SKRS #1: Second Nature by David Mack Review Thread (Spoilers!)
- Thread starter David Mack
- Start date
I just finished reading Seekers this morning . All I can say is Wow! That's one heck of a cliffhanger ending !
I thought the book was well written and like the Sagatarius crew .
This book is a nice followup to the Vanguard books.
I thought the book was well written and like the Sagatarius crew .
The Tomal aliens are dangerous especially since the Shedai changed their DNA. Nimal and her followers are dangerous .I wonder how the Sagitarious and Endeavour crews and the Klingons wil get out of this messy situation.
I quite enjoyed that. The crews of the Sagittarius and Endeavour were always highlights of VGD, and it's nice to see them doing what they do best: going out to the edge of the final frontier and helping keep the Klingons in line.
The new characters, brought into replace the casualties from Storming Heaven were a unique bunch, and it's going to be interesting to see how they fit in on a ship where the entire crew lives on top of each other.
I'm going to miss some of the political intrigue from VGD, but if this is any indication, SKRS is going to be a rollicking good time.
The new characters, brought into replace the casualties from Storming Heaven were a unique bunch, and it's going to be interesting to see how they fit in on a ship where the entire crew lives on top of each other.
I'm going to miss some of the political intrigue from VGD, but if this is any indication, SKRS is going to be a rollicking good time.
About a hundred pages in. Not getting into the story as I did for the Vanguard novels.
First, I disagree with your characterization of Reyes and T'Prynn.
Second, I direct you to last year's announcement of the new series on my blog — in particular, this statement:
I'm aware that my opinion on their destruction of Pennington's life is a bit stronger than most.
I knew that was the goal, as I alluded to. But while that speaks to plot and overall tone, that doesn't necessarily define the cast.
Just because someone does bad things, doesn't necessarily make them a villain. Some of the most fascinating stories are ones where good guys find themselves in a situation where they feel they have to do bad things. I think Vanguard is one of those kind of stories.
Last edited:
His life? Hardly. They introduced some unfair disgrace into his career. But the damage to his personal life was self-inflicted.
As was depicted in the middle and later Vanguard novels, Tim Pennington's career rebounded quite adroitly. Furthermore, judging by the fact that he later established a school of journalism that by the 24th century was regarded as a paragon in its field, it might be safe to say that any harm to his personal or professional fortunes was short-lived and later only added to his notoriety.
I picked up a copy today. Love that cover!
Enjoyed this very much. Can't wait for the second book. So jazzed this series came about.
My honest opinion? An unfortunate average - I had such high hopes for this series, but this opening installment hasn't given me as much hope as I'd have liked.
It achieves its goals of a 'planet of the week' story, but the writing feels too light/simplistic. I'd hoped that this would be something more like the Titan novels - or even the Vanguard series - in writing style. But unfortunately this achieved something few Trek novels have in the past - for the first half of the novel, I was quite bored.
Much as I'm not a massive fan of Christopher L. Bennett's writing, the scenes on the planet could have probably been well served by some of his world and society building. The Tomol were only thinly sketched - most of what we learnt about them was told and not shown - and we still don't really get a good feel of them. I'm going with a sixteen year old cross between a blue skinned Maya from Space 1999 and Zhaan from Farscape bunged into a mock Mayan/Incan/Aztec culture. Even if some of Bennett's world building in the Rise of the Federation series can drag those novels down - this novel desperately needed a bit more of that.
And the characters? From the scene where Theriault told a character to put up with the fact that their quarters were just being covered in putrid green slime every day and yet wouldn't share her quarters with Niszka because she didn't want to put up with the slime - it became very hard to like many of the characters here, outside of Hesh.
Dastin and Theriault's interplay was amusing - bordering on sexual flirtation, his frequent countermanding of her orders also bordered on insubordination that just seemed to get laughed off. I get that this crew is supposed to be more of a family than a crew - but it did reach a point where the away team members didn't seem to know professionalism.
The only characters who got my interest were Nizska and Hesh - but even with these, there was an element of Hesh being pushed forward but Theriault not knowing things or querying events that it feels like she should have known about due to her prior experience as a science officer. Instead she treats Hesh like - and I might be alone in this - an irritating little brother.
Theriault doesn't come across very well in this novel. At all.
I'm looking forward to the second book, because I know the writers of the first two novels have a great track record, both as 'showrunners' and individual writers. I hope that the second book (and onwards) are better because this is a premise that really deserved a better written opener.
It achieves its goals of a 'planet of the week' story, but the writing feels too light/simplistic. I'd hoped that this would be something more like the Titan novels - or even the Vanguard series - in writing style. But unfortunately this achieved something few Trek novels have in the past - for the first half of the novel, I was quite bored.
Much as I'm not a massive fan of Christopher L. Bennett's writing, the scenes on the planet could have probably been well served by some of his world and society building. The Tomol were only thinly sketched - most of what we learnt about them was told and not shown - and we still don't really get a good feel of them. I'm going with a sixteen year old cross between a blue skinned Maya from Space 1999 and Zhaan from Farscape bunged into a mock Mayan/Incan/Aztec culture. Even if some of Bennett's world building in the Rise of the Federation series can drag those novels down - this novel desperately needed a bit more of that.
And the characters? From the scene where Theriault told a character to put up with the fact that their quarters were just being covered in putrid green slime every day and yet wouldn't share her quarters with Niszka because she didn't want to put up with the slime - it became very hard to like many of the characters here, outside of Hesh.
Dastin and Theriault's interplay was amusing - bordering on sexual flirtation, his frequent countermanding of her orders also bordered on insubordination that just seemed to get laughed off. I get that this crew is supposed to be more of a family than a crew - but it did reach a point where the away team members didn't seem to know professionalism.
The only characters who got my interest were Nizska and Hesh - but even with these, there was an element of Hesh being pushed forward but Theriault not knowing things or querying events that it feels like she should have known about due to her prior experience as a science officer. Instead she treats Hesh like - and I might be alone in this - an irritating little brother.
Theriault doesn't come across very well in this novel. At all.
I'm looking forward to the second book, because I know the writers of the first two novels have a great track record, both as 'showrunners' and individual writers. I hope that the second book (and onwards) are better because this is a premise that really deserved a better written opener.
I'm about halfway through, but I actually appreciate this aspect of the book. Too often, Trek novel writers go into mind numbing detail about the alien of the week and it simply kills the pace of the book. I think the Tomol are fleshed out enough for the purpose of the story.
I just finished it, and really enjoyed it . I will echo some previous comments about missing the political elements that were present in Vanguard, but it felt like a fun and action packed part one of a two part story...which, I believe, was the point. The Tomol were an interesting new species and I liked the connection to
I'm excited to see more on the Endeavour next month, and I eagerly await further adventures on the Sagittarius. I really enjoyed both Dastin and Therieault, and I also thought including Kang was a nice touch. Well done David 
.
. I will echo some previous comments about missing the political elements that were present in Vanguard, but it felt like a fun and action packed part one of a two part story...which, I believe, was the point. The Tomol were an interesting new species and I liked the connection to
the Shedai. I wonder how more species they've nudged over the millenia...
.
Finished the book yesterday. Overall I enjoyed it. A good start to the new series. The pacing was by-in-large good and the new characters were interesting.
I'm unsure of the near insubordination Dastin seems to be blatantly displaying, however intended. And Therieault seems to be having issues enforcing her authority and leadership in general, with the away team anyway.
I'm not the biggest fan of 'planet-of-the-week' stories and don't read much of the TOS books for just that reason ('cept for Greg Cox stuff and any TMP era books) but Seekers past connection to Vanguard and the Taurus Reach will keep me interested long enough to see how it develops I think.
I gave Second Nature an 'Above Average' grade because it was a fast, fun read and do understand it's a two-parter which hopefully will be complimented by the second part shortly.
and....
I'm unsure of the near insubordination Dastin seems to be blatantly displaying, however intended. And Therieault seems to be having issues enforcing her authority and leadership in general, with the away team anyway.
I'm also unsure if I like having a foe in the Changed Tomol as seemingly 'god-like' as the Shedai were right off the bat in the new series...but definitely find them to be bad guys who keep my attention.
I'm not the biggest fan of 'planet-of-the-week' stories and don't read much of the TOS books for just that reason ('cept for Greg Cox stuff and any TMP era books) but Seekers past connection to Vanguard and the Taurus Reach will keep me interested long enough to see how it develops I think.
I gave Second Nature an 'Above Average' grade because it was a fast, fun read and do understand it's a two-parter which hopefully will be complimented by the second part shortly.
and....
Man...poor ol Sagittarius beat to shit again! In the first book no less!!
Agreed on the damage to his personal life being self-inflicted. But even if you rebuild your house after it's destroyed by a tornado, even if it's bigger and better than it was before, it was still destroyed by a tornado and you were still homeless for a while.
Regardless: I picked the book up earlier this week.
I wasn't expecting the connections to Vanguard, or that it wasn't a one-and-done plot. The series may be more about exploration like TOS was, but it doesn't seem like planet-of-the-week is necessarily how things will be going.
Overall I enjoyed it and am looking forward to next month's book.
EDIT: I do have one question, though. The story credit on the title page (as well as for some of the Vanguard novels, although in different order) was "story by David Mack and Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore". Based on how the WGA does crediting, if this were a screenplay that would mean that Dayton & Kevin worked together to rewrite David's story. Is that actually a fair assessment of the process? Or was it a collaborative effort, with and/& being chosen to separate out the Wardilmore writing team rather than indicating a rewrite?
Last edited:
I think they put that in there to denote the fact that Seekers #1 and Seekers #2 are a two-part story. David Mack wrote the first, while WarDilmore wrote book #2, but they came up with the overall story together as a team. In fact...they came up with the entire Seekers concept together as a team.
The "&" in "Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore" is used because they worked on their story as one unit, much like they did for 2 of the Vanguard books. I don't think it's about a re-write situation.
I could be wrong though. Hopefully David comes by and lets us know