Janeway Died? In Which Book?

[Christopher]

She would have or at the very least should have if she would still be alive. But that is another opportunity that has been lost.

Every decision closes off opportunities. Think of the lost opportunities to develop Saavik as a character when Spock was resurrected. Of course Janeway's death leads to lost opportunities, but other opportunities would've been lost if she'd lived. No matter what happens in the books, there are going to be possibilities that the readers will lament not seeing developed. Ultimately, though, what matters is what we do with the possibilities we do choose to explore. Because you can't do everything at once.

Hell, last I checked, Janeway is even still alive in the Shatnerverse novels,.

Does she play any kind of big role?

Relatively. She's not the lead character, of course, but she's a major supporting player in the most recent trilogy.

 

[ClayinCA]

Wow, lots of stuff to cover:

Are you kidding? The first two A Time To books came out 5 years ago and people still bitch about those. Spirit Walk was also 5 years ago and are still bitched about. And then there's the canon: Nemesis: 6 years. These are the Voyages: 3 years. Tuvix was 12 years ago.

Well, I'm still mad as hell about something that happened in The Price of the Phoenix, so....

The fact that it was ever written...?

That too!

However, I will be picking up Full Circle and reading it because Christie Golden is not writing it, and because Janeway died.

Yes, that's right, the fact that Janeway died made me interested enough that I'm buying the next book. So the VOY novels have gained at least one reader as a result of the decision to kill Janeway. (And no, I don't dislike the character, either.)

I am of exactly this point of view, with the exception that I couldn't freaking stand Janeway and am very interested to see where the books will take the series without her. Would I be as interested to see where a Next Generation series would go without Picard? Yes, frankly, although since I do like Picard, I'd probably grumble a bit. If the books remained as consistently well-written as they are right now, I'd keep buying them, though.

However, Star Trek has learned me some important lessons

I guess it hasn't taught you much about grammar, though, has it?

1) Don't get too involved. Don't start to like certain things too much because someone will screw it up sooner or later.

Always a good philosophy. If that were true of life, you'd never leave your house.

2) If that happens, turn your back to your former interest because it will never be the same.

Right. It might even be better (as with the post-Nemesis fiction, much of which is better than most of the Next Generation films).

3) Find something else to spend your time on but just keep a casual interest in the whole thing. Then it will be easier to abandon when someone screws it up.

Yep, because the shallower your interests are, the more fulfillment you'll get and the more enriched your life will be. And what's most important is that you never suffer any disappointment of any kind.

But I don't want to see my favorite characters being killed off. They can spare me from that kind of "development".

Boy, am I glad you weren't in charge of M*A*S*H. Then I'd never have gotten any of those wonderful episodes with Colonel Potter after Henry Blake died.

I do know that many ardent fans, especially the fans of Voyager and Janeway do share my opinion in this case.

And I know that many people think the moon landing was faked. So what?

Dismissing me and those fans as "a tiny minority" who don't see the "creativeness" or "greater good" in the character destruction is actually insulting to us who dare to oppose what we see as a very bad move.

First of all, you are a tiny minority, as has already been pointed out, discussed and, in fact, proven in this very thread. Secondly, you're the one who's being insulting when you claim that the writers of these books don't care about the characters they write about. Writing Star Trek fiction doesn't pay so well that it's worth doing it only for the money - these people care very much about this show and its characters (except, of course, for the ones you like).

After all, it's the fans who are paying the wages. Dissatisfied fans=decrease in merchandise=less profit=end of the whole thing.

Again, this argument has been disproven in this very thread. Why reiterate it if you're not going to offer any proof? Oh, that's right - you have no proof.

I was an ardent Star Trek fan once but I've never been a worshipper who simply accept anything only because it's Star Trek.

No, I'm sure you haven't - you're too busy not accepting anything if it doesn't fit your own definition of Star Trek (that being, a Star Trek whose characters never grow, change or, gods forbid, die).

Tell me, did you not watch the animated series because it didn't have Chekov or Rand in it? Or did you refuse to be involved with The Next Generation because it was calling itself Star Trek, yet had precisely none of the familiar characters in it?

I stopped watching Voyager after the destruction of Kes in "Fury".

And yet the show went on for several seasons without you. Imagine that.

I stopped watching "Enterprise" after a few episodes because I found the series sub-standard, the characters dull and I didn't even like the idea of a retro series.

And yet the show went on for several seasons without you. Imagine that.

I haven't read a TNG book after finding out that there were no plans to bring back Data.

And yet the series has published several books without you. Imagine that.

And now I will turn my back to the Star Trek books totally and to the whole "official" part of Star Trek.

