So What Are you Reading?: Generations

Cross Cult has obviously postponed the Rise and Fall of Khan (Vol. 1 + 2) again, long-awaited.
So what, I resigned myself to my fate. There is still a lot of other stuff.

 

I don't know what Cross Cult is, but I take it you haven't had a chance to read these. If you can ever get your hands on them, I highly recommend all four books. Really, fun, quick reads but also entertaining and thoughtful. They tie all sorts of things together very well without the whole "universe shrinking" effect that tends to happen with these sorts of endeavors, and the first two Khan books, they play alongside several historical events rather nicely. If I were ever to make a fan film it would aboslutely be about Gary Seven, Roberta and Isis, and if I had a decent budget to do so, I'd absolutely want to do an adaptation of the Khan books. They're just that epic.

 

Cross Cult is the German publisher of Star Trek novels. For Khan to be released we (the Khaaaanatics) made a fuss for years. Last year they announced Khan to be released, but they have postponed it until march now (they planned it for December/January). But all good things come to an end and I will finally get my hands on them. These are the covers, a bit different than the originals.

http://www.cross-cult.de/science-fiction-titeldetails/items/star-trek-eugenische-kriege-1.html

http://www.cross-cult.de/science-fiction-titeldetails/items/star-trek-eugenische-kriege-2.html

 

I just finished Vanguard....holy shit what a great ride. The last 15% of 'Storming Heaven' was amazing. More thoughts coming later.

To Amazon for my next read.... I feel like I should pick something rated as fairly average because what ever I read next is probably going to be unfairly judged in comparison to what I just read. Might as well be something I wouldn't be blown away with otherwise.

So sorry, Keith, Greg and Chris, I won't be buying any of your novels this afternoon.

 

Believe it or not, none of that was planned in advance. That bit at the end of Assignment: Eternity, where I suggested that Seven and Roberta were destined to take on Khan eventually, was just meant to be a cute little Easter egg. I swear to God, I had no plans to write the EW books at that point.

What happened is that my editor, John Ordover, read that bit and got me on the phone. "Hey, Greg, about Khan and Seven . . . how would you like to write that story?"

Before I knew it, I was busy writing Khan for the next few years!

 

Earlier this week I finished Absent Enemies. I think it was a bit too... silly in tone for me. I'm not treading new ground in saying most of the characterizations were off. Though, I think the story settles itself toward the end and it feels more polished. Not one to get hung up on minor mistakes but I was slightly annoyed that Engisn Dakal was given Ravel Dygan's history, if only because they're two interesting characters with very different pathways and Dakal has been a great character within Titan. It wasn't bad and there are some enjoyable moments but it really didn't jibe with the tone or style of Titan.

I also just finished Love's Latinum Lust (and Found) which I really, really enjoyed. You wouldn't know this was Block and Erdman's first piece of TrekLit. Quark was spot-on in character and the one-off story was fun without dipping into silly. And the elevator pitch of Quark goes to Comic-Con in search of 50 Shades of Grey 4 was a nice little hook. I felt like there was a reveal about Shmenge that didn't materialize, but other than that I can easily say this was the best ebook novella to come out of the recent crop. (It just edged out DTI: The Collectors which also really enjoyed.)

I'm thinking of starting March, Book Two or my ARC of Scott McCloud's The Sculptor tonight. I also think I'm going to put the past two Beyer Voyager novels on hold and finish off the four TNG/DS9 novels that just came out first.

 

I started reading Starhawk by Jack McDevitt It's been a really interesting fast paced story.I hope my copy of TNG Takedown by John Jackson Miller will come in the mail soon.

 

I recently posted my review of John Jackson Miller's TNG: Takedown. I really enjoyed it, and felt that JJM's tone was really reminiscent of the best of Peter David, especially in the character of Senator Bretorius.

I just finished Worlds of Deep Space Nine: Trill: Unjoined by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels. Right now, I'm reading The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay and TNG: Slings and Arrows, Book II: The Oppressor's Wrong by Phaedra M. Weldon.

 

"Creating The Next Generation: The Conception and Creation of a Phenomenon" - Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman.

 

Finished March, Book Two which was excellent. I also knocked out Harlan Ellison's City on the Edge of Forever Original Teleplay from IDW. It's a nice, handsome edition with that wonderful Juan Ortiz cover. I have to admit to being surprised at how closely the story does hew to the version we've seen. It's certainly different, there's no denying that. And I do know that some of that comes from utilizing the extant episode for visual cues but I'd always been lead to believe Ellison's version was radically different. Really interesting to see a "what might have been."

