Bad Review of ENT: Kobayashi Maru at Pink Raygun

[Johnny Hypnosis]

But to paint all ST novels as inferior to literature in general, or to infer that ST novels of today are not as well written as "Doctor Who" novels of the 90s, all based on one little excerpt, is crazy.

I didn't misquote. I quoted. I gave the simplest possible question - 'pick one of these two'. He picked. What's 'crazy' is the bizarre retconning and after the fact rationalization of how he meant to say that the rubbish one was good and the good one was rubbish.

Simple question: Which did you prefer, the first one (for sake of argument, that's the one that's, y'know, *first*) or the second one? Explain why.

Keith picked the first one, the one that was by the random fanboy, not the published author. Yeah, that's probably a bit embarrassing. Not as embarrassing as the reasons he then gave. That's not the point. The point is this: *he picked the right one*. It is, to coin a phrase, 'easy' to pick between them. At some level, there's a problem that goes beyond bloggers being a bit mean and into the realm of the prose style of the books themselves.

The problem isn't with the sheer criminal mastermindedliness of my dastardly strategy of *having someone read a passage from a Star Trek book and say what he thinks about it* ... the problem is that the published excerpt is a lazy bit of prose and the Star Trek books could do so much better.

If it's limited to that one excerpt in that one book ... then that should be easy enough to demonstrate. Why hasn't this thread turned into a cascade of people falling over themselves to quote bits they love from the books?

As I say, I read these books. That excerpt is pretty rough, but Pinkraygun is onto something by saying that there are problems there shared by other books in the line. Not all the authors, all the time. But certainly even the best of them - Christopher and Keith, for my money - some of the time.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Simple question: Which did you prefer, the first one (for sake of argument, that's the one that's, y'know, *first*) or the second one? Explain why.

Keith picked the first one

Let's give Keith a chance to defend himself one way or the other before you go any further. As he said in his post, he was in a hurry and on the way out the door.

 

[Johnny Hypnosis]

Simple question: Which did you prefer, the first one (for sake of argument, that's the one that's, y'know, *first*) or the second one? Explain why.

Keith picked the first one

As he said in his post, he was in a hurry and on the way out the door.

You're here. Which of the two do you prefer?

 

[Johnny Hypnosis]

I have no idea what "the guy on that blog" said about that line

It's in the comments section of the blog that this thread is about:

Christopher Bennett is the best current Trek writer, but even his stuff feels weighed down at times, like it needs to drop continuity stuff in. Example: Ex Machina has Kirk staring out of the Enterprise window at one point and the author says - paraphrasing, sorry - that Kirk ‘gazed out at the sixteen million plates of bonded duralinium’. No, no, no. He’s either staring out at the *ship he loves like a woman* (to quote Futurama), one that (because it’s just post-TMP) has never looked better *or* at the stars - something that is everyday for him but *we can’t do, because we can’t go to space*. It’s either love or a casual miracle. You wouldn’t stare at a beautiful woman and admire the billions of skin cells, you certainly wouldn’t bloody *count* them. And if you were on the ISS, staring out the window, you’d be in awe at the *view*, not the sodding *glass*

I love Ex Machina. Not like a woman, but I do think it's a good book. I think he's being a bit mean. He's certainly not picking a representative part of the book. I don't think he's entirely wrong, though.

 

[trampledamage]

You're here. Which of the two do you prefer?

Not that you were talking to me, but having just read the two passages.

As passages out of context of a story, it's difficult to like either of them particularly. But I prefer the second one - there's little differences, like in the first one Archer is described as talking to the terminal, but in the second he's talking to the face in the terminal. I prefer it that he's talking to the person.

 

[David Mack]

Again ... look, I'm not trying to pick a fight, here ...

My colleagues have already shoved this line back down your throat, so I'll just let it pass this time...

that's not exactly a great rah-rah for the books. Like David, you're not leaping to the defence of the quoted passage.

