MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread (Spoilers!)
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
I'm wondering what the Excelsior-class Kumari was supposed to look like. The description of "wings" was inconsistent with the Excelsior design of the Prime timeline. I'm envisioning something that's got the body of an ENT-type Andorian ship but with a saucer in front reflecting Earth design influence.
I'm wondering what the Excelsior-class Kumari was supposed to look like. The description of "wings" was inconsistent with the Excelsior design of the Prime timeline. I'm envisioning something that's got the body of an ENT-type Andorian ship but with a saucer in front reflecting Earth design influence.
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
We decided to keep the name but change the ship design, in part to play with readers' expectations. It certainly is a good idea to think of something similar to the Andorian ships we've seen so far, but perhaps with another century or so of R&D behind it.
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
The wings afford a view of the whole ship I don't think you'd really get from there. (And are mentioned as being far out to avoid interference in the sensor packages.) The other clue things are different is that Hikaru walks from his quarters to the bridge without using a turbolift.
The wings afford a view of the whole ship I don't think you'd really get from there. (And are mentioned as being far out to avoid interference in the sensor packages.) The other clue things are different is that Hikaru walks from his quarters to the bridge without using a turbolift.
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
That's an interesting history.
That's an interesting history.
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
I read the history and language pages. I see now what happen to cause the divergance. It would be nice if someone like Marc Okrand would come up with a Vulcan language that everyone could reference
I read the history and language pages. I see now what happen to cause the divergance. It would be nice if someone like Marc Okrand would come up with a Vulcan language that everyone could reference
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
Finished Shattered Light late last night. I have mixed feelings about this MyrU foray.
"Cold Architects", to me, had the most interesting premise, but suffered from the abrupt ending. When the story just stopped, the first thing that went through my mind was "Huh. That's a MAJOR editorial error—they forgot an entire chapter!" Obviously, that thought didn't last long, but it still bugged me.
I really think that if Lal had survived, something like this would have happened. It was fun to see Lal grow, but at the same time, sad to see her exploited.
All in all, I enjoyed the story, but was disappointed by the ending.
Tears was a bit of a chore to work through. I enjoyed the focus on Demora, but thought S'oval's bringing her around as quickly as he did was a little unrealistic (despite the demands of the shorter format of the story).
The big problem for me, though, was that I was never a big fan of the Andorians as characters. It's not that I dislike them, I just don't like them either. I have a very "meh" attitude about them. I thought the Andorian focused episodes of Enterprise weren't some of the best. The DS9-R has handled them better, I think, but still not enough for me to truly care about them.
I'm sure that having the Andorians be the dominant race in the Interstellar Union was a stroke of genius, and seeing Vulcan as it was in this story was ... er ... fascinating. But, I found I just didn't care about the story during the Andorian focus and only really enjoyed it when it was focusing on Demora and the Vulcans.
Honor in the Night was, by far, the strongest of the three tales. This one I found difficult to put down. Despite his insufferability in "The Trouble With Tribbles", I found Nilz Baris to be an entirely sympathetic character who I found myself rooting for throughout the entire story.
Watching the horror that occurred on Sherman's Planet would be enough to break a lesser man, but the way Nilz ended up using that, and what he learned there, to bring about a greater peace (no matter his motivations), is something only someone great can do.
The big reveal at the end, although probably somewhat predictable, is still very satisfying and I couldn't stop smiling.
I agree that the time jumps were a little jarring, but I stress the word "little."
So as for Shattered Light as a whole, it was a little uneven through the first two stories, but finished big with the last. I enjoyed the book and hope we continue to see more.
Finished Shattered Light late last night. I have mixed feelings about this MyrU foray.
"Cold Architects", to me, had the most interesting premise, but suffered from the abrupt ending. When the story just stopped, the first thing that went through my mind was "Huh. That's a MAJOR editorial error—they forgot an entire chapter!" Obviously, that thought didn't last long, but it still bugged me.
I really think that if Lal had survived, something like this would have happened. It was fun to see Lal grow, but at the same time, sad to see her exploited.
But the reveal of the android armies and Data's reaction to them demanded something more than what we got. That's too big of a plot thread to just introduce and "wrap" as quickly as it was.
Tears was a bit of a chore to work through. I enjoyed the focus on Demora, but thought S'oval's bringing her around as quickly as he did was a little unrealistic (despite the demands of the shorter format of the story).
The big problem for me, though, was that I was never a big fan of the Andorians as characters. It's not that I dislike them, I just don't like them either. I have a very "meh" attitude about them. I thought the Andorian focused episodes of Enterprise weren't some of the best. The DS9-R has handled them better, I think, but still not enough for me to truly care about them.
