I ask the question of the title because I've read Blind Man's Bluff and the plot seems out of whack with what's been explored elsewhere.
Having read Before Dishonor, I've a suspicion that David is uninterested in paying particular attention to the continuity that's been set up, being more interested in writing what he thinks are good stories. That's fine insofar as the stories that he happens to tell are good ones, which--of course--they very frequently are.
The problems come when his own continuity conflicts with the rest. Before Dishonor made the presence of the potential-filled new characters of Leybenzon, T'Lana, and arguably Kadohata untenable, arguably in ways that didn't conform with their characters or their environments. (Leybenzon was easily the worst: He was willing to torture Crusher to force Picard into surrendering. What the hell? Is Starfleet Security that morally incapable?)
These aren't problems if New Frontier is a separate continuity, at least separate enough that--like the Duaneverse, or other continuities--only the things that other authors want to incorporate get incorporated. Is this a fair assumption?
Briefly, in the short space of time before the departure of the Voyager fleet to the Delta Quadrant, the Doctor and Seven of Nine are drafted to develop a software weapon to destroy Morgan Primus before she can destroy the Federation.
The novels just don't fit. There doesn't seem to be enough time described in Beyer's novels before the fleet's departure for the Doctor and Seven to have a side adventure in Sector 221-G. Seven of Nine is still incapacitated by the voices of the Caeliar and depending heavily on Chakotay to remain functional, again as descrbed by Beyer; in David's novel, Chakotay doesn't make an appearance as Seven makes a more conventionally emotionally strenuous trip to her world of birth. And the novel's ending implies that Seven and the Doctor are moving towards a romantic relationship.
Oh, and only parenthetical mention is made of Excalibur's involvement in fighting off the Borg invasion of 2381, as something that made Command more likely to be slack. I'd have thought that the ship's destruction of a Borg cube that was going to destroy the local starbase would have had more of an impact.
The novels just don't fit. There doesn't seem to be enough time described in Beyer's novels before the fleet's departure for the Doctor and Seven to have a side adventure in Sector 221-G. Seven of Nine is still incapacitated by the voices of the Caeliar and depending heavily on Chakotay to remain functional, again as descrbed by Beyer; in David's novel, Chakotay doesn't make an appearance as Seven makes a more conventionally emotionally strenuous trip to her world of birth. And the novel's ending implies that Seven and the Doctor are moving towards a romantic relationship.
Oh, and only parenthetical mention is made of Excalibur's involvement in fighting off the Borg invasion of 2381, as something that made Command more likely to be slack. I'd have thought that the ship's destruction of a Borg cube that was going to destroy the local starbase would have had more of an impact.
Having read Before Dishonor, I've a suspicion that David is uninterested in paying particular attention to the continuity that's been set up, being more interested in writing what he thinks are good stories. That's fine insofar as the stories that he happens to tell are good ones, which--of course--they very frequently are.
The problems come when his own continuity conflicts with the rest. Before Dishonor made the presence of the potential-filled new characters of Leybenzon, T'Lana, and arguably Kadohata untenable, arguably in ways that didn't conform with their characters or their environments. (Leybenzon was easily the worst: He was willing to torture Crusher to force Picard into surrendering. What the hell? Is Starfleet Security that morally incapable?)
These aren't problems if New Frontier is a separate continuity, at least separate enough that--like the Duaneverse, or other continuities--only the things that other authors want to incorporate get incorporated. Is this a fair assumption?
