MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Scott Pearson]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

I finished "Honor..." and definitely liked it. Now THIS was epic, like MyrU should be!

That's very gratifying to hear . . . thanks!

 

[Ronald Held]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

I just finished the first story. Not satisfying, and again Riker seems unhappy with his life.

 

[Thrawn]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Yeah; Cold Architects is not DRG3's best. I'm quite a fan of his, and I still found it a little underwhelming. It would've been better if the "what if" about a Federation-wide android army hadn't already been kind of brought up and resolved in Brave New World. I mean, I know the stories are really different, and even ask different moral questions, but BNW was so much larger in scale that this one felt a little like a much smaller and less interesting take on the same basic premise.

And, yeah - Riker does never seem to catch a break, huh?

Oh, one last thing. David, a quick question:

Spoiler: Just chapter 1

I had trouble understanding exactly why Lal being around meant that Picard was better able to resist the memories of the deflector weapon being extracted. Did it change the timeline of events in some way so that Picard was assimilated for a shorter period? (Though I should also add, the sequence of Picard being assimilated is, absolutely, the best written perspective on Borg assimilation so far in TrekLit. Breathtaking.)

 

[Snaploud]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Spoiler: Just chapter 1

I had trouble understanding exactly why Lal being around meant that Picard was better able to resist the memories of the deflector weapon being extracted. Did it change the timeline of events in some way so that Picard was assimilated for a shorter period? (Though I should also add, the sequence of Picard being assimilated is, absolutely, the best written perspective on Borg assimilation so far in TrekLit. Breathtaking.)

Spoiler: timeline differences

In the original timeline, Picard's first thought when asked about the Enterprise's newest technologies was related to the attempt to destroy the Borg. In the short story's timeline, Picard's first thought was the recent creation of Lal, which distracted the Borg considerably for enough time to allow Riker to destroy the Borg.

 

[bfollowell]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Dear JWolf: although you've been posting here for some time now, please let me introduce you to TrekBBS. It's a place that has no official connection to Simon & Schuster, and where no one who produces the ebooks has ever appeared. Complaining here is every bit as effective as standing in your front lawn in a neon pink bathrobe screaming out your posts at the top of your lungs. Less, probably. And not as cringingly entertaining.

Be sure to save this, since you'll probably have to repost it in two weeks when Rough Beasts releases...

I know, I know. I've been guilty of it of late as well and been pretty vocal about it I might add.

I'm going to try and turn over a new leaf and just give it up though. As long as the main book is there and all the text formatting is correct and assuming I can continue to remove the drm and edit these myself, I'm just going to start quietly doing S&S's job for them.

We'll see if I'm able to keep my resolution as the upcoming titles start coming out.

I can't wait until Vanguard: Declassified comes out. I'm anxious for the two new Vanguard titles scheduled for this year (as well as all the others).

- Byron

 

[Ronald Held]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

second story about the same. How do I put in a spoiler button;I have forgotten? reading the third and not impressed so far.

 

[Christopher]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Just out of curiosity how many canon characters are in Tears? I skimmed some of the story to see who I saw when I first started it and I noticed

Spoiler: Just to be safe I'm coding this

Hikaru and Demora Sulu, Amanda Greyson, Dax, M'Benga, and I saw Thelin but I think that might have just been a reference. I also saw a Vulcan who was being referred to as Candle Guy, and I thinking he was probably either Soval (who's mentioned in the description) or Sarek (he seemed to be interacting with Amanda alot so it seems to me he's a good possibility).

Spoiler: tToE

Candle Guy isn't Sarek or Soval. There's also Shras and Gav, plus a few Vulcans like T'Pau, Sybok, and Tal. I think that's it for appearances, though a couple others are mentioned.

It's questionable how many canonical Vulcans could have appeared, given that

Spoiler: Tears of Eridanus

most of the population of Vulcan was wiped out in nuclear wars. The ancestors of Clan Hgrtcha must've coincidentally been among the survivors.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

^ But that war happened in the real Trek universe as well. We see it in ENT's Vulcan arc.