Promise?

then I will be happy not to be a part of the fan community anymore.

Clearly, you'll be missed.

The TNG relaunch is out of the question with Data killed off with no Picard and some other characters missing as well.

What are you talking about? Picard has been in every one of the "relaunch" books.

The DS9 relaunch could be acceptable but I guess that the annihilation of Janeway will affect that one as well.

Yep, because Janeway's always had such a profound effect on Deep Space Nine.

Besides that, there are a lot of good characters missing there as well and who know who will be the next on "Death Row".

Well, since "Death Row" in the books has consisted of exactly one character thus far, the field is certainly wide open.

I guess that the New Frontier books will be affected by the annihilation of Janeway too.

What Therin of Andor said. I don't think Janeway's ever even appeared in a New Frontier book, so I doubt her death (not "annihilation," by the way) will have any more than a tangential effect on them.

And besides, both the Deep Space Nine and New Frontier books are set a few years earlier in the chronology than Janeway's death, so how could there be any effect on those books? Hell, as things stand, those are the only ongoing series in which she could conceivably appear.

So what's left?

More tangled logic, if your previous posts are anything to go by.

As for "moving on", it's not that easy. As I've wrote before, Star Trek has been an essential part of my life for many years and it isn't that easy to abandon.

As you've "wrote" right here in this thread...

if I find it too insulting or annoying or something else which makes me lose interest, then I simply abandon it.

...it apparently is that easy.

Unfortunately, there isn't so much to "move on" to either because I find most of the SF available today sub-standard in comparision to Star Trek.

Which you've already said isn't worth sticking with. Not much of a "comparision."

But here today doesn't mean that I will be here tomorrow. Who knows, I might just decide that enough is enough and call it a day.

"Might"? You've been promising to do that for pages now...

I'm not sure if I will publish all that I might write either (and P*** off people), I may keep it for my personal enjoyment.

Since you cannot publish any stories featuring characters and situations you do not own, I am sure you won't be publishing "all that you might write."

 

[kimc]

Well I may have given up on Trek Lit but luckily the world of Trek is a pretty large one.

The world of Trek Lit is a pretty large one. With many players, styles, lengths, and editors - yet you consign them all to same trashcan?

I don't think of it as consigning anything to the trashcan. I'm a person with a wide variety of interests and limited time. Since Janeway is my favorite Trek character I will naturally spend my Trek time either re-watching old episodes or reading fanfiction that features her. Then I will go out for a ski or read some Dante or go out with friends, etc.

 

[Lynx]

I find ClayinCa's comments in a post above rude and insulting.

It looks like it's impossible to come up with an opinion without someone turning it into some personal attack or starts mocking and ridiculing that opinion and the way it might be written in.

It wasn't my intention to get into some heated arguments over this and I don't want to keep on bickering about it either. No reason for hostilities among us fans.

I've stated my opinion and my feelings over what I see as unnecessary character destruction and I see no reason to change or regret anything. What I have written, I have written and I stand for it.

If the "majority" of Star Trek fans (and I'm not that sure that it is a majority either) prefer to see their favorite characters from the different TV-series being killed off or destroyed, I won't ruin your fun. Just enjoy your stay in the "Death Row" and keep on buying the books, for what it's worth.

But I don't want any part of it. I won't of spend my hard-earned money on books that will only annoy me. It was enough with that Strange New Worlds book I bought some years ago, a book where some smart amateur "author" did kill off Kes. (I wonder why that was published, it was a downright lousy story.) I had to sell the book on Ebay because I couldn't even stand looking at the cover after reading that story.

 

[Lynx]

Well I may have given up on Trek Lit but luckily the world of Trek is a pretty large one.

The world of Trek Lit is a pretty large one. With many players, styles, lengths, and editors - yet you consign them all to same trashcan?

I don't think of it as consigning anything to the trashcan. I'm a person with a wide variety of interests and limited time. Since Janeway is my favorite Trek character I will naturally spend my Trek time either re-watching old episodes or reading fanfiction that features her. Then I will go out for a ski or read some Dante or go out with friends, etc.

Seems like a very good idea. I will do the same!

 

[captcalhoun]

i find YOU offensive.

 

[Thrawn]

I had to sell the book on Ebay because I couldn't even stand looking at the cover after reading that story.

Yeah, there's really no way this is healthy.

Look, I appreciate your point of view, and I even tried to make a post explaining in a calm and intelligent manner where I thought we disagreed...which you ignored, preferring to go on ranting about your nonexistent injustices. Many of your arguments are factually wrong, and the rest are odd enough that people would be understandably curious. But when approached with that curiosity, you didn't respond, and instead yelled some more.

