Spoilers Coda: Book 1: Moments Asunder by Dayton Ward Review Thread
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Oddly, I just re-read Q-Squared a month ago (ah, sweet nostalgia...), and while it wasn't explicitly stated, it was clear that the Q could hop realities with relative ease... though past versions of Q could interact with future versions of themselves, so... *shrugs*.
I don't recall how explicit it was in Q & A or other Q books, though.
Q has insisted that the continuum exists outside the regular universe, so my head-canon was that there was just the one continuum existing alongside the multiverse.
What was the name of the book Picard gifted Chen? Part of me wants to believe it was Strangers in the Sky, no matter how absurd that might be.
It was. Strangers being a favorite of Picard's has been a running thing over many of Dayton's novels.
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Alas no appearance of Transporter Clone Pava, who is the most important character in Star Trek's Litverse to get her story finished!
Current pet theory: this will come up during The Ashes of Tomorrow.
Regardless of what happens in the remaining two thirds of this, listening to the first third on audiobook has been one of the most boring experiences of my entire listening/reading lifetime. Petkoff is a great narrator, but literally not a single thing has happened yet that couldn't have happened offscreen for more impact.
I remember how much Destiny impressed the hell out of me by starting RIGHT in the middle of things, with Dax even already promoted to acting captain and four whole ships and crews established in the first four chapters. It felt epic right away.
This could not be more the opposite of that.
I ask you - what would be more interesting, the chapters focusing on Wesley and Ducane introducing our villains by having them slaughter people no one cares about, or Wesley, an ancient old man, dropping out of the clear blue sky with no warning? Imagine the shock of reading the beginning of this book and getting to the line "it was Wesley Crusher" if the first 13 entire chapters hadn't been there!
And as for all the Enterprise crew stuff, Jesus Christ, Dayton, I get it - everyone's happy. The neon sign blinking "DRAMATIC IRONY" was plenty bright enough after Chapter 2. It'd be ok if something happened now?
I remember how much Destiny impressed the hell out of me by starting RIGHT in the middle of things, with Dax even already promoted to acting captain and four whole ships and crews established in the first four chapters. It felt epic right away.
This could not be more the opposite of that.
I ask you - what would be more interesting, the chapters focusing on Wesley and Ducane introducing our villains by having them slaughter people no one cares about, or Wesley, an ancient old man, dropping out of the clear blue sky with no warning? Imagine the shock of reading the beginning of this book and getting to the line "it was Wesley Crusher" if the first 13 entire chapters hadn't been there!
And as for all the Enterprise crew stuff, Jesus Christ, Dayton, I get it - everyone's happy. The neon sign blinking "DRAMATIC IRONY" was plenty bright enough after Chapter 2. It'd be ok if something happened now?
This was absolutely below average for me. The story just felt very rushed and shallow. A lot of stuff happens but it all just feels lacking in emotion and substance. I should have felt something when Dax and Chen died but Dayton Ward writes those scenes with so little nuance and emotion that he might as well be describing what colour the carpet in his house is. I second the comment above about how impactful it would have been for Old Man Wes to drop out of the sky without the 13 previous chapters involving meaningless side characters.
I don't particularly like the Time's Arrow episodes, so I'm not sold on the Devidians as the main villains either. Dayton Ward does an awful job of making the Devidians threatening. I should be scared at how unkillable these things are and terrified at the fact they want to consume entire realities, but I'm just annoyed at how bland they are.
Despite my misgivings about 'Moments Asunder', I am looking forward to 'Ashes of Tomorrow' and "Oblivion's Gate". James Swallow and David Mack are my two favourite Trek writers and hopefully they will make up for the massive failures of 'Moments Asunder'
I don't particularly like the Time's Arrow episodes, so I'm not sold on the Devidians as the main villains either. Dayton Ward does an awful job of making the Devidians threatening. I should be scared at how unkillable these things are and terrified at the fact they want to consume entire realities, but I'm just annoyed at how bland they are.
Despite my misgivings about 'Moments Asunder', I am looking forward to 'Ashes of Tomorrow' and "Oblivion's Gate". James Swallow and David Mack are my two favourite Trek writers and hopefully they will make up for the massive failures of 'Moments Asunder'
I just don't like Dayton Ward's style. I didn't like Peaceable Kingdoms or Paths of Disharmony either.
Hopefully James Swallow and David Mack will do a better job.
Hopefully James Swallow and David Mack will do a better job.
For me, Dayton Ward's writing style has a time and place - if he's describing someone or something I haven't seen or read about in years, he's great at reminding me about what happened ("oh, man, I remember that!"); if I just finished binging all of his previous novels as part of a refresher before the big event, those same references can sometimes come off as overwhelming ("I just read that last night, I don't need a blow-by-blow replay of the entire novel/episode/film/whatever.")
I mean its a popular theory there's not two separate timelines but one will become another.
OMG, the book just came out and already 8 pages 
I just got my copy and am not reading any of the prior comments to avoid spoiling it (this is definitely one trilogy I don't want spoiled in any way
).
But I just wanted to come on to say sometimes I do read the afterwords or acknowledgements before starting a book and I read the one Dayton Ward wrote at the end of his and just wanted to note a few things.
First, I never really thought about how much the authors themselves enjoyed writing those stories. Dayton noted about the amount of unprecedented freedom they had writing those books since there were no shows on the air and just the Abrams films (which took place in a different continuity anyway). I can see how that might even be a bit fun, actually creating a bit of a universe within an already existing universe with that amount of freedom.
