Spoilers TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread

[Paper Moon]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Brief note about the availability of the book in stores: I went to my (semi-)local Barnes and Noble and was very disappointed to not see any copies of The Poisoned Chalice in the sci-fi section (though I was happy to see something like three copies of Revelation and Dust– we never have that many of a single Trek book at this place).

Then, I went over to the "New Science Fiction" section (where they never seem to have Trek books) and, lo and behold, multiple copies of The Poisoned Chalice, and all the other The Fall books! Was very pleased, obviously.

Did you have trouble trying to find it on the website too? That's why I don't understand why the pick me up feature is not on there at all. I will probably go by there again if not I have Books a Million to check out as well.

Yeah, I did. Well, I could find it on the website, but only to order online. No way, as far as I could see, to check in-store availability.

 

[kirk55555]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

I voted average. This is the weakest book so far. The political stuff was a bit too crazy, and I'm not a fan of the Titan books anyway. The Nog and Tuvok stuff was the most interesting, but overall the book was very average.

 

[Man of Steel]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

I've just been informed that The Poisoned Chalice has made it on to the New York Times bestseller list; my heartfelt thanks to everyone who bought a copy!

Congratulations, it's so cool to see Trek books on the NYT list again. I haven't read this one yet, but if it's anything like you're other stuff I've read and judging by the reactions in this thread, it definitely deserves to be there.

Now if only they'd review them.

 

[ATimson]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Every position filled by a commander would be over the top, of course, but is not some auto-promotion feature after serving a couple of years?

The more I think about it, the more it seems like the "rank as position indicator" behavior seen in the Abrams movies probably applies to the Prime universe, too, rather than the "standard" military rank model. With rare exceptions (Worf being the only one that comes to mind - Troi got added responsibilities with hers), we don't normally see people moving up rank and keeping the same position in the canon. And we do see Kirk moving down rank to Captain in TMP when he takes over the Enterprise.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Wonderful novel from the always reliable James Swallow. I didn't quite enjoy it as much as the excellent The Crimson Shadows and A Ceremony of Losses, but I think that's largely due to my greater love to Garak, Picard and Cardassian culture in the former and Bashir, Ezri and the Andor crisis in the latter, whereas I've never really been a fan of Titan. That being said, I still love Riker and Troi, and to a lesser extent, Vale and Tuvok. I also loved the supporting roles for Nog and Akaar as well as the surprise return of Tom Riker (complete with references to Imzadi II and Double Helix: Quarantine). Lastly, I really liked Commander Atia and I hope we see more of her in the future.

While I was disappointed A Ceremony of Losses didn't feature Bashir reflecting on Garak's pending castellanship, The Poisoned Chalice more than made up for it with Bashir's two qups, particularly "I knew we'd make an honest man out of him someday."

Between these, the Chelsea Manning/Edward Snowden/Wikileaks parallels in A Ceremony of Losses, the America First/Tea Party parallels in both Ceremony and The Crimson Shadow, the clear Bacco assassination/September 11 parallels in Revelation and Dust, the general indictment of nationalism and belligerence in Ishan Anjar -- I suspect that while The Fall may have started out as an attempt to do a dramatic, Star Trek-meets-JFK-assassination story, it has in some ways evolved into a commentary on the broader trends of the post-9/11 American political culture.

Good to know I wasn't the only one who kept drawing all of these parallels while reading this mini-series. I knew you and I had similar thoughts in regards to Manning/Snowden and Ted Cruz, but that was only the tip. I was further reminded of the false pretenses of invading Iraq in comparison to falsifying evidence on the Bacco assassin in order to have a more agressive standing against the Typhon Pact.

I've just been informed that The Poisoned Chalice has made it on to the New York Times bestseller list; my heartfelt thanks to everyone who bought a copy!

Fantastic news! Congratulations!

 

[Mage]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

I've just been informed that The Poisoned Chalice has made it on to the New York Times bestseller list; my heartfelt thanks to everyone who bought a copy!

Congratulations, that must feel fantastic!!

 

[David Mack]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

While I was disappointed A Ceremony of Losses didn't feature Bashir reflecting on Garak's pending castellanship, The Poisoned Chalice more than made up for it with Bashir's two qups, particularly "I knew we'd make an honest man out of him someday."

The reason there was no reference to that event in A Ceremony of Losses is because the shared timeline for The Fall, from which we all were working, indicated that the election of Garak as Castellan occurred on 25 September 2385, while the main narrative of A Ceremony of Losses ends on 19 September 2385.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

While I was disappointed A Ceremony of Losses didn't feature Bashir reflecting on Garak's pending castellanship, The Poisoned Chalice more than made up for it with Bashir's two qups, particularly "I knew we'd make an honest man out of him someday."

