That's not how I read it.
The End of This Day's Business by Eleta_Preloc/Una McCormack
The unofficial sequel/finishing of the trilogy that is The Crimson Shadow and Enigma Tales.
I found TEoTDB engaging, sweet, and perhaps a bit short. Perhaps that is simply due to the pace at which I devoured it though, 2-3 chapters a day over the past 3 days. I've now checked and it's 80% the size of Enigma tales, so while smaller, it's not that much smaller and clearly shows that I was left wanting more (a good thing).
I'm not much of a reviewer, but the themes were good, and many moments were heartfelt. One part subset of the book, where Arati Mhevet visits Bajor in general, and "The Repository of Remembrance and Reconciliation" museum in particular, gave me mixed emotions that I'm struggling to articulate. My first thought was that Arati Mhevet seemed unrealistic here, but I thought deeper as to why I thought that. Arati is cautious and respectful with another culture that her culture has caused deep harm to. I can't begin to think of what I'd do in a scenario like that, but I don't know that I'd be as capable of being as level headed as is represented by Mhevet here. I like my Star Trek hopeful, and as as hopeful goes,
The main theme explored though the book is Reconciliation. One of my slight disappointments with Enigma Tales was Garak not actually being tried for anything, and this novel fulfils on that well, though it seemingly is because Garak chooses to leak information leading to his downfall. How justice should work in a Utopian Federation/Bajor is interesting, and McCormack has clearly thought a lot about that. McCormack/Garak have clearly thought about what his reputation mean for Cardassia's reputation, and the reveal of the crime is partially for Cardassia's betterment over Garak's.
I'm a bit unsure as to the total relationship dynamic between Parmak and Bashir, and what the boundaries of their little polycule are. I do like the many scenes between them early on, where Parmak helps Bashir get out of his shell as he's still recovering post-control (aren't we all?). We sadly get less and less of that as we go, but they seem to be a well-functioning unit.
I was also heartily surprised about the Romulan refugee crisis tie-ins here, or as McCormack put it, "play[ing] fast and loose with alpha canon and beta canon and head canon". If only this could be slipped through a publisher, perhaps with some changes. I spoke to Travis, who's the head honcho at https://startrekreadingorder.com/, and he understandably doesn't want us adding anything not officially released, to keep the order from then ballooning out of hand. I'll be making a forum post over there as an "unofficial" entry, and list out the characters and their other appearances.
With this, I sadly leave DS9 behind for a little while. Having skipped "The Never-Ending Sacrifice" I'll definitely be going back to it after I finish CODA, along with "Hollow Men" and the audiobook of "A Stitch in Time". I also have a copy of (a now rather dusty) pliable truths on my nightstand I've been meaning to get to, and it sounds like "Second Self" has some Garak as well.
Next for me will be the 4 TNG/TTN precursor to prey books, and then prometheus, prey, all the pre-CODA TNG in some order, then catch back up with VOY (I know it's out doing it's own thing, I've read up through The Eternal Tide), and then CODA.
The unofficial sequel/finishing of the trilogy that is The Crimson Shadow and Enigma Tales.
I found TEoTDB engaging, sweet, and perhaps a bit short. Perhaps that is simply due to the pace at which I devoured it though, 2-3 chapters a day over the past 3 days. I've now checked and it's 80% the size of Enigma tales, so while smaller, it's not that much smaller and clearly shows that I was left wanting more (a good thing).
I'm not much of a reviewer, but the themes were good, and many moments were heartfelt. One part subset of the book, where Arati Mhevet visits Bajor in general, and "The Repository of Remembrance and Reconciliation" museum in particular, gave me mixed emotions that I'm struggling to articulate. My first thought was that Arati Mhevet seemed unrealistic here, but I thought deeper as to why I thought that. Arati is cautious and respectful with another culture that her culture has caused deep harm to. I can't begin to think of what I'd do in a scenario like that, but I don't know that I'd be as capable of being as level headed as is represented by Mhevet here. I like my Star Trek hopeful, and as as hopeful goes,
The main theme explored though the book is Reconciliation. One of my slight disappointments with Enigma Tales was Garak not actually being tried for anything, and this novel fulfils on that well, though it seemingly is because Garak chooses to leak information leading to his downfall. How justice should work in a Utopian Federation/Bajor is interesting, and McCormack has clearly thought a lot about that. McCormack/Garak have clearly thought about what his reputation mean for Cardassia's reputation, and the reveal of the crime is partially for Cardassia's betterment over Garak's.
