Full Circle question

[Thrawn]

To anyone who'd be in a position to know, would it enhance my experience of Full Circle to have read the String Theory books ahead of time? I know it isn't required with any Trek novel, but they're both Voyager, and Beyer wrote String Theory 2, so I'm curious how much of a connection there would be. Something like Articles Of The Federation > Destiny; not necessary, but fun to have read in advance.

Is there anything like that with String Theory? Thanks.

 

[ronny]

Interesting question. Full Circle is something I'm going to read but that's one I can hold off on if I'm not totally caught up. The String Theory Trilogy is one of about a dozen ST books published since around 2000 I haven't read. I'm kind of sort of looking for an excuse to pick them up...

 

[William Leisner]

To anyone who'd be in a position to know, would it enhance my experience of Full Circle to have read the String Theory books ahead of time? I know it isn't required with any Trek novel, but they're both Voyager, and Beyer wrote String Theory 2, so I'm curious how much of a connection there would be. Something like Articles Of The Federation > Destiny; not necessary, but fun to have read in advance.

Is there anything like that with String Theory? Thanks.

Well, I've not read String Theory, but have read and enjoyed Full Circle. It is a wholly post-return story, so unless there were some very well hidden Easter eggs, I don't know that it'll add anything.

(That said, I'm sure Kirsten wouldn't mind you reading her other book, either before or after.)

 

[Christopher]

I don't think there are any connections between String Theory and Full Circle. The only books that FC really connects to are the previous four post-finale VGR novels (Homecoming, The Farther Shore, and the Spirit Walk duology), Before Dishonor, and the Destiny trilogy.

 

[Kirsten Beyer]

Is there anything like that with String Theory? Thanks.

Nope. String Theory is very much a self-contained story told over three books and has no direct bearing on Full Circle.

I would, however, add to the list Christopher posted above:


A Time for War, A Time for Peace
A Time to Kill
A Time to Heal
"Isabo's Shirt" from Distant Shores

These fall into the category of "not at all necessary to understand the story, but if you are familiar with them, your enjoyment might be enhanced."

Best,
Kirsten

 

[Geoff Thorne]

Yay, Kirsten!

Full Circle is on my list!

 

[LightningStorm]

"Isabo's Shirt" from Distant Shores

Good to know, I hadn't yet read that, although I do own the anthology.

 

[ClayinCA]

Well, I've read the three books Kirsten mentions, but none of the Voyager stuff, so I guess I'll be coming to this (at least slightly) cold. I'm not worried, though - thus far, the Trek books have been great about being standalone, in the sense of not requiring you to have read any particular book beforehand.

Really can't wait for this book now....

 

[Madzilla]

"Isabo's Shirt" from Distant Shores

Woohoooooooooooooooo!

Er, I mean - excellent! Oh, I hope the book doesn't take too long to cross the Atlantic/come out as en eBook... I'm even more excited now!

Mad

 

[Thrawn]

Thanks, Kirsten, Christopher, and William - I appreciate the answers. Of everything listed, Isabo's Shirt is the only thing I haven't read, so I'll be sure to hit that up before Full Circle arrives.

I'm excited.

 

[teya]

Spirit Walk duology),

Must I read these to understand Full Circle?

Please, I hope, no...

 

[Christopher]

^^You never have to read any book to understand another. Everything essential for you to know will be explained in FC. But it would naturally help add context to read what came before.

Anyway, if you haven't read Spirit Walk, how do you know you wouldn't enjoy it?

 

[Johnhead99]

^^I'd read Spirit Walk over String Theory Trilogy any day of the week. That trilogy, for whatever reason for me, was really more of miss than a hit. Book 3 was painful.

With all that being said, Kirsten is going to have some good material coming this year.

 

[Thrawn]

^^You never have to read any book to understand another. Everything essential for you to know will be explained in FC. But it would naturally help add context to read what came before.

Anyway, if you haven't read Spirit Walk, how do you know you wouldn't enjoy it?

(Shh, don't tell - I hated Homecoming/Farther Shore, but I actually thought Spirit Walk was kind of cool.)