Two chapters into The Light Fantastic enjoying it so far.

 

Finished "The Sorrows of Empire" and just started with Greg Cox´ "The Worst of both Worlds". The last story left of the MU storyline.

 

I'm currently working my way through the Slings and Arrows series. I've just started part 4 "That Sleep of Death". Really enjoyed the first 3 especially the first and third parts. The authors have really captured the spirit of TNG.

 

If you're not trying to convince me to start reading these books after finishing 'Takedown', you've failed.

'Takedown' certainly doesn't suck. Kertrats' review says most of what I would.

 

In the last couple of weeks I've read Children of the Storm, The Missing, Takedown and SQL Server 2014 Query Tuning and Optimisation, and now I've started on The Eternal Tide (Spot the odd one out).

Was quite undewhelmed by The Missing, which is a shame as I was looking forward to a new DS9 novel. I wasn't sure what to expect from Takedown, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Still enjoying working my way through the voyager relaunch books - far more than I ever enjoyed the TV series.

 

I finished The Final Reflection, which I quite enjoyed. I'm left with a lot of thoughts, and a lot of questions, but I think I'll hold off for now. Broadly speaking, a very intriguing version of the Klingon culture is presented, as extrapolated from just TOS. The last couple pages have left me feeling like I want to skim back through it to better lock in place what the book is trying to convey (I would like to re-read it eventually, but that will have to wait for down the road, must go forward).

After catching up with a few of the other books I have in my to be read pile, I'll return to TOS 80's novel continuity books with My Enemy, My Ally. My rough plan is to use the Diane Duane books as a central piece, alternating back and forth between them and other books that build on each other. So probably after ME, MA, I'll go for The Entropy Effect, then return to Duane with The Romulan Way, followed by another non-Rihannsu book. Yesterday's Son, Uhura's Song, Vulcan Academy Murders, Dreadnaught!, Mindshadow and others I'll slot between each subsequent Diane Duane novel (until I run out of those!).

 

^If you're centering on Duane, you really shouldn't skip her first novel, The Wounded Sky. It tends to get overlooked because it isn't part of her Rihannsu arc, but it's an integral part of her continuity, introducing characters and worldbuilding elements that come into play in her later books. The sequence just isn't complete without it. Plus it's simply an amazing story, my favorite of her Trek tales.

And of course Spock's World should be slotted in after The Romulan Way.

 

Thanks for the guidance, I appreciate it. I got the idea to try this kind of reading "project" after I came across a topic on here called The Continuity of Days Gone By, which is all about TOS accumulating an expanded continuity before TNG arrived.

I was tempted to go straight to My Enemy, My Ally and The Final Reflection. An alternative plan was to get started with The Entropy Effect (going by strict publication order) or Yesterday's Son as a lead in to Time For Yesterday (TFY is described in that topic thread, I think by you, as a lynchpin book for all the others I'm eyeballing for this TOS reading adventure).

In the end, though, I collected enough information from that thread to indicate my plan of attack would benefit from reading The Wounded Sky before ME, MA. The Wounded Sky would tell me if Diane Duane's prose and storytelling would agree with me (and I did get the strong impression that Duane introduces characters and concepts in TWS that she continues to build on with each of her subsequent novels). So, I did end up kicking off my TOS 80's continuity reading with The Wounded Sky, and it was a good start. The Final Reflection was a great for follow up.

My intention was to go through the Diane Duane books in publication order, which I think would place Spock's World after The Romulan Way. With books by other authors slotted in between Duane's. It's a pain to put Spock's World off, but the I want to get a good lead in for it, to appreciate the full experience. I think it was spotting that the Spider-Engineer character K't'l'k is in Spock's World that made me decide to go through Diane Duane's books in publication order. That's the rough outline of my reading order so far. Thank you for looking in on it and providing guidance.

 

Yup -- in the sense that it's the one that references the most other books, thereby connecting books that would otherwise be unlinked.

 

I thought "Takedown" was a pretty decent novel, episode-like but set in the relaunch time frame....no complaints here!

About to start "Rock and a Hard Place" by Peter David. I'm not encouraged by the synopsis but Amazon "recommended it for me" and I like Peter David's writing. I'll give it a shot, the worst that can happen is that I get entertained for a few days.