Full Circle Review Thread (Spoilers)

[Kirsten Beyer]

Thanks for coming out of hiding, Casey. Nice to hear your thoughts. I wish I had an evil laugh cause I'd use it now at the thought of having created a Voyager fan. As if I'd planned that all along.

Defcon...your ability to search posts like that kind of freaks me out. Probably because I can barely use multi-quote.

Everybody else....yes, Hugh Laurie was the inspiration for Cambridge, and he was named as such because that's where I wanted people's minds to go, and as a little tribute to one of my most favorite actors. Obviously there's some House there, but I find House's pain to be too big for most characters (including House) to be as high functioning as I need a starfleet officer to be. Laurie makes me laugh my ass of in just about everything I've ever seen him do by never trying, but always playing the reality of a moment, no matter how absurd. More important, I felt it was time we a different kind of counselor, capable and all that, but just...unusual for Starfleet.

 

[Kirsten Beyer]

Sorry to double post but I just saw Adam's response and I had to come back and say thanks for your thoughts and sharing your viceral reactions to several of my favorite moments of the book. I still well up if I look over B'Elanna and Tuvok's scene's right after the service. And I'm touched that you shared Owen's speech with your wife. Congratulations on the wedding by the way!

As to Neelix...well, we are going back to the DQ. Anything can happen, right?

Thanks again.

Best,
Kirsten

 

[andersonh1]

As to Neelix...well, we are going back to the DQ. Anything can happen, right?

Here's hoping. I'd love to see Kes again too, though she might have lived out her lifespan by now. And she's a lot further away than Neelix. But as you say, anything can happen.

 

[Christopher]

I'd love to see Kes again too, though she might have lived out her lifespan by now.

Well, disregarding "Fury" (which was handily retconned in String Theory: Evolution), Kes's ascension to a higher level of existence has presumably rendered typical Ocampa life expectancy moot in her case. Heck, Tanis's people in "Cold Fire" had nearly doubled their life expectancy, and their grasp of their psi abilities was far below where Kes ended up.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I'd love to see Kes again too, though she might have lived out her lifespan by now.

Well, disregarding "Fury" (which was handily retconned in String Theory: Evolution), Kes's ascension to a higher level of existence has presumably rendered typical Ocampa life expectancy moot in her case. Heck, Tanis's people in "Cold Fire" had nearly doubled their life expectancy, and their grasp of their psi abilities was far below where Kes ended up.

Given that

Spoiler: "Evolution"

Ocampa has a functioning biosphere again

, it might be interesting to go back there (if the fleet is prepared to go all the way to the far side of the Delta Quadrant).

 

[JWolf]

Read it, liked it. Didn't really like the TV series, and never read any of the novels up until this point. For me, the 1st half of the book wasn't too interesting, with the tying up of loose ends of some story I knew nothing about, more stuff with Klingons, and characters I don't recognize.

You cannot blame Kristen for your not having read Golden's VoyR books. I would have felt cheated if we had enough of a summery to make reading Golden's books unnecessary. It was because of Full Circle that I did bother to read Golden's VoyR in preparation for what I hoped would take what we had and do something good with it. What we got while not perfect because of what came before, what very good and worth reading what came before just to better understand what came next.

Some things were disjointed and some thing were rushed. But overall, it was a good resolution to some of the mess we had before. I look forward to Unworthy and want to find out what happens next.

 

[Stevil2001]

Read it, liked it. Didn't really like the TV series, and never read any of the novels up until this point. For me, the 1st half of the book wasn't too interesting, with the tying up of loose ends of some story I knew nothing about, more stuff with Klingons, and characters I don't recognize.

You cannot blame Kristen for your not having read Golden's VoyR books.

Full Circle was repeatedly pushed as a fresh new start for Voyager fiction and a jumping-on point for new readers, so the first half of the book certainly should have been designed to be enjoyed by people unfamiliar with Homecoming or Spirit Walk, actually.

