couldn't read any of his books again. It was a story about dealing with loss, and it was a deal breaker.

I wish you and others could understand this, I know books about Voyager characters without Janeway, can be written, that appeal to some people. But they cannot be written (and this applies to everything written), that appeal to everyone. Books are categorized for a reason, so that their intended audience can find them, and others can spend their hard earned funds on something more to their taste.

[Kathryn Janeway]

I loved "The Eternal Tide"
Maybe there were some things I didn't like (poor Amanda) but in almost every novel there's something one cannot absolutely agree with.
When I heard the rumours about bringing Janeway back I had somewhat ambivalent feelings about it, because "it's great, but what if they ruin it", but it really worked. And I think that's the important thing: in SF everything's possible, but it has to be written in a way that makes sense.

[captcalhoun]

King Daniel wrote:

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Hey, didn't captcalhoun also say he'd quit reading Trek forever if they blew up Deep Space Nine?

not that i recall.

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

Must be thinking of someone else, then. *suspicious stare*

[Dimesdan]

King Daniel wrote:

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Must be thinking of someone else, then. *suspicious stare*

He did leave a few months ago because of an epic ownage over his sexist tendencies. Tis great to see him back though.

[lvsxy808]

Reanimating this thread because I've finally read all four of these. Like many before me I had not been a Voyager reader (nor even a Voyager fan really), but given the raging adoration on these boards for the books (and the fact that I got an iTunes card for Christmas), I downloaded them and have just finished the series.

And again, like so many before me, I have to say that these books have made me a fan of the Voyager characters and stories in a way that was inconceivable to me before. Kirsten Beyer really has done a remarkable job revitalising the series and I hope she gets the chance to continue to do so.

I had actually completely spoiled myself on the events of all the books thanks to Memory Beta and Kirsten's Trek.fm interview. But that's fine, it was my own doing. And just because you think you know what's coming doesn't mean you actually know what's coming. So it didn't really affect my enjoyment of them at all. Out of the four I'd say that Children was my favourite and Unworthy was my least favourite, but that's really all relative when you're working at such a high level in the first place.

As to The Eternal Tide:

I don't really give a toss about the whole Janeway-dead-or-alive brouhaha one way or the other, so that she was resurrected in this story was purely a matter of whether the story was well told. Obviously, it was. I agree with some others that it's a shame that the return of Janeway seemed to require the departure of Eden, especially since it really felt like I had only just met her considering I blazed through all the books so quickly. I realise that Kirsten may not have intended to go down precisely this path had the editors not requested that she do so, so I can't really blame her for that. And it's always better to want more of a character than less.

It was way back in the depths of the thread that DerangedNasat commented on the "meta" nature of the story, especially as regards Q's arguments with q about whether Janeway should be resurrected at all. To me the "meta" also occurred later where (if I'm understanding it right) it is revealed that Eden literally would not exist if not for the fact that Janeway were dead. Just as the character of Eden would not have been created if the character of Janeway hadn't been killed off, so the multi-verse specifically created Eden as a living being in order to solve the problem that Janeway couldn't solve because she was dead. Eden literally was a replacement for Janeway in the multiverse's plan.

I confess I got a bit muddled on some of the more technobabbly (or perhaps temporo-babbly) aspects of the plot. Let me see if I can get it straight:

• The Anschlasom accidentally broke Omega and let it through into the multiverse, and in doing so also created the Q continuum as we know it.
• In the other timeline, Janeway succeeded in solving the problem and resealing Omega. Job's a good'un. Except that that was undone by the events of "Endgame."
• Once back in the AQ, Janeway refused to allow Voyager to return to the DQ, which left the Q-Omega imbalance still unresolved.
• The multiverse then went about killing Janeway in every universe it could find, to make sure the Full Circle mission would go ahead.
• When Tallar and Jobin fell into a rift, it gave them Eden, with the intention that she would at some point restore the balance by destroying the Q and resealing Omega.
• With Janeway dead and Eden in command, events were now in place to resolve Omega, since Janeway herself was unknowingly refusing to do it.
• The existence of q was basically a lucky break in that he could be equal to Eden and seal Omega without destroying all the rest of the Q.

Is that right? Also, the return of Janeway herself was not part of the multiverse's plan, but rather an example of q overriding that plan. Unless, as has been suggested, the return of Janeway was part of the plan (but only after the Full Circle mission could no longer be blocked and was already underway) so that she could facilitate the Q allowing q to sacrifice himself. But then that's inconsistent with the multiverse wanting to restore the balance as it originally was - it wouldn't care that it was extinguishing the Q people from existence. Or was it that the balance was no longer capable of being restored by the destruction of the Q, so it had to be q? See, I'm a bit muddled.

On to the new characters. I adore Cambridge. I don't remember the last character who made me laugh out loud so much while reading. Him dressing up as Chaotica is perfect, and putting him and the Doctor together in TET was a master stroke. I especially loved:

Doctor: You are the most unpleasant, unprofessional, unlikeable person ever to have worn a Starfleet uniform.
Cambridge: You don't get out much, do you?