It's not my job to defend anything. My job is to write. Skewering the illogic of other people online is just something I do part-time, as a hobby and a public service.

Now, I don't want to put words into either of your mouths,

Spoken like someone who has repeatedly done so.

but you could have said 'that prose really sings, the dialogue's great, it's an amazing way to start a novel'.

Instead, your instinct, like David's, was to go 'they ain't all like that'.

And there you go again. That's the second time you've put words in my mouth. Don't let there be a third.

At some level, you're writing like it's 'a Star Trek novel', not 'a novel', and it has little tics like needing to endlessly namedrop telly episodes we've all seen, odd little genre-type phrases. It's prone to neutral, uninvolving prose. It's prone to concentrate on what can be seen and heard ... because you can't smell or feel or touch or taste stuff on the telly.

Utter. Crap.

You have clearly never read one of my books. If I seem inclined to disregard your opinion, it's because it strikes me as one that is particularly uninformed. At the very least, you seem to have no familiarity with the oeuvres of those you're daring to criticize to their faces.

neither of you should be defending mediocrity, you should be explaining how you hunt it down and skin it in front of its kids.

How about I just write the books and skip the explanations? I don't need to explain anything. I write novels. I write the best damn novels I can, no matter what the mileu, whether it's a licensed project or an original.

Tell you what? Go read a few of my books. Try my Vanguard titles, or my Mirror Universe short novel, The Sorrows of Empire. If you still feel like making complaints about them, I'll be happy to hear you out.

As for defending Andy and Mike's writing — I reject your assumption that it needs to be "defended," and even if you disagree, there's no reason it's my responsibility to do so.

 

[Johnny Hypnosis]

Absolutely, utterly wrong. As I said, I write my Trek fiction on the same level I use for my original fiction.

Sorry ... clumsy phrasing. I've said over and over that I think you're the best writer doing them at the moment.

(I've never read any non-Trek stuff of yours, by the way, what would you
recommend?)

The 'you' there was the collective, and the 'at some level' was there to stress that I don't think the Star Trek writers are choosing to do it.

It's human nature, though, that if you're [general 'you'] at the top of the heap, you don't worry too much about how high the top is.

As I say ... not trying to pick a fight. I read the books, I think they could be better. With so many ST authors here, I'd have much preferred a 'this is what we're doing that will wow you' to 'that guy was only quoting one excerpt'.

As it's in the same sampler, how about quoting the first page of Greater Than The Sum?

 

[Rosalind]

Simple question: Which did you prefer, the first one (for sake of argument, that's the one that's, y'know, *first*) or the second one? Explain why.

Keith picked the first one

As he said in his post, he was in a hurry and on the way out the door.

You're here. Which of the two do you prefer?

actually Emh is off for dinner right now, so he's not here.

to pre-emptive your questions, I'll talk about my feelings when reading the two passages:

by the time I got to "He got the device to" in

Captain Jonathan Archer sat up, his attention on the logbook for the first time. He got the device to delete the last twelve words then read the entry back to himself.

I was thinking 'this isn't so good'. then

It served its purpose, he decided. He stored the entry.

'getting worse....'. by the time of

The Captain of the Columbia was sat in her near-identical quarters in her near-identical starship, slumped in her chair.

(bold mine) I was going 'grrr... I can not believe M&M wrote this, skip!' and went to read the second passage.

I read the second passage and thought 'this is better than what M&M wrote' since I usually skip read, and adjectives like "portentous" don't register in my brain 90% of the times. So for me, at that time, the second passage was snappier and better.

Then I went back and continued with the first one, and thought, 'hmm... this conversation is more fun to read then the second one', but that could be because I already read the second one and already know how the conversation will turn.

so to answer your question, there are things I prefer in the first passage, and there are things I prefer in the second passage (when I thought the first one was written by M&M).