How would you expect us to reply? "Thank you for insulting this thing that we love with baseless ranting - we appreciate it!"?

 

[Sci]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Lynx, no one would begrudge you your disagreement with Janeway's death if that was as far as it went. Notice how no one's pissed off at Trent Roman.

But you took a creative disagreement and elevated it into an attack upon you and your emotional integrity. "I feel like they've killed a friend. I hate it so much that I refuse to ever read another novel." Etc. Then, you engaged in an ad hominem attack upon the authors and editors, accusing them of frivolity or malice in their creative decisions. All this on top of wanting to engage in censorship on the basis of your personal tastes.

You are the person who debased a creative disagreement into the level of the personal attack, so don't act surprised when someone else criticizes you in turn.

 

[ClayinCA]

I find ClayinCa's comments in a post above rude and insulting.

Thanks! I wasn't going for rude or insulting, but it's good to know that someone who has been insulting (though admittedly, you've never been rude as far as I've noticed) takes notice of me and my words.

It looks like it's impossible to come up with an opinion without someone turning it into some personal attack or starts mocking and ridiculing that opinion and the way it might be written in.

"The way in which it might be written."

And I didn't attack you personally at all - I just poked holes in all your arguments (easy enough to do, since most of them came with a ready supply of holes already).

It wasn't my intention to get into some heated arguments over this and I don't want to keep on bickering about it either. No reason for hostilities among us fans.

Well, you have kept on about it, despite repeated assurances that you weren't going to. I haven't really seen any outright "hostilities" in here, as no one's been name calling or anything like that; again, people seem to have been challenging and/or ridiculing your arguments (I've certainly had fun with them), but that's not the same thing as ridiculing you. How could I ridicule you? I've never met you.

I've stated my opinion and my feelings over what I see as unnecessary character destruction and I see no reason to change or regret anything. What I have written, I have written and I stand for it.

Good for you. I don't think it makes a bit of sense, but good for you.

Just enjoy your stay in the "Death Row" and keep on buying the books, for what it's worth.

I will, thanks - they're worth way more than the eight bucks I pay for them (but no one tell Pocket Books that, or they'll raise the prices). I continue to dispute your description of the books as "Death Row," however, since Janeway's death is hardly emblematic of the books' direction.

But I don't want any part of it. I won't of spend my hard-earned money on books that will only annoy me. It was enough with that Strange New Worlds book I bought some years ago, a book where some smart amateur "author" did kill off Kes. (I wonder why that was published, it was a downright lousy story.) I had to sell the book on Ebay because I couldn't even stand looking at the cover after reading that story.

You know, if a book cover affects you that strongly (and if you really are looking at Janeway's death and Kes' departure with the same importance you'd ascribe to the death of an actual friend or relative), it really might be best if you did give up on Star Trek for awhile. It's starting to sound a little unhealthy (and before you say it, that's not an attack, but an extrapolation based on your repeated statements in this thread). It certainly doesn't seem that Star Trek holds much for you at this point, especially if the death or mishandling (or what you believe to have been mishandling) of literally one or two characters is enough to upset you so much.

 

[Lynx]

I had to sell the book on Ebay because I couldn't even stand looking at the cover after reading that story.

Yeah, there's really no way this is healthy.

Look, I appreciate your point of view, and I even tried to make a post explaining in a calm and intelligent manner where I thought we disagreed...which you ignored, preferring to go on ranting about your nonexistent injustices. Many of your arguments are factually wrong, and the rest are odd enough that people would be understandably curious. But when approached with that curiosity, you didn't respond, and instead yelled some more.

How would you expect us to reply? "Thank you for insulting this thing that we love with baseless ranting - we appreciate it!"?

Didn't I respond to your post where you came up with some scenarios about Data, Paris, Chakotay and Kes? I'm sure I did.

If you're referring to any of your other posts, then I must state that the lack of a reply from me wasn't because of arrogance, disrespect or ignorance but because I thought that I've already presented my opinion and didn't want to repeat it. Or maybe I simply missed that specific post among the many posts which have recently been written here.

But if there is anything you want to discuss, feel free to bring it up. But please avoid comments about this and that being healthy or not healthy. My health is perfect, thank you.

By the way, didn't I mention how much I used to love and appreciate certain Star Trek books?

 

[Thrawn]

Didn't I respond to your post where you came up with some scenarios about Data, Paris, Chakotay and Kes? I'm sure I did.

If you're referring to any of your other posts, then I must state that the lack of a reply from me wasn't because of arrogance, disrespect or ignorance but because I thought that I've already presented my opinion and didn't want to repeat it. Or maybe I simply missed that specific post among the many posts which have recently been written here.