I'm a bit unsure as to the total relationship dynamic between Parmak and Bashir, and what the boundaries of their little polycule are. I do like the many scenes between them early on, where Parmak helps Bashir get out of his shell as he's still recovering post-control (aren't we all?). We sadly get less and less of that as we go, but they seem to be a well-functioning unit.
I was also heartily surprised about the Romulan refugee crisis tie-ins here, or as McCormack put it, "play[ing] fast and loose with alpha canon and beta canon and head canon". If only this could be slipped through a publisher, perhaps with some changes. I spoke to Travis, who's the head honcho at https://startrekreadingorder.com/, and he understandably doesn't want us adding anything not officially released, to keep the order from then ballooning out of hand. I'll be making a forum post over there as an "unofficial" entry, and list out the characters and their other appearances.
With this, I sadly leave DS9 behind for a little while. Having skipped "The Never-Ending Sacrifice" I'll definitely be going back to it after I finish CODA, along with "Hollow Men" and the audiobook of "A Stitch in Time". I also have a copy of (a now rather dusty) pliable truths on my nightstand I've been meaning to get to, and it sounds like "Second Self" has some Garak as well.
Next for me will be the 4 TNG/TTN precursor to prey books, and then prometheus, prey, all the pre-CODA TNG in some order, then catch back up with VOY (I know it's out doing it's own thing, I've read up through The Eternal Tide), and then CODA.
Where can I find this story? I'm nearing the end of Enigma Tales after starting from the beginning of the DS9 relaunch last June. It'd be nice to read it as a Garak endpoint before CODA
Archive of our own. Search the username I listed. I'm unsure if there's an unwritten policy about directly linking it, at least here, but if you still have trouble let me know.
Absent Enemies is actually a quick read, a short novella I finished yesterday.
This one feels like an episode of TNG, and uses the technology from "The Next Phase". It connects that to the technology from the "Pegasus" as well, which is not something I had really put together or remembered besides "Pegasus technology dangerous". It mostly focuses on the "Screen" characters of Titan, with a little bit of Christine Vale. There's also a guest appearance of Dax, briefly appearing with the Aventine to fight off the Breen. I enjoyed this one, though I think I do prefer the longer novels, where we can get more focus on character interactions.
The actual conflict revolves around two factions on a small island who have been at war with each other for years. One gets the phasing technology and then seemingly disappears (hence "Absent Enemies"). Riker is sent to be resolve their disputes, and I think the characterization of Riker here as fed up with their conflict is well done. It's the main characterization we get of anyone through the novel, as again, it's quite short.
We find out that the supplier of the phasing technology has been the Breen, and that they've been using this as a set-up to wipe out both factions, take the planet as their own, and blame the federation. I'm not sure if we've seen other manipulative schemes from the breen like this before, I can recall a few from the Tzenkethi, but it really just needs a name of any rival power, and the Breen have been the focus of quite a lot of novels from this era.
Next up will be Takedown!
This one feels like an episode of TNG, and uses the technology from "The Next Phase". It connects that to the technology from the "Pegasus" as well, which is not something I had really put together or remembered besides "Pegasus technology dangerous". It mostly focuses on the "Screen" characters of Titan, with a little bit of Christine Vale. There's also a guest appearance of Dax, briefly appearing with the Aventine to fight off the Breen. I enjoyed this one, though I think I do prefer the longer novels, where we can get more focus on character interactions.
The actual conflict revolves around two factions on a small island who have been at war with each other for years. One gets the phasing technology and then seemingly disappears (hence "Absent Enemies"). Riker is sent to be resolve their disputes, and I think the characterization of Riker here as fed up with their conflict is well done. It's the main characterization we get of anyone through the novel, as again, it's quite short.
We find out that the supplier of the phasing technology has been the Breen, and that they've been using this as a set-up to wipe out both factions, take the planet as their own, and blame the federation. I'm not sure if we've seen other manipulative schemes from the breen like this before, I can recall a few from the Tzenkethi, but it really just needs a name of any rival power, and the Breen have been the focus of quite a lot of novels from this era.
Next up will be Takedown!
The fact they still had the Jem'hadar and Vorta makes me think they're not completely benevolent, they're just less evil (probably not the right word) than the Prime Dominion.
They outright kidnapped Bashir after all.
I also read it as joke, not a serious suggestion that they swapped.