And they noted in many ways this trilogy is a gift to us, the loyal readers these last 20+ years. And I wanted to say a thank you to them, and to S&S for just doing the trilogy at all, since the novel continuity is so far out of whack with Picard now. I have really come to enjoy the continuing litverse, the stories and the characters created. And thanks to all the authors who have been involved with that all these years. I've come to think of many of those litverse characters as important as the main characters in fact.
They could have just let it die after Picard came out. But a big thank you to the writers, editors and publisher for giving us a conclusion of sorts to the novel continuity and not just letting it quietly die.
I just got my copy and am not reading any of the prior comments to avoid spoiling it (this is definitely one trilogy I don't want spoiled in any way
). But I just wanted to come on to say sometimes I do read the afterwords or acknowledgements before starting a book and I read the one Dayton Ward wrote at the end of his and just wanted to note a few things.
First, I never really thought about how much the authors themselves enjoyed writing those stories. Dayton noted about the amount of unprecedented freedom they had writing those books since there were no shows on the air and just the Abrams films (which took place in a different continuity anyway). I can see how that might even be a bit fun, actually creating a bit of a universe within an already existing universe with that amount of freedom.
And they noted in many ways this trilogy is a gift to us, the loyal readers these last 20+ years. And I wanted to say a thank you to them, and to S&S for just doing the trilogy at all, since the novel continuity is so far out of whack with Picard now. I have really come to enjoy the continuing litverse, the stories and the characters created. And thanks to all the authors who have been involved with that all these years. I've come to think of many of those litverse characters as important as the main characters in fact.
They could have just let it die after Picard came out. But a big thank you to the writers, editors and publisher for giving us a conclusion of sorts to the novel continuity and not just letting it quietly die.
Re-reading Ezri Dax’s ‘death’. I have to agree with the others now.
When other people were attacked, they screamed, they were in pain. When Ezri Dax ‘died’ her POV didn’t describe any discomfort except for the symbiote’s.
Nothing says the Naga touched her, it was in its death throes, it got close enough to displace air, but that’s it. Unless a Devidian or Naga came up from behind her or something, but again no mention of pain, or screaming.
When other people were attacked, they screamed, they were in pain. When Ezri Dax ‘died’ her POV didn’t describe any discomfort except for the symbiote’s.
Nothing says the Naga touched her, it was in its death throes, it got close enough to displace air, but that’s it. Unless a Devidian or Naga came up from behind her or something, but again no mention of pain, or screaming.
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Could also be John Crichton from Farscape.
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Mr. Ward is better suited by style for TOS stories. YMMV.
There’s just no point in so much exposition of things past in a set of books that are aimed so squarely at people already in the fold. ‘What you leave behind’ didn’t recap the preceding seven years of DS9, let alone Trek to that point. This is a finale for the lit verse, it doesn’t need an episode guide thrown in.
Given the white light, the most logical retcon is that some are now with the prophets.
Heyyy, here I am 5 and a half hours into a 11 and a half hour long book, and I think something might actually be about to happen that involves the main characters in some way in the story!
I'm extremely confused why, with only 300,000 words left in the entire 20+ year storytelling endeavor that is the Star Trek Litverse, Dayton decided to spend about 50,000 of them killing off people I couldn't possibly care less about and having all the main characters just... like... chill? (Truly: was "the fate of Juel Ducane" on anyone's "top 10 things I hope the epic Litverse finale addresses"? Was it on anyone's top 10,000?) It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the first book in the epic Liverse finale trilogy would contain a single Litverse main character making some kind of decision at some point in its entire first half. Right?
Either way, here we are; I hope the second half is better.
I'm extremely confused why, with only 300,000 words left in the entire 20+ year storytelling endeavor that is the Star Trek Litverse, Dayton decided to spend about 50,000 of them killing off people I couldn't possibly care less about and having all the main characters just... like... chill? (Truly: was "the fate of Juel Ducane" on anyone's "top 10 things I hope the epic Litverse finale addresses"? Was it on anyone's top 10,000?) It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the first book in the epic Liverse finale trilogy would contain a single Litverse main character making some kind of decision at some point in its entire first half. Right?
Either way, here we are; I hope the second half is better.
I enjoyed this a great deal. I gave it "above average" rather than "outstanding" because things were somewhat rushed and some huge stuff blurred past (major character deaths!) without much follow up. As only part one of three though, as designed to be read as a whole that score may retroactively go up.
It's big blockbuster over-the-top silliness. In Cold Equations #3 I felt a similar universe-ending catastrophe (not so long after Destiny's Federation-razing Borg invasion) feat. Wesley was too much, but this is literally the very end, so it's fine. The science was goofy, with timelines being beamed around like analogue TV signals by the big Dividian machine. It's a little vague about how these seemingly local attacks around temporal events are destroying whole timelines, but I guess leaving something so big to the imagination is for the best. Definite Langoliers vibes.
Cannot wait for part 2!
It's big blockbuster over-the-top silliness. In Cold Equations #3 I felt a similar universe-ending catastrophe (not so long after Destiny's Federation-razing Borg invasion) feat. Wesley was too much, but this is literally the very end, so it's fine. The science was goofy, with timelines being beamed around like analogue TV signals by the big Dividian machine. It's a little vague about how these seemingly local attacks around temporal events are destroying whole timelines, but I guess leaving something so big to the imagination is for the best. Definite Langoliers vibes.
Cannot wait for part 2!
