Spoilers Coda: Book 3: Oblivion's Gate by David Mack Review Thread

[Sakonna]

So, I actually have never read one book in the entire litverse until Coda, so I arrived with no pre-existing attachment to any of this lore. I thought it would be interesting to check out the wrap-up and see what's been going on all this time, and that element really was satisfying. I was enjoying the journey of this trilogy quite a bit, but I cannot overstate how much the ending made me feel like every minute reading these was wasted time. It was a climax so sour, it retroactively ruined the whole thing.

I was stunned to listen to author interviews where they explained their view that the Litverse needed to sacrifice itself to give the story meaning. Could not disagree more. My experience was the complete opposite -- this is the very choice that robbed the books of having any meaning.

This kind of conclusion is just fundamentally not a fit for this world. I'd even say I'm a bit baffled that a Trek fan could make that contention. The Trek franchise in particular is full of MEANINGFUL stories in which characters submit to seemingly inevitable death for the greater good, but then a clever development saves them.

Obviously, you can't save all the characters all of the time, some of those sacrifices need to actually go through (the Ro/Quark deaths stand out in my mind as perfect), but I don't know anyone who is coming to Star Trek for nihilistic misery on the scale that Coda offered.

It provides an interesting counterpoint to Streaming Trek, which, for all it's many frustrations, has always gotten the most important thing right: even in their darkest stories, they have always captured the hopeful optimism that is the core Star Trek spirit.

Coda did not. This was Star Trek corrupted, Star Trek via David Lynch.

This kind of "not my Star Trek!" complaint is common in fandom -- but personally this is the first time I'm making it. I've never consumed a Trek story/product before that I felt had such a rotten core.

I know I'm months behind everyone else on this (I guess I shouldn't have been so careful about avoiding spoilers!), but I just had to vent in an attempt to get this Coda ugliness out of my head.

It did at least make me thankful I have not been reading the Litverse along the way. During Coda Book 1, I was thinking I might want to go back and pick up some of those. Obviously, that desire was destroyed by Book 3.

 

[thribs]

That’s what I felt. As soon as they decided they had to sacrifice their universe, the story took a downfall and became less interesting.

 

[Sakonna]

That’s what I felt. As soon as they decided they had to sacrifice their universe, the story took a downfall and became less interesting.

I was still interested when the decision was made, because I was excited to see what would come along to save their universe. I was imagining such a beautiful, meaningful ending, where some characters had been sacrificed along the way, but they saved the multiverse, and a good portion of the characters get to keep existing, just not featured in novels anymore.

It was that sinking "wait, are they really going through with this?" feeling that made Coda slowly degenerate into dull, meaningless, and miserable.

 

[jaime]

Still haven’t bothered reading the third book.
Regret investing in the same writers and the books for the last decade or more.
Have bought a couple of other Trek books when they’ve been in the sale, but usually they are older one-and-done things.
Whole thing felt like a waste of my time, particularly the DS9 books, where I have spent *years* waiting for them to stop being glacial and not very DS9ish.
I would literally rather they hadn’t have bothered, and would have really been ok with that. But between ‘Control’ and this final trilogy, I think I will literally never buy a new Trek novel again. Certainly not by the vast majority of the existing writers, or under these editors.
Just a waste of my time and energy and money.

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

I love and appreciate the work that Dayton, James, and David did.
As a writer myself, I have a deep sense of what it cost them to write the Coda trilogy.

 

[Markonian]

I love and appreciate the work that Dayton, James, and David did.
As a writer myself, I have a deep sense of what it cost them to write the Coda trilogy.

Any chance they could make the Devidians turn back time and ask for a refund?

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

Any chance they could make the Devidians turn back time and ask for a refund?

The fan fiction writers are working on it, I believe.

 

[Sakonna]

Any chance they could make the Devidians turn back time and ask for a refund?

Seriously. Can I collapse the timeline in which I made the decision to read these books?

 

[jaime]

I love and appreciate the work that Dayton, James, and David did.
As a writer myself, I have a deep sense of what it cost them to write the Coda trilogy.

I was under the impression they get paid to write, not the other way around…

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

I was under the impression they get paid to write, not the other way around…

Look, we writers aren’t in it for the money.
I meant that they spent many years building the Litverse only to have it all destroyed and to have to destroy it themselves.

 

[Sakonna]

Something else I want to complain about: as terrible as I thought the decision to just collapse the whole timeline was, I do think they had an opening to make it dramatically meaningful that they JUST missed.

Ending it with all those bits of alternate Picards all over the multiverse didn't do much to satisfy, because so many of the Picards were in quite miserable situations.

An ending that could have saved it for me was one vignette for each character in another timeline where they are happy. A universe where Ezri and Leeta are happily coupled, as Mirror Ezri hoped when she sacrificed herself. A universe where Worf, K'Ehleyr, and Alexander are all together as a family. A universe where Ro and Quark actually are living as an old couple together. etc etc etc on down the line.

