Spoilers PIC: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack Review Thread

[TJ Sinclair]

I finished the book last night, and I'm still processing. I'm honestly a little disappointed and underwhelmed, a far cry from my normal reactions to Una's work. Working from limited information about the series, in what I can only assume was a much tighter timeframe than that of a typical Trek novel, seems to have rendered it a bit off, to me.

I love the insight into Raffi, but beyond that, while it provides insight and context for a lot of the background in Picard, I suppose I'm in the minority in that it doesn't provide me with anything I wasn't expecting. I was hoping to see some bit of a transition from Picard as is he is the TNG films to Picard as he is in 2399, but it didn't quite do that for me.

What I see in the novel is the Picard that everyone is mad at in the new series - the Picard who is so self-righteous that he doesn't bother to listen or understand anyone who doesn't instantly agree with him and gives him what he wants. As much as Zani, Koli and even Raffi encourage him to listen, he...just...doesn't. So much of the book, especially the Admiral's Logs, focuses on telling us how hard a time he is having in understanding any of these differing perspectives, whether it be the Romulans', Clancy's, the Council's, the Nimbosians', or anyone else's. And that was painful for me to get through.

I expecting it to be a downer, and believe me, it's the most depressing Trek novel I've read since Dark Victory, but I wasn't expecting it to depress me because of this. I'm really sorry, because I wanted to like this. I really, really did.

 

[thribs]

Nothing wrong with that. I didn’t like it either.

 

[Kilana2]

I voted above average. But Bordson and Clancy lack the authority and presence of Litature timeline Admirals like Akaar and Nechayev. And the Federation President - very important position - is also not present. His name is not mentioned. Raffi, on the other hand, is quite present like Geordi. I didn't like Picard leaving Beverly behind so easily.

 

[thribs]

Yeah, he’s very un-Picard like in this.

 

[Christopher]

And the Federation President - very important position - is also not present. His name is not mentioned.

Why assume the president would be male?

In fact, the president is alluded to in an early scene; they have one expletive-laden offscreen line in the recording of the supernova briefing that Picard is shown near the start of the book. For what it's worth, there's nothing about the president's cameo that's inconsistent with it being Nan Bacco.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Why assume the president would be male?

Because Nan Bacco would have sorted it out by chapter 3

 

[Christopher]

Because Nan Bacco would have sorted it out by chapter 3

And what, Bacco's the only non-male-identifying character allowed to be president in any timeline?

 

[TJ Sinclair]

Why assume the president would be male?

Because people who aren't used to using gender neutral pronouns as a matter of course tend to default to male or female (usually according to their own gender) when speaking about an individual of an unknown gender? I took it as more of an imprecision or generalization than an assumption.

And what, Bacco's the only non-male-identifying character allowed to be president in any timeline?

Christopher, you're really sounding needlessly hostile over someone's use of a gendered pronoun for a nondescript non-character, and someone else's cheeky joke.

 

[Kilana2]

I didn't take Christopher's comment as hostile. In fact, I was thinking about wether I should write he or she when I stated that the President is conspicuous absent. The President could also be a Hermat for all we know.

 

[rfmcdpei]

::Vritet suddenly hears a knock on his door::

If that was for me ... Well, at least the Tal Shiar does a better job of finding my address than Pizza Pizza.

 

[rfmcdpei]

On another note, thinking about the COVID-19 epidemic, it occurs to me that there might be analogies between the early spread of the virus in Wuhan and the Star Empire's denial of the worst-case scenario. Even though Xi Jinping, who served on the PRC's State Council during the SARS epidemic, certainly did know the potential for catastrophe and would in fact intervene effectively once he knew of it, local authorities do seem to have tried to cover up or smooth over the early existence of the pandemic. They seem to have hoped that the whole episode would pass without notice, that the pandemic would die out, so as to avoid problems with the central government. When this was found out, you eventually got a relatively effective intervention, but too late to prevent a global pandemic.

The big difference, I suppose, is that the PRC has more effective governance than the Romulan Star Empire. There might certainly be a growing strain of not-unjustified Chinese suspicion of the West, but China is still of its own free will able to interact with the wider world, and seems to have a terrifyingly pragmatic government capable of working. The Star Empire, caught up in centuries or millennia of xenophobia that can only imagine interacting with the wider galaxy through dominance, lacks this.

 

[David cgc]

^It also could've been a problem specific to this administration and not Romulan philosophy as a whole. We aren't given much of a picture of what the current Praetor is like, nor the rest of the government, but it's understandable that coming two years after a coup that involved a mass-assassination of most of the experienced government officials, they simply weren't equipped to handle any kind of crisis (brain-drain has also contributed to the current real-world crisis, though more because of the US administration consistently driving people away than because everyone got microwaved to death by a little disc).

 

[rfmcdpei]

^It also could've been a problem specific to this administration and not Romulan philosophy as a whole. We aren't given much of a picture of what the current Praetor is like, nor the rest of the government, but it's understandable that coming two years after a coup that involved a mass-assassination of most of the experienced government officials, they simply weren't equipped to handle any kind of crisis (brain-drain has also contributed to the current real-world crisis, though more because of the US administration consistently driving people away than because everyone got microwaved to death by a little disc).