I'm sure that having the Andorians be the dominant race in the Interstellar Union was a stroke of genius, and seeing Vulcan as it was in this story was ... er ... fascinating. But, I found I just didn't care about the story during the Andorian focus and only really enjoyed it when it was focusing on Demora and the Vulcans.
Oh...and M'Ress as leader of the Interstellar Union? Really? 
Honor in the Night was, by far, the strongest of the three tales. This one I found difficult to put down. Despite his insufferability in "The Trouble With Tribbles", I found Nilz Baris to be an entirely sympathetic character who I found myself rooting for throughout the entire story.
Watching the horror that occurred on Sherman's Planet would be enough to break a lesser man, but the way Nilz ended up using that, and what he learned there, to bring about a greater peace (no matter his motivations), is something only someone great can do.
The big reveal at the end, although probably somewhat predictable, is still very satisfying and I couldn't stop smiling.
I agree that the time jumps were a little jarring, but I stress the word "little."
The framework of the reporter doing research for a minor "the life of" piece and having the story of the century drop in her lap was fun as well.
Although this story also ends without seeing the ultimate answers to the questions posed through the tale, it worked better here than in Cold Architects. We are left to make our own judgement as to what the reporter decides to do, based on what we learned about her throughout the story.
Although this story also ends without seeing the ultimate answers to the questions posed through the tale, it worked better here than in Cold Architects. We are left to make our own judgement as to what the reporter decides to do, based on what we learned about her throughout the story.
So as for Shattered Light as a whole, it was a little uneven through the first two stories, but finished big with the last. I enjoyed the book and hope we continue to see more.
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
Thanks so much, glad you liked it.
Maybe it's just my browser, but your spoiler buttons were acting a little wonky . . .
Thanks so much, glad you liked it.
Maybe it's just my browser, but your spoiler buttons were acting a little wonky . . .
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
I enjoyed the 1st story. The ending, while being underwhelming in scope, complemented the story and provided a suitable ending. The mood and feeling of season 4 of TNG was replicated well.
The second story was a struggle to get through. I am half way through the final story and so far it's great. Who would have thought Nilz Baris could be developed into such a character!
Update: I have just finished the final story. It is by far the best story in the book, and along with Zero Sum Game it is the treklit highlight of 2010 for me.
I hope 2011 brings some stability to the treklit line, which is needed after all the editorial changes and cancellations of the last few years.
I enjoyed the 1st story. The ending, while being underwhelming in scope, complemented the story and provided a suitable ending. The mood and feeling of season 4 of TNG was replicated well.
The second story was a struggle to get through. I am half way through the final story and so far it's great. Who would have thought Nilz Baris could be developed into such a character!
Update: I have just finished the final story. It is by far the best story in the book, and along with Zero Sum Game it is the treklit highlight of 2010 for me.
I hope 2011 brings some stability to the treklit line, which is needed after all the editorial changes and cancellations of the last few years.
Last edited:
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
Thanks! David Gerrold deserves a big shout out here, obviously. He created these great characters, and I've just dug beneath what could be developed within the context of an hour-long comedy to get at the dramatic juicy goodness beneath.
Thanks! David Gerrold deserves a big shout out here, obviously. He created these great characters, and I've just dug beneath what could be developed within the context of an hour-long comedy to get at the dramatic juicy goodness beneath.
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
Just finished Shattered Light tonight. Overall, it was pretty good!! I felt the strongest story was Honour In The Night --- I was engaged throughout the entire novella. A good romp through an alternate Trek History with plenty of fun cameos! I also found the reveal at the end of the novel to be terrific -- didn't see it coming at all.
The Tears of Eridanus was solid as well. The Andorians have never been my favourite race but the story was well-constructed and engaging. My only nitpick is that Demora sounded like a petulant 12 year old during her mental conversations with S'task. This kept taking me out of the story. Otherwise I felt it was excellent.
I started The Embrace of Cold Architects with high hopes and enjoyed the first third or so...and then it was a chore to even finish it. Riker was whiny and uninteresting, the story seemed to just stagger along in a very boring manner, and the ending was so abrupt and incomplete that it was jarring.
Oh well...2 out of 3 isn't bad!
Just finished Shattered Light tonight. Overall, it was pretty good!! I felt the strongest story was Honour In The Night --- I was engaged throughout the entire novella. A good romp through an alternate Trek History with plenty of fun cameos! I also found the reveal at the end of the novel to be terrific -- didn't see it coming at all.
The Tears of Eridanus was solid as well. The Andorians have never been my favourite race but the story was well-constructed and engaging. My only nitpick is that Demora sounded like a petulant 12 year old during her mental conversations with S'task. This kept taking me out of the story. Otherwise I felt it was excellent.
