Kirsten Beyer invitation in VOY forum

[Therin of Andor]

No, it's needlessly insulting to Peter David and Margaret Clark to assume that they didn't try their best, even if the end result ended up not working, and to instead attribute to them laziness and apathy.

Is it more likely that the very prolific/busy PAD plays it close to the wire with deadlines? A common criticism is that his books "need a good edit", and that can often happen when the deadlines are extremely tight. No time for rewrites of sections, just attempt a quick cleanup on typos and off to press - or create another gaping hole in the publishing schedule, upsetting more people and deadlines along the way. I'm sure with more time up their sleeves, the character trait consistency problems that seemingly beset "Before Dishonor" could have been tweaked.

 

[Sci]

It's insulting to a writer that company would read drivel and publish it anyway? It does reflect badly on the whole franchise and in that respect it could be seen as insulting.

No, it's needlessly insulting to Peter David and Margaret Clark to assume that they didn't try their best, even if the end result ended up not working, and to instead attribute to them laziness and apathy.

Peter David did not try his best, of that I am sure.

You have no idea what you are talking about. You've obviously never written a novel, and you obviously don't know Peter David.

If Before Dishonor didn't work for you, then that's fine. It didn't work for me as much as I wanted it to, either.

But, you know, I worked in theatre for a long time. And one of the things I learned was that no matter how much you and your castmates rehearse, no matter how much energy you and your castmates bring, no matter how hard you and your castmates try -- sometimes, things just don't work out, and a night's performance just ends up sucking. It's just life. Sometimes, human endeavors just fail, and that's all there is to it, and it's not for want of trying.

And, guess what? That's true of all human endeavors. From a day at the office to a theatrical performance to a night's restaurant shift to a professional baseball game to a novel's manuscript, sometimes you have hits and sometimes you have misses, even when you give it your best shot. And that's just life.

Before Dishonor was not the book it should have been, but I have every confidence that Peter David and Margaret Clark gave it their best shot. And to assume that they did not is just needlessly mean-spirited.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Before Dishonor was not the book it should have been, but I have every confidence that Peter David and Margaret Clark gave it their best shot. And to assume that they did not is just needlessly mean-spirited.

So we have..

Assuming someone gave something their best and it ended up sucking is not insulting.

Assuming someone couldn't be arsed and it ended up sucking is insulting.

 

[Christopher]

So we have..

Assuming someone gave something their best and it ended up sucking is not insulting.

Assuming someone couldn't be arsed and it ended up sucking is insulting.

Makes sense to me. Why do you seem to find that surprising?

 

[Sci]

Before Dishonor was not the book it should have been, but I have every confidence that Peter David and Margaret Clark gave it their best shot. And to assume that they did not is just needlessly mean-spirited.

So we have..

Assuming someone gave something their best and it ended up sucking is not insulting.

No, it's not, because it's a fact of life that you're not going to succeed every time you try to do something. If someone says, "I think your book was not as good as it should have been," that's not an insult to a writer with a good sense of how to take criticism -- he/she will understand that not every effort will be as successful as others and that everyone will have a different reaction to their work.

Saying, "You didn't try," however, is deeply insulting. It's an attack on a writer's professionalism and personal character.

There is a huge difference between criticizing someone's work and criticizing someone's character. Accusing PAD of not even trying is the latter, not the former.

ETA:

I look at it this way:

I was an actor in college, and one of the things that you inevitably must learn is that while there are objective ways to evaluate a person's performance to an extent, to another extent, the quality of an actor's performance is subjective.

What that meant was, I had to learn to differentiate between legitimate disagreements about how a character ought to be played and attacks on my professionalism as an actor. If someone felt that the character I was playing should have done this or that for logical reasons, then that's fine. But if someone just assumed that I wasn't even trying to give a good performance, then that was an attack on me, not my performance.

You can legitimately criticize an author's work. But there's no need to attack the author himself.

 

[flemm]

And, guess what? That's true of all human endeavors. From a day at the office to a theatrical performance to a night's restaurant shift to a professional baseball game to a novel's manuscript, sometimes you have hits and sometimes you have misses, even when you give it your best shot. And that's just life.

