Spoilers TP: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread
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And you still don't get the point:
If David R. George III hasn't lied to us (and I have no reason to believe he has), his departure had nothing to do with criticizing his work. So no matter how much you and others fellate him here verbally for these books, it shouldn't have an impact on the decision if he returns or not.
I don't really get the hype about this duology anyway. While RBOE wasn't as bad as some made it out to be back then, this duology isn't nearly the masterpiece some seem to believe it is IMO. Like I said above Raise the Dawn is a good novel, but nowhere near the quality of DRG III's earlier works like Twilight, Serpents among the Ruins or The 34th Rule IMO.
I don't think "hype" is the right word to describe the enthusiasm many here are expressing. My own enthusiasm for the duology stems from what I see as a return to the great DS9 relaunch books. Avatar to Warpath are, to me, the 8th season of DS9 and what got me into reading Trek books again. I felt as if the last two DS9 books didn't measure up to what had come before and then the sudden "jump forward" to Destiny was very jarring. DS9 felt neglected and with this new duology DS9 now feels back on track (now on it's 9th season?
).
I don't think "hype" is the right word to describe the enthusiasm many here are expressing. My own enthusiasm for the duology stems from what I see as a return to the great DS9 relaunch books. Avatar to Warpath are, to me, the 8th season of DS9 and what got me into reading Trek books again. I felt as if the last two DS9 books didn't measure up to what had come before and then the sudden "jump forward" to Destiny was very jarring. DS9 felt neglected and with this new duology DS9 now feels back on track (now on it's 9th season?
not to dredge up this old discussion, but Avatar to Unity is season 8, Worlds of DS9 to The Soul Key is season 9. This is perhaps, season 10-11
not to dredge up this old discussion, but Avatar to Unity is season 8, Worlds of DS9 to The Soul Key is season 9. This is perhaps, season 10-11
Yeah, your probably right
. I was just typing my thoughts down quickly.
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Which is just one opinion, not a universally accepted rule. I still think that if you're going to impose a "season" structure on the novels (which you really shouldn't with any seriousness, because they were specifically designed not to mimic television story structure), it's a better fit to treat Unity (set in September) as the big February sweeps event and Olympus Descending (which ends on December 31) as the cliffhanger season finale. Warpath, Fearful Symmetry, and The Soul Key were meant to be the beginning of the next phase after that, but that phase was cut short due to Marco's layoff and the decision to jump the series forward in time.
Of course it's only IMO, Christopher
IIRC both of us said these exact things a couple of years ago 
As to your "season" overview, while that's one way of looking at it, IMO the overall first arc of DS9R concludes in Unity, while WoDS9 mostly opens up new story threads.
It's just fun to think of them as continuing seasons
. I definitely feel as if DRGIII's duology is the beginning of a "new" season... regardless of which one it is .
Of course it's only IMO, Christopher
Yes, but this is not a private conversation between the two of us. This is a public forum and may be read by any number of people who aren't familiar with those past discussions. So phrasing your opinion as if it were an absolute truth could be misleading, and I didn't want anyone to come away with false impressions because of it.
Of course it's only IMO, Christopher
Yes, but this is not a private conversation between the two of us. This is a public forum and may be read by any number of people who aren't familiar with those past discussions. So phrasing your opinion as if it were an absolute truth could be misleading, and I didn't want anyone to come away with false impressions because of it.
I did think that RonG's response meant that this board had come to a consensus on the whole "seasons" thing
.
^There's definitely no consensus. In fact, when Marco Palmieri was still the editor and still posting on this forum, I seem to recall he disliked the whole idea of trying to force the books to fit a TV-season formula, because the whole thing he was trying to do was to embrace the new possibilities of the book format and take things in a direction a TV show couldn't have gone.
So please don't think of the "season" thing as anything more than a conceit held by a few fans. It's really not a legitimate interpretation of the books at all. At best, it's a very rough and imperfect analogy.