 

[Christopher]

I have no idea what "the guy on that blog" said about that line

It's in the comments section of the blog that this thread is about:

Christopher Bennett is the best current Trek writer, but even his stuff feels weighed down at times, like it needs to drop continuity stuff in. Example: Ex Machina has Kirk staring out of the Enterprise window at one point and the author says - paraphrasing, sorry - that Kirk ‘gazed out at the sixteen million plates of bonded duralinium’. No, no, no. He’s either staring out at the *ship he loves like a woman* (to quote Futurama), one that (because it’s just post-TMP) has never looked better *or* at the stars - something that is everyday for him but *we can’t do, because we can’t go to space*. It’s either love or a casual miracle. You wouldn’t stare at a beautiful woman and admire the billions of skin cells, you certainly wouldn’t bloody *count* them. And if you were on the ISS, staring out the window, you’d be in awe at the *view*, not the sodding *glass*

I love Ex Machina. Not like a woman, but I do think it's a good book. I think he's being a bit mean. He's certainly not picking a representative part of the book. I don't think he's entirely wrong, though.

I don't think it's either right or wrong. It's simply defining the position too narrowly. What he says may be right about him, or about many other people, but he has no business assuming that everyone appreciates beauty or expresses love in the same way.

I mean, has this guy ever heard car enthusiasts talk about the cars they love? There's usually plenty of talk about statistics and numbers, numbers to do with cylinders and RPMs and MPGs and whatever else car fanciers consider important. A man's love for a vehicle is often highly technical and detail-oriented.

I will admit, however, that in ExM I did occasionally insert some gratuitous continuity or technical explanations, but that was my first novel and I've gained a better sense of balance since then. It's not even representative of my own overall body of work, and certainly not of the line as a whole.

 

[Johnny Hypnosis]

You have clearly never read one of my books. If I seem inclined to disregard your opinion, it's because it strikes me as one that is particularly uninformed. At the very least, you seem to have no familiarity with the oeuvres of those you're daring to criticize to their faces.

I'm not sure I have. I know I've not criticized you specifically. I also know that if you think I'm a goofball, it makes no difference, if I think you're a goofball, you lose a sale or two. Like I say, if a moviegoer doesn't like the trailer, it's not the moviegoer's problem.

I finished The Buried Age in February, and I read A Time to ... um, the last one ... Keith's, the one with the Klingon embassy siege, last month. Between them, I read Before Dishonor, God's Above, The Evil That Men Do and Collision Course.

Good god, that's six in three months. I've got hundreds of the things. At what point do I qualify as having 'familiarity'?

 

[William Leisner]

As I say ... not trying to pick a fight.

You realize, of course, that each time you repeat this, it sounds more and more like bullshit. Go and scamper back under your bridge, already.

 

[Johnny Hypnosis]

You realize, of course, that each time you repeat this, it sounds more and more like bullshit. Go and scamper back under your bridge, already.

It's not a fight. Although, as I got one of the editors to say next month's book doesn't sound like the characters, has rubbish dialogue and it was 'easy' to tell that some internet hobo did a better job, hypothetically, if this was a fight, how would I be doing?

I read these books, I would like them to be better than they often are. If that's fighting talk, then OK, I'd like to pick a fight. If that makes me a troll, I'm a troll. If, on the other hand, you think the books are just great as they are, then ... you know ... bask in that.

 

[William Leisner]

[...]if this was a fight, how would I be doing?

Aawww, I see now -- all you want is the pat on the head that mommy never gave you. All right, then: You are a very good little troll, you are.

Buh-bye now.

 

[Steve Roby]

Johnny, first of all, yes, you're trying to start a fight, and yes, you've been putting words in people's mouths. Until KRAD has the time to sit down and write the longer post he would no doubt have written if he'd had the time, you don't know with any degree of certainty that he meant what you keep saying he meant.

Second, who are you? I'm just a fanboy, but I'm here under my real name. I'm supportive of the Trek books line, sure, I like the writers who hang out here, I've met a couple of people in person. But I've also criticized some of the books. I've criticized a few things by people who post here. But if they're regulars here they have a sense of who I am, what I like, and I trust they know that I'm not some drive-by troll, that maybe their stuff just wasn't my cup of tea, maybe even that I have made a constructive point or two. I think it helps that I'm not using a false name; I'm more accountable for my words.

