"Before Dishonor"- My Review & Opinion-Spoilers

[Dayton3]

I finally read the novel by Peter David "Before Dishonor"

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It is actually not bad.

I'll outline the good first

1) Like his other Borg novel "Vendetta" "Before Dishonor" has an epic "movie caliber" story. Something you can envision only being on the big screen.

That said it isn't as good as "Vendetta".

2) The huge sweeping scale of the battles with the Borg supercube are very exciting though somewhat underwritten.

3) The mutiny on the Enterprise is handled outstandingly (and realistically) well. You could imagine the temptation PD must've faced to have it as phaser battles in the corridors. Instead he handles the entire thing in a very measured and believable way.

4) In addition, having the Vulcan counselor as the basic driving force behind the mutiny was brilliant. And the Second Officer disagreeing with Picard but avoiding confronting him initially was also well written.

The Bad.

1) The Borg supercube thing has way to many "Space:1999" moments. That is having the Borg cube eat Pluto and its moons is ridiculous enought, BUT then having the cube grow to be LARGER THAN THE EARTH?

You would have to have the cube grow not billions of times larger, not trillions of times larger, but HUNDREDS OF TRILLIONS of times more massive than any ever seen before.

Things like this are the kind of stuff that makes people make fun of Star Trek.

2) Way too much time spent on Admirals Nacheyev and Jellicoe in the Starfleet bunker. They serve almost no overall purpose to the story other than to be annoying.

3) Too much thrown into one novel, Q's, the planet killer, the Borg, Spock. It can be somewhat jarring.

Overall not a bad novel. It is worth buying.

 

[ParticleMan]

Please tell me that they at least make a mention of what an Earth-sized Borg cube would do to the gravity of the solar system? Please? Becasue that is the first thing I thought when I read that..."Yeesh...that's gonna cause some SERIOUS tides..."

 

[Christopher]

^^No, but Greater Than the Sum mentions that the giant Borg cube wasn't nearly as massive as it appeared (and indeed it couldn't have been, because nothing as big as Pluto or larger could avoid collapsing into a sphere). A lot of it was hollow space.

 

[Brikar99]

3) Too much thrown into one novel, Q's, the planet killer, the Borg, Spock. It can be somewhat jarring.

This is what killed it for me. Cramming so much fan-wank-continuity into it gives it a crazy fan-fic feel. That, coupled with the tired mutiny plot just made this novel a chore to get through - and Peter David is one of my favorite Trek authors.

 

[avsherwood1]

[QUOT2) Way too much time spent on Admirals Nacheyev and Jellicoe in the Starfleet bunker. They serve almost no overall purpose to the story other than to be annoying.E][/QUOTE]

Here! Here! I didn't care for them either.

[QUOTE3) Too much thrown into one novel, Q's, the planet killer, the Borg, Spock. It can be somewhat jarring.][/QUOTE]

I agree on this point too. It seemed like Peter David thought up the whole Sarek dedication specifically to shoehorn Spock into the plot. Don't get me wrong, I grok Spock, but it was a bit much for me. I also didn't like the inclusion of the planet killer. For Mr. David to reference his past novel seemed forced and self-serving, not to mention the "Trophy World" came off as cheesy to me.

I usually LOVE Peter David, but I didn't care too much for this one.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I also didn't like the inclusion of the planet killer. For Mr. David to reference his past novel seemed forced and self-serving.

How is that self-serving? Fans have been bugging PAD to write a sequel to "Vendetta" ever since his first Borg novel came out.

 

[JoeZhang]

The real problem with the two admirals was that, as a reader, I couldn't help but suspect that they knew they were in a story, it was the only way I could make sense of how they acted and spoke.

 

[avsherwood1]

Quote: "How is that self-serving? Fans have been bugging PAD to write a sequel to "Vendetta" ever since his first Borg novel came out."

Really? I did like Vendetta but I guess I never thought about a sequal.

I think it bothered me because no one has mentioned the planet killer since Vendetta as far as I know, and now PD writes a new Borg book and whaddya know... here's the planet killer. It's kind of like how it seemed for a while that Timothy Zahn couldn't write a Star Wars book without Thrawn.

Am I making any sense?

 

[Therin of Andor]

now PD writes a new Borg book and whaddya know... here's the planet killer.

If PAD left out all mention of the Planet Killer (and Reannon Bonaventure and Delcara), people would be complaining that PAD ignored his own backstory.

 

[Dayton3]

Please tell me that they at least make a mention of what an Earth-sized Borg cube would do to the gravity of the solar system? Please? Becasue that is the first thing I thought when I read that..."Yeesh...that's gonna cause some SERIOUS tides..."

Actually in "Before Dishonor" the merchant ship captain who later rescues Seven notes to the effect that

"the Borg cube would not even have to approach Earth. Its gravity alone would rip the planet apart"....and later special mention is made to the Cube veering "well away from any planets".

But the entire concept of the Borg ships eating planets was ridiculous. I think it had two purposes.

1) Peter David wanted to introduce a "cool new capability" for the Borg

&

2) Peter David wanted to tie the Borg ships abilities with those of the Planet Killer which consumed planets.

Still that said, I still am in awe of how the "mutiny" on the Enterprise was handled.

Peter David even avoided the temptation of having it end in a big dramatic confrontation but allowed it to simply "peter out" the way things often do in real life.

What gets me about "Before Dishonor" is that the mutiny stuff was handled so carefully and realistically....

....while the "giant Borg cube" stuff was straight out of Space:1999

Sometimes I read the book wondering if two different writers wrote this.

 

[avsherwood1]

Quote: "If PAD left out all mention of the Planet Killer (and Reannon Bonaventure and Delcara), people would be complaining that PAD ignored his own backstory."

