Spoilers TNG, DS9, and VOY - Where is a Good Place to Start?

^ Cathedral, which is the next book, is really good. Re-reading it right now

 

Well I have finished This Grey Spirit, overall very good, with the last 10 percent being some good curveballs for the future novel(s). I think I found the plots on DS9 more interesting then the plots in the Gamma Quadrant. I give it a solid B.

 

I generally found this to be the case for all the Mission Gamma books

 

Just wanted to give everyone an update on why I haven't posted in this thread for a while.

I was on a reading binge from Avatar to Mission Gamma, Book 1. I then started Book 2 but I think I made the mistake of starting it shortly after book 1's ending because what I had read from TGS just felt inferior to what I had just read that I kind of got bored with it. Book 1's ending was so powerful, and so beautifully done that meeting a new alien race and going back to exploring the Gamma Quadrant felt a little empty. Because of that, and because I've been busy with other things, I haven't really gotten back into it.

Well, on Saturday I decided to restart This Grey Spirit, and so far I think I'm glad I did. It's a little better this time around, even though I still don't like that alien race the defiant has just met (I'm on Chapter 3). I'm going to try to keep with it because the relaunch has been great so far and I can't stop now. Hopefully this book gets better with a fresh, going into it clean, perspective. I've heard Mission Gamma is a great series so I'm still hopeful.

 

That book, despite being shorter than Twilight, feels a little longer; it takes a while to get where it's going. But it has some incredibly strong character arcs. It's worth the journey.

 

Does that have something to do with the chapters being longer? Like Chapter 3 is 30 pages (Maybe more considering I'm reading on an Ipad). I appreciated the books I read before being shorter chapters, since the end of a chapter allowed a good break point (Like if I was reading during my breaks at work, a chapter wouldn't take very long). I already can tell it's going to be a slog to get though.

 

I am into Cathedral about a third of the way. So far this one is keeping me hooked.

 

Cathedral is excellent

 

You guys are free to talk about it, but if you don't mind putting spoilers in code, I would appreciate it. I'm almost there but TGS will take some time.

 

I'll second that!

 

It reads much faster then Grey Spirit.... might be the writing style.

 

Or the larger text size. Grey Spirit's text is minuscule and was a tremendous pain to read for long durations of time.

Also you're not wrong about the writing style.

 

I am reading them on a Kindle so text size can be changed. But the chapters were much longer in TGS versus Cathedral.

 

Then in comparison to Cathedral, Lesser Evil is tiny.

 

Lesser Evil is an odd duck. Curiously short (compared to the other three novels) and written by a one-and-done Trek author (the others all had previous Trek work and/or continued writing Trek tie-ins), the fourth book always seemed a strange choice to close out the Mission Gamma series. To me, at least.

 

Yeah, I was shocked when I saw how short it was compared to the other three. It seems to me that the last book in a series is usually one of the longest entries, not the shortest.

 

^^^ If I recall, Marco Palmieri (the editor at the time) said that it was always the plan that the series would accelerate as it went along - that the first would be huge and sprawling and comparatively slow-moving, and they would get tighter and faster as they progressed, with the last of the four being a fast-paced, punchy thriller. That was deliberate. However, even he was surprised at just how tight and fast-moving (aka short) the last book turned out to be. So while it was the plan, the plan went a little bit further than he had intended.

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^I'd say so. Thanks for this info,Ivsxy808.

 

Interesting. Thanks for the info!

 

Mission Gamma: This Gray Spirit - C

Well, I finally finished this book last night (Most of my weekend was spent reading this book) and unfortunately I have to say this is the weakest part of the Relaunch I've read so far. There were pieces of it that I really enjoyed, but then there were other things in it that really detracted from what I enjoyed.

First, what I loved about this novel was the political intregue between Bajor and Cardassia. This whole part of the novel was gripping all the way though and it continues that arc that Kira is on that is pretty much the highlight of the relaunch so far. There were bits of this arc that shocked me, such as Shakaar being responsible for holding back the peace talks, or the stuff with Tora Zyial and her art. I also really enjoyed Kira and Macet's discussions together, especially that when they were on the Promenade before the big fight in Quarks Bar. Kira really has come a long way from that resistance fighter to watching to bring in a new era for Bajor and I'm really happy the events of Season 7 have been followed through here in the Novels.

Another thing I liked about this book was Ro. Even though she wasn't given all that much to do in this book, I just liked all the scenes she was in, and I'm starting to come around to the Ro/Quark relationship.

Now, unfortunately, what I didn't like about this book, which was the Yrenthy storyline and the Andorian Bondmates storyline. I had the same feeling for both, but I'll start with the Yrenthy storyline first. Honestly, I thought it was boring and the even when the author tried to make it interesting, the follow through was off. So we have Ezri, who at the beginning of the book was said to be this "other" type figure trying to bring peace to this world and bring the castes together but other than being really hard on herself, I don't feel like she did anything. I was also disappointed that this narrative of "The Other" felt like it was dropped midway through, mainly during Shar's excursions with Delegate Karen. Why was Ezri there in the first place? Was Shar really "The Other" because he found the scientific solution to this problem? In terms of the Defiant, a lot of this felt out of character.

As for the Andorian Bond-mate thing, all I've got to say was Angst, Angst, Angst everywhere. I appreciated the author trying to develop this storyline, but the book did state that Shar would be back in time for the Schelarath, yet we had to follow Thriss's downfall because she missed him? People criticize DS9 sometimes as being a soap opera, well, the Andorian plot was a soap opera. It was also something in hindsight I wish I could have skipped to get back to the more interesting Bajor/Cardassian storyline. Also, Thriss's suicide was another thing that should have been highlighted more. We go from her being a sleep and restless, to her Suicide and I thought I had missed a part.

Another thing I was disappointed with was there was no mention of the events of Twilight, except for one sentence in the novel. I would have liked a prologue or something kind of showing Prynn and Vaughn's conversation when they reunited because I cared about that storyline in the last book and I really wanted to know what they talked about. Now they are on good terms I guess, but it was a missed opportunity to show how they got there.

One other thing, and that was the E Reader itself. I don't know how converging works from paperback to E Reader, but this felt like it was done by a 5 year old, and that's insulting to 5 year olds. There were so many grammatical errors, spelling errors, and stuff that just didn't make any sense. Honestly, I think there were two reasons why I had trouble reading this book. The first is a lot of it was just narrative (Like Shar's dream sequence just went on and on) but a lot of it too was how badly it was written on the E Reader. I really hope Cathedral is a lot better because this was shoddy shoddy work.

I am looking forward to Cathedral.