Thanks! I'm about halfway through TEoTDB and I quite like it so far. Quite chilled out read and so far feels like a proper ending is building. Not a big comic guy but I was always worried that the relaunch books would end up like most comics without a proper ending/resolution so hopefully CODA ends on a high note. Out of curiosity have you read it before? Other than crossover i've not delved into any TNG relaunch books but I read somewhere that some are necessary to get the most out of CODA, like the cold equations trilogy for example, would that be your take?
I have not read Coda yet, but my understanding is that it's the wrap up of all/as many of the lit-verse character storylines/plot threads as they could. A lot of stuff can vaguely stand on it's own, and authors always know "this is someone's first book" so they do add a bit of recapping of the world.
I have no idea how much of it is DS9 stuff compared to TNG/Titan, or Voyager stuff, or if it's all vaguely split.
Cold Equations is the revival of Data and some Typhon Pact politics, which you'd have seen data already in "Control". How much of relaunch did you read?
Have you been using this? https://www.thetrekcollective.com/p/trek-lit-reading-order.html
I think it's basically the go-to recommended chart to see how things may connect, but it ends before Coda.
I have no idea how much of it is DS9 stuff compared to TNG/Titan, or Voyager stuff, or if it's all vaguely split.
Cold Equations is the revival of Data and some Typhon Pact politics, which you'd have seen data already in "Control". How much of relaunch did you read?
Have you been using this? https://www.thetrekcollective.com/p/trek-lit-reading-order.html
I think it's basically the go-to recommended chart to see how things may connect, but it ends before Coda.
Yeah I've been using that chart and the reading order website. Read all of DS9 yellow from Avatar onwards plus a stitch in time, lives of Dax, neverending sacrifice, demons of air and darkness and horn and ivory. Then the crossovers in grey from destiny through to the end of the fall before going back to DS9 and finishing enigma tales the other day. About 40+ books, when I think about it it's mad but there are worse things I could be doing haha.
Biggest disappointment of the series is Ro Laren doing Quark dirty in Sacraments of fire/Ascendance. It would be nice for at least some characters be able to get a happy ending after what happens to Bashir in control
I'd recommend going with this site of the chart, it's a bit clearer on how things are related, and it's still regularly updated.
https://startreklitverse.com/
Takedown by John Jackson Miller. Published 09/27/2016
If Absent Enemies (and the e-novellas in general) felt like an episode of TV, Takedown did even moreso. One downside to a limited length is that something can feel that it ends too soon. Takedown felt flushed out and didn't feel like it was overstaying it's welcome. I enjoyed the multi-crew perspectives we got through the course of the novel. Other than these last two books, I don't think I had read anything by the author before, so hopefully this is a sign of good things to come.
Upon checking the Bibliography of John Jackson Miller, I definitely listened to the audiobook of Star Wars: A New Dawn 10 years ago. I don't recall falling in love with it, but I definitely liked it.
Takedown is a story where we follow the crew of the Enterprise and Aventine, as they deal with a possessed William Riker, bent on destroying communication arrays (and doing no harm while he does so). We also follow, as a secondary perspective, a rather incompetent and unpleasant Romulan senator. Both Riker and the Romulan have been embued with enhanced cognitive abilities, and over the course of the book we learn that their power has come from the Cytherians (from The Nth Degree). The Cytherian influence prevents them from killing people directly, but the Romulan is much more controlling, and willing to indirectly hurt people, while Riker ensures that nobody ends up hurt. Riker uses some freedom in his directives to help contact the Cytherians, where we learn that they are having a philosophical dispute about their isolationism, and one decided to ruin the communications equipment of the quadrant to tank their reputation and make nobody want to contact them again. Picard and Riker appeal to their already strong sense of morals, and everything resets to normal, with Riker taking a very long nap after the whole ordeal.
I wouldn't say that Takedown is peak trek, or poses any interesting questions re: morality/ethics, but it is a fun trek "someone got possessed" adventure.
Next up is Armageddon's Arrow!
If Absent Enemies (and the e-novellas in general) felt like an episode of TV, Takedown did even moreso. One downside to a limited length is that something can feel that it ends too soon. Takedown felt flushed out and didn't feel like it was overstaying it's welcome. I enjoyed the multi-crew perspectives we got through the course of the novel. Other than these last two books, I don't think I had read anything by the author before, so hopefully this is a sign of good things to come.
Upon checking the Bibliography of John Jackson Miller, I definitely listened to the audiobook of Star Wars: A New Dawn 10 years ago. I don't recall falling in love with it, but I definitely liked it.