 

[JD]

BLASPHEMER, STONE HIM!!!

 

[teya]

^^You never have to read any book to understand another. Everything essential for you to know will be explained in FC. But it would naturally help add context to read what came before.

Anyway, if you haven't read Spirit Walk, how do you know you wouldn't enjoy it?

The reviews & excerpts I've read indicated that the "spiritual" aspects were something I find as distasteful as I did the Hollywood Indian background Jeri Taylor gave Chakotay. I'm not a fantasy fan, so spirit jaguars coming to life just don't cut it. I had a couple of emails back and forth with Christie Golden and it didn't sound like she was going to make Chakotay's Tribe Hollywood culture any more palatable to me than Jeri Taylor did.

As my sig says....

 

[Christopher]

The reviews & excerpts I've read indicated that the "spiritual" aspects were something I find as distasteful as I did the Hollywood Indian background Jeri Taylor gave Chakotay. I'm not a fantasy fan, so spirit jaguars coming to life just don't cut it.

I didn't see it as fantasy, any more than Q snapping his fingers and creating Sherwood Forest. Although Chakotay chooses to interpret it in spiritual terms, it can just as easily be interpreted as the actions of arbitrarily advanced aliens.

 

[teya]

The reviews & excerpts I've read indicated that the "spiritual" aspects were something I find as distasteful as I did the Hollywood Indian background Jeri Taylor gave Chakotay. I'm not a fantasy fan, so spirit jaguars coming to life just don't cut it.

I didn't see it as fantasy, any more than Q snapping his fingers and creating Sherwood Forest. Although Chakotay chooses to interpret it in spiritual terms, it can just as easily be interpreted as the actions of arbitrarily advanced aliens.

Can we just leave it as:

As a Native American, I really despise how this character's culture has been treated both on the series and in the books. I find it trite and stereotypical.

I hope that I won't have to get into a debate on that.

 

[Trent Roman]

The reviews & excerpts I've read indicated that the "spiritual" aspects were something I find as distasteful as I did the Hollywood Indian background Jeri Taylor gave Chakotay. I'm not a fantasy fan, so spirit jaguars coming to life just don't cut it. I had a couple of emails back and forth with Christie Golden and it didn't sound like she was going to make Chakotay's Tribe Hollywood culture any more palatable to me than Jeri Taylor did.

And the jejeune New Age bullshit isn't the only idiocy in that duology by far. But what I find puzzling--well, one of many things I find puzzling, but specifically on this topic--is that Golden initially seemed to be looking to fix the series' inept bastardization of Amerindian culture(s) by proposing that the planet Chakotay was from had been settled by Native groups from all over the Americas, leading, I thought, to the suggestion that Chakotay's cultural background seemed so generic and impossible to link to any actual culture, because it was the result of centuries' worth of syncretism between these varied Native American colonists, a somewhat homogenized spirituality incorporating practices and beliefs from a broad spectrum of Native peoples. But then when the world is actually described, she instead says that the various Native groups, or at least Chakotay's specifically, actually kept to themselves and practiced endogamy because they wanted to conserve their own specific cultural traditions, all but annulling the possibility of syncretism. For instance, one character is specified as Lakota, which makes Chakotay's thoughtless tribal affiliations from the series and previous duology seem all the more careless by comparison to a group which has recognizably conserved its identity from past and contemporary Amerindian culture. I don't understand why one would set up a (relatively) elegant solution just to turn around and completely undermine it.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

Can we just leave it as:

As a Native American, I really despise how this character's culture has been treated both on the series and in the books. I find it trite and stereotypical.

I hope that I won't have to get into a debate on that.

No, that's entirely fair. Personally I wish they had given Chakotay a more authentic culture. They were trying to avoid offending any Native American cultures by avoiding depicting any real ones, but I guess that kind of backfired.

It's just that I've heard Spirit Walk criticized before on the grounds of being too fanciful, grounded in magic rather than science, and I was just pointing out that we've seen other Trek aliens with seemingly magical or godlike abilities that were rationalized in terms of advanced science and "higher" evolution. I thought your objection might be on those grounds, but evidently it isn't.