Anyone else disappointed where the books have gone?
- Thread starter timmy84
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I am losing interest in Voyager too because of Janeway. She's not my favorite character. In fact, I have a book that I am about 1/2 way through and just can't get into it.
Short of bringing Diane Carey back, I can think of nobody better qualified to write an April-era novel.
And as to Janeway, I've never understood why there are so many people who can't stand her.
Because the way she was written on the show was just bad, especially season 4 upwards. The scene that immediately pops into my mind in terms of her characterization going downhill is the discussion with Chakotay over allying themselves with the Borg in Scorpion, Part 1. Prior to that scene there's another I think in the holodeck where they agree to only move forward together, as some kind of united front. And then there comes that scene where Chakotay voices reasonable, rational opposition to that alliance - and what does Janeway do? She relegates all of that to the interpersonal layer and counters that she's alone after all. WTF? Chakotay even told her that he'd stand by her, but does "united front" mean, that he has to abandon all of his counterarguments and essentially become her puppet? That definitely killed her character for me, because that scene was the end of any serious discussion in the series (save for with Seven) - and quite frankly, I see the VOY-books going in the same direction again, so I definitely didn't greet her resurrection in the books with open arms, quite the opposite, in fact.
And concerning the topic I'll just reiterate what I've written before. As long as there is no "previously on" in the books (esp Titan, DS9 and TNG) it's really a pain to pick up one of the series (be it Typhon Pact, The Fall etc) because you either get spoiled on other books or miss something essential. So unless you're invested into reading them all, it's a bit of an ambivalent experience because they are not what I'd define as stand-alone novels, especially if you're like me only interested in one series, that being DS9. I've given up on TNG and Titan, although I could see myself return to TNG if Data comes back in a more permanent manner, but except for Picard the crew on the E-E doesn't do anything for me. ENT doesn't interest me. That leaves TOS and the VOY books. I absolutely loved the first 4 Vanguard books, even though the latter half of the series didn't quite work so well for me, but Seekers has been pretty lackluster so far. In my opinion TrekLit is stagnating a bit. There are few exploratory missions anymore, but too many handling universe-shaking crises, one following the other. And while we saw that in DS9 where the political side was dominating of course, we didn't in the other series. I'm just not sure I really want that direction for Star Trek which was always a mix between light-hearted and serious drama. I'm just not seeing much of the former anymore.
Well, there is usually a "previously," it's just integrated into the narration and/or dialogue rather than set aside at the beginning. It's just a basic part of writing skill that you provide all necessary information for the readers to understand a story, even if they haven't read anything earlier in the series. (Look at how "The Cage," the very first Trek story ever, managed to fill us in on the deadly events on Rigel VII before the episode, by showing us their aftermath. Almost every story refers back to past events, whether it's part of a series or not.)
And with or without a recap, you'd still get spoiled on earlier books by reading a later one. I don't see how an initial recap that summarized previous books would prevent you from being spoiled on those books.
Like I said, every story refers to events outside itself. You didn't need to see the Rigel VII attack to appreciate "The Cage." You didn't need to see what happened to Marty and Elizabeth's kids in the future to appreciate Back to the Future; that story was eventually told in the sequel, but the original film is still complete without it, and the scene was written without any intention of setting up a sequel. And the original Star Wars trilogy is certainly complete without our needing to see the Clone Wars or the rise of Darth Vader; many would argue that we were better off without those stories. So just because a story references another story, that doesn't mean you're required to read that other story. Ideally, the individual Trek book series are complete within themselves; any references to other series are meant as bonuses, links that you have the option to follow if you're curious but that are by no means obligatory.
Kirsten Byers adds a little 'history' prologue at the beginning of some of her books. It gives the basic details of what went before in the overall story of the Trek lit verse that has a correlation to the particular story she is about to tell but she somehow manages not to 'spoil' the books.
Good point. There's at least two ways to bring a new reader up to speed (or refresh a reader's memory of past events). You can do the "Previously on" thing and print a recap at the front, or you can try to gracefully work that information into the text itself. "Three months had passed since the Klingons had launched a sneak attack on Vulcan, but the memory of those harrowing events still haunted Picard. Now the Alpha Quadrant was at war, and Riker remained a prisoner on Kronos. Meanwhile, closer to home, Beverly was still clinging to life in Sickbay after being badly injured in the initial attack . . . "
There are pluses and minuses to both approaches, so it can be a judgment call.
That's not really a valid analogy, though, since we all were at the same point at the beginning of The Cage - it was a new setting for all of us. And every book has to convey information of events that happened before those depicted in the novel since the characters very rarely just pop into existence at the beginning of the novel and therefore have a history which of course has to be part of the narrative.