But if there is anything you want to discuss, feel free to bring it up. But please avoid comments about this and that being healthy or not healthy. My health is perfect, thank you.

By the way, didn't I mention how much I used to love and appreciate certain Star Trek books?

Previous post re-created:

Hm, Lynx, interesting post. I think you and I want fundamentally different things out of our entertainment, or at least our Trek.

I'm of the opinion that the upshot of sci-fi is that the settings and scenarios can be invented wholesale to emphasize, freely and creatively, whatever aspect of the human condition that the story wishes to emphasize. A famous truism is that good art is always an exaggeration of reality; I think Trek certainly qualifies.

But a key component of that is the fact that the actual human component should stay as realistic as possible. That is, people should fall in love, have nervous breakdowns, suffer the occasional stroke and memory loss, or die (or anything else that is possible with their alien physiology). That is an ESSENTIAL component of my enjoyment of a show or story. If I read something where I know characters won't die, or change drastically, it seems fake and cheesy to me.

So I really disliked a lot of Treklit before all the series ended, because of the reset button, but now I find it enthralling. Stuff like killing Janeway is essential to my enjoyment of a story. Not merely "ok with me", but NECESSARY.

Does that make sense?

 

[Lynx]

Didn't I respond to your post where you came up with some scenarios about Data, Paris, Chakotay and Kes? I'm sure I did.

If you're referring to any of your other posts, then I must state that the lack of a reply from me wasn't because of arrogance, disrespect or ignorance but because I thought that I've already presented my opinion and didn't want to repeat it. Or maybe I simply missed that specific post among the many posts which have recently been written here.

But if there is anything you want to discuss, feel free to bring it up. But please avoid comments about this and that being healthy or not healthy. My health is perfect, thank you.

By the way, didn't I mention how much I used to love and appreciate certain Star Trek books?

Previous post re-created:

Hm, Lynx, interesting post. I think you and I want fundamentally different things out of our entertainment, or at least our Trek.

I'm of the opinion that the upshot of sci-fi is that the settings and scenarios can be invented wholesale to emphasize, freely and creatively, whatever aspect of the human condition that the story wishes to emphasize. A famous truism is that good art is always an exaggeration of reality; I think Trek certainly qualifies.

But a key component of that is the fact that the actual human component should stay as realistic as possible. That is, people should fall in love, have nervous breakdowns, suffer the occasional stroke and memory loss, or die (or anything else that is possible with their alien physiology). That is an ESSENTIAL component of my enjoyment of a show or story. If I read something where I know characters won't die, or change drastically, it seems fake and cheesy to me.

So I really disliked a lot of Treklit before all the series ended, because of the reset button, but now I find it enthralling. Stuff like killing Janeway is essential to my enjoyment of a story. Not merely "ok with me", but NECESSARY.

Does that make sense?

OK, I can see your point here and I can actually agree with some of it too.

But consider the fact that we are discussing a show (or whatever we should call it if we refer to both TV episodes and books) where most of the characters stays basically the same. They are seriously wounded, possessed by aliens, turned into lizards but in the end are restored to normal. In that case, I don't find it logic to single out certain characters for "execution". It would have been different if it had been an ongoing saga stretching over hundreds of years, like some of those series which starts with the colonization of America and ends in present time.

But even if I see your point here, I must disagree in this case. I find the "annihilation" of Janeway unnecessary even from a storytelling point, I mean she isn't even on Voyager anymore so killing her off to give Chakotay or someone else more space or development isn't necessary either. As a matter of fact, it looks only like some stunt, like "OK, let's kill off Janeway, it will stir up some emotions, create some headlines on the Trek forums and by the way, she's not so popular either, many Trek fans hate her". Sorry, but that's the impression I got.

Besides that, I must once again mention my personal dislike of seeing favorite characters killed off. I don't want to rant about it but I've already had some problems with the concept for the relaunch where main characters (who I really like) are absent and replaced by characters who I simply can't come up with any affection for.

You might find it silly or narrow-minded but when I read a Voyager story, then I want to read about the Voyager characters from the TV-series. That's why I actually prefer the old books who were written during seasons 1-3 where the original main characters are all in the books and they are facing the unknown in the Delta Quadrant before the "relaunch" books. To put it simply, the magic from the old books isn't there anymore.

And still, one could at least imagine that the missing favorites were still around somewhere and hope that they would show up in some upcoming book in the future. With the "annihilation" of Janeway, that will not happen in upcoming books.

That's my opinion about this and as you see, I guess it differs from yours when it comes to what we want to see in the Star Trek books.