I also enjoy Cmdr O'Donnell, Cpt Farkas, and many of the others. Conlon hasn't really done a lot for me - I don't remember her as being especially distinctive in the SCE stories and that seems to have continued here. Not that there's anything wrong with her, just that she didn't really stand out to me. And Sharak seems a bit of a missed opportunity - there hasn't been chance to spend any time with him really, and having the first Tamarian in Starfleet learn how to speak Fed Standard is probably necessary to make the concept work but at the same time seems to gut the character of what should make him unique. Ah well.

I also want to thank Kirsten for the inclusion of another gay couple vital to the story - Eden's "uncles." From Full Circle on they were established as a gay couple in not so many words because 24th century people simply wouldn't see it that way, but still in such a way that it was obvious to the reader, and yet in a total shrug-shoulders this-is-how-it-is-let's-move-on way, which is of course exactly how it should be. What's even better is that no-one in the course of all the pages of all the threads on this board discussing all four books has mentioned them at all as far as I can see, which speaks to me of how utterly unremarkable it is to readers that the captain of Voyager should be the daughter of a gay couple. So basically I'm happy from both the writing and the audience POV on that.

As to why Tallar and Jobin were Eden's "uncles" instead of her "fathers" (as someone asked upthread), don't forget that they didn't want her to know the circumstances of her "birth." She was created from them, yes, but they preferred to pretend they had simply "found" her, so in those circumstances the word "uncle" might better serve to cloak the truth. But note that as things got more desperate towards the end of the book, both Tallar and Jobin referred to Eden as their "daughter", proving how they really felt about her regardless of where she came from. And that speaks to the current-day issue of adoption for gay couples. Biology may stop them from conceiving on their own, but that doesn't mean they don't want a child together, so the multiverse gave them one. I'm sure that's how it seems to anyone who adopts a child. Eden was adopted, q was conceived. But in the end they were equal.

So upshot is - double plus yay. Thank you for some lovely stories, Kirsten. I anxiously await your next.

.

[Kirsten Beyer]

Well, this was a lovely thing to stumble upon today. Thanks for reading. Pleased no end that you enjoyed it and hope the next one works as well for you.

As to this....you've almost got it.

lvsxy808 wrote:

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• The Anschlasom accidentally broke Omega and let it through into the multiverse, and in doing so also created the Q continuum as we know it.

Right.

• In the other timeline, Janeway succeeded in solving the problem and resealing Omega. Job's a good'un. Except that that was undone by the events of "Endgame."

Almost right. In the other timeline Janeway succeeded in resealing Omega. The method used at that time, however, restored the balance from the very beginning of all things, so prior to the breach by the Anschlasom, so the Q Continuum no longer existed in that timeline. That's why Amanda and Junior could see the timeline through the prism, but could not enter it and experience it. There, they didn't exist.

• Once back in the AQ, Janeway refused to allow Voyager to return to the DQ, which left the Q-Omega imbalance still unresolved.

Yes, but this isn't terribly important from the multiverse's point of view. Her actions in Endgame, bringing the crew home early and erasing the contact with Omega that sealed it starts the whole ball rolling and from there the multiverse starts ordering things so that the balance will be restored. Eden is created, Janeway's death, when it happens becomes a fixed point in time. Etc.

• The multiverse then went about killing Janeway in every universe it could find, to make sure the Full Circle mission would go ahead.

To make sure that Eden would find Omega and do her part.

• When Tallar and Jobin fell into a rift, it gave them Eden, with the intention that she would at some point restore the balance by destroying the Q and resealing Omega.

Yes.

• With Janeway dead and Eden in command, events were now in place to resolve Omega, since Janeway herself was unknowingly refusing to do it.

With Janeway dead and Eden going to the Delta Quadrant to eventually confront Omega.

• The existence of q was basically a lucky break in that he could be equal to Eden and seal Omega without destroying all the rest of the Q.

Mmmmm...sort of. Q and Lady Q thought they created Junior to save the Continuum from the civil war. He was actually created to save the Continuum from ceasing to exist, but they didn't know that at the time.


Is that right? Also, the return of Janeway herself was not part of the multiverse's plan, but rather an example of q overriding that plan. Unless, as has been suggested, the return of Janeway was part of the plan (but only after the Full Circle mission could no longer be blocked and was already underway) so that she could facilitate the Q allowing q to sacrifice himself. But then that's inconsistent with the multiverse wanting to restore the balance as it originally was - it wouldn't care that it was extinguishing the Q people from existence. Or was it that the balance was no longer capable of being restored by the destruction of the Q, so it had to be q?

The return of Janeway was not part of the multiverse's plan, yes. We'll never know what Eden and Junior would have done, or Q and Lady Q for that matter, had Janeway not been there to argue for the necessity of their sacrifice. I tend to think they would have done the right thing anyway, but you never know.

The multiverse didn't particularly care that Omega was sealed and the Q ceased to exist. Omega just had to be sealed to the multiverse could continue to exist as long as it was supposed to. Theoretically, Eden could have done it by taking all of the Q power into herself, as she started to...and then returning to Omega with it. But yes, then no more Q. Junior's existence was the key in the he was powerful enough to balance Eden and spare the rest of the Q. It was the actions of all of the chacters at several different points in time that made this particular resolution possible.

Hope that helps. Possibly you are more confused now.

Best,
Kirsten Beyer

[Janewayobsessio]

I LOVED THIS BOOK!!! It was very exciting and I wish it was longer! I liked the previous Beyer books aswell. In a world were no voyager movie or more voyager series will be made - thank God for books!