Also not really an adequate analogy since both Back to the Future and Star Wars are defined as a series of movies (hence SW 1-7, BttF 1-3). So it's at your own risk if you watch BttF 2 before 1, or SW 6 before 5 (but I agree, of course, that the whole series is better off without 1-3, but that's another topic entirely). At least there is some hint about the right order of watching them. There is none in the Star Trek books. Granted, there's "Typhon Pact" or "The Fall" - but the various novels under that subtitle are not numbered. Generally, there is no information within the post-Destiny books about their order, and how should a casual reader who just sees a cover and finds it interesting enough find that out? Is every TrekLit-reader required to access those (albeit very helpful) flow-charts? Or memory-beta? Or this forum?
Why keep up the illusion of stand-alone novels when modern Trek is heavily interconnected (at some point suffering from small universe-syndrome - doesn't Starfleet have other ships than the Enterprise, Aventine or Titan?). Of course, having a previously on-section (like the one Greg wrote) kind of spoils prior books right in the beginning, so might be as counterproductive as for example summarizing (some of) Disavowed in Ascendance was for me (especially when it was absolutely not essential to the plot of the novel...), but why not for example put a list of books the current book mainly follows up on right at the beginning? That way, nothing is spoiled, but a reader is warned that this book is part of a series.
Christopher's point, though, is that the difference between prior events that we are capable of seeing and prior events that we are not is artificial. It's not a distinction that exists within the fictional setting and it's not necessarily one that can even be derived based on your experience of a work (take, for example, those that have read New Frontier and assumed Arex and M'Ress were original characters, which is something people have shared anecdotes about again and again) and there is no significant difference between the two except that stories happen to exist about these events and not those events. Or at least, there ought not be.
I mean, let's come back to Star Wars. For years, people experienced 4-6 without having 1-3, when all they knew about what later became 1-3 were references to events that we couldn't see as opposed to references to events that we could. Nothing retroactively changed about the original set once those events shifted categories, the nature of the narrative didn't change. It might have ended up recontextualizing things for people that did see 1-3, but there is no essential difference in the experience of someone watching 4-6 for the first time today without having seen 1-3 and someone watching 4-6 for the first time in 1998. The relationship between art and audience for a given work does not change dependent on how other works expand on the ideas and concepts for those that have not experienced those other works, regardless of if those other works happened to have been created before or after said given work.
I had that same reaction, in that Janeway has become pseudo-Q. But I trust kmfbeyer..
Pocket of Lies
That shouldn't matter. It's just a basic part of series writing to keep in mind that every installment may be someone's first. So the same principles of laying in backstory should be followed whether it's everybody's first installment or just some people's first. You don't want to confuse people just because they're late arrivals. You want to make it accessible to them so they won't be driven away. The trick is to find the balance between bringing the novices up to speed and holding the interest of the veterans who already know the material. (I try to achieve that balance by presenting the recap from a fresh perspective -- I don't just summarize the plot of an episode, but I try to get the important bits of it across in a different way, say, by recapping the events from the point of view of a character who experienced them from a different vantage and interpreted them differently.)
And technically, for the first twenty years, most people didn't see "The Cage" first, just as part of "The Menagerie." But that's neither here nor there.
Exactly my point. Filling in backstory should be done the same way regardless of whether it comes from previous installments or is newly revealed. After all, the characters in the story don't make any distinction between what was in a "previous episode" and what wasn't -- it's all equally part of their personal history. So a writer shouldn't treat them differently either.
No. Wrong. At the time Back to the Future was made, it was intended as a one-and-done. That was exactly my point -- as I explicitly said, the filmmakers didn't actually intend to make a sequel. They just referenced events they didn't intend to show because they thought it'd be a fun way to end the story. It didn't "require" anyone to see the next story. Sure, the makers of the sequels did a good job making them feel like a smooth continuation, but the original film is one of the most perfect, complete, self-contained single motion pictures ever made. It doesn't need anything outside itself to be complete.
By the same token, despite Lucas's constant rewriting of history, Star Wars wasn't "Episode IV" when it came out. In the scripting phase, it was assumed to be Episode I. When Obi-Wan mentioned the Clone Wars and the death of Luke's father, that wasn't originally meant to point you to some other movie that you "had" to see. To viewers in 1977, those were just bits of background texture. Even though those things were eventually depicted in other installments, you don't need to see the prequels to understand or enjoy the original film.
So my point stands. Just because something from another work is referenced, that doesn't mean you absolutely have to read it. That's too simplistic. As I said, the goal is to make the story work on two simultaneous levels -- the individual work itself (whether a single installment in a series or a single series in a shared universe) and the larger whole it belongs to. Audiences should be free to choose which of those two levels they want to experience. Just because the more holistic option exists, that does not mean that anyone is obligated to experience it. It's an option, not a requirement.