 

[captcalhoun]

I read FC with no prior VGR relaunch novels read and understood what was going on fine. as far as i'm concerned if you couldn't understand what was going on in FC just from reading FC you're thicker than two short planks.

 

[DimesDan]

I read FC with no prior VGR relaunch novels read and understood what was going on fine. as far as i'm concerned if you couldn't understand what was going on in FC just from reading FC you're thicker than two short planks.

I would have to agree, I have not, nor have I any intention of reading Ms Golden's books, I have read and thoroughly enjoyed Full Circle though and this and other so called problems with the book, including the dating in the book (when their was a date change in the narrative, it said so) did not arise for me.

 

[Tino]

I read FC with no prior VGR relaunch novels read and understood what was going on fine.

Yupp, same here. I knew of the Golden novels but Kirsten made such a good summary during the stories that I never felt out of the loop. Quite the opposite. It made me wanna read the Golden novels, too.

 

[LightningStorm]

as far as i'm concerned if you couldn't understand what was going on in FC just from reading FC you're thicker than two short planks.

This part of your post really wasn't necessary.

 

[JWolf]

Hey, for seven years, she was able to build shuttlecraft out of pocket lint and wishes; how much harder would a slipstream engine be?

That was pocket lint, chewing gum, and paper clips she used to repair Voyager every time it broke or was broken.

 

[Sci]

I read but don't remember anything from the first two Golden post-"Endgame" novels, and didn't read either Spirit Walk novel. But I read Full Circle and had no problem following anything; I found it a perfectly acceptable novel to jump in on.

 

[JD]

I read FC with no prior VGR relaunch novels read and understood what was going on fine.

Yupp, same here. I knew of the Golden novels but Kirsten made such a good summary during the stories that I never felt out of the loop. Quite the opposite. It made me wanna read the Golden novels, too.

Me too. Although I did do a little bit of research on Memory Beat, none of it was very in depth, I was mostly just seeing what positions the different people ended up in.

 

[Tom Riley]

I started with FC and haven't read any of the other VOY novels and I understood it all very well... I didn't have a problem with it.

 

[JWolf]

I started with FC and haven't read any of the other VOY novels and I understood it all very well... I didn't have a problem with it.

I did read the other VoyR books and found that reading them did help with Full Circle. You didn't have to read them first, but doing so made understanding parts of Full Circle easier. Also reading Before Dishonor and the Destiny Trilogy were big helps as well.

 

[Tom Riley]

I started with FC and haven't read any of the other VOY novels and I understood it all very well... I didn't have a problem with it.

I did read the other VoyR books and found that reading them did help with Full Circle. You didn't have to read them first, but doing so made understanding parts of Full Circle easier. Also reading Before Dishonor and the Destiny Trilogy were big helps as well.

I'd read Before Dishonor and the Destiny Trilogy, it's just the voyager ones I hadn't read. I had started with Resistance and they all just lead into each other so well that I kept going up through Destiny and then the story branched off into several books, including Full Circle so I just picked up with Voyager there. I mean yeah, I'm sure reading the other Voyager books would help but, I didn't really have any trouble understanding Full Circle without it...

 

[14thDoctor]

Read it. Liked it.


Not sure about Edens backstory, though. Feels a bit like an Odo retread to me. I'm hopeful it'll go in a different direction, though.

 

[JWolf]

I finished reading Full Circle last night. We know of the problems with it. So I'm not going to rehash them. This is one of the fist Voyager novels that after reading, I want more. I was very good. The ending was just a real emotional ending. I hope Kristen keeps on writing more Voyager novels. Is it October already?

 

[Defcon]

Although I have read it quite some time ago, I hadn't come around to review it until recently.

You can see the full review here, but here's my short overall estimation:

"Overall Full Circle is a decent novel, and a positive surprise for me personally, since I didn’t really like Kirsten Beyer’s previous outing very much and found the previous Voyager post-finale stuff lacking, too. I’m not one hundred percent sure yet what my expectations for the follow-up Unworthy are, but Kirsten Beyer was able to salvage the line of post-Endgame Voyager fiction for now."