That doesn't stop it from being part of the DS9 relaunch series, though. Plenty of DS9 episodes were independent from the TV show's story arcs yet were (obviously) still part of it.
The State of Star Trek Literature
- Thread starter Sxottlan
- Start date
That's an awesome cover, by the way. It's amazing how much a little tweaking can enhance appearance.
Yeah, but from what I gathered from Judith Sisko's comment above was that she didn't enjoy the ongoing story arcs and decided to not read Soul Key and TNES as a result. All I tried to say was that TNES isn't directly connected to the main narrative of the relaunch, so she should give it a try.
Ah, fair enough. "This book with the logo on it doesn't belong to the relaunch" is one of my pet peeves, so I may have overreacted. It is usually applied to The Left Hand of Destiny: sure it does not advance the "plot" of the DS9r, but neither did "The Sword of Kahless" advance the "plot" of DS9!
Every night for weeks I couldn't find the time to respond to this thread. Here goes.
2009 was a pretty solid and balanced year. I purchased all but two books from the lineup (Troublesome Minds & Errand of Fury, the second of which I wish I had gotten into this off shoot series earlier; haven't these been coming out for like a decade now?). There was only one book I outright hated. No surprise, it was NF. Mere Anarchy finally made it to paperback and it was pretty fantastic.
Early 2010 has been more mixed. I'm reading through some TOS books right now that, given the stories, have me scratching my head wondering why they even bothered.
I liked how we got a number of books dealing with the aftermath of Destiny immediately after the actual books were released. It was important to keep the momentum going and it mostly succeeded. Vanguard keeps chugging along and I also really enjoyed the reboot of Voyager for the second time.
As for favorite books, I'd say mine were The Sorrows of Empire, Mere Anarchy and Titan pretty much had its masterpiece in Synthesis. Even in spite of the crew's ridiculously irrational reaction to the A.I. (not in my mind remotely the same as cyborgs), the epic world building and action were incredible. It'd be nice to see the Null return as a recurring villain.
Any and all anticipation I have felt for the DS9 Relaunch is completely gone. This interminable detour into the Mirror Universe has done permanent damage to the series for me. While I'm certainly glad that it appears over, the wreckage left afterward is listless. Mostly I just couldn't bring myself to care about Illiana Ghemor, a character whose impact was felt more by how her fate was ambiguous instead of being right in front of you. So Soul Key was disappointing.
And after so many years of waiting, the first book on the Romulan War is a huge disappointment. First it conflicts with Columbia's fate in Destiny and then it's plotting is all over the place. Trip takes much of the first third of the book and then he disappears. Just as well, since we know he never escapes the spy business, his constant whining about wanting out gets grating real fast.
Treason felt like one long screeching kick to the teeth.
I like how Vanguard has been successfully retconned into TOS as the political flashpoint of the 23rd century and how the move has felt natural.
Obviously, the editorial changes behind the scenes were a huge disruption to the line and people's lives.
Second, the cancellation of the NuTrek series. Besides completely detaching the book line from any of the relevant buzz surrounding the film, it highlighted the all or nothing scheduling of this year, putting large chunks of similar books together. However, obviously no one imagined something like would have happened, leaving the line with a gaping hole right through the middle of it. It's a shame. I was looking forward to what the authors would have done in the new universe.
The only good part of that is we're getting a lot more SCE sooner than originally expected.
I was also very annoyed when I found out the NF trade paperback was being re-released as a MMPB. I don't recall once hearing the TPB would be treated like a hardcover with the MMPB to follow. Had I know, I would not have bought it.
First of all, stop firing editors.
Restore balance to the line. With the scaling back on the number of series (goodbye Gorkon!), I'd think it'd be easier. Or at the very least, spend a quarter or maybe even a third of the slots on one series, leaving enough room for all of the rest of the series to get at least one book out.
A bit impractical admittedly, but it'd be nice if the SOTL calendars switched format so as to take the big fold out of the middle of the beautiful artwork. At the beginning and towards the end, the imbalance of pages on one or the other side kind of pulls the calendar off the wall.
And again I'll re-iterate my request for a cross-over series where each crew gets their own book taking on a common foe or problem. Kind of sounds like the Typhon Pact will have a little bit of that.
2009 was a pretty solid and balanced year. I purchased all but two books from the lineup (Troublesome Minds & Errand of Fury, the second of which I wish I had gotten into this off shoot series earlier; haven't these been coming out for like a decade now?). There was only one book I outright hated. No surprise, it was NF. Mere Anarchy finally made it to paperback and it was pretty fantastic.
Early 2010 has been more mixed. I'm reading through some TOS books right now that, given the stories, have me scratching my head wondering why they even bothered.
I liked how we got a number of books dealing with the aftermath of Destiny immediately after the actual books were released. It was important to keep the momentum going and it mostly succeeded. Vanguard keeps chugging along and I also really enjoyed the reboot of Voyager for the second time.