That narrow focus on a bunch of Picard's did nothing to impart meaning to Coda's nihilistic worldview, whereas taking a broader view of the larger cast might have. Show me a lot of wonderful things the Coda sacrifice preserved, rather than just a bunch of random Picard beats.

Damn. I haaaaaaaated this book.

 

[jaime]

Look, we writers aren’t in it for the money.
I meant that they spent many years building the Litverse only to have it all destroyed and to have to destroy it themselves.

That isn’t true.
Voyager wrapped up well enough, arguably even the TNG books were. It would have just slipped into the same pocket as the Shatnerverse or Federation. Quietly. Maybe we could have had a book to wrap up DS9, that’s all that was really needed.
It wasn’t destroyed, simply decanonised essentially.
Having been given three books to wrap it up, there are a myriad of choices available, without resorting to nihilism, destruction, to drawn out narrative steeped in misery.

As a writer, I am fully aware those were choices that were chosen because of their tastes at that time.
As a reader, I hated it, and there’s really no redeeming features… Cable Wesley and Star Trek III rehashes? Characters with the name and no other features shoehorned in needlessly.
I have enjoyed books by these writers before, I have even bought some of their non-trek works, but I have also watched them seem to lose interest in these books, watched the quality drop, and now I have watched them burn it down.
By *choice*.

 

[jaime]

Something else I want to complain about: as terrible as I thought the decision to just collapse the whole timeline was, I do think they had an opening to make it dramatically meaningful that they JUST missed.

Ending it with all those bits of alternate Picards all over the multiverse didn't do much to satisfy, because so many of the Picards were in quite miserable situations.

An ending that could have saved it for me was one vignette for each character in another timeline where they are happy. A universe where Ezri and Leeta are happily coupled, as Mirror Ezri hoped when she sacrificed herself. A universe where Worf, K'Ehleyr, and Alexander are all together as a family. A universe where Ro and Quark actually are living as an old couple together. etc etc etc on down the line.

That narrow focus on a bunch of Picard's did nothing to impart meaning to Coda's nihilistic worldview, whereas taking a broader view of the larger cast might have. Show me a lot of wonderful things the Coda sacrifice preserved, rather than just a bunch of random Picard beats.

Damn. I haaaaaaaated this book.

As the *only* character guaranteed to be back on screen, Picard should never have been the focus for these last books.

 

[thribs]

I was also expecting some ShatnerVerse stuff in it when they were exploring the other universes. That’s what got me into Star Trek novels back in the day and so it would have been nice to get some closure there.
I mean you can’t do a big Crisis like story without Kirk.

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

This era of Star Trek is, I believe, characterized by postmodernism. Like it or not.

 

[jaime]

This era of Star Trek is, I believe, characterized by postmodernism. Like it or not.

And this is postmodern is it?

 

[Sakonna]

I think postmodern is an accurate description of Coda. I mean, the story was essentially the characters realizing they are in a tie-in novel, and they need to go away for the benefit of the main attraction.

 

[jaime]

I think postmodern is an accurate description of Coda. I mean, the story was essentially the characters realizing they are in a tie-in novel, and they need to go away for the benefit of the main attraction.

That’s kind of true. It wasn’t presented in the style though… otherwise it would have been more like ‘Remember Me’ and had surreal stuff added. Like having the universe change around characters until only one small group of litfic only characters are left looking at the uniforms of the TV shows and wondering what the hell is going on, until Q turns up and says ‘there is no place for you here… the hands that write the world have forgotten you. Why don’t you come with me?’ would be postmodern.
I think it depends on knowing what’s going on outside. So, we can make it postmodern with knowledge, but a non-fan/follower of the books isn’t going to read these books as post modern.

 

[Sci]

I cannot begin to imagine how Coda is "Star Trek corrupted" or how it could be meaningless. They literally sacrificed themselves and everyone they loved in order to save the entire rest of reality. What could possible be more meaningful than that?

 

[Sci]

Obviously, you can't save all the characters all of the time, some of those sacrifices need to actually go through (the Ro/Quark deaths stand out in my mind as perfect), but I don't know anyone who is coming to Star Trek for nihilistic misery on the scale that Coda offered.

Coda is not nihilistic. The Devidians represent nihilism -- nothing to them means anything, nobody matters, life is irrelevant, they will destroy everything to consume mindlessly and let themselves eventually be destroyed in the process. The fact that the heroes of the First Splinter sacrifice everything to stop the Devidians and to save the rest of reality is in and of itself a rejection of nihilism, a declaration that life has meaning and purpose even though it will all inevitably end. Star Trek: Coda is not nihilistic -- it is existentialist.

This kind of conclusion is just fundamentally not a fit for this world. I'd even say I'm a bit baffled that a Trek fan could make that contention. The Trek franchise in particular is full of MEANINGFUL stories in which characters submit to seemingly inevitable death for the greater good, but then a clever development saves them.

I think your reaction says more about your own unresolved issues with the inevitability of death than it does about the quality or meaningfulness of Star Trek: Coda.