Spoilers TOS: Legacies: Book 1: Captain to Captain by Greg Cox Review Thread
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At her first assignment...
"Eight names? That's really long. Which of that number do you want to go by?"
"Um, number one, I guess."
And a legend is born.
Okay. I guess not everything has this deep hidden rationale.
I have to say, I've not given an outstanding that often to a TOS book. This one got an outstanding. I'm hoping the rest of the trilogy gets the same.
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
This is my new headcanon.
I've been rather stuck on this book since it first came out. I've stalled out quite a bit. I'm currently stuck on the "third act," as it were. While, I actually have liked it while reading it. I just feel no call to continue it and have left the chapters for weeks at a time. Character-wise, it's great. Everyone sounds right. There are neat moments for Sulu, and Una feels right. But plot-wise, I really couldn't find anything to hang on to. As others have said in the thread, the reader is pages ahead of the characters at almost every turn. Perhaps the first act went on to long? Maybe the flashback stuff should have started the book? I don't know. But something felt very off to me. While I feel "Make it shorter" isn't the best critique, I do feel like if this had been one of those 200 page novels of the 80s this would have been flat-out stellar. But somehow at 300 it feels like a slog.
Now, I don't love Five Year Mission Trek novels as a general rule, so I'll attribute that to part of my dislike, but I've rather been struggling to finish it. But I already bought the other books... and I don't want to miss out on the 50th celebration, but if it's already taken me this long, I might as well jump to Prey.
I've also not encountered this many typos in a book before. Typos happen, sure, and they can crop up from editing. And it's easy to look past them, but a few took me out of the book
Now, I don't love Five Year Mission Trek novels as a general rule, so I'll attribute that to part of my dislike, but I've rather been struggling to finish it. But I already bought the other books... and I don't want to miss out on the 50th celebration, but if it's already taken me this long, I might as well jump to Prey.
I've also not encountered this many typos in a book before. Typos happen, sure, and they can crop up from editing. And it's easy to look past them, but a few took me out of the book
You took the words right out of my "mouth". I jumped to Prey already, which is pretty unusual as I don't usually set down a Greg Cox book.
Slog confirmed. I finally finished this last night. It's not bad... but... ooof was it painfully uninteresting. Within a page turn the Romulan spy remarks that she wonders how long it will take Kirk to find out it was her, and then she calls them to announce that she was a spy all along and she has the transfer key (a device whose name she shouldn't know?). I did an audible "What, huh?" while reading it. As well, there seemed to be much confusion about the Usildar on an editing level. During both of his appearances Gagre is accidentally confused with another character. (As a child one of his lines is ascribed to an adult, as an adult one of his lines is attributed to the judge.)
I'm really shocked to see all the outstanding and above average votes for this one. Even the Character stuff that I championed in my previous post kinda peters out with Kirk and Spock feeling like caricatures spouting off very generic TV episode lines. Also, I found some of the in references to be rather clumsy. Less easter eggs and just adjectives.
I ended up voting below average.
I'm really shocked to see all the outstanding and above average votes for this one. Even the Character stuff that I championed in my previous post kinda peters out with Kirk and Spock feeling like caricatures spouting off very generic TV episode lines. Also, I found some of the in references to be rather clumsy. Less easter eggs and just adjectives.
I ended up voting below average.
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I enjoyed this series, the battle at the end of episode 2 was indeed gripping, the Centurion gave a good account of himself and Sadira got off too easily.
One thing though, where did General Kovor vanish to? He got shifted in Best Defense but was not present at all during Purgatory's Key.
One thing though, where did General Kovor vanish to? He got shifted in Best Defense but was not present at all during Purgatory's Key.
He must have taken the right turn at Albuquerque. If only he'd gone left, he'd have met up with the others.
I picked this up at the Trek convention in New York a few months ago. Put it in my bag this morning and going to start reading it today. Glad to see it's well reviewed here!
Just finished this. I haven't read a TOS book I've read in over a decade. Overall, I was really pleased with it and I'm on to the next book already.
Pros:
Pros:
- Una is great. I immediately just accepted her as a major player in a novel just like I did with Erika Hernandez.
- Starting off with familiar crew members and not some random alien with weird terminology. Immediately drew me into the story, which has always been hit or miss for me.
- The dialogue. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy all have great interaction and I thought Greg captured them very well in this one.
