And this makes me sad... and is pushing me into the arms of the TOS and ENT novels for consistency.
Frustrations with Trek lit...
- Thread starter Overgeeked
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And this makes me sad... and is pushing me into the arms of the TOS and ENT novels for consistency.
Would you be happier if they just stopped putting series banners, out of curiosity; if they were all just "Star Trek"? Is it just the clash between banner and story that bugs you? It feels like it's more accurate to say that you don't want that new McCormack book (that I forgot about, apologies) to not exist, you just think it's inappropriate to call it a DS9 book. Is that fair?
Weren't some of the DRG3 Typhon Pact/Deep Space Nine books marketed as somewhat of a TNG crossover even though they just featured the TNG crew in like 5 of 40 chapters?
Exactly. I feel that they are now branding products as things that they aren't.
Yeah honestly, I'd agree somewhat then. I can understand it from a marketing perspective, but from that sense it is a little silly. Myself, I'd honestly be happy with series banners for narratively-connected series, and standalones just being labeled "Star Trek", though I think that might hurt sales one way or another?
But if for example The Missing was labed both TNG and DS9 wouldn't that increase sales?
Well, Garak and Natima Lang, who is also a big part of the book according to the blurb, were DS9 characters, and DS9 did focus the most heavily on Cardassia. The only part of the book that wouldn't be considered DS9 is Pulaski, but one of her most recent appearances was in a DS9 novel, so I think that could qualify her, especially if this one follows up on her story there, which seems likely since it's from the same writer.
I read pretty much read all of the series, so I'm not that concerned with the what series name it's filed under. All I care about is if the story appeals to me.
Just out of curiosity, do you read the back cover at all before you start a book? Most of the stuff you complain about wouldn't be an issue if you just paid attention to the book's description.
What's so bad about it? The series are just more interconnected now that's all. I don't really see where it's all that different that the crossovers in the Arrowverse shows. Just because The Flash is on an episode of Arrow or Green Arrow is on a episode of Legends of Tomorrow doesn't mean those aren't still episodes of Arrow or LoT. I'm pretty sure I've also seen episodes of shows that have been entirely devoted to recurring guest stars, this kind of thing really isn't that different.
While I might brand some of the books different if it were up to me, I don't think I've come across a book where you couldn't find a justification for why the book was branded a certain way.
But that's supposed to be part of the point of branding: to give you an idea of what you're getting before you get it based on past experience. It's not an invalid complaint to bring up branding that's to a degree somewhat misleading just because there's back-cover copy that describes things to make up for it; that's like saying it wouldn't matter if Tropicana started selling grapefruit juice with the same graphic design on the carton as their orange juice so long as they made sure the ingredient list was accurate.
And if you have to find a justification, that in itself is a sign that maybe the branding ought to be reconsidered, because with good branding you don't need to put in any effort at all; it's clear from the start.
The back cover blurb is as much about the marketing as the branding if not more. If it said join the DS9 crew on an exciting crew aboard the station then there might be a case but it doesn't.
I read pretty much every Trek book excluding TOS but I still would always read the blurb first to make sure I'll be interested.
I read pretty much every Trek book excluding TOS but I still would always read the blurb first to make sure I'll be interested.
So was The Never-Ending Sacrifice. Is that not a DS9 book?
None of Zero Sum Game took place on the station. Is that not a DS9 book?
But that's the way gathering information works. It's a process. The big label is only there to capture your initial attention. That's step one. Once something has your attention, that's when you look at it more closely and carefully, which is what the cover copy or ingredients list is for. That's step two. Step three is trying to size up the contents using your own judgment, by skimming through the book or trying to get a sense of the smell or texture of the product, if you can. Step four is repeating steps one through three with alternative products and assessing which one is more worth spending your money on. And the final step is making the decision based on all those earlier steps. It's not the label's job to do all that for you in a single instant. It's only there to get you to start looking at it instead of something else.
The problem with your juice analogy is that advertisers are not generally allowed to blatantly misrepresent what their product is, but they've always been able to bend the truth in a certain way. That's why the extra information is necessary, to counter that tendency. No, they can't promote grapefruit juice as orange juice, but they can promote an artificially orange-flavored beverage as "orange drink." It's only partial information, because a label is a short thing, but the rest of the information on the package is there for you to read more closely once the label has caught your initial attention. By the same token, you won't see a Trek novel labeled as DS9 unless it has at least some DS9 elements.
After all, the people who label these things aren't trying to lie to you. Look at it from their perspective. They get a Trek novel that contains characters and elements from three different series and various original novel stuff all playing into the story -- how do they decide what label to put on it? It's not always easy. Sometimes they just have to settle for whatever comes closest.
Didn't you yourself say before, Christopher, that you would have rather Rise of the Federation not be under the Enterprise banner because you felt that it was broader than Enterprise alone and having that banner gave a false impression of the series, despite the fact that it does have a large number of elements from Enterprise? What I'm saying (and what I believe Jarrod is saying) is that new series should get their own banner in exactly that manner, and if they aren't part of a series, they shouldn't need a banner at all.
That's putting it a little more strongly than I would. It's not exactly a false impression, since my brief is to keep it centered on the ENT cast and concepts. But I think of it as something broader than ENT, something building on ideas from the whole Trek universe.
In the case of Enigma Tales, of the five major elements mentioned in the blurb 3 of them originated in DS9, one was heavily featured in DS9 and only one originated in a different series, but it also made a major appearance in one of the last DS9 books. DS9 is a lot more that just the station itself, even in the show there were episodes that took place mostly in other places, and that didn't make them any less episodes of the series. Every episode didn't feature every character and that didn't make those any less episodes of the series either.
An eBook is a book. Sorry, but just because an eBook is not made of paper does not make it less of a book than a paperback.
it's a matter of personal preference. I don't find the reading process to be as gratifying with eReaders as I do with bound tomes.
To a certain extent, DS9 and Voyager are kind of an extension of the idea of "the next generation", at least, that's how I look at it. So in the same sense that Picard is Next Gen, so too are Sisko and Janeway. We just never saw TOS setting expanded as much as we see the general setting of Star Trek's next generation. I don't know if it's practical to fit them all under that blanket though, I think it would just confuse people.
No one's saying you should, but the fact remains: e-books are still books. Just a different kind of book. It doesn't matter if they're made of paper or photons. Nothing to do with personal preference.
Although I've always found it pretty weird to refer to people born a century later as "the next generation." There are probably three or four intervening generations, really. The next generation after Kirk and Spock would've been contemporaries of Saavik or Valeris. So it was never a very good title for the show. (Or a very original one. We'd already had Roots: The Next Generation 8 years earlier and a Kung Fu: The Next Generation sequel pilot just months earlier, and we'd have Bonanza: TNG one year later, Degrassi: TNG in 2001, and plenty others.)
But it's occurred to me that the original idea behind the Picard character was that he was the revered Starfleet legend who was training his successor Riker for a captaincy and was basically a teacher figure for the younger crew. So the title could've applied to Picard shepherding the next generation of officers after his own.
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