Takedown is a story where we follow the crew of the Enterprise and Aventine, as they deal with a possessed William Riker, bent on destroying communication arrays (and doing no harm while he does so). We also follow, as a secondary perspective, a rather incompetent and unpleasant Romulan senator. Both Riker and the Romulan have been embued with enhanced cognitive abilities, and over the course of the book we learn that their power has come from the Cytherians (from The Nth Degree). The Cytherian influence prevents them from killing people directly, but the Romulan is much more controlling, and willing to indirectly hurt people, while Riker ensures that nobody ends up hurt. Riker uses some freedom in his directives to help contact the Cytherians, where we learn that they are having a philosophical dispute about their isolationism, and one decided to ruin the communications equipment of the quadrant to tank their reputation and make nobody want to contact them again. Picard and Riker appeal to their already strong sense of morals, and everything resets to normal, with Riker taking a very long nap after the whole ordeal.
I wouldn't say that Takedown is peak trek, or poses any interesting questions re: morality/ethics, but it is a fun trek "someone got possessed" adventure.
Next up is Armageddon's Arrow!
I do use it for reference, and I'm on their Patreon. I prefer the navigation of the chart though.
You should check out his Kenobi novel (just called Kenobi), it's probably my favourite Star Wars book.
Armageddon's Arrow By Dayton Ward
This was a good one, exploring the dynamics between two races who have been at war for decades, and focusing a lot on the non-screen characters. We got more of Chen than Crusher here, and I felt that that worked (no slight against crusher, but just generally spreading out the character appearances. We already know a lot about Crusher/Worf/Picard/Geordi, so we need to spend less time characterizing them). That being said, I feel like I'd need to do a re-read of just the books with Chen in them to fully appreciate it. It alludes to her previous relationship with Rennan Konya, and I honestly did not remember him/had him confused with Ranul Keru, the unjoined trill who is on Titan. I have enjoyed Chen as a witty character who sometimes makes mistakes, and seeing growth from that character over multiple novels has been good.
There's a lot of summarization in the start of this novel, going over in brief the events of destiny and the fall, which makes sense to try to get readers caught up to what the current state of the universe is. As this is mostly set removed from the rest of the galaxy, it's largely inconsequential to a new reader. I think the only thing besides that is there's still a little angst from Chen about "shouldn't we be helping closer to home" which feels similar to what we got from the Titan crew early on post-destiny.
I read the first 3/4ths of this on a bus and two planes travelling to Ohio yesterday, and the last 4th just now. I wasn't super motivated to finish the last quarter, despite starting the climax, but it did have an enjoyable ending. Somwhat predicably, the people with the planet killing weapon aren't going to shoot the other planet, but instead turn it on themselves as a way to force peace. They back down, but then the ship attempts to enact a contingency that I didn't see coming, forcing Chen to stay on the ship till the last minute to help destroy it. Given she's not an on-screen character, I thought they might be about to kill her off there.
There's a side plot about Taurik finding some evidence from the future, and having to seal it away from Chen and Picard per the temporal time directive. This doesn't really end up going anywhere in here, and it seems like it's just stocking the fridge for a potential follow-up. Wonder if that will get followed up on. As a tangent, I don't know that there's consistency in how time travel is handled in the Star Trek universe, comparing things like the Kelvin Timeline to something like the Bell riots, but I suppose it's just whatever it needs to be for the narrative.
Now that I'm in Ohio for a couple of days, I've found a TCG/Comic/Used book store and they have a large collection! I only have a backpack with me, so I'm just debating between buying a suitcase, or just having them ship some back home to me. I don't read much paperback these day, I prefer my e-reader, but I picked up a copy of "The immortal coil" which has been recommended here before, along with "Star Trek Log 1", the animated series adaptation, and a 3-pack of voyager graphic novels from wildstorm for only $6.
I plan on grabbing the full set of "a time to" and the rest of the animated series "star trek log" books. Anything else stand out that I should grab from my photo?
This was a good one, exploring the dynamics between two races who have been at war for decades, and focusing a lot on the non-screen characters. We got more of Chen than Crusher here, and I felt that that worked (no slight against crusher, but just generally spreading out the character appearances. We already know a lot about Crusher/Worf/Picard/Geordi, so we need to spend less time characterizing them). That being said, I feel like I'd need to do a re-read of just the books with Chen in them to fully appreciate it. It alludes to her previous relationship with Rennan Konya, and I honestly did not remember him/had him confused with Ranul Keru, the unjoined trill who is on Titan. I have enjoyed Chen as a witty character who sometimes makes mistakes, and seeing growth from that character over multiple novels has been good.