- Breakneck pace. The bulk of the novel happens in under an hour. It's hard to see this as a standalone novel instead of just the start of a trilogy. I would have liked to see it be a little bit longer.
- Gender neutral pronouns. It's the third book I've read this year that has an alien that uses xe/xer/hir/their/whatever. I don't have a problem with equality, but it seems like it's heavy-handed in 2015/2016.
How's that? It'd be weird to me if a non-bi-gendered race was naturally using male/female pronouns.
Not meant as a call-out or anything, I just legitimately don't get what you mean. If they don't have men and women, then male and female pronouns aren't really correct.
Honestly, the non-gendered pronouns were totally my idea and a pain-in-the-ass to proofread and edit, but there was no agenda there. Those aliens were basically snails. Snails are hermaphroditic. And using "it" instead of "he" or "she" made them sound like creatures, not people, which isn't very Star Trek. (Trust me, I tried using "it" but it just felt wrong.)
No politics here, just biology.
And rather than invent my own non-gendered pronouns, I went with the ones that had been used in Trek novels before . . . .
No politics here, just biology.
And rather than invent my own non-gendered pronouns, I went with the ones that had been used in Trek novels before . . . .
I've become partial to the idea of singular "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun; it's actually been used that way in English since Chaucer's day at least, far longer than the arbitrary rule calling it wrong, and it's becoming popular in real life with people who don't identify with binary genders. (I see it as analogous to "you" -- a pronoun that's both singular and plural and followed by "are" in both uses. If that's right for "you," it doesn't make much sense to say it can't be right for "they.") However, I haven't quite figured out how to use it clearly in prose. My new story in the upcoming issue of Analog (which I just got my copies of yesterday, so it should be on sale soon) includes a character from an asexual species, and in earlier drafts I'd called that character "he" (on the assumption that "she" would be used for any childbearing sex and "he" for any non-childbearing one), but now that I know more about non-binary attitudes in society, I figured it would be inappropriate to try to impose a binary usage on alternative sexes in that way. So I tried to change it to singular "they," but I couldn't find any opportunities to establish that usage without it being unclear whether I was referring to one or more characters. So I ended up using the same solution Una McCormack used for the People of the Open Sky in DS9: The Missing: I just avoided using any personal pronouns for the character at all, instead referring to them only by name, species, job description, or the like. (Except, annoyingly, the Memory Beta entries for the People jump to the conclusion that they're male. I expect people will do the same with the character in my story.)
I didn't realize they had been used before. Sorry to dump that rant on you. I still thought the Jahtor were fun!
No problem. I just wanted to take the rap for that since it was totally my idea and I talked Dave and Dayton and Kevin into following suit. (I also wanted a strong contrast between the two species on the planet: the native inhabitants were humanoid and mammalian and gendered, so I went the other way with the invasive colonizers.)
Among other instances, Margaret Bonanno used the same pronouns to describe the Talosians in BURNING DREAMS, so I basically followed her precedent.
This is the first ST novel I read.
Kirk, Spock and McCoy are perfect, better than most original episodes.
Una is a nice addition, a female version of Kirk. Not so great April, a bit too stock character.
Plot is engaging and mysterious like a thriller. But this is ST and the part with Una on Usilde for the first time makes the reader thinks for various reason. A nice mix that end with an unexpected cliffhanger, unlike the rest of the novel a bit too predictable (and this is the only concern I have with CTC).
Overall I'm impressed, I didn't think a ST tie-in novel could be that fun. In other franchise tie-in are pure money-spilling device with no soul (euphemism). I hope this is the standard quality for ST novels!
Kirk, Spock and McCoy are perfect, better than most original episodes.
Una is a nice addition, a female version of Kirk. Not so great April, a bit too stock character.
Plot is engaging and mysterious like a thriller. But this is ST and the part with Una on Usilde for the first time makes the reader thinks for various reason. A nice mix that end with an unexpected cliffhanger, unlike the rest of the novel a bit too predictable (and this is the only concern I have with CTC).
Overall I'm impressed, I didn't think a ST tie-in novel could be that fun. In other franchise tie-in are pure money-spilling device with no soul (euphemism). I hope this is the standard quality for ST novels!
Well, TrekLit is the tie-in that made people say: "I never like Voyager, but Beyer's novels..."
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