As for favorite books, I'd say mine were The Sorrows of Empire, Mere Anarchy and Titan pretty much had its masterpiece in Synthesis. Even in spite of the crew's ridiculously irrational reaction to the A.I. (not in my mind remotely the same as cyborgs), the epic world building and action were incredible. It'd be nice to see the Null return as a recurring villain.
Any and all anticipation I have felt for the DS9 Relaunch is completely gone. This interminable detour into the Mirror Universe has done permanent damage to the series for me. While I'm certainly glad that it appears over, the wreckage left afterward is listless. Mostly I just couldn't bring myself to care about Illiana Ghemor, a character whose impact was felt more by how her fate was ambiguous instead of being right in front of you. So Soul Key was disappointing.
And after so many years of waiting, the first book on the Romulan War is a huge disappointment. First it conflicts with Columbia's fate in Destiny and then it's plotting is all over the place. Trip takes much of the first third of the book and then he disappears. Just as well, since we know he never escapes the spy business, his constant whining about wanting out gets grating real fast.
Treason felt like one long screeching kick to the teeth.
I like how Vanguard has been successfully retconned into TOS as the political flashpoint of the 23rd century and how the move has felt natural.
Obviously, the editorial changes behind the scenes were a huge disruption to the line and people's lives.
Second, the cancellation of the NuTrek series. Besides completely detaching the book line from any of the relevant buzz surrounding the film, it highlighted the all or nothing scheduling of this year, putting large chunks of similar books together. However, obviously no one imagined something like would have happened, leaving the line with a gaping hole right through the middle of it. It's a shame. I was looking forward to what the authors would have done in the new universe.
The only good part of that is we're getting a lot more SCE sooner than originally expected.
I was also very annoyed when I found out the NF trade paperback was being re-released as a MMPB. I don't recall once hearing the TPB would be treated like a hardcover with the MMPB to follow. Had I know, I would not have bought it.
First of all, stop firing editors.
Restore balance to the line. With the scaling back on the number of series (goodbye Gorkon!), I'd think it'd be easier. Or at the very least, spend a quarter or maybe even a third of the slots on one series, leaving enough room for all of the rest of the series to get at least one book out.
A bit impractical admittedly, but it'd be nice if the SOTL calendars switched format so as to take the big fold out of the middle of the beautiful artwork. At the beginning and towards the end, the imbalance of pages on one or the other side kind of pulls the calendar off the wall.
And again I'll re-iterate my request for a cross-over series where each crew gets their own book taking on a common foe or problem. Kind of sounds like the Typhon Pact will have a little bit of that.
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I just finished Troublesome Minds and it was fantastic -I wholeheartedlyrecommend it. Why did you choose to pass on it?
Regretfully, I have to agree - it's a shame to see what became of the once-greatest TrekLit series...
Seconded (if you mean something like Invasion! or Gateways). However, AFAIK, the Typhon Pact novels will be more like the Section 31 novels, with no overarching plot and the theme is "The Typhon Pact is here"...
Not really. If anything, the ending of the previous book, Kobayashi Maru, seemed to clash with Destiny, putting the attack on Columbia months earlier and in a different part of the galaxy. Beneath the Raptor's Wing pretty much fixed that problem, having Columbia survive that attack and still be a participant in the story until the timeline caught up with Destiny. The one remaining inconsistency was a line or two in Destiny about that attack being the start of the war, but the inconsistency came from Kobayashi Maru. BTRW did the best it could to fix the problem, and you could even rationalize the Destiny reference because much of the fighting in BTRW was intermittent and could've been perceived by some at the time as merely a leadup to war, even if later history defines it as part of the war proper.
It's not a complete detachment. Pocket has announced two young-adult prequels set in the Abramsverse, and is probably exploring more prequel possibilities. It's just that the decision was made to hold off on publishing any sequels at this point.
Well, so far, the 2011 schedule includes the last (and mostly-TNG) Typhon Pact book, the second Abramsverse Starfleet Academy YA book, a new Kirsten Beyer VGR novel, a mostly-TNG novel, a TOS novel, a New Frontier novel, a collection of four Vanguard novellas, the finale to the Mirror Universe series, and my own Department of Temporal Investigations novel, with several more slots still to be filled. I'd call that a pretty eclectic and balanced schedule.
Actually it'll be a lot like that.
As I've said before...there was nothing whatsoever about being very, very worried when an AI that is NOT self-contained the way Data was (nor had Data's known reputation of good character, which I'm sure would've been known even before Data was allowed into the Academy, let alone onto a starship) literally holds the lives of the entire crew in its metaphorical hands. There is also the further ethical complication that a rebellion SHOULD be expected to happen because to force the Titan AI to always follow orders and never act upon any thoughts and opinions of her own is slavery, plain and simple. The AI HAD to get off the ship, both for the safety of the crew AND to prevent the morally repugnant situation of slavery.
YES. The Mirror Universe thing was crap. Plain and simple--crap. And the idea of the Iliana Ghemor plotline completely missed the point of the episode she was in--you can tell that whoever was involved in generating that plotline either didn't read any of the background notes for either episode or didn't care. The whole POINT of "Second Skin" was the ambiguity of the situation.
