Spoilers NF: The Returned, Part III by Peter David Review Thread
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It was nice to have a NF story again and I would like more, but maybe an adventure set a bit more on the ship so we can have more interaction between the crew.
Like others have posted, I wasn't very happy with how the Soleta "incident" was resolved. On one level I thought it might have been an interesting plot line and had potential to be explored with the usual "roles" reversed (and am trying to be careful in the language I used here since it is such a serious topic) but then it was all just swept under the carpet. And the cliff-hanger at the end did not help.
But I would like to see another NF novel just to see is there anything there worth continuing on with, or is it time to retire it.
Like others have posted, I wasn't very happy with how the Soleta "incident" was resolved. On one level I thought it might have been an interesting plot line and had potential to be explored with the usual "roles" reversed (and am trying to be careful in the language I used here since it is such a serious topic) but then it was all just swept under the carpet. And the cliff-hanger at the end did not help.
But I would like to see another NF novel just to see is there anything there worth continuing on with, or is it time to retire it.
Everything in this one felt wrong. Nothing had any weight or consequence; it felt like PAD was bored writing it. "Oh another action scene? I'll amuse myself by putting in a completely irrelevant aside about a ship's cook, because I don't really care about these events enough to take them seriously."
It's kind of bizarre. Aspects of PAD's writing that I did - and still do, in the old books - consider strengths are here somehow shallow enough that they just grate. His whimsy and his willingness to go dark, his tendency to undercut dramatic moments with punchlines, his exploration of Calhoun's more brutal tendencies... all of that here is just stupid. I can't explain why, but I failed to enjoy this so much that I'm not much interested in further trying to figure it out. This was just bad. It hit all the same notes, but with an out of tune instrument played too loudly, or something like that.
Also: I'm confused about something. Didn't the Dayan have a fleet? Or at least, like, a homeworld somewhere? Why did destroying this one ship at the end wipe out their entire society? And why did Calhoun, whose entire emotional arc across the trilogy was to realize genocide was bad even against genociders, let them all die out there instead of trying to save some? I didn't get the ending at all. Though admittedly, by then I was so annoyed I wasn't really paying very close attention.
It's kind of bizarre. Aspects of PAD's writing that I did - and still do, in the old books - consider strengths are here somehow shallow enough that they just grate. His whimsy and his willingness to go dark, his tendency to undercut dramatic moments with punchlines, his exploration of Calhoun's more brutal tendencies... all of that here is just stupid. I can't explain why, but I failed to enjoy this so much that I'm not much interested in further trying to figure it out. This was just bad. It hit all the same notes, but with an out of tune instrument played too loudly, or something like that.
Also: I'm confused about something. Didn't the Dayan have a fleet? Or at least, like, a homeworld somewhere? Why did destroying this one ship at the end wipe out their entire society? And why did Calhoun, whose entire emotional arc across the trilogy was to realize genocide was bad even against genociders, let them all die out there instead of trying to save some? I didn't get the ending at all. Though admittedly, by then I was so annoyed I wasn't really paying very close attention.
Well, two reasons.
1. There are some big continuity developments that anyone who's invested in these characters will want to see.
2. If you really liked all of NF before this, you may very well like this, no matter how much I didn't. It's not all that much of a departure.
I haven't enjoyed NF in a very long time myself, but I don't want to tell people who love NF that they should avoid it. Though maybe they should think a little more critically about it -- the violence stuff, the rape stuff, the genocide stuff, the biology is destiny stuff, the stupidity stuff, etc.
Has Peter David been writing comic books regularly since he started NF? I know he did a lot before he started NF, and quite a few after it went on hiatus. I was wondering if maybe he isn't able to devote as much energy to NF while he's also writing multiple comic book series, and that's why the quality seemed to drop after a while.
David, AFAIK, is still under exclusive contract with Marvel. His current comic workload is one ongoing (Spider-Man 2099), a Phantom miniseries (if another issue ever ships), and the occasional one-off or miniseries (like the Deadpool mini he did earlier this year).
Well, I just posted my review. This was a difficult one for me. A lot of the New Frontier elements that I have previously enjoyed are there, but the execution felt a little disjointed and kind of lackluster. I'm glad I read it, but... there were definitely some elements that I felt detracted from the story.