And sometimes people mail it in. That's also life. We're all guilty of that from time to time. I wouldn't go so far as to assume that is what happened with Before Dishonor, but the thought certainly crossed my mind upon reading it.

Now maybe Peter David poured his heart and soul into that book and would be insulted to the depths of his being to hear anyone criticize the effort it received, but somehow I doubt it.

Therin is probably right that it was a bit of a rush job.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

But if someone didn't try, they didn't try. If I write this post so I sound like one of the more illiterate posters on this board with no eye to spelling or grammar and no editing then I have not tried. I'm not going to be insulted by you pointing it out when it is true.

Okay if it makes you happy PAD tried his best with Before Dishonor, his very best. My conclusion from that assumption is far more insulting than my previous assumption but if it gets me out of accusations of "attack" and "mean spirited" I guess it works.

 

[Sci]

And, guess what? That's true of all human endeavors. From a day at the office to a theatrical performance to a night's restaurant shift to a professional baseball game to a novel's manuscript, sometimes you have hits and sometimes you have misses, even when you give it your best shot. And that's just life.

And sometimes people mail it in. That's also life.

Sure, but we have no actual evidence that Peter David didn't really give Before Dishonor his all, and unless we do, we shouldn't launch attacks on his personal integrity like that.

But if someone didn't try, they didn't try. If I write this post so I sound like one of the more illiterate posters on this board with no eye to spelling or grammar and no editing then I have not tried. I'm not going to be insulted by you pointing it out when it is true.

Okay if it makes you happy PAD tried his best with Before Dishonor, his very best. My conclusion from that assumption is far more insulting than my previous assumption

No, it's not. Saying, "I really feel this is a bad book" is not an insult or an attack. It's legitimate criticism of a book, that's all, and any author with any real professional experience will know that and not take it as an insult.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

And, guess what? That's true of all human endeavors. From a day at the office to a theatrical performance to a night's restaurant shift to a professional baseball game to a novel's manuscript, sometimes you have hits and sometimes you have misses, even when you give it your best shot. And that's just life.

And sometimes people mail it in. That's also life.

Sure, but we have no actual evidence that Peter David didn't really give Before Dishonor his all, and unless we do, we shouldn't launch attacks on his personal integrity like that.

My evidence was all the previous PAD books I read vs this one.

 

[Sci]

And sometimes people mail it in. That's also life.

Sure, but we have no actual evidence that Peter David didn't really give Before Dishonor his all, and unless we do, we shouldn't launch attacks on his personal integrity like that.

My evidence was all the previous PAD books I read vs this one.

That's not evidence he didn't try to write a good book, that's evidence he wrote a book you felt was bad. Like I've said before, someone can give something everything they've got and fail at their goal without it meaning they weren't trying to succeed.

You are, once again, attacking a man's character for no reason. You are now persisting in doing so after having been explained to you several times why this is inappropriate. This is vicious, mean-spirited behavior.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Sure, but we have no actual evidence that Peter David didn't really give Before Dishonor his all, and unless we do, we shouldn't launch attacks on his personal integrity like that.

I seem to recall a post from PAD over on his blog that time and schedules did not permit him an opportunity to read previous novels featuring the new TNG-lit supporting cast.

And he has certainly often blogged about tight schedules - I believe he holds a previous record for the fastest turnaround of a ST manuscript to meet an impossible deadline.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Sure, but we have no actual evidence that Peter David didn't really give Before Dishonor his all, and unless we do, we shouldn't launch attacks on his personal integrity like that.

My evidence was all the previous PAD books I read vs this one.

That's not evidence he didn't try to write a good book, that's evidence he wrote a book you felt was bad. Like I've said before, someone can give something everything they've got and fail at their goal without it meaning they weren't trying to succeed.

You are, once again, attacking a man's character for no reason. You are now persisting in doing so after having been explained to you several times why this is inappropriate. This is vicious, mean-spirited behavior.

It's always so easy to "attack a man's character" on this subforum..

Anyway enough of the past. What's done is done. Let us return to the hyperbole!

