That denotes some sort of regular ongoing series. Not a plot left dangling mid arc with no firm plan to pick it up again anytime soon...
So, What Happened To The DS9 Novels ?
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That denotes some sort of regular ongoing series. Not a plot left dangling mid arc with no firm plan to pick it up again anytime soon...
^How do you know there's no plan to pick it up later? I still don't understand why so many people are convinced the DS9 series is dead. Just because we haven't heard about the story yet doesn't mean it's not in the works. You have to keep in mind there's alot of stuff going on in with the books that we don't here about right away. I'm pretty sure there are probably ideas floating around for books that won't be out until 2013 or '14. We don't hear about books until they are already pretty far into their development.
I'm inclined to doubt we'll get that story, and maybe that's okay. That moment worked as a resolution -- Taran'atar making his own choice and choosing to help others -- even if we don't get to see what came after. Sometimes that's a good way to end a story, with a character choosing to begin a new journey. The fact of the character's choice can be more important than the details of what follows.
Yes, it would be nice if all the leftover threads from Marco's editorship of DS9 could've been wrapped up, but after all this time and all these changes of editors, I think we need to accept that the status quo has changed and not everything will get followed up on the way it was expected or hoped to. When a series changes hands, things tend to fall by the wayside.
In the "straight science fiction" book world, there can be ten- or twenty-year gaps between some series.
You seem to be forgetting that TOS itself was filled with dangling plot threads and, over several decades, authors pitched prequels and sequels to such stories.
If every novel wrapped up every plot thread within its own covers, it kinda takes away the fun of an ongoing saga.
That's one thing, but building up a story arc over several books and then just leaving it to hang is quite another. That said, it does appear as though David R. George III is actually dealing with the Ascendants arc, though perhaps not in the way we originally hoped for/expected.
I will refrain from judging until I read the books, but for the first time in a while, I'm optimistic about the DS9 Relaunch returning to the power it had before.
I will refrain from judging until I read the books, but for the first time in a while, I'm optimistic about the DS9 Relaunch returning to the power it had before.
And the authors were supposed to somehow know that Marco, and then Margaret would be let go, putting original plans in a state of flux? Old news.
In 40+ years of ST publishing, very few story arcs have been left "to hang" for too long. "Rihannsu", but the first two books were quite self-contained. The fourth "Lost Years Saga" instalment. Then "Challenger: Chainmail". And the non appearance of a contract for "Academy: Trial Run". Can't think of any others.
Why did the original plans go into flux? Just because the showrunner (Marco) was dropped, Margaret could have continued with his plan for Deep Space Nine but, IMHO, she was overworked and possibly felt that it would ease her burden if she could bring everything into the same time frame. I can understand things going to hell when she was dropped as some of Marco's stuff was still coming to fruition, and Margaret's stuff was too, so Ed and Jennifer (and later Jaime) had to juggle quite a bit in order to keep things sane.
As it is now, it appears from the 2012 lineup as though we're finally through the mess that was left in the wake of Marco's and Margaret's departures. I just hope things continue in this direction.
As it is now, it appears from the 2012 lineup as though we're finally through the mess that was left in the wake of Marco's and Margaret's departures. I just hope things continue in this direction.
Or maybe she felt that she was entitled to bring her own creative vision to the series rather than just trying to copy what someone else did. And given that Marco and Margaret have very different approaches, that makes sense. You generally get better results doing things your own way than trying to copy somebody else.
There have been many times in the history of TV, films, comics, and other forms of serial storytelling where the creative leadership has passed from one person to another -- a new director and producer taking over a film franchise, a new showrunner taking over a TV series, a new author or editor taking over a comic book. In those cases, you usually see a change of creative direction, sometimes a radical one. Old plans and story threads fall by the wayside and the series goes in a new direction, because different creators have different ideas and priorities.
