You know, people love to diss fan fic, even the well-written stuff, but when it comes to small universe syndrome, the professionals are often just as bad as anybody.
Have any of the novels ever just made you mad? (
- Thread starter darkwing_duck1
- Start date
You know, people love to diss fan fic, even the well-written stuff, but when it comes to small universe syndrome, the professionals are often just as bad as anybody.
I can't remember for certain, but I think the book was Demons of Air and Darkness. At the conclusion of the story, Kira took Sisko's baseball off his old desk. I just couldn't see Kira doing that. Not as a friend of Sisko and not as someone who very much respected him as the Emissary.
Anything involving the Vaughn and Prynne relationship past the Mission Gamma books. I just don't care about it anymore.
Anything involving the Vaughn and Prynne relationship past the Mission Gamma books. I just don't care about it anymore.
Another vote for "Before Dishonour". Good grief, that was so awful I wanted to track Peter David (circa 2007) down, time travel back with him to 1991, and let Peter David (circa 1991) kick the *** out of him for being so rubbish and an affront to the quality he used to be.
Hard not to do that, given she uses every and all opportunities to pontificate about politics and how horrible is living under the jackbooted, brainwashing heel of the Federation.
Good point.
I've been told she does it in every book but, you know, the only place I felt it was argued as an alternate/better(?) way of life was in the "New Earth" series, where the colonists were deliberately heading out.
I never got anti anti-Federation vibes from any of her other books. Sometimes anti-Starfleet, but this was the character friction people always claimed was missing in TNG.
And when you think about it, the folks on Belle Terre aren't the greatest-- they can't actually get by without Starfleet, who saves their entire planet from destruction (usually despite its civilian leaders) every other book.
I've never gotten mad at a Star Trek book, but I have been disappointed enough to not finish it and toss it in the garbage because I saw no point to going further with it. Only three books have ever made me do that.
TOS: The Children of Kings was the most recent book I "cancelled" while reading. The story and pacing didn't grab me, and quite a few of the author's creative license with some details didn't sit right with me either.
TNG: Losing The Peace was another, but it really wasn't a bad book at all, but it just wasn't what I was expecting. I was looking for an immediate follow-up to A Singular Destiny, but what I got was a side story instead. Had I been more patient at the time, I might have finished and kept it.
VOY: Full Circle. This was more a case of bad timing than anything else. I had just experienced a painful death in my family and the book seemed to deal with death and loss--something I actually wanted to escape from at the time. Add to that some early Klingon business I wasn't all that interested in, I eventually skipped more to the end of the book to get to the Voyager getting on with her new mission.
TOS: The Children of Kings was the most recent book I "cancelled" while reading. The story and pacing didn't grab me, and quite a few of the author's creative license with some details didn't sit right with me either.
TNG: Losing The Peace was another, but it really wasn't a bad book at all, but it just wasn't what I was expecting. I was looking for an immediate follow-up to A Singular Destiny, but what I got was a side story instead. Had I been more patient at the time, I might have finished and kept it.
VOY: Full Circle. This was more a case of bad timing than anything else. I had just experienced a painful death in my family and the book seemed to deal with death and loss--something I actually wanted to escape from at the time. Add to that some early Klingon business I wasn't all that interested in, I eventually skipped more to the end of the book to get to the Voyager getting on with her new mission.
So her characters can have their own opinions, you know, IDIC and all that, but if an author has an opinion and puts it in a dedication to a book, your head explodes?
The Voyager entry in the Gateways saga made me furious. All the others were pretty good except for that piece of crap.
And What Lay Beyond pissed me off, just because I'm still convinced it was a gimmick.
And What Lay Beyond pissed me off, just because I'm still convinced it was a gimmick.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
I very much enjoyed LtP because it followed up on the concept of "paradise saints" that started in DS9 and showed us how the Federation (in my opinion realistically) might start to crumble under the weight of catastrophe. I don't think they needed the Uberinvasion of the Borg to do it though, the carnage of the Dominion War should have been quite sufficient.
This theme of "paradise saints" was what I was hoping to get out of a post-DS9 TV series. Explore the dichotomy between the developed core worlds and their attitudes and the frontier worlds/colonies that had to live in the real universe.
I would have used the "sell line" (which I came up with LONG before I'd even heard of the book): "They won the war...will they lose the peace?"
I mean, Countdown sucked, and sucked bad, but...
V'Ger? Nero? Really? The notion is so ridiculous I almost want to see it played out.
^ I suppose they had to do something to make sure that V'Ger didn't approach Earth in the Abramsverse. You really think that the ST XI crew could handle it?
I...think you're confusing me with someone else. But anyhow, my eyes certainly rolled heavenward with those pathetic incidents, and I certainly grumbled internally in disgust--but, never once did I say that Mike didn't have the right to do that.
However, as I have stated before, if I, or Diane, were to put a right-wing talking point into a dedication, many a center-to-left fan would have that same kind of reaction--and rightfully so.
Now...that the characters have POVs that are controversial is perfectly reasonable. There were characters with controversial views in the show, too.
As long as Decker's around and willing to screw it, potentially.^ I suppose they had to do something to make sure that V'Ger didn't approach Earth in the Abramsverse. You really think that the ST XI crew could handle it?
Red Sector really steamed me. It was a TNG novel in which the main crew were barely in it. Now normally this wouldn't bother me at all but Diane Carey decided to focus the novel on a character named Eric Styles (or was it Stiles?) who I found to be the most irritating character Ive ever met in a Trek novel. I just wanted to punch his lights out.
IMO, A Singular Destiny and Losing The Peace both told the same story--the terrible aftermath from Destiny and the emergence of the Typhon Pact--but with the primary difference being that Losing The Peace concentrated on what the crew of the Enterprise-E were doing during that time whereas A Singular Destiny was far more widespread. I could almost have chosen one or the other because they both pretty much take you to the same place in the end. It's not a criticism, because I think Losing The Peace continued TNG where Destiny ended.
Of course they are. And I enjoy reading characters with opposing opinions. It makes for excellent drama. But when she puts the same stuff in the mouth of every other character, often warping characters' personalities to make her point, you start wondering if there more to that than good drama.
Well, I guess it's a matter of different sensibilities. I don't mind character friction. What I don't like is new characters getting preachy on the established characters and our heroes suddenly realizing "d'oh, I guess everything I believed until now was wrong!" It reeks of Mary-Sueism.
Similar threads