I started The Embrace of Cold Architects with high hopes and enjoyed the first third or so...and then it was a chore to even finish it. Riker was whiny and uninteresting, the story seemed to just stagger along in a very boring manner, and the ending was so abrupt and incomplete that it was jarring.
Oh well...2 out of 3 isn't bad!
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
So far I only read "The Embrace..." because that was the story I was looking forward to most. And I liked the story - but it clearly suffered from the novella-format. 128 pages just wasn't enough to cover all the aspects of the story, so especially at the end it seemed to jump from one setting to another, leaving huge (and IMO important) time periods in the dark.
I felt Riker's depression was shown realistically, but it was too much in the spotlight compared to Data's development and fight for Lal, especially since Riker's emotional state didn't really change throughout the whole story whereas Data underwent huge changes. I also feel that the emphasis on Riker's depression didn't really have an impact on the story, none of his decisions and actions were really influenced by it, which could have justified its strong depiction.
I absolutely enjoyed the bits and pieces of Data's plotline - at least those that were shown. I felt a bit cheated that once again Data's getting used to human emotions wasn't explored (as it wasn't between GEN and FC). Then I would have wished for a bit more time to get used to Data's decision not to pursue his legal case. It's, of course, totally understandable for his position as a father - but on the other hand, by agreeing to Starfleet's proposal he didn't solve Lal's legal situation, he condemned her to continue her imprisoned existance just for his need of seeing her again. After all, it must have been clear to him that just because he could visit and leave Galor IV, she couldn't do the same. So, on the one hand it's an utterly human decision he makes, on the other hand, given the missing depiction of the development of his "human side", it comes a bit too sudden.
He says to Desjardins that being together essentially was all he hoped to achieve with his legal action, but because he's her father and loves her, he should have made a stand for her legal status once and for all. I didn't feel that the few pages actually dealing with this inner conflict of Data's did it justice, which I think is regrettable because that's ultimately what the story was about for me, the dimension which could have made this an absolutely stunning reading experience.
A few questions/nitpicks that came to me while reading:
* Where's Lore? Why didn't he respond to Soong's homing signal like he did in the series? As he wasn't mentioned at all, did Soong perhaps not build him in this universe (resulting in another change from ours apart from Data's attending the cybernetics-conference later, after "The most toys", which proved to be the focal point)?
* the use of contractions - After the installation of the emotion chip Data once uses a contraction ("I'm sorry", p 63), later on he doesn't and is still surprised at Lal's ability to use them. I guess that wasn't planned?
* Soong's demise - again something that felt a bit underdeveloped/rushed. He's just a plot device to give Data his emotion chip and fix Lal's cascadic failure. But why did he accompany Lal to Galor IV (or rather, why did Starfleet agree to his presence there and drop all charges?), what was his contribution to the mass construction of androids?
I didn't mind the abrupt ending, Desjardins now has the material to pursue his legal cause for android rights, whatever Data's punishment for the destruction of the android production facilities might be, the goal now can only be to settle this matter once and for all. But that's essentially another story which can be told later IMO.
So, I regret the fact that while this is a really good story, it had the potential of being a great one. Perhaps one day, DRG3 is granted the opportunity to expand it and give it the scope the premise deserves.
A thing that just occurred to me - was it ever considered to publish just the part of "Provenance of Shadows" dealing with McCoy's being marooned in the past under the title of Myriad Universes? (sort of doing something similar to David Mack's Mirror Spock story that got its own book) Honestly, if that were to be reworked into a novel, without the surrounding plot aboard Enterprise, and perhaps expanded on, I'd buy it in a second...
So far I only read "The Embrace..." because that was the story I was looking forward to most. And I liked the story - but it clearly suffered from the novella-format. 128 pages just wasn't enough to cover all the aspects of the story, so especially at the end it seemed to jump from one setting to another, leaving huge (and IMO important) time periods in the dark.
I felt Riker's depression was shown realistically, but it was too much in the spotlight compared to Data's development and fight for Lal, especially since Riker's emotional state didn't really change throughout the whole story whereas Data underwent huge changes. I also feel that the emphasis on Riker's depression didn't really have an impact on the story, none of his decisions and actions were really influenced by it, which could have justified its strong depiction.
