Spoilers Coda: Book 1: Moments Asunder by Dayton Ward Review Thread

Thrawn, I hate to point it out but your objection is that it's not a character arc. I'd say it is the START of a character arc. Obviously Picard and Rene's story arc isn't done. I'm saying there's more going on here than you're giving them credit for. Geordi realizing that he can't stay on the Enterprise is a metaphor meant to underline bigger themes.

Nor how Wesley's change from wimpy teenager to badass Time Warrior will end up, even if Wesley got a flash of how it was and how his life will end.

But I understand how frustrating, "Wait and see" can be.

 

I do feel like there is more plot to this book, but that made sense to me since it is the first book in this series.

 

Charles Phipps, it’s a good point, fairly made. I’ve just seen what past beginnings (Avatar 1, Destiny: Gods of Night, Full Circle, etc) have been able to do in TrekLit before and for the number of words I just listened to I was looking for something more than a few beginnings of potentially interesting arcs, surrounded by generic characters with nothing interesting to say.

I didn’t finish Destiny: Gods of Night thinking “no one in this book had any unique perspectives or character arcs”. Is all I’m saying.

There’s no accounting for taste and I’m genuinely glad you liked this more than me. Maybe we’ll both like the next one, as the setup that compels you pays off. I look forward to finding out.

 

Come to think of it, the first half of Full Circle was also systematically killing off characters in order to pave the way for a new status quo. I didn't even read the Golden era (so to speak) of the VGR relaunch, and there were a couple of points where I was all, "Oh, this person seems interesting, I'm looking forward to—never mind."

 

Typically the second act of a story sees the character development. Perhaps that’s where we’ll see it with Coda. This book was very much setting the stage.

 

I had a sneaking suspicion that there was something behind the Devidians mid-way through the book.
Not sure the feeling lasted toward the end, but still...
Sus.

 

Given the amount of death and destruction, I'm almost afraid to see how it all ends. Almost (- I'm pretty sure I'd rather be reading book 3 than celebrating my birthday. :-D Too bad it's out on the 30th, a few days late.
So fitting that Mack gets to destroy it all!
Suppose it's safe to say now that I'd like to see Sisko's reaction to Worf being promoted. With Worf maybe being a little smug about it.

 

Sisko would probably say congratulations. Would Worf feel smug? Sisko was just speaking the truth as he expected it to play out. And I'd say maybe Worf wouldn't because he thought he sacrificed his career for Jadzia.

Which reminds me again of Worf's seeming indifference to the death of the Dax symbiont.

 

Worf never accepted the Dax symbiot as part of the woman he loved. Worf is kind of a bigot.

 

insert joke about Worf's indifference towards his own son here

 

Thinking a bit more about it - the other reason I found this boring was that it's a little too safe in approach - if you are going to end the Universe you might as well go for it because you don't have to worry about what comes next.

Take the many deaths - "they turned to dust" is not actually very interesting at all especially when used repetitively especially in a book.

 

I just finished it. As much as I like Dayton and his previous works... this was a horrible read.

It's a slow starter, but ok, I get that. It's part of a trilogy after all, no biggie.

What is it that I really, really don't like about this book?
This book strikes me as a straight up demolition of the entire TNG relaunch continuity.
The characters I found likeable, that I actually cared about? They were given some exposition early on, then killed with nary a mention or purpose.
Things that appeared in or were major plot points in previous TNG relaunch novels? Mentioned once, then turned to dust.
On top of this, it seems to have suffered from "crisis inflation". Where before it was the ship, or a planet. Then it became a solar system. Then a quadrant. Then the galaxy. Then the timeline. Then the universe. Now, it's the entire multiverse! It's like Destiny (which I loved), but on an extreme dose of steroids to the point where it has become a grotesque mutant of a thing.


Dayton, I hate to ask, but was this novel intended to demolish everything you and the others had worked to build? When I found out it was to be the end of the "relaunchverse", I thought it'd be a monument to it. A tribute and a swansong.

I don't like being so negative, but wow. I just can't help be that after reading this book.
I'm really sorry.

 

I haven't read such passionate posts in this forum since Janeway died.

Personally I'd have liked more ultra-bleak apocalyptic introspection, but there's still 2 books for that. I blitzed through this in three days, which for me is something.

 

Oh, my God. You killed Ezri. You bastards!

 

Pfft! T'ryssa is the only death that matters!

 

I thought T’Ryssa’s death was heart-wrenching. And I haven’t even read a third of the relaunch!

 

They’re pretty similar characters. Ezri was a lot like that at the beginning

 

This post and a number of others have really emphasised to me that I probably won't read Coda, namely I don't want to read how everyone dies - and it is not the end I think the novelverse deserved or should have. An end where things 'carried on into the sunset' - a What We Leave Behind or -30- or Everyone's Waiting or Sleeping in Light/Deconstruction of Falling Stars for the novelverse franchise - would have been ideal, one that maturely set the scene for 'unseen' aging in which this amazing galaxy the authors have created endures and carries on - that's what I hoped for, ellipses rather than a full stop.

But something which carelessly blasts it apart, that just removes the joy from it, that's rubbish. That's really rubbish and something I haven't got the stomach to read.

Someone brought up Ultimatum - if this is indeed anything like that, it's just depressing, as that was such a failure of editorial and authorial imagination. Taking good things and just bitterly chewing them up. Death is important - we all die, often in really sad ways - but death is also meaningful, has a huge impact on the people we care about. When there isn't the chance to reflect on that, it slides into meaninglessness.

The novelverse wasn't at its best when it blew things up with cosmic threat, in general - beyond Destiny, some of its weakest moments were those kind of FUBARS - the third Cold Equations book, Before Dishonour, etc. For me, the novelverse was at its best with slow and heartfelt characterisation (much of the early DS9 relaunch, for example, was this - and even its 'finales' like Unity still were character-led), with optimism (Articles of the Federation, A Singular Destiny, etc), with great, enduring worldbuilding (Una's works, Kirsten's Voyager novels, Rise of the Federation, etc), or the dense political chessgame of the dense world you writers all built up together - which had very well-drawn characters within it.

The novelverse was at its absolute best when it aspired to more than death or casually disposing of characters. Maybe books 2 and 3 will have less 'death death death' - but @David Mack seems to intimate otherwise in his comments in this thread, which is disappointing.

Thrawn's long post is useful in its own way for discussing the technical merits of this book, and is well-written as critique, but perhaps less focused on the issue I have feared about Coda since it was announced and Dayton and David intimated it would be death-heavy. Except for emphasising the careless nature of those deaths, if indeed his comments about Chen are true.

Anyway, I just keep fearing Coda is turning into that thing we do as kids when we write, where our stories end with 'and everyone died' because we can't do another, perhaps more interesting, ending. Now I doubt that is the case - I hope that James Swallow and David Mack has something better in mind, I really hope that. But if it carries on as it? I just can't quite deal with that.

Sorry for the long ramble, I just feel so dispirited that - so far - this is what is being placed on the table

 

I admit that may be why I loved Ezri on the show and LOATHED her becoming a captain. I was like, "Why would she want to be a captain instead of a counselor? Is it a counselor's ship?" And the reaction from my fellow fans was, "What are you smoking, Chuck?"

Eh, I think its not death, doom, and gloom. Even less than Destiny I'd say.