Third, this discussion is a mess because a lot of the participants have completely different ideas of what "good writing" is. For some, "good writing" is books in which cool things happened. For others, "good writing" means the writer paid attention to basic rules of grammar and crafted the sentences and dialogue with care. Some readers wouldn't recognize a dangling participle or a transitive verb used as an intransitive verb if it poked them in the eye. In all honesty, I think there are a handful of Trek writers who are a bit careless in the latter department, though the worst offenders have moved on to other things. Even so, given the number of writers, editors, and copy editors involved in getting all those Star Trek books published, it's absurd to generalize about the entire line from one short sample, regardless of its quality.

ETA: Johnny, you sound like you may be British ("rubbish dialogue"), and the writer of that alternate prose sample also sounds like he or she may be British ("was sat"). Is it possible that one sounds more right to you due in part to English vs American phrasing?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Prose on the model of Hemingway would be far too spare for the market.

Um ... are you honestly suggesting that the only reason the Star Trek writers don't write like Hemingway is that the market just wouldn't stand for it?

Since that's not what I said, it's certainly not what I'm suggesting.

 

[Sci]

[Again ... look, I'm not trying to pick a fight, here ...

Yes you are.

And try to stop putting words into other people's mouths, too. It's damn rude.

At the same time, the guy on that blog who picked you up on the sixteen million plates of duranium line had a point. Although it's 'twenty thousand tritanium plates, phase-transition bonded into a seamless whole'. It's on page 10. There's not a house style, but there is a ... general standard.

Compare David Mack's writing style to Keith R.A. DeCandido's. Compare both of their writing styles to Christopher L. Bennet's. Compare Bennet's to Peter David's. Compare Peter David's to Heather Jarman's. Comapre Jarman's to David R. George III's. Compare George's to Una McCormack's.

Not a one of them is similar. They all have very distinct voices. Mack's writing tends to be very tense, very grim and atmospheric. DeCandido's tends to be lighter in tone, reflecting a greater optimism and less grim sense of humor. Bennet's tends to be a bit less emotionally-drive, with a strong emphasis on the empirical and the technical in addition to character. David's is high-concept, high-humor. Jarman's is deeply personal and emotional, with spirituality playing an important background role. George's is often unique verbose and very intellectual, but also reflects a strong sense of "groundedness" in conjunction with extreme emotion. McCormack's is dark and lyrical and deeply atmospheric.

There's no general style.

At some level, you can get away with that in Star Trek because you know that some of your competition can type 'resigned sigh' and 'portentious bark' and think they did a good day's work. At some level, you're writing like it's 'a Star Trek novel', not 'a novel', and it has little tics like needing to endlessly namedrop telly episodes we've all seen, odd little genre-type phrases. It's prone to neutral, uninvolving prose. It's prone to concentrate on what can be seen and heard ... because you can't smell or feel or touch or taste stuff on the telly.

You obviously haven't read any of these damn books; your complaint that the prose is too sparse is absurd. Pick up David Mack's Warpath; in a novel that's very action-driven, his prose includes some very deeply poetic, memorable lines. "Like the Fool gazing upon Lear, he saw only his shadow." It's one of the most memorable lines I've ever read from any book -- tell me with a straight face that that's an example of uninvolved, overly-sparse writing.

Good god, that's six in three months.

Do you want a gold star? That's not particularly impressive. Come back to me when you've read Hollow Men, Harbinger, Summon the Thunder, Reap the Whirlwind, Articles of the Federation, A Time to Kill, A Time to Heal, Gods Above, Being Human, Vulcan's Heart, Vulcan's Forge, Vulcan's Soul, Crucible, The Sorrows of Empire, Age of the Empress, Last Full Measure, Unjoined, Fragments and Omens, Satisfaction is Not Guaranteed, Demons of Air and Darkness, Abyss, Avatar, A Stitch in Time, Serpents Among the Ruins, The Art of the Impossible, The Sundered, Catalyst of Sorrows, Wildfire, Orion's Hounds, The Red King, Taking Wing, Cloak, Rogue, Three, The Sword of Damocles, Spock's World, and Rihannsu -- just to name a few samples off the top of my head of the rather astonishing diversity of the Trek line.

