Spoilers VOY: The Eternal Tide by Kirsten Beyer Review Thread

[Defcon]

Janeway is a canon character with 7 TV seasons of episodes and character exploration.

That`s the problem, there is little left to learn about her.

It would be very difficult for a non - canon character introduced in the novels to EVER have the story potential that she does.

I see it completely different. There was/is little story potential left for her. Even her relationship with Chakotay could be seen as just a rehash of the Crusher/Picard thing in TNG. A new character has a lot more story potential, exactly because she doesn't have the burden of seven years of canon to limit the authors in what they can do with her.

As much as the fleet exploration concept was interesting, in practice it had to be a bear for the author to keep track of and organize. There are literally dozens of minor characters in that fleet that would have been difficult for any new author to depict properly and would have sent most readers to Memory Beta just so that they can remember who Lieutenant Wehardlyknewyee was.

Wow, am I the only one reading this as somewhat insulting to both the authors and readers? You're basically implying that they have to keep it simple because neither the authors nor the readers are able to handle a couple of new characters.

and now we can go back to the main characters - which is why we bought the book in the first place.

Speak for yourself.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

As to the whole "keeping the seat" warm issue.

Janeway is a canon character with 7 TV seasons of episodes and character exploration. It would be very difficult for a non - canon character introduced in the novels to EVER have the story potential that she does.

And yet other novel series have do just that and seem to be doing well. In fact I believe the whole relaunch thing was seen as feasible due to how well Star Trek: New Frontier, which had only a handful of canon characters in its cast was doing at the time.

besides the only difference between an non-canon and canon character is that one showed up on a TV series and the other didn't, big deal.

and now we can go back to the main characters - which is why we bought the book in the first place.

Speak for your self I like seeing new characters as it expands Star Trek instead of keeping it confined to the same groups of people. If Paramount and CBS had followed that logic Star Trek would have only consisted of TOS and its films.

 

[Sho]

This is a relevant thread about that sub-topic btw.

 

[Scout101]

Kinda didn't like the arbitrary nature of the deaths. Losing half the fleet without much struggle or impact felt kinda empty/shallow, and limits the whole concept we had going, and the characters we just spent so much time putting together. Make a whole book about rebuilding the one crashed ship, and it has about 5 pages of screen time before it's lost again.

Chakotay gets a death pass, Eden's uncle gets a freebie, 4 ships stay lost. And Amanda Rogers written off almost without comment/impact.

A lot of this one just felt hollow. The Janeway parts felt fine, didn't have an issue there, just lost a lot of others without the emotional impact, and it was flip a coin whether Q gives them a do-over...

 

[Ronald Held]

Only half way through.
I have nothing against Janeway, but deciding to kill off a character and bring them back when convenient or needed cheapen the concept of a heroine's death. With Slipstream drive, Janeazy should have gone back to Earth for more tests, including her fittest to command a fleet.

 

[Paris]

I just finished it. I blasted through it in a very short time by my standards. I'm terrible at reviews, but suffice it to say, I really enjoyed this book. I liked how it tied up a lot of loose ends, and I liked how Kathryn was brought back. I was never one of the people who was adament she come back; I just hoped that when it inevitably did happen, that she was brought back with care and for a reason. IMO, Kirsten achieved this.

It was too bad that we lost so many ships, but as far as i'm concerned, it just gives Kirsten a chance to bring other new ships and new characters into the narrative. With all the challenges in the AQ/BQ, it probably means we'll only get one at a time. Hopefully the Achilles will be on its way back as well..

I can't wait for the next one, and hope we continue to get at least one of these stories every year if possible.

 

[KimMH]

I do so hate wibbley wobbley timey wimey stuff. And frankly the tie into the String Theory Trilogy terrified me - that series almost made my eyes bleed with all that sciency stuff.

But I loved this book for admittedly fangurl reasons and am so glad to hear Kirsten is on board for another installment. I love her enthusiasm and hope everyone buys it to find out what is going on and reads the hell out of it!

DERANGED NASAT's observation that the book is meta and addresses the controversy that swirled around Janeway's death is right on target in my mind. I think I enjoyed it e ven more for that.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It had better hurry up and arrive in my mailbox.

 

[JWolf]

Little side note... Why does this book feel so thin? I mean, it's physically thinner then Raise The Dawn, but has about the same amount of pages. How come? Thinner paper? Different binding technique?
I know it has nothing to do with the actual story, but I just noticed it and found it interesting.

Get the eBook. It's a good size.

 

[JWolf]

I really appreciate this review. You have pointed out everything I wish I was smart enough to say. Well done and well done Beyer!

It is really poor forum etiquette to quote a very large message and put in a short reply. You should have cut most of the original message before you replied. My suggestion is to ask for help in fixing this.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

^that's pretty funny considering you're double posting.

 

[JWolf]

^that's pretty funny considering you're double posting.

You obviously don't know what double posting means. Double posting means posting the same message twice.

Anyway, to get back on topic, I'm a bit over half done. I should be finished on Monday sometime.

 

[Christopher]

^No, in my BBS experience (which includes a stint as a moderator a few years back), double-posting means making two consecutive posts in the same thread in a short period of time, which is generally frowned upon. It's a subset of spamming. What you're referring to is accidental double-posting, which can result from hitting the "Post" button twice.

 

[Turbo]

I'm going to write up a longer version of my thoughts soon, but my initial reaction is: "Holy cheese, that was awesome!" There were a lot of things I liked, and a couple I didn't, but it was overall fantastic. I'll miss Captain Eden, for sure, but I had a feeling after Children of the Storm that her story was coming to a climax soon.