Just for fun, I would also like to present another view of the scene here. As we all know, the different Trek series are on re-run all over the world. So let us imagine that there is a "newbie" somewhere out there who starts watching Voyager, takes a liking to it and become a Janeway fan. Then that fans finds out that there are books about Voyager available. The fan buy one or some book and finds out that Janeway has been killed off and most of the characters from the series are missing. How interested in the books will that person be? (I bring this up because I read a comment from a person once who was complaining about why the books made on an European SF series were so different from the TV series itself due to the fact that the author had started to replace characters from the series with his own creations).

 

[Claudia]

Every decision closes off opportunities. Think of the lost opportunities to develop Saavik as a character when Spock was resurrected.

I think Saavik could have been better developed as a character even with Spock still around. Granted, it would have been difficult to have her pose as Science Officer of the ENT (like someone here in this thread mentioned it was planned)...

On the other hand one could make the same point about Chekov's return to the Enterprise from the Reliant - Saavik, after all, occupied his post in STII and not Spock's, and it wasn't really explained at all why Chekov went back to the ENT from being First Officer... Wasn't there a new ship that needed a XO around?

I am of exactly this point of view, with the exception that I couldn't freaking stand Janeway and am very interested to see where the books will take the series without her. Would I be as interested to see where a Next Generation series would go without Picard? Yes, frankly, although since I do like Picard, I'd probably grumble a bit. If the books remained as consistently well-written as they are right now, I'd keep buying them, though.

Absolutely right. I think the only series that I wouldn't read any longer would be NF, because that relies too much on Calhoun to work *for me* without him.

But DS9 developed beautifully without Sisko. I'd a bit wary about killing off Picard *now*. As long as Riker and even Data were around, no problem at all, but honestly, I just don't need a Captain Worf... *g*

 

[Therin of Andor]

Does she play any kind of big role?

Yep. It's the Mirror Universe Janeway and she's a feisty and likable character with plenty to do. It's in Shatner's second trilogy.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Does she play any kind of big role?

Yep. It's the Mirror Universe Janeway and she's a feisty and likable character with plenty to do. It's in Shatner's second trilogy.

And Regular Universe Janeway appears in the last 2 books of the third Shatverse Trilogy.

 

[JWolf]

And if that continues, I doubt that upcoming books will be "huge sellers". Who want to read Voyager books where half of the main characters are constantly missing?

Take a look at TNG books. a lot of the main characters are no longer there. Yet the books are still good and we still read them. What TNG shows us is that people move on. And the TNG books are well written and make perfectly good sense in the way they showed this to us. Sometimes you have to do it and if it's done well, then it can be a good thing.

 

[MMCL]

Am I really bad for thinking..? "Janeway died? Thank god..."

 

[Christopher]

Every decision closes off opportunities. Think of the lost opportunities to develop Saavik as a character when Spock was resurrected.

I think Saavik could have been better developed as a character even with Spock still around. Granted, it would have been difficult to have her pose as Science Officer of the ENT (like someone here in this thread mentioned it was planned)...

But the point is, the initial idea was to phase in new characters to take over the franchise, with Saavik being the first. When they instead decided to resurrect Spock and lock the status quo rigidly in place -- never making any change that they didn't reverse in the very next film -- Saavik became a casualty of that mentality, getting shoved into obscurity because she was deemed redundant now that the original Vulcan was back.

On the other hand one could make the same point about Chekov's return to the Enterprise from the Reliant - Saavik, after all, occupied his post in STII and not Spock's, and it wasn't really explained at all why Chekov went back to the ENT from being First Officer... Wasn't there a new ship that needed a XO around?

Presumably all the crew were somewhat tainted by their mutiny and trial. Kirk was the only one demoted, but I'm sure it didn't help any of the others' career advancement prospects.

 

[JD]

If the "majority" of Star Trek fans (and I'm not that sure that it is a majority either) prefer to see their favorite characters from the different TV-series being killed off or destroyed, I won't ruin your fun. Just enjoy your stay in the "Death Row" and keep on buying the books, for what it's worth.

Lynx, I really don't get why you keep talking like this one ONE CHARACTER from ONE SERIES has been killed.

 

[Semah]

So let's look at it this way: How many fans of the character Kes are reading the Voyager Relaunch books?

How many of the TNG fans who disliked the death of Data are reading the current TNG books?

How many Janeway fans (yes, they are many and some of them are very loyal to their favorite) will continue to read the Star Trek books if Janeway is permanently killed off?

Me, me, and me. See, my anecdotal evidence trumps your baseless broad generalization.