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Spoilers KEL: More Beautiful Than Death by David Mack Review Thread

Rate KEL: More Beautiful Than Death

  • Outstanding

    Votes: 11 42.3%
  • Above Average

    Votes: 9 34.6%
  • Average

    Votes: 6 23.1%
  • Below Average

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Poor

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    26
I'm really liking the story with the Vulcans in this book it is really well written and the aliens are really intriguing it has a mystery too with the new aliens in this story.I like this book alot.
 
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Kirk also verbally disparages some of his security people in “More Beautiful Than Death”. He calls them “clowns”, out loud, not as a means of spurring them on to action in a tense situation, but as a permanent evaluation of their worth. Not good command sense. The real Kirk always respected and was supportive of his crew mates.

For the Federation! As it once was, and shall be again!
 
Only one post has a garbled beginning. My first one. A typo. Thank you.

All I’m asking is for standard Federation Standard.
 
The reply icon is close to the quote icon. On a few occasions I inadvertently wasn’t too careful about the one I clicked on. The other guy made some nut-job errors that were not typos, hence my justified comment.

I stand by my Federation training.
 
I'm really liking the story with the Vulcans in this book is really well written and the aliens are really intriguing a mystery too.

Could you please rewrite your sentence?

Only one post has a garbled beginning. My first one. A typo. Thank you.

All I’m asking is for standard Federation Standard.

@ORIGINALVIEWER A lot of our forum members do not speak English as a first language, there's nothing so wrong with Reanok's sentence that you can't work out what they mean. And if you do in future find a post you don't understand - please ask for clarification rather than just a rewrite, it's polite.

I knew I missed selecting something for this post:
The other guy made some nut-job errors that were not typos,

This is definitely not the approach to take. No-one here deserves to be insulted simply because you haven't understood their writing. Do not talk like this again.
 
Trek.fm has a new podcast interview with David Mack where he discusses his novel in depth when it comes to Vulcan beliefs and it's really interesting what he says about the L'Nel storyline and Vulcan culture and the ideas he used to write this particular part of the book..And the Kirk storyline with the aliens and the alien leader the visions Kirk has in the book and the mystery of what makes Kirk decide certain action he takes because of the visions he's been having.
 
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I thought the novel had a solid A plot with Akiron and the wights. I especially loved how Mack explored the way the Kelvinverse's Kirk approached his command decisions. It feels a lot like a precursor to the trouble on Niburu in Into Darkness.

I was less of a fan of the B plot with Spock and L'Nel. It felt underdeveloped and rushed. I was especially bothered by
how quickly the story brushed aside the reveal that L'Nel is T'Pring.
It feels like the whole subplot almost deserves its own book, or at least an equal share of story. I especially feel the climax of that plotline was overshadowed by Kirk's ordeal on Akiron. I guess my biggest issue is that I liked the subplot but feel it could have been more developed.
 
I was less of a fan of the B plot with Spock and L'Nel. It felt underdeveloped and rushed. I was especially bothered by
how quickly the story brushed aside the reveal that L'Nel is T'Pring.
It feels like the whole subplot almost deserves its own book, or at least an equal share of story. I especially feel the climax of that plotline was overshadowed by Kirk's ordeal on Akiron. I guess my biggest issue is that I liked the subplot but feel it could have been more developed.

That's an interesting observation, and one of the things that David Mack revealed in our interview with him (in Positively Trek #30) was that he would have liked that entire subplot be the focus of a whole novel, but that there just wasn't quite enough to sustain an entire book. It certainly does feel a bit separate from the rest of the events of the novel, so I can see how its origins would have been in a completely different story with those events as the main focus.

If you haven't yet, you should check out the interview with him, it really was a fascinating discussion!
 
If you haven't yet, you should check out the interview with him, it really was a fascinating discussion!

Definitely! I've been waiting until finishing this one before listening. I loved the recent one on The Unsettling Stars with Alan Dean Foster.
 
I really liked this one a great deal. Feels like the KT completely. Was so much fun to be back on Literary Treks and get to talk to David about the book! Hope y'all enjoy the episode!
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It was a great Literary treks interview with David Mack. I finished the book last night I voted outstanding.I hope we'll get some more Kelvin verse books. I've enjoyed reading the 2 books that came out this year.:beer::bolian::adore:.
 
It was a great Literary treks interview with David Mack. I finished the book last night I voted outstanding.I hope we'll get some more Kelvin verse books. I've enjoyed reading the 2 books that came out this year.:beer::bolian::adore:.

Thanks so much for listening! I agree that this was an outstanding book. Very thankful David gets that this is not TOS in a new skin, it is a new thing and needs to be written as such.
 
Definitely! I've been waiting until finishing this one before listening. I loved the recent one on The Unsettling Stars with Alan Dean Foster.

That was a fun interview! We were thrilled to get to speak with ADF, it definitely felt like he represented a huge part of the history of Star Trek. David Mack is always fun, too, and we were thrilled to have him on the second episode of the Book Club sub-show of the podcast!
 
Finished the book. It was pretty good. It felt more of a JJVerse story than the previous novel which I felt the characters felt more like their TOS selves than JJV. Kirk felt brasher with his language and actions and Spock felt less "logical".
I'm curious about what he altered due to the other movies. He mentions in the acknowledgments was because of Into Darkness so I'm guessing a Marcus mention perhaps? Can't think of anything else that would require the alterations.

Curious what the Greg Cox book is about.
 
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