 

[Jedi_Master]

^Well, except that the Full Circle fleet wasn't all together at any one time. Usually it was split up into thirds, or would've been if it had existed long enough to have a "usually." So they could've just acknowledged that the other ships were out there but focused just on Voyager and its two support ships. So whatever the reason was for this change, I don't think that was it.

Well I guess reading over my comments I could be implying that Kirsten was being lazy... and 86'd the fleet to save trouble. Seeing as she tackled the Janeway issue, AND wrote 4 books that averaged over 400 pages I would never call her lazy.

However when a plot contains a giant, implacable foe with the capability to destroy everything and everyone, it helps to have a few extra ships for the foe to destroy/absorb and spare the main characters. The fact that Ms. Beyer wrote in so many vessels and their commanders, lieutenants, engineers, etc. allowed for this kind of story to be told and still have some emotional resonance. Which is cool.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Two points that I have made seem to have stirred up an admittedly small hornets nest.

First that writing Janeway into a story is a better idea than writing in a new character.

Second that having myriads of secondary characters that have small back stories can be tiresome to some readers, and those secondary characters do not drive sales.

Seeing as this is a review thread I will try to make this post relevant.

First -- Janeway is deep, interesting character. There are still a LOT of stories that can be told about her. For Gorn's sake, they still write stories about SPOCK! And the stories are still awesome. Janeway is not my favorite character, but seeing as I can picture her in my mind, hear her speak, and there are hundreds of previous stories for an author to pull character cues from I would rather read about her than a newly created secondary character.

Second. Obviously I "speak for myself" that I buy books to keep up with the main characters introduced by the TV shows and movies. I find it very, very hard to believe that the majority of those who purchase Treklit would by a book that had not one canonical character. The most successful Treklit books are ones that feature and thoroughly integrate canonical characters. That is why they are called "tie - ins".
There have been some awesome secondary characters created by various Trek authors... but c'mon folks, we like the canon characters. We eagerly anticipate reading about their adventures. We get excited when an author "nails" the way a canon character acts and thinks and speaks.

That's why Janeway gets the cover, and Cambridge gets some pages.

 

[Jedi_Master]

The inclusion of Amanda Rogers and her untimely death was the only sour note for me.

Of course I don't know too many people that had been chanting "Bring back Amanda Rogers!"

My thought process on her characters story arc was:

"Cool! I forgot about her - I guess she would be close to Junior"

"Oh! She's dead! That was weird, but I am sure she will come back"

After book was finished:

"Heyyyy, she did not bring back Amanda. That sucks."

 

[Turbo]

Dude, put it all in one post next time. Triple posting like this is generally frowned upon.

I liked the inclusion of Amanda, though her death was a major "WTF!?" moment for me. I was also hoping she'd come back, as the Continuum could probably use her help right now. But it made sense to me, as she was kind of in between Q Junior and Eden. Like Q Junior, she was the daughter of Qs, but like Eden, she was the daughter of mortals as well.

 

[JD]

Second. Obviously I "speak for myself" that I buy books to keep up with the main characters introduced by the TV shows and movies. I find it very, very hard to believe that the majority of those who purchase Treklit would by a book that had not one canonical character. The most successful Treklit books are ones that feature and thoroughly integrate canonical characters. That is why they are called "tie - ins".
There have been some awesome secondary characters created by various Trek authors... but c'mon folks, we like the canon characters. We eagerly anticipate reading about their adventures. We get excited when an author "nails" the way a canon character acts and thinks and speaks.

That's why Janeway gets the cover, and Cambridge gets some pages.

I've got to disagree with you here. I have found the majority of the book characters just as interesting as the TV characters. I read the TNG Relaunch just as much for Chen and Choudhury as I do for Picard and Worf. And honestly, I probably read Vanguard more for it's original characters than I do for it's movie and TV characters. Most of it's main characters were created specifically for it, and they played a much bigger role in it than any of the TV/movie characters did. And I'm pretty sure I've heard others on here say the same or similar things.

 

[Mage]

Second. Obviously I "speak for myself" that I buy books to keep up with the main characters introduced by the TV shows and movies. I find it very, very hard to believe that the majority of those who purchase Treklit would by a book that had not one canonical character. The most successful Treklit books are ones that feature and thoroughly integrate canonical characters. That is why they are called "tie - ins".
There have been some awesome secondary characters created by various Trek authors... but c'mon folks, we like the canon characters. We eagerly anticipate reading about their adventures. We get excited when an author "nails" the way a canon character acts and thinks and speaks.

That's why Janeway gets the cover, and Cambridge gets some pages.

I've got to disagree with you here. I have found the majority of the book characters just as interesting as the TV characters. I read the TNG Relaunch just as much for Chen and Choudhury as I do for Picard and Worf. And honestly, I probably read Vanguard more for it's original characters than I do for it's movie and TV characters. Most of it's main characters were created specifically for it, and they played a much bigger role in it than any of the TV/movie characters did. And I'm pretty sure I've heard others on here say the same or similar things.

Agreed.
And this is still my biggest, and probably only, problem with Beyer's Voyager novels. She really only deals with the main characters, and only a few of them have any real development. I mean, this is the third book since Torres and Paris got back together again, and he's still going on about how he can't believe his life has turned out so great and that 10 years earlier he could hever have believed to be in such a place in his life right now.
And I get that that's a special place, but let's have something more for this guy already.