Look on the copyright page and you'll find the publication date. As a rule, you can't go wrong reading books in publication order.
Because it's not an illusion. It's wrong to see those as mutually exclusive options. The books are meant to work on both levels at once, as I've been saying.
Most Trek books these days have Historian's Notes that indicate where they're placed and what stories they most immediately follow or precede. They're in the front of the book. Since you don't seem aware of either the copyright pages or the Historian's Notes, I have to wonder if you habitually skip right to the start of the story.
Was just adding my two cents.The only thing I'm not really a fan of is standalone 5YM TOS stories without ties to a wider universe, but otherwise nah, I'm pretty happy with where Treklit is right now. I've said it before, but in my eyes the best Treklit in the current Litverse is better than the best Trek episode/movie and the worst Treklit is better than the worst Trek episode/movie.
Why does ones skill at writing matter as a reader, though? Like, I'm not saying whether or not it's likely true or false, it just seems irrelevant to me. If I'm watching a bad movie, it doesn't even enter my mind to consider my own lack of directorial or screenwriting skills.
I think the DS9 characters have become a little too serious in the recent novels; DS9 had episodes like Our Man Bashir, Trials and Tribble-ations, Profit and Lace, The Magnificent Ferengi, In the Cards, Take Me Out to the Holosuite etc which saw the characters engaged in fun situations (well, maybe not Profit and Lace) which is something I miss. Perhaps Force and Motion will be the answer.
I think the folks on the BBS are probably a little jaded or skew towards liking the trek books -- to the point where they give them a pass. I mean, you (and me!) are still reading them, so we must like them. I find myself reading less and less of Trek, just reading a few books from certain series, and starting to avoid others (Titan for example)
I was enjoying the KB re-boot but the books are so far apart from publication, I really forget what has happened (I've done some re-reads - like Vanguard - to really to get into the series.
I used to read Star Wars books and got bored with it, so if there was a posting of "anyone dislike the way SW books are going?", I wouldn't even be around to comment as I gave up.
Trek books these days are almost "Doctor Waiting Room" & "books to read while on a layover" types. Of course, I get some satisfaction, but ain't like I'm sitting at home curled up with a glass of wine by the fire reading the DTI drivel!
I was enjoying the KB re-boot but the books are so far apart from publication, I really forget what has happened (I've done some re-reads - like Vanguard - to really to get into the series.
I used to read Star Wars books and got bored with it, so if there was a posting of "anyone dislike the way SW books are going?", I wouldn't even be around to comment as I gave up.
Trek books these days are almost "Doctor Waiting Room" & "books to read while on a layover" types. Of course, I get some satisfaction, but ain't like I'm sitting at home curled up with a glass of wine by the fire reading the DTI drivel!
Exactly. A publisher could rightly expect that the most avid of collectors are buying and reading these books in publication order, as they become available. But random fans might well enter the tie-fiction realm at any point, with any story. There have been very few Trek books that deliberately leave the reader floundering as to what has gone before.
When putting books into publication order, the only confusing bit for MMPB collectors is when a first-release hardcover or trade gets a later paperback release.
It's a balancing act. I still remember getting two different responses to one of my 4400 novels. One reader complained that I spent too much time recapping stuff that any true 4400 fan already knew; another praised the same book for being accessible even to readers who had never seen the TV show.
Ideally, you want to write for both the "regulars," who are thoroughly up to speed, and the more casual reader who may just pick up a ST novel once in a while . . . as when stuck at an airport.
Easier said than done, I know.
Ideally, you want to write for both the "regulars," who are thoroughly up to speed, and the more casual reader who may just pick up a ST novel once in a while . . . as when stuck at an airport.
Easier said than done, I know.
That's why I try to do the recaps from a fresh or unusual perspective -- so that even the people who know the story can get something new from it.
On the issue of recapping, I just want to commend Greg Cox on the fine job he does handling recaps in his TOS books (always concise without distracting from his primary narrative) and give my sympathy to Christopher for having to address Trip's whole "still alive" thing whenever the character appears in an ENT novel.
Even if Trip just cameos in one scene, the casual every-Star-Trek-book-is-someone's-first-type reader needs to know why a deceased canon character has returned to the land of the living. After four books in the RotF series, it must be becoming a real pain to come up with new and creative ways to present that exposition to new readers.
Even if Trip just cameos in one scene, the casual every-Star-Trek-book-is-someone's-first-type reader needs to know why a deceased canon character has returned to the land of the living. After four books in the RotF series, it must be becoming a real pain to come up with new and creative ways to present that exposition to new readers.
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