Spoilers TNG: A Singular Destiny by Keith R.A. DeCandido review thread

^^Read Full Circle. That's all there is to say.

 

For the life of me, I can never understand why anyone would claim that the authors would kill off a character "will-nilly."

 

There was an element of nilly, but absolutely no willy.

 

^ No willy? But it's free!

 

You're misrepresenting what I said. I said I hope that a decision like this wouldn't be taken lightly, especially given the recent killing off of another major VOY character and already having killed off Tom's father before moving on to the rest of his family. I'm just wondering if killing off Torres and Miral will be creating much more story potential than already existed with just his father being dead.

Don't get me wrong, I do have faith. But right now, all she is is a name on a list of dead people. Granted it could be a really unique way of foreshadowing, so long as we actually get to see what happened (which it sounds like we will). There of course is always the possibility Torres and her daughter aren't really dead... I'm surprised that with the prophecy about Miral, that she might be dead. I hope that this issue of Miral is addressed (if it hasn't already in the earlier VOY novels I'm yet to read).

If they are dead, it would be a little disappointing that Torres would now be the 2nd Voyager main character to be killed off in the recent past.

 

So hearing this again...why not kill every single character onscreen Trek has ever created and have all strangers take over the shows?

More seriously though, I'm not implying that I don't like TrekLit-only characters...hell I do like the new NextGen officers fine (or Vaughn, although I'm not really sure if he's really a Lit-only because he fits into DS9 so well), but for me it would just not be Star Trek anymore. The characters made the appeal of the shows for me, not the ships or the sci-fi setting, so removing two key characters off of a series seems a bit (ok very) strange to me.
I would just wish that at least this supposed death is really just that, supposed... (Arghs, now I gotta actually read Full Circle...but it's always best to know the thing at which you are angry or with which you can reconcile. )
*wave* Commander Troi

 

Because then we'd have (gasp) new characters taking the franchise and setting forward! Can't have that and anger the Militant Barcley Fans (tm), now can we?

um.. since when does Miral Paris count as a key character? Barely an onscreen character - yes, a Plot device - sure, but a key character? how so?

 

Pretty sure CommanderTroi is talking about B'Elanna not Miral.

 

I'm not sure I understand that statement. Vaughn is a lit-only character, he just happens to be in DS9. Why would that make a difference.

 

well, CommanderTroi did mention two key characters... so one is B'Elanna, but who could the other be if not miral?

 

Janeway.

 

for some reason, I was under the impression CommanderTroi was refering to ASD (as it's the topic of the thread )...

I do hope this isn't going to become yet another Voyager / Janeway - type thread...

 

Don't worry, I meant Miral and B'Elanna...should have probably not said key characters, only characters instead (believe me, I don't want to go the Kathy Janeway road yet again, there's been said too much on that particular topic...)

And what I meant with the Vaughn statement is this, I find him really well written and so much part of DS9 now, that I could very well imagine him onscreen and not "only" in the books. (Ok now, english is not my native tongue so it's entirely possible that I just can't express what I really want to say with this)

 

Shortly after I finished the Destiny Trilogy I made some joke about not being happy until I read some scenes that included a major party now that the Borg had been defeated. I was picturing in my mind something along the lines of the famous kiss photo on VJ-Day. KRAD responded with something along the lines of "A bunch of people are dead and planets have been destroyed. There ain't going to be a party." and I just thought OK, he didn't get it but what ever. After reading ASD I see what he was getting at.

I'm not saying anything new here but there are two parts to the book, the in between chapters stuff that really shows how devastating the Borg attack was and the chapters them selves tell not only a good follow up story but set the scene for an interesting environment for the next few books.

Up until now my favorite KRAD book has been has been The Art of the Impossible but ASD has over taken that. I just think this is really a stand out book.

I can see where people are coming from when they said Pran was a bit too perfect but that didn't really bother me while I was in the middle of the story. Someone asked about Pran reading 5 out of the 6 langueages on the coin. Does it really say he can read those languages or just recognise them? I don't remember thinking "wow, he knows a lot of languages during that scene". Anyway, trivial question...

 

Sorry, this isn't a review since I'm just 70 pages into ASD right now - but I absolutely cracked up at reading the name of Sara's colleague A'l'e'r'w'w'o'k... IMNSHO KRAD could have put a few more apostrophes in there, before the A and after the k, or a double '' between the two w's. Why stop at 7, after all?

So far I like Sonek - and I absolutely adored the conversation with his grandfather.

 

Just wanted to say to KRAD that I enjoyed the book. Not my favorite Star Trek book but a good and enjoyable read. I think centering a book on a character who is not one of the established main Star Trek characters was risky, but it works - at least for me it did. Sonek Pran is a likable character and the story was well paced. Enough detail is given in the vignette chapters of the book that we really get an idea of the scope of the damage the Borg did to the Federation.

My favorite line in the book though is when Altoss says:

"Why would anyone read novels based on a serial drama?". That cracked me up!

3 out of 5 stars.

Kevin

 

Being able to understand 5 to 6 languages isn't really that special.
Friedrich Engels was able to converse in about 20, as I recall.

 

I don't know about all that. Obviously you guys know a lot more about where the story is going than the rest of us, but given how the Typhon Pact is presented to us in this story, and the actions they take in it, there's no possible way that it's a good thing. They hire people to engage in terrorism by obstructing and destroying mining operations whose sole purpose is to create atmospheric domes, they engineer an elaborate ruse in order to drive out a Federation member and displace refugees, possibly causing thousands of deaths, they instruct soldiers of their new government to refuse federation aid for civilians, despite the fact that they're still starving, and generally happily murder and destroy their way across the galaxy. The Kinshaya view the Klingons as an evil that must be destroyed, the Tzenkethi have apparently never had a peaceful contact with the Feds, and the Tholian ambassador makes it pretty crystal to Bacco that the main reason they joined up was to fuck with the Federation.

I don't mean to be harsh or anything, as I quite liked ASD, and am very much looking forward to the Typhon Pact storyline, but given the evidence that we've been provided so far, assuming the TP is a VERY BAD THING is a bit like assuming water is wet.

 

U.S.S. Aventine security officer Naomi Darrow first appeared in Star Trek Destiny: Gods of Night, and was named in honor of actress Naomi Watts, who played Ann Darrow in Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong.