Spoilers TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread

[Enterpriserules]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

I am very much looking forward to this, as well as having JJM as an author for Star Trek. I personally remember liking Christopher's The Struggle Within very much and thought the story was great for the character work. I think the ebooks give the authors the ability to explore characters in a way the larger books do not sometimes. James Swallow's The Stuff of Dreams is a great example of this and it's look at who Picard has become in the years since his first Nexus experience.

 

[Christopher]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

But in your favour, editor Margaret Clark did say in a recent interview that the e-book stories are indeed designed to be 'extra' stories, 'the stories between the stories' as she described it, intended to just be a nice little bit of something in between the bigger bits of something, that you can read if you don't want to but don't have to read to get the larger picture. If an author has a nice idea for a story but doesn't see it as having enough 'story' there to make a full-length novel, hey let's make it an e-book novella. And I'm fine with that.

True, but of course not every novel is "essential" either. Trek novels have never been a single integrated serial where you have to read every installment; they're a bunch of standalone or parallel tales, some of which are more interconnected than others but which are mostly meant to illuminate different branches of a large, more or less coherent universe. The eBooks are standalone tales, but that doesn't make them less "important" than, say, a Titan novel or a TOS novel or something like Hollow Men.

 

[vorador33]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

It's $1.99. Hardly a financial strain.

I see £3.99 on one of the ebook shops It's like US$6.70...

Yeah that seems to be the standard price for Trek eBook releases on the Amazon UK kindle store site which is ridiculous as it’s the same price as many of the full book releases. They wont be getting any money from me until they drop the price.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Yeah, it wasn't the first time Shar had been depicted on a novel cover, which I think is what's meant by "new characters."

Yeah, I misinterpreted the original comment. I originally read "new" to mean "novel verse specific" as opposed to "Brand spanking new."

I do think Shar's 2010 cover turn on Paths is probably the last time a character specific to the novels was depicted on the cover of a main-line trek book. Though you are absolutely right about the Starfleet Academy books doing so.

 

[JJMiller]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

The "50 page" description is not correct -- at least, not on my device, where it's double that. Rings in at around 30,000 words, or about a third of most paperback novels.

Not sure how they measure these things, but I suspect that 50 count is a placeholder.

 

[Nob Akimoto]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

That's actually a very good length for a novella. Really looking forward to this one, needing my Titan fix.

 

[JWolf]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

50 pages, according to the description at my ebook shop website.

Page numbers given at eBook shops are usually wrong. I bet this one is too.

If it's only 50 pages then hopefully it'll get tacked onto a Titan novel. Otherwise I'll be passing on this book.

It's not going to be tacked on to any pBook. So either you buy it or you miss out on it. At $1.99, it's cheap enough. What I don't get is why the severe dislike/hate for eBooks that haunts this forum?

 

[DEWLine]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Blame/praise Kirk, Spock and Picard, I suppose, for being role models of a sort.

Also, I can't guarantee that I'll always be able to afford computer gear of any sort. Or keep it, if I can afford it. And if you fall too far down the economic ladder but hold onto your gear, you can be targeted for Serious Social Disapproval as a consequence.

I doubt I'm alone in worrying about these prospects.

 

[JWolf]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Blame/praise Kirk, Spock and Picard, I suppose, for being role models of a sort.

Also, I can't guarantee that I'll always be able to afford computer gear of any sort. Or keep it, if I can afford it. And if you fall too far down the economic ladder but hold onto your gear, you can be targeted for Serious Social Disapproval as a consequence.

I doubt I'm alone in worrying about these prospects.

But, you have a computer now. You buy Trek books that cost more then this eBook. So buy this eBook when it comes out and read it while you can.

 

[Paris]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Oh. Sweet fucking christ. Are we having this convo again??

 

[DEWLine]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Yep. It hasn't stopped.

 

[Patrick O'Brien]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Just downloaded the book to my kindle. I am happy we have these threads as I did not know this book was being published until a read it here.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Mine tells me its ready to download. Gotta finish Protectors first though.

.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

My preorder downloaded this morning. Half way through A Time To Hate, so as soon as that's out of the way, I'll be reading this.

 

[JJMiller]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

For those new to my work, I have for many years posted a page of production notes and trivia for everything I write on my website -- usually a few weeks after the story has had time to circulate. The placeholder page is here --I'll post to TrekBBS when the notes are finally up.

In the meantime, since I also use that page to address reader questions about a story, here's the link for asking them. Just post to the comments section. (I also take a look at the boards to find questions, as well, but those definitely reach me.) Thanks!

 

[VDCNI]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

I read it on the way to work this morning - a fun little romp though I'm not entirely convinced the author captured the characters voices that well - everyone was a bit well casual I suppose.

That said once I got used to it I quite enjoyed the more relaxed approach - it was nice to hear characters genuinely annoyed with what was going on rather than the more formal military/diplomatic language that Trek can get bogged down in at times

It was also a bit of a surprise to have

Spoiler: Spoiler

the Titan and the Breen in an actual battle without any of the political dancing around and cold war scenarios we usually see them in.

 

[Patrick O'Brien]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

For those new to my work, I have for many years posted a page of production notes and trivia for everything I write on my website -- usually a few weeks after the story has had time to circulate. The placeholder page is here --I'll post to TrekBBS when the notes are finally up.

In the meantime, since I also use that page to address reader questions about a story, here's the link for asking them. Just post to the comments section. (I also take a look at the boards to find questions, as well, but those definitely reach me.) Thanks!

Thanks for the links! Best of luck with the book

 

[Ronald Held]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Just saw my copy was downloaded. I should start it by this weekend.

 

[Stoek]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Tightly written. Managed to craft a decent mystery without a large page count to work with. Everyone felt in character. The tone was lighter than we've seen in a while which gave it the illusion of fluff, but I think that is far from the case. Was definitely nice to get a "fun" story as a palate cleanser from the very weighty stuff we've been dealing with lately.

Finally I hope that the price for this one will be the new normal. I am more than willing to pay 2 bucks for a novella. Nearly full price though? Sorry, nope.

 

[JJMiller]

Re: TTN: Absent Enemies by John Jackson Miller Review Thread (Spoilers

Thanks -- knowing the length limitations and the fact that this would immediately follow the big events of "The Fall," I strove for exactly that dynamic. The TV series had many episodes that worked that way, to my mind.