I said at the start of the thread that the novelverse's regime, the pragmatic and open regime of Praetor Kamemor, would surely have reacted very differently. She was hardly a liberal democrat, but she was much more able to handle open discussion of problems and to enact controversial decisions than whoever was in charge of the Star Empire in the main universe. That the Star Empire also had close friends and partners is another difference.

At the risk of bringing in contemporary politics, again, I am reminded somewhat of the administration of Trump in the US, which seems to have been too caught up in domestic politics to come up with a constructive response to the crisis.

Because Nan Bacco would have sorted it out by chapter 3

I am not sure about that. In at least one metric, Bacco fared worse: The Federation in the main universe managed to avert secession by frontier planets, but her Federation actually saw the secession of Big Four Andor. Some tensions just cannot be papered over.

If Nan Bacco was faced with the same Star Empire that we see, not one that had continued to build on post-Nemesis openings with a new liberalization and friendliness but rather one that had reverted to a totalitarian level of paranoia, what could she have plausibly done?

 

[Paul Weaver]

and someone else's cheeky joke.

I aim for cheesy rather than cheeky

 

[rfmcdpei]

I aim for cheesy rather than cheeky

Cheeky fecker.

 

[NCC-73515]

Cheesy crecker

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I am still assuming, until presented with evidence to the contrary, that somebody is manipulating events in the "Picardverse" to maximize death, suffering, and general chaos, and guarantee failure of all attempts to mitigate it. Sort of like what a Kobyashi Maru proctor does, only it isn't a simulation.

Which, in a metafictional sense, is precisely what has been happening. We call those malevolent manipulators of events "Writers."

Let us fervently hope that COVID-19 is not also the result of a malevolent entity manipulating events to maximize death, suffering, and general chaos.

(And as to Trump, while I would very much like to see him behind bars, incommunicado, in a maximum security prison, for the rest of his natural life, I will note that I have seen more progress on simplifying the process of filing a U.S. Federal Income Tax return, and on rendering the profession of "tax preparer" permanently obsolete, on his watch, than I'd seen within my lifetime up to the day he took office. Of course, some of that was already "in process" during the Obama Administration, but not yet far enough along to produce results. Upshot: I just finished a draft of what will be the thinnest, fastest tax return I've filled out in over 20 years. They do say that even a stopped clock is right twice a day . . . .)

 

[Christopher]

I am still assuming, until presented with evidence to the contrary, that somebody is manipulating events in the "Picardverse" to maximize death, suffering, and general chaos, and guarantee failure of all attempts to mitigate it. Sort of like what a Kobyashi Maru proctor does, only it isn't a simulation.

Except that the Novelverse has had way more death, suffering, and general chaos than the new canon -- the Genesis Wave, the Borg "supercube" assault, the subsequent and unrelated Borg Invasion, the secession of Andor, the threat from the Body Electric, a presidential assassination and the corrupt pro tem administration that followed, etc. (And wasn't there a fate-of-the-universe threat over in Voyager somewhere during all this?) And on a personal level, Janeway died (though she got better), Chakotay and Seven both went through emotional hell, Paris and Torres had to fight for custody of their kid, Deanna had a miscarriage and almost died from a second one, Sisko's daughter was kidnapped and he ended up separated from his wife, Bashir is catatonic, etc.

Stories are not about things going right. They're about crisis and conflict. And there have been a lot more Novelverse stories since Nemesis than canon stories, so of course there have been more crises, conflict, and suffering in the Novelverse. (Especially since so many of those stories were written by David Mack.)

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

True, but (as Khan Noonien Singh would say) "not all at once, and not instantly, to be sure." And not without ultimately leading to a triumph. Or at least a resolution that restores some measure of normalcy.

Rust Hills asserted (Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular; Boston:HMCo, 1977) that there are three basic ways to create suspense in a story: the lowest is "mystery and curiosity" (which depends upon keeping the reader in the dark); the next level up is "conflict and uncertainty"; the highest (and the only one that can create suspense even if the reader knows the outcome in advance) is "tension and anticipation."

 

[Christopher]

True, but (as Khan Noonien Singh would say) "not all at once, and not instantly, to be sure."

All those numerous disastrous things I mentioned happened in less than a decade; leaving aside the Genesis Wave, they all happened within the span of six years. In Picard, we're talking about only two things that happened over the course of six years, the supernova evacuation (and eventual supernova) and the synth attack, and then we pick up with the consequences of that 12 years after the supernova, without any other major cataclysms occurring in that time, just the long-term aftereffects of the two we had.

And not without ultimately leading to a triumph. Or at least a resolution that restores some measure of normalcy.

Of course there's no resolution -- the story isn't done yet! The season finale is three days from now. And it's projected to be a 3-season arc. For all you know, it will have a very triumphant ending. It makes no sense to assume it won't just because it hasn't happened yet.

Trek fans seem to have a bizarrely hard time understanding how serialized TV works. I heard the same complaints about Discovery -- it's too dark, too hopeless. But both seasons ended their "dark" story arcs with upbeat endings where the heroes' adherence to their positive convictions let to a happy ending, so ultimately they ended up quite optimistic.You can't judge the darkness of a story by how it begins, only by how it ends. Heck, "The Immunity Syndrome" and "The Changeling" both began with the annihilation of entire planetary populations of billions of people -- it doesn't get much darker than that. But they both ended with the crew joking and laughing. You have to wait for the ride to end before you can talk about where it arrives.