Also, don't forget that at the time, a lot of fans were complaining that DS9 was lagging years behind the rest of the 24th-century novel continuity. That discrepancy required leaving DS9 mostly out of the massive Destiny crossover event, which many saw as unfairly marginalizing it. Margaret's decision to bring it into sync with the other series wasn't about easing her workload -- just the opposite, since it required her to imagine a whole new story direction for the series. It was about ending that marginalization, allowing the DS9 characters to participate in the large-scale events of the novel line rather than being stranded years in the past.
Marco kept the TV series' serialized arc in the novels and it made it just just like watching the TV again, which was great. It was a wonderful creative direction to go in. Margaret artificially bringing DS9 forward felt like a punch in the gut to me, personally, after getting used to the new characters bought into the franchise. I would have been happier had she done a Full Circle-esque novel and then bought it forward, but it seems a moot point anyway.
I don't believe she would have been "copying" Marco's creative direction, just continuing it. I didn't see any reason to shoehorn DS9 into Destiny, because even though it was a devastating invasion, Bajor/DS9 wasn't even affected (being outside of the core worlds). Not everything that is a galactic threat affects the entire galaxy, though it does seem that way sometimes. It's a big place.
Please don't get me wrong, I love what Margaret did do during her tenure, I was just disappointed with the way the DS9 relaunch was handled after it's strong start.
I don't believe she would have been "copying" Marco's creative direction, just continuing it. I didn't see any reason to shoehorn DS9 into Destiny, because even though it was a devastating invasion, Bajor/DS9 wasn't even affected (being outside of the core worlds). Not everything that is a galactic threat affects the entire galaxy, though it does seem that way sometimes. It's a big place.
Please don't get me wrong, I love what Margaret did do during her tenure, I was just disappointed with the way the DS9 relaunch was handled after it's strong start.
To you, yes, but others would've been equally upset if DS9 had stayed in the past and isolated from the other series. Either way, it was going to be a tradeoff. Either you kept the series moving at its own pace at the cost of cutting it off from the rest of the novel line, or you moved it forward at the cost of truncating or abandoning ongoing threads. Neither choice would've been perfect. Both approaches had their own advantages and their own drawbacks, and both approaches would've pleased some readers and frustrated others. So it's not a question where there's a clear-cut right and wrong. It was a judgment call. Marco's preference was to keep the story moving at its own pace, but Margaret is a different person and she made different choices, as was her prerogative.
Margaret's philosophy in cases like this seems to be "Always leave them wanting more." It's the same reason she had me skip over Picard and Beverly's wedding and just start Greater Than the Sum with them already married. The idea is that leaving people with unanswered questions, maintaining a sense of mystery, keeps them interested in coming back for more.
But it's not as simple as that. If she'd tried to continue it, she wouldn't have done it the same way, and readers might've found it wanting by contrast. So instead she decided to make a clean break with the past and start something new that could be her own rather than being constantly compared against the efforts of her predecessor.
What if it had been you? Try looking at it from the editor's perspective. Say you've just taken over a job from a predecessor who was highly regarded for his work. Would you be content to settle for trying to carry forward with his policies and plans and have to live under his shadow? Or would you rather start something new that was distinctly your own and leave your own mark on the job, so that people would end up talking about your own achievements rather than just how well you did at following in the other guy's footsteps?
Like I said, this is by no means unique to Margaret. This is what just about every editor or comic-book author or TV showrunner or movie producer or director does when taking over an ongoing series -- they bring their own voice and approach to it. Marco's approach to Trek Lit was a major change from John Ordover's in a lot of ways. And Ordover's approach was very different from that of his predecessor. Each of them made the line his own, asserted his own philosophy and approach. Why shouldn't Margaret have had the same right to leave her stamp?
That's circular reasoning. The whole reason Dave plotted it so that Bajor wasn't affected was because of the mandate to leave DS9 out of it. If he'd been free to include the DS9 characters, then he would've plotted Destiny differently. It could've been as simple as putting the Borg's conduit exit someplace closer to the Alpha Quadrant rather than using the Azure Nebula.