So please don't think of the "season" thing as anything more than a conceit held by a few fans. It's really not a legitimate interpretation of the books at all. At best, it's a very rough and imperfect analogy.
Of course it's only IMO, Christopher
Yes, but this is not a private conversation between the two of us. This is a public forum and may be read by any number of people who aren't familiar with those past discussions. So phrasing your opinion as if it were an absolute truth could be misleading, and I didn't want anyone to come away with false impressions because of it.
I did think that RonG's response meant that this board had come to a consensus on the whole "seasons" thing
I don't recall ever seeing this Board reach a consensus on anything..
But just to clarify, this was of course my opinion only
I don't recall ever seeing this Board reach a consensus on anything..
But just to clarify, this was of course my opinion only
Yeah, maybe consensus was too strong a word
!!
I'm going to give it a shot -
'I like, to a greater or lesser degree, at least some parts of the Star Trek franchise'.
Hows that - do we have a consensus or not ?
^I dunno, I've seen at least one or two posters here who didn't seem to like anything about Star Trek, at least nothing that made it what it was. Like that one guy who liked the space battles and wanted the whole thing to be turned into a war story, oh, and without all that pesky diversity and tolerance and those icky aliens.
Right, and with all male crews, iirc.
I am not someone who wishes to see 'war trek', but I would love to see more ... diverse takes on combat in Trek, as say Mack has done at points (his stuff on Tezwa and in Destiny, for example). But ship-to-ship remains ... typified or stereotyped? I would like an author like Dan Abnett to write trek fiction, even though his publications are predominantly science fiction war writing. In his two last novels, Salvations' Reach and Know No Fear (both for a British IP James Swallow also writes for - Black Library/Warhammer 40000) he did some of the best ship-to-ship combat I've read (I admit, not a great deal). I can't find a relevant extract from either, from their naval or combat scenes, but this section from early on Salvation's Reach shows some of the ship, and another with lovely description, and here is an extract from Know No Fear.
The war in his novels, increasingly more and more, is a backdrop to not only excellent characterization, but rather artsy redefinitions of the possibility of the IP he works with. Know No Fear was a rather succesful deployment of present tense descriptive/reportive style, Salvation's Reach one of the high points of his longest-running series, for its subverting tropes and civilianising his characters, opening with a chapter of character hopping that is a delight to read and listen to both, and an earlier novel, Prospero Burns is a much about the loss of knowledge, and therefore carries dozen of linguistic and literary allusions to loss, of human, memory, cultural and historical kinds. If there ever was 'war trek', not that I think it totally suitable, I would hope it would be more than plot and phaser porn - I guess I would hope it could be subverted or used as a springboard into more artistic or genre-breaking territory (as has been done with some war trek, like Tezwa, in the past).
The war in his novels, increasingly more and more, is a backdrop to not only excellent characterization, but rather artsy redefinitions of the possibility of the IP he works with. Know No Fear was a rather succesful deployment of present tense descriptive/reportive style, Salvation's Reach one of the high points of his longest-running series, for its subverting tropes and civilianising his characters, opening with a chapter of character hopping that is a delight to read and listen to both, and an earlier novel, Prospero Burns is a much about the loss of knowledge, and therefore carries dozen of linguistic and literary allusions to loss, of human, memory, cultural and historical kinds. If there ever was 'war trek', not that I think it totally suitable, I would hope it would be more than plot and phaser porn - I guess I would hope it could be subverted or used as a springboard into more artistic or genre-breaking territory (as has been done with some war trek, like Tezwa, in the past).
I'm not that fond of writing space battles, nor reading them, but for just that reason I always try to make the ones I do write fresh and interesting -- not just firing phasers and shaking ships and "shields down to 20 percent," but exercises in problem-solving and strategy, finding clever and unusual ways to use the astronomical phenomena of the battlefield or the potentials of the available technology. I can't say if my approach would be to your taste, but I doubt it could be called stereotypical.