 

[flemm]

You are, once again, attacking a man's character for no reason. You are now persisting in doing so after having been explained to you several times why this is inappropriate. This is vicious, mean-spirited behavior.

Dial it back. It's not vicious or mean-spirited to postulate that Before Dishonor may not have received the effort and attention it deserved.

Maybe PAD had a tight deadline, maybe he had a lot on his plate at the time. Or maybe he poured his soul into the book and it just ended up being a less than stellar product. But neither point of view is a vicious attack on the man's character.

At best your comments might be justified if teacake were suggesting that PAD had all the time in the world and just decided to intentionally write a subpar novel out of spite or whatever. But nothing like that is actually expressed in teacake's posts, but merely the idea that Before Dishonor was not a product of PAD's best effort (due to whatever circumstances). And, implicitly, that Janeway should not have been offed in a novel that did not receive adequate attention and/or revision.

 

[Thrawn]

^ I actually agree; I think her comments are pretty fair.

Though, for the record, the novel PAD did write in less than a month, The Siege, I actually think is pretty unarguably great. Not one of his all-time classics, but certainly better than BD, and I say that as someone that liked BD. So who knows.

 

[JoeZhang]

Let's face it - tie-in fiction are the hamburgers of literature and that often shows in the end results.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Before Dishonor was not the book it should have been, but I have every confidence that Peter David and Margaret Clark gave it their best shot. And to assume that they did not is just needlessly mean-spirited.

I don't think it's needlessly mean-spirited to wonder why Peter David didn't give Before Dishonor the rewrite it needed. I don't think it's needlessly mean-spirited to wonder why Margaret Clark didn't wield the Editorial Red Pen of Doom on the manuscript that it deserved.

Either they had no time to fix the manuscript, or they didn't care to fix the manuscript. While I want to be charitable and believe the first, I cannot with absolute certainty dismiss the latter.

And he has certainly often blogged about tight schedules - I believe he holds a previous record for the fastest turnaround of a ST manuscript to meet an impossible deadline.

I think it's Diane Carey that has the quickest turnaround; the novelization of Broken Bow was written in five days.

 

[Greg Cox]

Speaking as an author, the only reviews that stick in my craw are that ones that presume to read my mind and question my motives.

Attacking the actual book is fine. Say the characterization sucks, or the plot was predictable, or the writing was pedestrian, or that there were too many in-jokes . . . okay, go at it. Everything that's on the page is fair game.

But don't tell me that "Cox just dashed this one out for the money," or "Cox has obviously never watched the show," or "Cox clearly hates Kirk," or whatever--unless you were actually inside my head when I wrote the book!

(One weird/funny example: I wrote my Mirror Universe novella while visiting my folks one summer--and made the mistake of thanking them in the acknowledgments for letting me borrow their computer. Imagine my surprise to find this cited by a reviewer as "proof" that I was basement-dwelling nerd who still lived with his parents!)

 

[Thrawn]

Let's face it - tie-in fiction are the hamburgers of literature and that often shows in the end results.

This is a pretty weird thing to say. I've seen this comment before, I think Kevin J. Anderson made the analogy, and his Star Wars books were always action packed and fucking terrible. So it at least seems that, if you believe it's of exactly as much importance as flipping burgers, you seem to produce results no better.

But really, in terms of wordcounts, effort from everyone involved, period from sale to deadline, etc, as far as I know there isn't that much difference between the current Trek line and the MMPB-first releases of all the original sci-fi lines. The hardcovers are usually longer and have a longer turnaround, and that's where the famous cats live (Peter Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, etc) but if you're calling Trek fiction "hamburgers" then I think you have to apply the term to 90% of everything else, too.

 

[BillJ]

But I won't be buying any Treklit new until Janeway is alive again. I'll be buying a used copy of Children of the Storm from ebay.

So you're going to penalize Kirsten Beyer for writing the best Voyager fiction that has ever been published. Nice.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

But I won't be buying any Treklit new until Janeway is alive again. I'll be buying a used copy of Children of the Storm from ebay.

Ya, that'll show 'em. You certainly know how to teach Pocket a lesson they'll not soon forget.