Destiny: Gods of Night by David Mack Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[David Mack]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

Dayton3, I'm sorry that the book didn't seem to work for you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

[tenmei]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

Any 'casting options' on the crew of the Aventine, David? Would love to see who you're picturing for them like you did for the cast of Vanguard!

 

[Dayton3]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

Dayton3, I'm sorry that the book didn't seem to work for you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Hey don't sweat it.

It wasn't all bad.

I liked how you had a ship that wasn't one of the featured "hero ships" score a big one against the Borg (U.S.S. Ranger).

And I bought the book and that is ultimately all that matters.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

And I bought the book and that is ultimately all that matters.

Nah, not really. As unrealistic a goal as it might be, I believe most writers want to please everyone all the time (whether or not they want to admit it.).


(It's only when they sit alone in the dark, held in the comfortable embrace of their favorite bean-bag chair and drinking Wild Turkey straight from the bottle with a straw, that realization begins to set in.)

 

[David Mack]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

Any 'casting options' on the crew of the Aventine, David? Would love to see who you're picturing for them like you did for the cast of Vanguard!

Well, Ezri is already cast, obviously. As is Dr. Tarses.

For Bowers, I like Roger R. Cross. For Lonnoc Kedair, my preference would be Lena Headey. For Gruhn Helkara, maybe someone like Eric Balfour. I'd probably like to cast someone like Jenna Fischer as Mikaela Leishman, and in the role of Oliana Mirren, maybe Charlize Theron.

All of these are negotiable, of course, and I encourage readers to picture whomever works best for their imaginations, regardless of my preferences.

 

[Baerbel Haddrell]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

First off, my belated apologies to Allyn for my snarky reaction to his entirely correct criticism of the medical science in Gods of Night.

The fact is, medicine is not my forte, and genetics is even less so. In retrospect, I see that I made a scientific mistake; even more irksome to me, I made a dramatic mistake.

Only after reading the logical refutations of Troi's medical crisis and now Allyn's followup, I realize that instead of making this a strictly medical/scientific issue, I should have made it an ethical issue that examined the gray areas related to the Federation's aversion to genetic engineering on already-existing organisms.

C'est la vie. And, might I add .... darn.

Thank you very much for your kind reaction to my review. Hopefully it won`t be long until I get the second book of your trilogy.

I am not a doctor, too but I was thinking about the laws the Federation has against genetic engineering. I just wasn`t sure how much I can mention this in a review without crossing the line towards giving story ideas and therefore kept quiet about it.

I must admit, that Dr. Ree never mentioned anything about the legal side, meaning laws against genetic engineering, made me wonder. I was wondering if his attitude was just a lack of understanding what this baby means to Deanna and Riker but also some misplaced professional arrogance. Otherwise I would have expected something like: “I am sorry, I can`t help you because this is not my speciality. But I will contact (insert names here, maybe even Dr. Bashir) who might be able to”.

I only know this first book of the trilogy. Therefore I don`t know if there could be ways later to fix this. As I said in my review, I don`t think it is unrealistic that there might be problems that are very much hidden and a mystery even to a dedicated specialist.

Maybe the genetic engineering laws don`t apply if it is about repairing damage without any change of the original code, especially without any genetic enhancement. My impression from reading the book was that simple rearranging and replacing the holes in the genetic code using normal genetic material is not only possible but also legal.

 

[Dayton3]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

And this dialogue just kills me

U.S.S. Titan CMO thinking about eating live meal in the mess:

"a little splatter never hurt anyone".

That is almost as bad as Greater Than The Sum

"the ship was hit and the consoles sparked"

What the.....

 

[David Mack]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

^ Your criticism is duly noted.

 

[JD]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

I actually find that Ree line rather amusing myself. But, then again I'm a bit weird when it comes to stuff like that, since I grew up watching my veternarian father do surgery.

 

[Osquevel]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

I'm only about 80 pages in at the moment, but really enjoying things so far. It's interesting to get the different auras of the senior staff on each of the ships. Titan's staff has worked together for a year now, and that sense of comfort is clear, the Enterprise's staff is still new (as evidenced by the junior officer's uncertainty to Worf's compliments) but even after only a chapter (and probably partly because of discussions here) it feels like there's some sense of stability; that things won't be changing for at least a little while; whereas the Aventine's staff feels very fragmented and "new" in a sense. I'll be curious to see how this develops during the rest of the trilogy.

And after reading it for a second time, I am becoming really fond (if that's the right word...) of the Riker/Vale hug scene. A lot going on there, especially a lot that was implied about Vale's own sense of loss and I'm curious also to see where the "not entirely platonic" though/expression leads...