 

[KRAD]

Okay, a few things that need to be said before I dive back into this quagmire....

Johnny, I am NOT an editor on staff at Pocket Books, and I'm not publishing anything. I'm a freelancer who sometimes does editorial work for Pocket. I've line-edited some manuscripts, and I was also responsible for putting together the eBook line from 2001-2008 and for the anthologies that bear my name. That's it. The editor responsible for Kobayashi Maru is Margaret Clark.

Secondly, your constant insistence that you're not trying to pick a fight while repeatedly picking them, and your constant putting words in the mouth of others aren't tactics that lend me to any kind of desire to engage in conversation and/or debate with you. You've actively pissed off several people I consider good friends and colleagues, and that is about eight million points in favor of telling you to screw off and die.

However, I made a statement while running out the door to the subway, one I should've read over before I posted because I fucked up royally.

It is the shorter one that I think sounds more like people talking and like Bakula and Maris, not the longer one.

Sorry to fuck up your argument for you, but it's my own damn fault. I was rushing out the door, saw your post, kept telling myself not to get sucked into it, deal with it when I got back home, but I had to get a word in, and I got it backwards.

The longer bit definitely has merits. I think the dialogue in Andy & Mike's bit -- in particular, "Who are you, and what have you done with Jonny Archer?" which is a line I could see the woman I met in "Home" saying with no trouble -- is much stronger and more like the characters. The rewrite has some nice descriptive bits, and I like the fact that the log entry didn't wake Porthos, but the call from Hernandez did. On the other hand, the rewrite's use of sentence fragments drove me batshit crazy, and the log entry was just stupid.

Having said that, there are elements of Andy & Mike's that I didn't like as much. But I think, ultimately, that Andy & Mike's is stronger.

Finally, reading the rewrite would have made me confused about the byline, because it was written in a style that is most definitely not that of Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels. When I pick up a book with that byline, I expect it to read like Andy & Mike. The rewrite doesn't read like them. The original does. Authors have distinctive styles.

In fact, the original blog post that started it all had this response from the blog owner:

"You’re correct that the other chapters in the sampler were better — but they all suffered from the same type of problem to some degree. It makes me wonder if good writers aren’t writing in this style on purpose because the readers expect it. Scary thought."

Christopher Bennett's style is nothing like Andy & Mike's, nor is it anything like David Mack's, nor Andy & Mike's like Dave's. If this guy can't distinguish among the three, then I'm not going to consider his opinion good for much.

I apologize for the confusion my fucked-up post caused.

On to your specific points:

1) He’s not ‘reviewing the book’, he’s making a general point about the line, using one passage as an example.

Which is rather like making a point about a cruise ship by looking at a single cabin and not even gazing upon the rest of the boat.

2) The reason that passage was in the giveaway in the first place was, presumably, to sway the undecided and show Star Trek fiction at its best. So it's legitimate, surely, to say ‘that didn't sway me'? If the trailer doesn’t make the moviegoer want to see the movie, it’s not the moviegoer’s fault, let alone his problem. If it’s the start of a book, it’s the same deal – that passage is presumably there to wow and hook people and get them to keep reading.

Wrong and wrong. The giveaway was at a panel that previewed upcoming Star Trek fiction, and was designed to tease fans for what was coming.

3) You weren't exactly going out of your way to defend the passage. Not to the David Mack extent of effectively saying (post 60 in this thread) 'it's terrible, but we don't all write that badly', but isn't it telling that you didn't say 'wow, that passage was GREAT, what's his problem?'.