I absolutely enjoyed the bits and pieces of Data's plotline - at least those that were shown. I felt a bit cheated that once again Data's getting used to human emotions wasn't explored (as it wasn't between GEN and FC). Then I would have wished for a bit more time to get used to Data's decision not to pursue his legal case. It's, of course, totally understandable for his position as a father - but on the other hand, by agreeing to Starfleet's proposal he didn't solve Lal's legal situation, he condemned her to continue her imprisoned existance just for his need of seeing her again. After all, it must have been clear to him that just because he could visit and leave Galor IV, she couldn't do the same. So, on the one hand it's an utterly human decision he makes, on the other hand, given the missing depiction of the development of his "human side", it comes a bit too sudden.
He says to Desjardins that being together essentially was all he hoped to achieve with his legal action, but because he's her father and loves her, he should have made a stand for her legal status once and for all. I didn't feel that the few pages actually dealing with this inner conflict of Data's did it justice, which I think is regrettable because that's ultimately what the story was about for me, the dimension which could have made this an absolutely stunning reading experience.
A few questions/nitpicks that came to me while reading:
* Where's Lore? Why didn't he respond to Soong's homing signal like he did in the series? As he wasn't mentioned at all, did Soong perhaps not build him in this universe (resulting in another change from ours apart from Data's attending the cybernetics-conference later, after "The most toys", which proved to be the focal point)?
* the use of contractions - After the installation of the emotion chip Data once uses a contraction ("I'm sorry", p 63), later on he doesn't and is still surprised at Lal's ability to use them. I guess that wasn't planned?
* Soong's demise - again something that felt a bit underdeveloped/rushed. He's just a plot device to give Data his emotion chip and fix Lal's cascadic failure. But why did he accompany Lal to Galor IV (or rather, why did Starfleet agree to his presence there and drop all charges?), what was his contribution to the mass construction of androids?
I didn't mind the abrupt ending, Desjardins now has the material to pursue his legal cause for android rights, whatever Data's punishment for the destruction of the android production facilities might be, the goal now can only be to settle this matter once and for all. But that's essentially another story which can be told later IMO.
So, I regret the fact that while this is a really good story, it had the potential of being a great one. Perhaps one day, DRG3 is granted the opportunity to expand it and give it the scope the premise deserves.
A thing that just occurred to me - was it ever considered to publish just the part of "Provenance of Shadows" dealing with McCoy's being marooned in the past under the title of Myriad Universes? (sort of doing something similar to David Mack's Mirror Spock story that got its own book) Honestly, if that were to be reworked into a novel, without the surrounding plot aboard Enterprise, and perhaps expanded on, I'd buy it in a second...
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
He probably did, but by that point, in this timeline, Soong had already beamed up to the Enterprise with Data to meet Lal. So Lore probably just showed up at Soong's lab shortly after the others left, and simply stayed there in standby mode indefinitely, since neither Data nor Soong had any reason to expect Lore to be still alive.
I'm pretty sure the events of "Datalore" were mentioned at one point in the novel.
Heck, it's already long enough to be a full novel by itself.
He probably did, but by that point, in this timeline, Soong had already beamed up to the Enterprise with Data to meet Lal. So Lore probably just showed up at Soong's lab shortly after the others left, and simply stayed there in standby mode indefinitely, since neither Data nor Soong had any reason to expect Lore to be still alive.
I'm pretty sure the events of "Datalore" were mentioned at one point in the novel.
Heck, it's already long enough to be a full novel by itself.
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
I really don't like that idea. The heart and soul of that novel is from the duality of McCoy's two existences and how they comment on one-another.
I really don't like that idea. The heart and soul of that novel is from the duality of McCoy's two existences and how they comment on one-another.
Re: MyrU: Shattered Light Review Thread
- at least he can't do any damage that way.
- I'll grant you that the McCoy-half of PoS is still long enough to warrant its own book without any additional stuff... but can you blame me for wanting more of my absolutely favourite Trek-novel(part)?
Yes, ultimately you're right in how the two halves come together at the end. But in retrospect I by far prefered the part in the past for its emotional depth and novelty whereas especially the parts recounting the various TOS-episodes were sometimes a bit hard to get through.
So Lore probably just showed up at Soong's lab shortly after the others left, and simply stayed there in standby mode indefinitely, since neither Data nor Soong had any reason to expect Lore to be still alive.
- at least he can't do any damage that way.Other than Soong's colony being attacked and he presumedly killed by the crystal entity I can't think of any mention - and I was curious whether Lore gets any mention at all so I tried to pay attention to that. (Maybe I missed it...)
- I'll grant you that the McCoy-half of PoS is still long enough to warrant its own book without any additional stuff... but can you blame me for wanting more of my absolutely favourite Trek-novel(part)?Yes, ultimately you're right in how the two halves come together at the end. But in retrospect I by far prefered the part in the past for its emotional depth and novelty whereas especially the parts recounting the various TOS-episodes were sometimes a bit hard to get through.