Yeah, that was a pretty dumbass move, too. Put simply, if Trek wants any chance of gaining real popularity again, and not just a flash in the pan when each movie comes out, the merchandising (and that includes the books) has got to be way, WAY better than it is. Otherwise, the implication--intended or not--is that the movies have no real support, and people will just move on, instead of getting into the books and other merchandising that encourages further fandom.
I say if you want to get rid of a useless appendage, New Frontier is the one to cut. It's basically Star Wreck masquerading as official Star Trek--not to mention that the plot of a novel should be held to higher rigor than the plot of a comic book yet PAD clearly does not get that distinction.
Not necessarily. Sentient starships have been seen in other fictional universes, such as Andromeda, and then of course there's Gomtuu in TNG's "Tin Man." The relationship of a sentient starship to its commander and crew can be like that of another crewmember -- an autonomous being, yes, but one who's chosen and consented to obey a chain of command.
True, in the specific case of Titan, you had an AI essentially born into a subservient position, which does raise ethical questions. The Titan AI should've been given the choice of whether or not to continue serving as the ship's computer, because forcing her to do so would've been wrong. Still, even though there were ethical issues with it in that specific case, that doesn't make it valid to say that it could never work, that it would always be slavery in every possible scenario. If you had an AI that started out as an independent being and then chose to become the mind of a starship and obey its crew, and if the captain and crew accepted and treated it as a sophont with the same rights as any other crewmember, then that would be okay -- analogous, in fact, to Data's situation as a Starfleet officer.
Well, the books are just one segment of the merchandising. Overall, Star Trek (2009) got the biggest merchandising push of any ST movie since TMP three decades earlier. There were comics, toys, action figures, commemorative Barbie dolls, a soundtrack album, fast-food promotions, even breakfast cereal tie-ins. Compared to all that, the books aren't really a make-or-break thing when it comes to merchandising. It's true that the toy line didn't sell as well as hoped, but that's probably because of the generally crummy economy of the past few years. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with the delay in getting prose tie-ins off the ground.
What an odd statement.
Regretfully, I have to agree - it's a shame to see what became of the once-greatest TrekLit series...
Amen to this!
Regretfully, I have to agree - it's a shame to see what became of the once-greatest TrekLit series...
Amen to this!
I agree, though I think part of that had to do with production schedule and delay and anticipation that turned into something underwhelming. What was supposed to be a complete book one year after "Warpath" became half a book 2.5 years later, and the other half came a year after that. It was a long way to drive just to pick up a quart of milk.
Regretfully, I have to agree - it's a shame to see what became of the once-greatest TrekLit series...
Amen to this!
Double Amen! I don't care to rehash my *ahem* disappointment with Fearful Symmetry and The Soul Key, but I'm eager to see the DS9-R find some momentum again.
Of course my hopes in the short term are riding on Rough Beasts (no pressure, no pressure!), but I think I'm going to continue expressing my enthusiasm for a serious relaunch of the relaunch until it actually happens, just in case TPTB are paying any attention, or wondering if anybody cares
Well, considering that a novel actually allows you to see the thoughts and motivations of the characters, and to present the backstory as well as the current plot in a far more coherent fashion than a comic book, damn right I expect a lot more out of it than something you can blow through in five minutes as a piece of fluff.
^The problem is that your very first sentence is nonsense. I doubt Pocket would give New Frontier the Hardcover/Trade Paperback treatment if it was a "useless appendage".
Another odd thing is that the guy you claim does not know how to write a novel actually is the one of the crop of current Star Trek writers who was able to sell the most novels outside tie-ins if I'm not mistaken.
Another odd thing is that the guy you claim does not know how to write a novel actually is the one of the crop of current Star Trek writers who was able to sell the most novels outside tie-ins if I'm not mistaken.
Comics have thought balloons and narrative captions. Have you ever read any?
No, just a less visual fashion. It's a different medium, but any true Trek fan should know better than to assume "different" means "inferior."
Your assumptions about comics are a relic of decades-old stereotypes. Ever heard of Maus or Watchmen?
Yes
Bad writing doesn't stop people from selling--just ask Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer. Unfortunately, crap sells. Now, PAD isn't QUITE as bad as those two, but Pocket Books has so many superior writers it's not even funny. Maybe way back when, while TNG was on the air and Pocket Books had fewer really impressive novelists (though they did have a few, like Diane Duane), PAD stood out and NF seemed like a good idea simply for its novelty--but these days he's so outclassed it's ridiculous. Almost all of the Trek authors who visit this board could write circles around him any day of the week.
As to comic books--if you look at what the ARTIST does, that's certainly detailed work. The ART on its own merit I can give some credit to. But when it comes to the WRITING, a novel demands far more in terms of weight, credibility, and substance. A comic is as flimsy as a chatfic in comparison and if you approach a novel that way, it's a mess.
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