Besides, the point isn't just about Destiny. Margaret rightly recognized that Destiny was a game-changer, that going forward there would probably be an increasing emphasis on large-scale events affecting multiple series -- which is exactly what happened with the rise of the Typhon Pact. So it's not just about leaving DS9 out of one crossover, but leaving its characters out of every major event from then on. That would be an awkward thing to maintain and it would unfairly marginalize a series that already suffers from being the redheaded stepchild of the franchise.
Keep in mind, I'm not disputing that there would've been valid reasons to keep the DS9 books proceeding as they did before. But there were equally valid reasons to move them forward. Again, no easy answer, no simple right or wrong. Either choice would've had a cost.
More like driven away from all the negative comments.
Personally, I would have maintained the serial arc of the relaunch and adjusted it to fit my tastes.
There is absolutely no reason why Destiny couldn't have included DS9, and hints could have been dropped at events that happened previously (which is exactly what happened with Dax et al. and during ZSG and RBoE)
Enterprise and Voyager are the stepchildren, I would think. DS9 was easily the best of the three 24th century shows, to me anyway.
I understand where you're coming from and I think Margaret did what she thought was best, so I'm going to let the matter drop.
I'm looking forward to these books.
Just for the record:
Every single live-action Star Trek series began streaming online with Netflix in July of this year.... except Deep Space Nine. Netflix didn't begin streaming it until October.
Make no mistake: DS9 may have a loyal fanbase, but it is still very much the redheaded stepchild of the Star Trek franchise in the eyes of the Not-We.
That's what you would've done, but Margaret isn't you. It's the nature of the world that different people make different choices. And no matter which choice had been made, there'd be just as many people complaining about it. There were valid arguments for both possibilities. Either option had its benefits and its drawbacks. It was a judgment call, and since Marco and Margaret are different people, they weighed the priorities differently.
Clearly Marco didn't agree. Remember, Destiny was jointly edited by Marco and Margaret, and my understanding is that it was Marco's preference that DS9 be left out of it because he didn't want the trilogy to spoil his long-term plans for the series. He allowed the use of Dax (and minor players like Bowers, Tarses, and Leishman), presumably because her arc was already taking her in the direction of starship command and she could be easily separated from DS9. But he didn't want anything revealed about the rest of the cast or the series' ongoing threads.
Really, you're drawing a false analogy. The reason ZSG and RBoE are revealing events from the gap is because there isn't any solid plan to go back and do books filling in that gap. It's something that could hypothetically be done, but I don't think there's ever been any solid plan to do it; the preference is to move forward. So there's nothing really to preclude filling in those events in retrospect. But when Destiny was written, Marco was still around and still intended to keep moving DS9 forward from where it was, so he didn't want any details given away in advance. So the situation with ZSG and RBoE isn't really equivalent.
Not to mention the many, many complaints from readers, right here on this BBS and others, asking, "So when is the DS9 Relaunch going to catch up with the other 24th century series?" No matter how often Marco said that DS9 would unfold as the demands of its arcs indicated.
Perhaps Margaret felt she was answering Marco's critics by jumping DS9's narrative several years, leaving a few untold stories that could be returned to, or referred to, later on.
Sci, IIRC, there were some legal issues surrounding DS9 being streamed by Netflix, and I think part of the problem was the Tribble episode so they couldn't stream it until that got sorted.
Christopher, from the blurb of Raise the Dawn, it looks as though Plagues of Night might be the Ascendants arc coming to an end so I'm not as worried as I once was.
Let's see what happens.
Christopher, from the blurb of Raise the Dawn, it looks as though Plagues of Night might be the Ascendants arc coming to an end so I'm not as worried as I once was.
Let's see what happens.
That's pure speculation at this point; there are any number of other things it could be as well.
And I don't see what it has to do with my point, because David's trilogy is still evidently moving the story forward and staying in the Typhon Pact timeframe. Even if it does follow up on the Ascendants in some way, there's no evidence that it would do so via flashback.