That isn't what Dave said, and that isn't what I said. Defending the passage was also beside the point.

4) The guy in the comments thread – some random passing fanboy - who reworked the passage did a better job than the professional writer who was hired to write the book. Doesn’t that worry you, even a little bit?

Asked and answered, and even if I bought your premise, why would this worry me, exactly? I'm genuinely confused as to why this is cause for worry. So two people can write. So what?

 

[Rosalind]

I see what happens when I try to compose a mod post during working hours, I spend way too long writing it, and people come in before I finish writing. should've locked this thread while I'm writing, so people don't jump in front of me. the following is what I wrote before seeing Sci and KRAD's posts.


Okay guys, let's all sit back, take a deep breath and relax before continue the discussion here, because (1) the talks are going in circles at the moment, and (2) it's getting personal.

Aawww, I see now -- all you want is the pat on the head that mommy never gave you. All right, then: You are a very good little troll, you are.

Bill, please, discuss the post, not the poster.

Everyone else, we are allowed to have different views of the books in here, infinite diversity and all that...

Johnny Hypnosis, firstly, please give KRAD some time to reply first before using his post to further support your argument. Secondly,

Not to the David Mack extent of effectively saying (post 60 in this thread) 'it's terrible, but we don't all write that badly',

The exact quote of David's post is:

I'd rather not dignify the original "reviewer" with a response. Let it suffice to say that I disagree with his decision to use his dissatisfaction with one brief passage from a single work to impugn the quality of the overall TrekLit line, since it seems to imply that all Trek authors work in identical prose styles — an assumption that is readily falsifiable.

nowhere in there did David wrote "it's terrible", I know you say "effectively saying", which is your interpretation of David's post and maybe others' interpretation as well, however that's not what David posted. (I certainly can't tell whether David thinks M&M's passage quoted is good or bad writing from the above post.) Also, not replying when, in this case David, said you mis-interpreted them, makes you look bad.

The Star Trek books could be better. That's a given. Even if they were the best books in the world, they could always be better, and the authors should always be striving to make them better,

I agree, and as have seen from many posts in this and other threads on this board, a lot of people also agree.

making positive statements about how they're trying to do that.

now, this part, is a bit unreasonable, they are not giving their performance review on these message board to us here, are they? besides, every reader is different, generalisation just doesn't work here. Now, if a reader come in and say "I don't like X, Y, and Z you've done with this book", then they can either explain what they did it, or take that criticism in (which many have done in the past).

Not just distancing themselves from that one example, or dismissing that post as just another wannabe.

From my point of view, I think it'll be very unprofessional if one of the authors would come here and say "yes, that writing is terrible". do you? think about it before you answer, think about what would you do if you were in their shoes.

Now, I'm not saying your argument "The Trek books are ... OK." doesn't have merit, as many people have wrote in this forum, there are some bad ones out there, in their opinion. It's when you're generalising, people have problems, because the different authors are very different. Yes, every author should try to do their best in their novels, but to lump them all in one busket just because they all write Trek is like lumping Dumas and Tolstoy and Dickens in one lot just because they are all classics.

So, here's my cheeky challenge - Trek authors here: pick a paragraph of yours that you think is well-written, slap it up here and explain why you like it.

this, got lost in all the arguments, I think it would be a good idea for readers and authors to pick something and post it here. Not to prove any point, but to show the diversity of the writing we have.

Finally, I'm just going to quote Trent here, because I'm too lazy to write exactly the same thing again.

The problem in this thread is that certain people are having problems distinguishing between their dislike of a particular style of writing and some kind of objective standard of quality for writing. There are all kinds of writing styles, some terse, some verbose, but just because this one isn't your preferred way of stringing words together doesn't mean it's bad - just that it's not your preference.

 

[KRAD]

In all the hugger mugger, I lost track of this:

So, here's my cheeky challenge - Trek authors here: pick a paragraph of yours that you think is well-written, slap it up here and explain why you like it.

this, got lost in all the arguments, I think it would be a good idea for readers and authors to pick something and post it here. Not to prove any point, but to show the diversity of the writing we have.

