Spoilers TNG: Collateral Damage by David Mack Review Thread

Spoiler

so one thing I’m finding with the book is that it’s quite vulgar. I haven’t seen any f-bombs yet, but but forget the Picard-O’Brien debate of the 90’s when the producers were using words from England and other languages to hide vulgarity from the American censors, and the books followed suit. Really this has turned into a trashy novel.

 

So, is there something about connecting the Novelverse and the Picard show in the book?

 

No.

 

It's not the first Star Trek novel to be vulgar. I don't see the issue. Books don't have to worry about television censors.

 

How are people getting it already? It’s not out for another 11 days here

 

Spoiler

I realize that over the last 10 years the Trek novels have started dropping vulgar language into the books, it was usually once per book. This book raises it by a factor of 10.

Basically, it’s like the older books were written like Shakespeare, but this book is written like a trashy romance novel.

 

I got my copy yesterday and I’m in the UK.

 

From who?

 

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess you haven't actually read any of these "trashy romance novels" you disparage. If you have, my apologies. Care to name them?

 

The twitter-mentioned plan will remain a mystery? Mr Mack, you keep us on our seat edges ....

 

Would those of you who have read this say it would serve as a satisfactory last book in the current Novelverse continuity?

 

I’m only about 3/4 done, but I would say no. In parts it feels like it could’ve used more finessing, since there are places where the storyline and editing seem rushed and has left me wondering what was going on. And, to be quite frank, the whole Picard JAG story feels like it could’ve been fleshed out more as it’s own book, maybe where “Articles Of The Federation” took inspiration from “The West Wing”, the Picard line could’ve taken inspiration in its own book from the old CBS show “JAG”, while the whole Enterprise-E And Worf in Command storyline [SPOILERS](includes the Okona storyline) [/SPOILERS]needed more work to where it doesn’t read like a trashy romance novel.

I would compare this to the 1971 ending of the “The New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures” and it’s Tom Swift And The Galaxy Ghosts where the story didn’t fit and even contradicted the previous 32 volumes of the series.

 

The Book Depository

 

I got mine Thursday by mail from Chapters-Indigo here in Canada.

 

I wasn't really talking the quality of the book, just the story. Does it tie things up enough that we could stop here without it feeling like we absolutely need more books?

 

No. The Picard story is only one part of the fallout from Section 31. There are still more threads that I find are still dangling. Really, this is like A Singular Destiny after the Destiny trilogy.

 

Okay, I bought a copy there. Hope it arrives soon. No spoilers.

 

Mine came from my local indy bookseller of choice.

 

uuugh no ebook till tuesday still?!

Also is this the last relaunch book?!

 

I don't think anyone's explicitly said that. Only that this is "the culmination of 16 years", meaning it ties back into "A Time To..." and that "they have a plan" for the novelverse and the Picardverse.

Having a plan could literally mean "after this we ignore the novelverse and tie into Picard" or it could mean a future novel will do something wibbly-wobbly and timey-wimey to explain it all. Or maybe we'll get a novel full of "by 'I left Starfleet in 2385', Picard actually ment he remained in Starfleet until 2387"