I thought it might be fun to get ratings and opinions on Trek lit overall in 2012. IMO it was a great one for Trek. I haven't bought/read them all, but all the ones I did I enjoyed.
Rate 2012 in Trek lit
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
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Pretty much agree with the above posters. A good but not great year, with a clunker novel and a few good ones, mixed with a couple of outstanding ones.
Voted above average.
Voted above average.
I think it's been pretty clearly the best TrekLit year since 2008 and Destiny. Fallen Gods was my only real disappointment this year; everything else worked for me. Raise The Dawn was the only genuinely shocking novel - the rest played to the various strengths of those series/authors in much the way you'd expect, but that isn't a bad thing.
Very solid year.
Very solid year.
I believe with Beyer's The Eternal Tide, DRGIII DS9 books and Chris' DTI book this has been one of Trek's strongest years in, well years! Like Thrawn the only huge disappointment for me was Fallen Gods, which I just did not resonate with at all.
I voted Above Average. Some fantastic installments - notably DRGIII's duology and Mack's Cold Equations trilogy. Other good entries include DTI: Forgotten History and TP: Brinkmanship. VOY: The Eternal Tide was certainly controversial (and slightly disappointing). Fallen Gods was another disappointing installment for Titan.
Okay, so I'm playing catch up on a lot of titles. I'll get working on Plagues of Night in a couple of days, soon as I finish Indistinguishable from Magic. Sad to hear that most people didn't like Fallen Gods, as I was kinda looking forward to that, since overall I like the Titan series, but then I'm fairly behind on it. I've read Seize the Fire and liked it okay, but the last actual Titan book I read before that was Sword of Damocles...
Ups and downs really. DRGIII and David Mack rocked, Christopher's DTI novel was very good (although I liked the first one better).
Una's novel was so and so to me, it wasn't as strong as The Neverending Sacrifice. Fallen Gods was down right dirty and nasty. The Eternal Tide.... I said it before, I'll say it again, time for a reread. Didn't like the way Janeway was brought back and how Eden was bumped out of the series. I started to like Eden really.
I didn't read the TOS novels this year, not a big fan of TOS really. But I might try some of the TOS novels this year, since Vanguard really got me into that particulair era of Trek.
So yeah, above average I guess. Mostly thanks to DRGIII, Mack and Bennett.
Una's novel was so and so to me, it wasn't as strong as The Neverending Sacrifice. Fallen Gods was down right dirty and nasty. The Eternal Tide.... I said it before, I'll say it again, time for a reread. Didn't like the way Janeway was brought back and how Eden was bumped out of the series. I started to like Eden really.
I didn't read the TOS novels this year, not a big fan of TOS really. But I might try some of the TOS novels this year, since Vanguard really got me into that particulair era of Trek.
So yeah, above average I guess. Mostly thanks to DRGIII, Mack and Bennett.
Where is the option for better then above average and yet, not outstanding? Some of the books in 2012 pulled the rating down from less then outstanding, but overall, better then above average.
If need be, I can create a new poll if you can't get this one fixed and then reset so everyone gets to vote again.
^ I would just vote Above Average. All of the Lit polls have had this same set of options for a few years, at this point, so going to huge efforts to change this one seems unnecessary.
If we had "Outstanding", "Excellent", and "Above Average", someone would eventually complain that the book wasn't outstanding or excellent, but was certainly better than merely above average...
This essentially equates to something like Amazon.com's one-to-five stars, just with descriptions to better normalize everyone's choices. Seems fine to me.
If we had "Outstanding", "Excellent", and "Above Average", someone would eventually complain that the book wasn't outstanding or excellent, but was certainly better than merely above average...
This essentially equates to something like Amazon.com's one-to-five stars, just with descriptions to better normalize everyone's choices. Seems fine to me.
For me, its always going to be some I like and some I don't. I'd say any year would struggle to make the above average category, and I'd only expect one or two truly great Trek novels.
This year I had five - two from DRGIII and three from Mr Mack, so its an outstanding year. That there were a few other good novels like Christopher's was a bonus.
This year I had five - two from DRGIII and three from Mr Mack, so its an outstanding year. That there were a few other good novels like Christopher's was a bonus.
And for what it's worth, Excellent is above Average. It's just a lot above it.
Hey, I just nicked Sho's rating system! I thought you guys would appreciate consistency in your poll options 
Besides, ratings are subjective in the first place; different people would have different definitions of what constitutes a 6-star or 8-star rating. Subdividing it further would add more options, but it wouldn't really increase the accuracy. It can be misleading to use more precision than is applicable to the thing being measured. And opinions are very imprecise things.
Given that my overall opinion on Trek lit is highly positive, I'm very reluctant to give out "Excellent" ratings. In my personal ranking system, Average pretty much means "good", Below Average means "acceptable but somewhat disappointing", and Above Average means "a favourite". In practice, then, I often rate books lower than the average respondent despite being very enthusiastic about the general quality.
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