 

[Christopher]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

^ But that war happened in the real Trek universe as well. We see it in ENT's Vulcan arc.

That war happened, but didn't last as long or go as far, because Surak brought peace before Vulcan became completely devastated -- and because the proto-Romulans left rather than staying to continue the fighting. The Vulcan we know isn't as extensively scarred with bomb craters. The Vulcan's Forge we know isn't so radioactive that people need special injections to survive there. True, the Okudas' commentary on the ENT season 4 DVD does state that they intended the Forge to have been formed in the nuclear war, but there's never been any canonical mention (or any prior literary mention) that it's dangerously radioactive in the series present, so that suggests that the nuclear wars in the ToE timeline were more extensive and/or recent.

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Spoiler: tToE

Yeah, the appearance of canonical Vulcan characters was something we struggled with-- 2,000 years of violently different history has to be significant!-- but we ultimately decided that it was more fun to see Sybok and T'Pau than Soobok and T'Poo. In the outline, the hermit Demora met was an original character, but Marco suggested changing him to Soval.

And you're right about the scale of the Conflagration's devastation. I didn't even know the Okudas had said that about ENT's Vulcan trilogy.

 

[Christopher]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

^Of course, even if the Conflagration had been the same size, the ensuing 2000 years of constant warfare would've killed off a lot more ancestors than the ensuing 2000 years of peace in the Prime timeline.

Although on the other hand, the more passionate "Minsharans" might've done a lot more screwing around than the more reserved Vulcans, so there might've been a much higher birth rate to balance the higher death rate.

Anyway, I thought it was (to coin a phrase) fascinating to see Vulcan treated as a savage, unknown alien world being explored for the first time. And to see humans as a minor power in a majority-Andorian civilization, pretty much in the same position as, say, a Vulcan character in Prime-universe Starfleet would be. A very engaging alternate premise.

I was struck by all the homages to characters from various Trek tie-ins -- Phelana from My Brother's Keeper, M'Giia from the Starfleet Academy game, s'Bysh from Sarek, even "th'Rellvonda," a re-spelling of Threllvon-da from The Klingon Gambit. Was Big Lan a previously established character anywhere? (Though I assume I don't have to wonder about the origin of "Yrrebneddor th'Eneg." Grooooaaaannnn...)

 

[Ronald Held]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

It appears that the planetary inhabitants will become more like Romulan with psi powers that Prime timeline Vulcans or Romulans.
Not certain why that alliance would have been Andorocentric, except it turned out that way. Perhaps the authors could shed some light on that?

 

[Christopher]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Well, the Andorians did seem to be the other major local 22nd-century power besides the Vulcans -- and the Vulcans were keeping them in check. It stands to reason that if the Vulcans weren't around as a spacegoing power, the Andorians would've expanded farther and faster.

Also, with no Romulan Star Empire, the events of the Aenar trilogy never happen -- there's no Romulan ploy that drives Archer to push for an alliance between the regional powers, an event that planted the seed for Earth becoming central to the Coalition. Also there's no Earth-Romulan War pushing Earth even further into center stage.

 

[JD]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

^Of course, even if the Conflagration had been the same size, the ensuing 2000 years of constant warfare would've killed off a lot more ancestors than the ensuing 2000 years of peace in the Prime timeline.

Although on the other hand, the more passionate "Minsharans" might've done a lot more screwing around than the more reserved Vulcans, so there might've been a much higher birth rate to balance the higher death rate.

Anyway, I thought it was (to coin a phrase) fascinating to see Vulcan treated as a savage, unknown alien world being explored for the first time. And to see humans as a minor power in a majority-Andorian civilization, pretty much in the same position as, say, a Vulcan character in Prime-universe Starfleet would be. A very engaging alternate premise.

I'm only on the first Minshara chapter, but I've already been really enjoying the story so far for these reasons.

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Anyway, I thought it was (to coin a phrase) fascinating to see Vulcan treated as a savage, unknown alien world being explored for the first time.

Thanks! When my writing group read the first draft of the manuscript, without the benefit of back cover blurbs or such, knowing only that it was an alternate Star Trek, it was fun to see the moments where they first figured out what 40 Eridani A II actually was.