There's a lot of summarization in the start of this novel, going over in brief the events of destiny and the fall, which makes sense to try to get readers caught up to what the current state of the universe is. As this is mostly set removed from the rest of the galaxy, it's largely inconsequential to a new reader. I think the only thing besides that is there's still a little angst from Chen about "shouldn't we be helping closer to home" which feels similar to what we got from the Titan crew early on post-destiny.
I read the first 3/4ths of this on a bus and two planes travelling to Ohio yesterday, and the last 4th just now. I wasn't super motivated to finish the last quarter, despite starting the climax, but it did have an enjoyable ending. Somwhat predicably, the people with the planet killing weapon aren't going to shoot the other planet, but instead turn it on themselves as a way to force peace. They back down, but then the ship attempts to enact a contingency that I didn't see coming, forcing Chen to stay on the ship till the last minute to help destroy it. Given she's not an on-screen character, I thought they might be about to kill her off there.
There's a side plot about Taurik finding some evidence from the future, and having to seal it away from Chen and Picard per the temporal time directive. This doesn't really end up going anywhere in here, and it seems like it's just stocking the fridge for a potential follow-up. Wonder if that will get followed up on. As a tangent, I don't know that there's consistency in how time travel is handled in the Star Trek universe, comparing things like the Kelvin Timeline to something like the Bell riots, but I suppose it's just whatever it needs to be for the narrative.
Now that I'm in Ohio for a couple of days, I've found a TCG/Comic/Used book store and they have a large collection! I only have a backpack with me, so I'm just debating between buying a suitcase, or just having them ship some back home to me. I don't read much paperback these day, I prefer my e-reader, but I picked up a copy of "The immortal coil" which has been recommended here before, along with "Star Trek Log 1", the animated series adaptation, and a 3-pack of voyager graphic novels from wildstorm for only $6.
I don't know what you might already have/have already read, but in that photo, Strangers From the Sky, Prime Directive, and Serpents Among the Ruins jump out to me as standouts. YMMV, of course.
There's no reason every time travel should have the same result, any more than letting go of a hammer in the weightlessness of the International Space Station should have the same result as letting go of a hammer on Earth's surface. The outcome of physical laws is dependent on the conditions in a given situation.
I see both of the Diane Carey "Captain April and Geordie Kirk" novels (Final Frontier and Best Destiny); they're worthwhile. So, for that matter, are her "Piper" novels, if you can get past the heavy-handed dose of her hard-libertarian politics.
If there's any Diane Duane whatsoever that you don't have, grab it. Ditto for any John M. Ford. If you see Janet Kagan's Uhura's Song, that's also always been a personal favorite.
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was thinking about that, and I agree, but how one defines what constitutes a change that's big enough to change the effects of time travel is not exactly defined, and is somewhat at the whim of the narrative. For the most part time travel seems to try to correct for minor inconsistencies, we don't see butterfly effects. I'm trying to remember if we see "I've made myself not exist and am slowing disappearing" a la back to the future.
We also have instances of time travel to attempt to change the past, like this book, and first contact, and of course the temporal cold war.
I don't know that I expect it to be consistent, it being a little different every time is probably better for each individual narrative, it's just I never on what to expect.
I have also yet to read the DTI books.
At the bookstore now to get a haul.
No, the closest Trek ever came to that bit of sheer nonsense was in TNG: "Time Squared," when the duplicate Picard vanished when the ship avoided the temporal vortex.
Was this ever resolved? I remember it being set up here, and coming up in several of the TNG books after it, but I can't remember if we ever got any kind of resolution for it. I've read all of the TNG & Titan books up to Coda, so feel free to provied a spoiler coded answer.
Wow, I think that has to be the most Trek books I've seen in a store in ages.Now that I'm in Ohio for a couple of days, I've found a TCG/Comic/Used book store and they have a large collection! I only have a backpack with me, so I'm just debating between buying a suitcase, or just having them ship some back home to me. I don't read much paperback these day, I prefer my e-reader, but I picked up a copy of "The immortal coil" which has been recommended here before, along with "Star Trek Log 1", the animated series adaptation, and a 3-pack of voyager graphic novels from wildstorm for only $6.
I plan on grabbing the full set of "a time to" and the rest of the animated series "star trek log" books. Anything else stand out that I should grab from my photo?