PoN could be a framing story. Anyway, I know that everything is speculation at this point but I have enough going on in my life without needing to dwell on the narrative gaps of, or continuation of, DS9. Whatever happens, happens, and I'll read it either way.
I have my own original fiction to write anyway, and work to do, so I shall we doing those and worrying less about everything else, except finding a new job. That I do need to worry about.
Personally I can't understand why DS9 should need to be in the same timeline as other series in the first place. What does it matter?
Maybe I'm not the target market for DS9 books, anyway, though. The only Star Trek I read these days is Deep Space Nine, and I don't care for the other series at all.
This seems silly to me. To suggest that Margaret should completely ignore everything that had been established with the DS9 books to bring it into line with the rest of the Trek fiction, because following on with the story in her own manner would upset people doesn't even make sense.
People will complain either way; and obviously a lot of people aren't happy at all with the direction DS9 took, so why not just carry on with the story rather than just abandoning it and all the characters?
Maybe I'm not the target market for DS9 books, anyway, though. The only Star Trek I read these days is Deep Space Nine, and I don't care for the other series at all.
This seems silly to me. To suggest that Margaret should completely ignore everything that had been established with the DS9 books to bring it into line with the rest of the Trek fiction, because following on with the story in her own manner would upset people doesn't even make sense.
People will complain either way; and obviously a lot of people aren't happy at all with the direction DS9 took, so why not just carry on with the story rather than just abandoning it and all the characters?
In the past, it wouldn't have mattered, but look at the state of the books today. Destiny was a big seller, so the sales/marketing people want more big crossovers like the Typhon Pact stuff. The universe has become more interconnected now than it used to be.
And really, it was probably the success of the DS9 novels and their evolving, interconnected narrative that led to that broader interconnection.
And as I keep stressing, there are multiple points of view here. Everyone's talking about their own personal preferences, but the books are not designed to cater only to one person's tastes. They're designed to appeal to as much of the audience as possible, and that means taking different preferences into account. For every reader who says "I don't mind if the series are separate," there's another reader who says "I wish the series were more interconnected."
That's not what I'm saying. First off, she didn't "ignore" anything by jumping the chronology forward, any more than TMP "ignored" TOS by taking place several years later. Sometimes an ongoing continuity includes a time jump. It's hardly unprecedented.
And I didn't say it would "upset" people. I said that a creator can do a better job being oneself than trying to emulate someone else. Different creators can be very different from each other, and sometimes trying to stay the course works out badly. Look at The West Wing. After Aaron Sorkin left, the show floundered for a season. When it tried to stay the course with new people in charge, it just fell apart. It finally recovered somewhat in the sixth and seventh years, but only by making itself over into a very different show, one that better fit the interests and sensibilities and talents of the new people in charge. In a lot of ways, they might've been better off skipping that transitional year and just making a clean break. (And as I recall, they actually did make a time jump of sorts to get into the next presidential election season sooner.)
I also said that it's a nearly universal practice that when a new person takes over as the creative lead of a series, they bring their own distinct approach to that series, and sometimes they do so by making a clean break and starting fresh rather than trying to stay the course. This is hardly the first time in recorded history that that's happened.
Consider this: sometimes a new editor or producer or whatever might simply not want to tell the story the same way their predecessor did. It happens. You can't do your best work as a creator (or an editor shaping the direction of a series) unless you're doing something that inspires and engages you. The stuff your predecessor was doing might hold no interest for you, or maybe you have ideas of your own that you're eager to explore but that can't work unless you make a clean break with the past. It's about exercising your prerogative as a creator to tell your stories the way you want to tell them.
My own experience of Marco and Margaret is that they're two very different people with very different approaches and preferences. I don't know Margaret's exact reasons for making the choice she did, but it doesn't surprise me that she chose to go in a very different direction from Marco. Margaret has her own preferences and she's not afraid to assert them.
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