And to see humans as a minor power in a majority-Andorian civilization, pretty much in the same position as, say, a Vulcan character in Prime-universe Starfleet would be. A very engaging alternate premise.

Yeah, these bits were fun to write. Star Trek's (budget-necessary) humanocentrism bothers me sometimes, so exploring a Star Trek that was aliencentric struck me as an interesting way to undermine that. I liked dropping in little references to the way Andorians had handled things humanity had also handled.

I was struck by all the homages to characters from various Trek tie-ins -- Phelana from My Brother's Keeper, M'Giia from the Starfleet Academy game, s'Bysh from Sarek, even "th'Rellvonda," a re-spelling of Threllvon-da from The Klingon Gambit. Was Big Lan a previously established character anywhere? (Though I assume I don't have to wonder about the origin of "Yrrebneddor th'Eneg." Grooooaaaannnn...)

I think Myriad Universes is more fun if you get to see alternate versions of established characters, and there are precious few canonical Andorians, and not even any big-name noncanonical ones in the 23rd century, so pilfering some of my favorite Andorians from other tie-ins seemed like a fun thing to do. And I've had the "th'Rellvonda" retcon in mind for ages, so I was happy to get to slip it in, even if this presumably isn't the same guy. (I assume this th'Rellvonda is the other's son.)

Big Lan is not a pre-established character. Many years ago, I went through Ian's Andor Files site and broke each proper name into a first half and second half, and then wrote a program to combine them at random to generate new names. I pulled it out again for the book. So "Thirrilan" is from "Thirishar" and "Igrilan", for example. Th'Rellvonda's first name has the same source.

As for th'Eneg-- sorry. A friend of mine invented the character for a Star Trek RPG he never actually joined, and I used him as an NPC in it anyway, and ported him over into continuity here. I tried to get through the novel without using his first name, but eventually it became needed. You're the first to catch it, though!

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

It appears that the planetary inhabitants will become more like Romulan with psi powers that Prime timeline Vulcans or Romulans.
Not certain why that alliance would have been Andorocentric, except it turned out that way. Perhaps the authors could shed some light on that?

Well, the Andorians did seem to be the other major local 22nd-century power besides the Vulcans -- and the Vulcans were keeping them in check. It stands to reason that if the Vulcans weren't around as a spacegoing power, the Andorians would've expanded farther and faster.

Also, with no Romulan Star Empire, the events of the Aenar trilogy never happen -- there's no Romulan ploy that drives Archer to push for an alliance between the regional powers, an event that planted the seed for Earth becoming central to the Coalition. Also there's no Earth-Romulan War pushing Earth even further into center stage.

Christopher basically has it. The lack of Vulcans means that Andorians are relatively unopposed in their expansion in local space, so that by the time humanity makes it into space (a bit later, because the Vulcans don't help them rebuild), Andorians dominate everything. Similarly, the lack of Romulans mean that the Klingon Empire is much larger and more aggressive (if you can believe that!) in this reality. Of course, some other powers get to be more powerful as well; the Guidons are minor Federation members in the Prime timeline, but have a "supermassive" polity in this one.

Michael and I wrote out a history of this new universe before we started writing (and a shorter version was in our pitch to Marco, too), and we want to put it up on our website, but I'm visiting family for the holidays, and it's back in Connecticut! So it'll go up when I get home.

 

[Christopher]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

I am wondering how V'Ger was dealt with given the nonexistence of Spock. I wondered the same thing about The Chimes at Midnight.

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Gav probably just argued V'Ger to death.

 

[MichaelS]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Michael and I wrote out a history of this new universe before we started writing (and a shorter version was in our pitch to Marco, too), and we want to put it up on our website, but I'm visiting family for the holidays, and it's back in Connecticut! So it'll go up when I get home.

The history article is up already. It's a Christmas miracle!

 

[Ronald Held]

Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread

Steve, looking forward to the history.
Christopher makes good points.
Just finished the last story, and nothing really to say about it.