And so.....

From Articles of the Federation:

Why kill them? Ross could understand why Bacco couldn't say the words out loud. He took a moment to compose his answer in such a way that it wouldn't even to hint to Bacco the real reason. She had to be shielded from that—even though he knew that, if there was ever a president who might be able to stand up to them, it was her—and so he said: "Because they killed millions of people—directly or indirectly. Every death caused by those cannons, every death caused by the Klingons' retaliation, every death caused by Kinchawn's guerillas after he was removed from power—all of those deaths were on their heads. And worse, they had caused more death in order to keep themselves absolved of the crime, and did it from a distance so they could create the illusion that their hands were clean." He took a breath. "And so for five minutes in the Monet Room last year, I became them. That reporter downstairs is absolutely right in that there should be consequences for that, and my only regret in all this is that I didn't take this action before it endangered your presidency, ma'am. For that, I am truly sorry."


And another, from A Time for War, a Time for Peace, this being Worf's explanation for why he left the Diplomatic Corps to return to Starfleet:

Worf continued. "When I look back on what has happened in the past month, I find that the only action I have taken in that entire time that I truly view with pride was when I was able to stop the Klahb takeover of the Federation embassy. Yet that was the only thing I have done in that time that was not diplomatic in nature. The rest of that time was spent in meetings. I was briefed, I was instructed, I gave instructions, I politicked, I negotiated, I—compromised. While it is true that I have served the greater good of both the Federation and the Empire, it is also true that I have had my fill of serving the greater good. As with Kahless, so too is it with me—it is past time that I did something for myself. It is time for me to be selfish."

 

[Sci]

In all the hugger mugger, I lost track of this:

So, here's my cheeky challenge - Trek authors here: pick a paragraph of yours that you think is well-written, slap it up here and explain why you like it.

this, got lost in all the arguments, I think it would be a good idea for readers and authors to pick something and post it here. Not to prove any point, but to show the diversity of the writing we have.

And so.....

From Articles of the Federation:

Why kill them? Ross could understand why Bacco couldn't say the words out loud. He took a moment to compose his answer in such a way that it wouldn't even to hint to Bacco the real reason. She had to be shielded from that—even though he knew that, if there was ever a president who might be able to stand up to them, it was her—and so he said: "Because they killed millions of people—directly or indirectly. Every death caused by those cannons, every death caused by the Klingons' retaliation, every death caused by Kinchawn's guerillas after he was removed from power—all of those deaths were on their heads. And worse, they had caused more death in order to keep themselves absolved of the crime, and did it from a distance so they could create the illusion that their hands were clean." He took a breath. "And so for five minutes in the Monet Room last year, I became them. That reporter downstairs is absolutely right in that there should be consequences for that, and my only regret in all this is that I didn't take this action before it endangered your presidency, ma'am. For that, I am truly sorry."


And another, from A Time for War, a Time for Peace, this being Worf's explanation for why he left the Diplomatic Corps to return to Starfleet:

Worf continued. "When I look back on what has happened in the past month, I find that the only action I have taken in that entire time that I truly view with pride was when I was able to stop the Klahb takeover of the Federation embassy. Yet that was the only thing I have done in that time that was not diplomatic in nature. The rest of that time was spent in meetings. I was briefed, I was instructed, I gave instructions, I politicked, I negotiated, I—compromised. While it is true that I have served the greater good of both the Federation and the Empire, it is also true that I have had my fill of serving the greater good. As with Kahless, so too is it with me—it is past time that I did something for myself. It is time for me to be selfish."

Those are two of my favorite scenes from your books, KRAD. They're well-written -- they flow well and they're very emotionally involving. The former is incredibly tense, while the latter is a moving insight into Worf's character. Ross and Worf both feel completely real, and in reading it, one becomes so involved in the narrative that one forgets one is reading a novel.