The reason there was no reference to that event in A Ceremony of Losses is because the shared timeline for The Fall, from which we all were working, indicated that the election of Garak as Castellan occurred on 25 September 2385, while the main narrative of A Ceremony of Losses ends on 19 September 2385.

Ah, very good. I'm not surprised I lost track of the timeline (I'm always getting dates mixed up in such, not just in reading). Thanks for clarifying, David.

 

[Garrovick]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Finished this book a few days ago, loved it! I've really enjoyed all of The Fall so far, but this one is my favorite. I'm anxious to see how the events of this book play out in the future, especially in regards to Riker, Dax, Bashir, and Vale. It was good to see Tom Riker again, too.

Mr. Swallow, congrats on making the NYT best-seller list!

 

[jla1987]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Perhaps it's only due to the previous book being so fast paced and awesome, but I really found this one to be average. Hoping the next one moves a bit faster.

 

[Sci]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

While I was disappointed A Ceremony of Losses didn't feature Bashir reflecting on Garak's pending castellanship, The Poisoned Chalice more than made up for it with Bashir's two qups, particularly "I knew we'd make an honest man out of him someday."

The reason there was no reference to that event in A Ceremony of Losses is because the shared timeline for The Fall, from which we all were working, indicated that the election of Garak as Castellan occurred on 25 September 2385, while the main narrative of A Ceremony of Losses ends on 19 September 2385.

When all the books are released, might it be possible for that shared timeline document to be released to the Internet? It sounds like it would be a fascinating read in its own right!

 

[Nob Akimoto]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

15th! That's a very solid showing, especially for tie-in fiction. (Though based on the list, it seems like a lot of the mass market fiction is books that have been adapted, since it's been a lot of GRRM and OSC lately)

 

[JWolf]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Well, crap. I had to re-order my copy, since my parcel was lost in transit. Now I've got to wait 5-7 more days.

If you'd have gotten the eBook, you'd have it now and could have been reading (or have already read) this.

 

[DimesDan]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Well, crap. I had to re-order my copy, since my parcel was lost in transit. Now I've got to wait 5-7 more days.

If you'd have gotten the eBook, you'd have it now and could have been reading (or have already read) this.

And if you had read just a bit further you would have seen this post from two whole days later:

Finally got my copy in yesterday, 40 pages in, and already feeling this is the Titan I liked.

But I guess you couldn't resist that little swipe at non ebook readers.

Anyway, finished this sometime last week (on my Nook actually not that it matters) and I thought it was brilliant and was on par with the last two Fall novels and can't wait for Peaceable Kingdoms in a couple of weeks.

 

[JWolf]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

I've just been informed that The Poisoned Chalice has made it on to the New York Times bestseller list; my heartfelt thanks to everyone who bought a copy!

Thank you for writing a book well worth buying and reading.

I'm almost 1/2 done and I'm enjoying it.

 

[fleetcaptain]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Finally got my copy. The last time I posted on here, went to B&N which they had Volume 6 After Darkness and I went to go check a few areas and they had one copy left. Went in today to pick my TNG/Doctor Who hardcover and they had more copies. Still didn't get what was up with the website though.

 

[zarkon]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Just finished reading it (popped through the mailbox this morning; I've never had so much trouble getting a trek book at release).

I liked the callback to the Zife regime, as I was thinking the same thing - a president relying on a smart deputy to manage events. Although given Velk is now off the chessboard, I hope Anjar ends up with more steel in him then Zife had(and after the scene with him and Riker I'm guessing that's the case).

Loved the Doctor's Orders referencing(not to mention the Doctor Who one), and surprised seeing the Magna Romans again. Lionheart crew was rather fun!

In all, t'was a great read. Built on previous books and told all its story threads equally well. If Peaceable Kingdoms is of the same calibre it'll have been a cracker of a mini-series.

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Am I dreaming, or was there an allusion made to the dolphin-like character in "Dark Mirror"?

 

[zarkon]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Yeah, I assumed that was a reference to Hwii (don't remember him loving bad jokes, but it has been a while). Riker did make the distinction between dolphin and cetaceans (Hwii was a Delphine, and I think Duane wanted him to be a dolphin but wasn't allowed due to the limitations on trek writers back then).

 

[ToddCam]

Re: TF: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow Review Thread (Spoilers!

Maybe this isn't the place to mention this, but I don't really care for the rating scale. What does average mean here? For all Star Trek books? For books by the author? For fiction in general? I enjoyed this book quite a bit, but as it wasn't outstanding or poor, I felt . I have found Swallow's books in general to be of high quality (making it average for him), but as I don't read all Trek books any more I don't know how it rates against all other Trek books, much less all fiction. I prefer a wider scale (1-10), and more along the lines of terrible/bad/mediocre/good/great than below average/average/above average.