It would be one thing if Before Dishonor was billed as a sequal to Vendetta, but as far as I know it wasn't. I guess that's what's jarring to me. I really didn't expect any of that to pop up so it felt odd to me.... that's all.

 

[tenmei]

This is still the best of the four so far, for me at least. GTTS gets close, but the character of Trys causes the book to loose some points. I think this is the only novel where the new crewmembers were actually interesting and I agree with Kadohata's reasons for the "mutiny" and think the other characters were unfairly painted in a bad light by Christopher in the next book.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It would be one thing if Before Dishonor was billed as a sequal to Vendetta, but as far as I know it wasn't.

Not on the cover, but I certainly knew ahead of time that he was working on a "long-awaited" sequel. Depends on which sources you keep your ear to, i guess.

And why should a sequel always be "billed" as such? In real life we don't always know when an event in our lives will suddenly link back to something else.

 

[Christopher]

...I agree with Kadohata's reasons for the "mutiny" and think the other characters were unfairly painted in a bad light by Christopher in the next book.

Really? I'll grant that Leybenzon didn't come off too well in GTTS, but I tried to portray T'Lana in a more positive light, to soften her from the extremes she went to in BD and offer a more sympathetic interpretation of her behavior.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Really? I'll grant that Leybenzon didn't come off too well in GTTS, but I tried to portray T'Lana in a more positive light, to soften her from the extremes she went to in BD and offer a more sympathetic interpretation of her behavior.

I thought you managed to give them all some redeeming qualities.

 

[captcalhoun]

i thought you did a good job of rehabilitating both T'lana and Kadohata, but to me, Leybenzon still comes off as being a gung-ho glory-hound.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm sure at least one of my fan-fic characters could be called such, but Leybenzon really comes off as a dick.

 

[Rabid Trekkie]

Quote: "How is that self-serving? Fans have been bugging PAD to write a sequel to "Vendetta" ever since his first Borg novel came out."

Really? I did like Vendetta but I guess I never thought about a sequal.

I think it bothered me because no one has mentioned the planet killer since Vendetta as far as I know, and now PD writes a new Borg book and whaddya know... here's the planet killer. It's kind of like how it seemed for a while that Timothy Zahn couldn't write a Star Wars book without Thrawn.

Am I making any sense?

Actually since I've found out that this book is a kind of sequel, I've been looking around for a used copy of Vendetta.

As for the Planet Killer, it could be no one has mentioned it since Vendetta because it wasn't neccesary, or the author just didn't think about it. I for one was happy to see it again. My friends and I were actually hoping to see it during DS9. We had this little geek fantasy that since the Federation was in so much trouble Star Fleet would send Scotty and some engineers to go get all the cool stuff Kirk had found, repair it, and use it to kick the Dominion back through the wormhole. So seeing the Planet Killer made my geek heart glad.

The planet killer isn't like Thrawn for Star Wars. Out of about nine Star Wars works by Timothy Zahn, only two of them don't have Thrawn show up. Which isn't to say that I'm mad about that, Mr. Zahn's a good writer, just pointing out that this isn't the same thing.

 

[avsherwood1]

Quote: "Not on the cover, but I certainly knew ahead of time that he was working on a "long-awaited" sequel. Depends on which sources you keep your ear to, i guess."

Well... I don't have any sources really... so there! lol


Quote: "Actually since I've found out that this book is a kind of sequel, I've been looking around for a used copy of Vendetta.

As for the Planet Killer, it could be no one has mentioned it since Vendetta because it wasn't neccesary, or the author just didn't think about it. I for one was happy to see it again. My friends and I were actually hoping to see it during DS9. We had this little geek fantasy that since the Federation was in so much trouble Star Fleet would send Scotty and some engineers to go get all the cool stuff Kirk had found, repair it, and use it to kick the Dominion back through the wormhole. So seeing the Planet Killer made my geek heart glad.

The planet killer isn't like Thrawn for Star Wars. Out of about nine Star Wars works by Timothy Zahn, only two of them don't have Thrawn show up. Which isn't to say that I'm mad about that, Mr. Zahn's a good writer, just pointing out that this isn't the same thing. "

I understand what everyone is saying, I just personally didn't like it. Different strokes I suppose.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Well... I don't have any sources really... so there! lol

We heard about it right here, and at Psi Phi, when posters directed us to quotes on PAD's website, IIRC.

And you're here now, so you now have sources too.

 

[Thrawn]

If you look at TV writers, it's extremely common for certain writers to continue to bring back their favorite guest stars, themes, situations, etc. Examples that come to mind, Ron Moore writing Klingons and Jane Espenson on Buffy writing the nerds. It's entirely expected for writers to enjoy certain corners of a universe more, and they generally tend to be the corners that they created most.

I expect franchise novelists to be generally the same way, especially with Star Wars where that kind of thing is encouraged (ie, we need a novel about the Mandalorians - ask Karen Traviss!). Tim Zahn created an enormous chunk of the EU continuity, and for him to return to the continuity he created makes sense. A lot of his readers (certainly me) look forward to his books for exactly that reason. Even if not specific characters, on TV and in writing both most authors associate with certain themes. Zahn's books are always optimistic; Bennett's books are always character/science driven; Mack's books redefine 'epic' with every iteration; etc. On Buffy (sorry to come back to it, but it's such a good example) Espenson was the funny one, Noxon was the tragic one, and Petrie and Fury were the action ones.

I think it's silly to expect writers to abandon their own earlier creations. If there are dangling threads from a Martin & Mangels novel, it's cool for me to hear that Martin & Mangels will be back to finish it up (the Neyel are what I'm thinking of here). Why is that a problem?