Today's Literary Treks has an interview with him. Haven't listened to it yet, though, so can't say how in depth the discussion is.
http://www.trek.fm/literary-treks/119
We had a good time with Peter. There are a couple things I wish I could have found a way to word so I could ask him, some of the things that happen in the book are not the easiest to find a way to talk about
Indeed. It was a fun conversation (Peter's been a favorite of mine since childhood - I hope I didn't gush too much!), but it would have been nice if we could have gone a little more in-depth.
You'd think Calhoun would know better than to do what he did in this series after what happened in "Once Burned". Just saying. (or maybe that was the point)
I get you with one of the genocides, sure. The second (we're counting the genocides in a Trek book, this is fun) they really had nothing to do with - certainly it wasn't something that they could be blamed for.
My problem, beyond the aforementioned Soleta action which they're sweeping away as Vulcan mysticism or whatever, is the loss Lefler suffers at the end. That's basically summed up with "yeah, she's really sad" at the end.
Their refusal to beam any of the Dayan aboard made them complicit in the second genocide. As Peter David is fond of stating in this ebook, that means even the "women and children" died floating in space.
Ever since TOS, one of the hallmarks of Star Trek is the compassion exhibited by the crews of a Starfleet vessel. Not so here. There is no justification for not helping Dayan babies to survive sudden exposure to space.
You are absolutely right about the short-changing Lefler got in the end. She didn't get to raise her child, oh, well. Moving on...
Ever since TOS, one of the hallmarks of Star Trek is the compassion exhibited by the crews of a Starfleet vessel. Not so here. There is no justification for not helping Dayan babies to survive sudden exposure to space.
You are absolutely right about the short-changing Lefler got in the end. She didn't get to raise her child, oh, well. Moving on...
Yeah, at first pass I read it as they were all in shock and thus didn't do anything - but on quick re-read of that passage Burgy clearly wants to retrieve the ones they can and Calhoun says no.
Did... did Calhoun give a reason for that?
^ No. Here, see for yourself:
(Seriously, don't read this if you're planning to read the book)
The implication is that if any of them live, they will stop at no end to fulfill their mission, so Calhoun is trying to save the Federation, but... yeah.
And that was after Calhoun supposedly learned his Genocide Is Bad™ lesson.
I know I haven't really offered a review on this one yet. Like so many others in this thread, I just found this installment very disappointing. There's a lot here not to like, from the rape that gets laughed off, the genocides that get shrugged off, and the robbing a mother of the entirety of her child's formative years.
It looked like there were almost going to be consequences to Calhoun for some of his craziness at the beginning, but it ended up being just a harsh five-minute chat with Burgoyne, and that was pretty much it.
We didn't even get any interaction with Nechayev at all. We were told that they rescued her, but we didn't even "see" her, IIRC. I sort of expected something more here.
I probably won't end up voting in the poll, but it would probably either be Below Average or Poor. Probably Poor.
(Seriously, don't read this if you're planning to read the book)
Peter David said:
The implication is that if any of them live, they will stop at no end to fulfill their mission, so Calhoun is trying to save the Federation, but... yeah.
And that was after Calhoun supposedly learned his Genocide Is Bad™ lesson.
I know I haven't really offered a review on this one yet. Like so many others in this thread, I just found this installment very disappointing. There's a lot here not to like, from the rape that gets laughed off, the genocides that get shrugged off, and the robbing a mother of the entirety of her child's formative years.
It looked like there were almost going to be consequences to Calhoun for some of his craziness at the beginning, but it ended up being just a harsh five-minute chat with Burgoyne, and that was pretty much it.
We didn't even get any interaction with Nechayev at all. We were told that they rescued her, but we didn't even "see" her, IIRC. I sort of expected something more here.
I probably won't end up voting in the poll, but it would probably either be Below Average or Poor. Probably Poor.
Well that's incredibly depressing.
I'm basing this purely on what you guys have said in the threads since I haven't read the books myself, but what I'm reading is really disappointing. I thought the last few books were actually starting to improve again, but it sounds like this book did a major reversal on that, and took what have always been quirks of the series, and just ran them to the absolute extreme. I was looking forward to these, but now I don't know if I even want to read them, especially since I haven't read anything beyond the Cold Equations trilogy in the main 24th Century arc, or Atonement in Voyager. If I get caught up on them I might take the time out for these, but probably not before that. Which is a shame really, because I used to absolutely love NF.
Yeah, got some dust in my eye at the end of that one.