As someone who loved bleak stories, Last Best Hope was fab. Heartbreaking, but fab.
Worst Trek book?
- Thread starter Xploda
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Which is why I very openly recused myself from casting a vote on it: there's simply no way I could have cast a truly just vote on it.
Deny Thy Father was definitely one of my most anger-inducing experiences, mostly because I have always found Kyle Riker an irredeemable character (any father who refers to being a father as “hanging in there” before abandoning his child entirely is utter trash), and he’s this novel’s actual central character.
Worse, I feel like the novel missed the obvious and more interesting story of exploring Riker during the mutiny on the Pegasus that honestly would have been a very engaging exploration of how Riker became the man we know.
I could peg a few other obvious ones, but that one was a standout “I hate this, it it revolting!” moment the last time I read it.
Worse, I feel like the novel missed the obvious and more interesting story of exploring Riker during the mutiny on the Pegasus that honestly would have been a very engaging exploration of how Riker became the man we know.
I could peg a few other obvious ones, but that one was a standout “I hate this, it it revolting!” moment the last time I read it.
That was never ever ever ever going to happen. Not ever. The tail doesn't wag the dog. The tie-in novels that reach less than 10% of the viewing audience for the thing it ties into have to be consistent with the thing they tie into.
<Picard>Don't mince words, Mr. Data; what do you really think?</Picard>
(I'd actually completely forgotten Deny Thy Father. Not just to the point of forgetting what it was about; to the point of forgetting its existence.)
And KRAD is right. Get used to it. At least we got some kind of closure, even if the reactions to it were a bit mixed (and for the record, my own reaction to CODA was probably the least-polarized of any I've encountered).
Are there any stats regarding superhero comics and whatnot and how their percentages of readers/viewers match? Because I've never understood why Trek can't have it's own separate comic or novel continuity aside from TV and movies the way superheroes do.
While there are precedents for having multiple parallel contradictory storylines in multi-media franchises, especially in comics, that's an interesting example that mostly, though counterintuitively, backs up KRAD's point. While the comicbook versions of superhero stories have creative primacy, the metaphorical "dog" and "tail" are determined more by size than by precedence; comic book storylines tend to morph to incorporate (or at least, superficially resemble) their popular movie and TV adaptations, since people who come to the comics from the movies are going to expect to see what they saw on the big screen, even if the movies were based on older incarnations of the characters and the comics themselves have moved on to a totally different status quo.
Partly it's what David cgc said. Partly it's that there's a difference between an adaptation and a tie-in. TV and movie adaptations of comic books aren't meant to be in the same continuity, but are a distinct take on the continuity and characters (with the exception of the Watchmen TV series). But the entire purpose of tie-in novels/comics is to tell stories that could take place in the canonical continuity as it stands at the time of writing.
An illustration of this is the Marvel Comics novels that I, Greg Cox, and other authors have done. My X-Men and Spider-Man novels were tie-ins to the comics, written as if they took place in the comics continuity, rather than being reinventions like the TV and movie adaptations of the comics. Tie-ins are emulations of the canon, adaptations are alternatives to it.
(Okay, technically adaptations are a form of tie-ins, but I'm simplifying the terminology for the sake of discussion, because I can't think of a better term.)
I just finished re-reading Warped. For some reason, probably connected with computer troubles on top of computer troubles, I had trouble sleeping last night. I expect that I'll have trouble keeping my eyes open today.
Not particularly pleasant. It never stopped feeling like my least favorite (at least pre-Dominion-War) DS9 episodes.
But no, I wouldn't put it in the same category with M&C.
Not particularly pleasant. It never stopped feeling like my least favorite (at least pre-Dominion-War) DS9 episodes.
But no, I wouldn't put it in the same category with M&C.
I really don't think there was. KRAD points out that ultimately, CBS/Paramount (I can't remember which name the studio went by at the time) wasn't gonna tolerate having what we now call the "First Splinter Timeline" out there as a separate vision of Star Trek from the TV shows. So that means the only way the novelverse was going to get one last story was as a grand finale -- and that demanded a story about endings. Which naturally -- and especially in the context of the year in which the Coda trilogy was written, 2020 -- lends itself to being a story about the inevitability of mortality and the question of how we respond to it.
Which is fair, but then that's not really a worst ST novel, is it? Like you said, the quality is there, it's just unpleasant subject matter. But it's executing its artistic goals well -- they're just not artistic goals you find enjoyable.
Is it? I think personal enjoyment is an entirely separate thing from quality. I hate the TV show Mad Men, but I'd never put it on a list of "bad" or "worst" TV shows; I recognize that it executes its artistic goals exceedingly well. I just hate every single one of its artistic goals and wish all its characters would be lined up against a wall and shot.
Any other studio would probably have done the same. The target audience for tie-ins is fans of the new shows who are curious about the books. Statistically, those newcomers will probably significantly outnumber the older-series fans who've stuck around this long. So the sensible thing is to put out books set in a version of the universe that those incoming new fans will recognize.
It didn't "demand" anything. They could've just stopped publishing books in that continuity, like Pocket did when TNG came along and overwrote the '80s novel continuity, or as the Star Wars "Expanded Universe" did when the sequels came out. It was the writers' and editor's choice to do a finale trilogy, to provide some sort of closure rather than just stopping.
And "a story about endings" could've been about happy endings. They could've done a story that just resolved the outstanding continuity threads and left the characters in a good place, so we could imagine their adventures continued even if we didn't see them. Instead, they chose to do a metatextual story integrating the alteration of reality into the narrative itself, much like how DC Comics tends to approach its continuity reboots. Nothing was "demanded." It wasn't inevitable. They made a choice out of the various options available.
If that had been our desire, we would not have written a finale at all. The post-TNG novels could have ended on Collateral Damage and had that effect. And if some folks prefer to pretend that was the end of that line of continuity in the novels, that's fine with me. And the only difference between stories with happy endings and those with tragic endings is where the teller chooses to stop the telling of the tale.
In my opinion, yeah.
Everyone has a different opinion on how to judge art.
Sure, but this thread's topic is quality, not enjoyment. If the reader acknowledges the quality is present, then surely that means it's not really appropriate for a thread about quality.
You will notice that I specifically said "the only way the novelverse was going to get one last story." AKA, we're already precluding the possibility of just no longer publishing books in that continuity.
Yes. That is what we are both saying. This is not being debated.
I don't really see how the writers end twenty years of continuity while writing in the middle of the worst pandemic in a hundred years, the largest national uprising in over half a century, and a literal contest between democracy and fascism, and not have it be about mortality and finding meaning in spite of it, without compromising on the emotional honesty of the work.
Sometimes certain stories really do demand to be told.
Which is precisely why I never said it was even "in the running" for worst, and disputed anybody who nominated it for worst. What I said was that I very openly recused myself from casting a vote (or voicing an opinion) in its review thread, with an explanation of why I was recusing myself, because I knew I my opinion of the book would be biased by my reaction to the subject.
Sounds rather like my reaction to stuff like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
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