 

[Dayton3]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

You seem to be forgetting that the Borg have thousands and thousands of cubes, and a total lack of reluctance to sacrifice their forces. Even if it comes down to a war of attrition, the Borg have the obvious advantage.

quote]

But the characters in the book have no way of knowing that these first 11 cubes are only a lead up to an all out invasion.

We the readers know because of information released regarding upcoming books.

None of the Starfleet personnel should know what we know except perhaps for Picard.

For all everyone else knows, the 11 Cubes were the sum total of the Borg attack and all is right with the galaxy again.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

But the characters in the book have no way of knowing that these first 11 cubes are only a lead up to an all out invasion.

You did read Greater Than the Sum, as I recall, so you should know better. The Borg out-and-out told the Federation that they were going to be annihilated.

 

[Dayton3]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

But the characters in the book have no way of knowing that these first 11 cubes are only a lead up to an all out invasion.

You did read Greater Than the Sum, as I recall, so you should know better. The Borg out-and-out told the Federation that they were going to be annihilated.

So?

For all the Federation knows, those 11 cubes were intended by the Borg to be capable of eradicating all life throughout the Federation.

After all, the Borg have never sent a multicube attack against the Federation (unless you count Vendetta and then it was only because of the threat presented by Planet Killer Mark II).

So an 11 cube attack might easily be seen as the sum total of the Borg assault.

That is one thing I have against all the recent Borg novels.

The characters all seem to have knowledge that they have no basis for having.

I'm curious as to why all the Borg novels have to be in the same continuity anyway.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

And after reading it for a second time, I am becoming really fond (if that's the right word...) of the Riker/Vale hug scene. A lot going on there, especially a lot that was implied about Vale's own sense of loss and I'm curious also to see where the "not entirely platonic" though/expression leads...

Nowhere, I hope.

I just never pegged Riker as a cheater. Especially now that he's married to Deanna.

 

[tenmei]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

Did anyone get the impression that Chakotay wasn't the Captain of the Voyager anymore from the short segment we got in this?

 

[David Mack]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

The characters all seem to have knowledge that they have no basis for having.

Actually, they don't. In fact, after the battle at Korvat, on page 206…

Spoiler: Gods of Night

When Lieutenant Chen expresses her relief that the invasion is over, it falls to Picard, with his peculiar insight into the Borg's true agenda, to inform her that the battle might be over, but the war is not. And it's a good bet he has warned Starfleet and the Federation government of the same thing, and after the events of Before Dishonor, they are now listening to him when he issues warnings about the Borg.

 

[Dayton3]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

Another question is this:

Picard is convinced that a massive Borg invasion is coming.

So why is Picard repeatedly so eager to throw away the Federations only consistent "Borg slaying" weapon, Transphasic torpedos?

Seems like Picard should be the one arguing for Starfleet to avoid using them in order to wait and use them all at once against the Borg fleet when it comes.

Instead Picard wants to use them on every single Borg ship that comes along.

 

[Osquevel]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

Nowhere, I hope.

I just never pegged Riker as a cheater. Especially now that he's married to Deanna.

Not going nowhere (pardon the double negative) doesn't necessarily lead to an affair. That circumstance would require some similar non-platonic feeling on Riker's part, which I didn't get the impression he had based on the tone of the scene. I also think it has a lot more to do with Vale's own emotional distress than anything. It's also possible that Riker saw something that wasn't there (or was something else) because of his own maligned state of affairs with Deanna.

Another facet to this is that, iirc, with the exception of Jaza, Riker is the closest friend Vale has had on Titan. Troi, who might also fall into that category, is not really in a state to help anyone. So, this fact might also play into her reaction.

 

[JD]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

Another question is this:

Picard is convinced that a massive Borg invasion is coming.

So why is Picard repeatedly so eager to throw away the Federations only consistent "Borg slaying" weapon, Transphasic torpedos?

Seems like Picard should be the one arguing for Starfleet to avoid using them in order to wait and use them all at once against the Borg fleet when it comes.

Instead Picard wants to use them on every single Borg ship that comes along.

I haven't read the book yet, but it seems to me like using the torpedos on each Borg ship you run into would be alot smarter than sitting around and letting the whole invasion fleet build up. If they did that, then everybody would probably be long dead before they ever got the chance to start using them. Also there is no way to know for sure if/when the Borg will stop coming, so for all they no the Borg could keep coming for months or years, and it seems kinda crazy to sit on a successful(?) weapon that long.

 

[HappyDayRiot]

Re: Star Trek: Destiny: Gods of Night - SPOILER Thread

The Enterprise is still only one ship. It can only target one/two Borg cubes at once. It would get smashed up pretty good if it went up against multiple cubes at once, I would assume. Then again, maybe you'll get an answer in book 2, given the ending of the Aventine section of book 1...