A Time to Be Born \ Die

[RonG]

Feeling nostalgic, I'd just finished the first two books in the ATT series (John Vornholt's A Time to Be Born and A Time to Die).

Originally, I didn't think much of these novels (or the first six books in the series), but I must say that the opening two part tale has been much better than I remembered.

I liked that the Rashanar mission went all wrong, and the ramifications for Picard and the crew. While Wesley Crusher was never one of my favorite characters (on the show or in print), I thought that he was at least tolerable

I know that there are some very negative reviews and criticisms of these novels, and I wanted to ask for your opinion on the novels.

comments?

 

[captcalhoun]

i liked them. not brilliant, but not terrible.

 

[Defcon]

They're the weakest of the bunch, but they're still an acceptable read.

 

[JD]

I tried to read them, but I only made it about 50 pages into the first one before I quite. I liked the rest of the series though.

 

[LightningStorm]

I thoroughly enjoyed the 1st one, I consider it the 4th best book of the 9. The 2nd one however, got a lot weird and was not a compliment to the first one at all. It was, in fact, the worst one of the 9 IMO.

 

[Trent Roman]

I feel much as LightningStorm does. I really liked the first book in the duology, but the second was a complete disappointment, and it took a while for the series to recover from that low-point.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Julio Angel Ortiz]

Very "meh" in my opinion. Just very, very average and I didn't buy into how much the Enterprise crew was jumped on by the rest of Starfleet (and Picard in general). Seemed contrived for the sake of the "arc."

 

[ronny]

My problem with the first 2 books is they are very Wesley centric and he's a traveler which means he moves around and gets things done pretty much by thinking about it. A pretty unsatisfactory way of saving our heroes. And the female love interested, or what ever she was, can't quite remember, was a pretty weak character.

The order of the duologies from worst to best for me would be 1, 3, 2, 4. For the final book I would either put it between 2 and 4 or 3 and 2, can't remember. I liked the 2nd pair a lot, it's just hard to beat David Mack.

 

[donners22]

I never had a problem with Wesley until I read these books. He irritated me so much in these that I really couldn't enjoy the story at all.

 

[Bonzo the Fifth]

My personal peeve with this duo was what happened to Data during this... having his emotion chip ripped out seemed just... brutal... Personally, I was never really a fan of the whole 'emotion chip' gimmick to start with, but this seemed like an awful way in which to get rid of the concept. Especially since it was followed up by a duology in which he was disabled and out of action for more of it due to sabotage....

Personally, I felt somewhat shortchanged by the 'A Time To...' series. As a Data fan, I felt he got serious short shrift in this series, especially considering that his death in Nemesis essentially meant this was the last word on the character in the literature. After being one of the central characters in the live action series, Data essentially became a supporting character by this point. And in this miniseries, time and again, I felt like the writers tried to push him out of the way as much as possible, to my continued frustration.

To me, the most egregious example of 'writing around the android' was in '...kill-...heal', where it was stated that, after Riker's kidnapping, Data literally remained on duty for over a month, without rest, until Riker's return. Yet for the most part, this is reflected through the thoughts of other characters, it's rarely directly portrayed with almost no direct character focus... It's saved, though, in that Data did engineer and lead the mission that finally got Riker back and also had the vindicating moment where Riker admits to 'using' Data for his own comfortability.

I almost got the feeling from reading the series that there was a consensus that, given that Data was dying in Nemesis, no one was going to waste paper on giving him any kind of meaningful story arc through this series other than a few perfunctory bits to explain his suddenly non-emotional behavior and the fact that he was going to be promoted to first officer. That made me very sad...

That being said, I was very pleased that KRAD was kind enough to have a relatively substantial Data story in War/Peace with his interviews with Admiral Go.

Thankfully, Jeffrey Lang's Immoral Coil and Christopher Bennett's Buried Age prove that not all of the writers are shying away from my favorite character... maybe there are still a few good Data stories out there, somewhere...

*Sorry for the slight thread hijack/rant*

 

[Thrawn]

I thought Data's arc in Kill/Heal was one of the strongest in the duology, and more than anything else made me really feel for his death in Nemesis.

Mostly, I think that Data and Picard were clearly the focus of TNG stories most of the time, and what the A Time To series did was genuinely give everyone their time in the spotlight. Data wasn't important any more than anyone else. But since usually he's one of the driving arcs, maybe it felt unfair by comparison?

 

[Bonzo the Fifth]

I thought Data's arc in Kill/Heal was one of the strongest in the duology, and more than anything else made me really feel for his death in Nemesis.

Mostly, I think that Data and Picard were clearly the focus of TNG stories most of the time, and what the A Time To series did was genuinely give everyone their time in the spotlight. Data wasn't important any more than anyone else. But since usually he's one of the driving arcs, maybe it felt unfair by comparison?

Perhaps... though Picard certainly kept his central role thoughout (though that's to be expected, as the captain).

I suppose my frustration comes from the fact that overall, Data's character, in canon as well as the expanded universe, simply diminished over time, as I guess writers just ran out of things to tell, especially since the emotion chip essentially brought his story arc to a screaming mess of a halt, thoroughly diminishing the character...

This happens in shows, though, I understand that... doesn't mean I have to like it, though... ;-)

 

[BryanSorensen]

I thought the first 2 books in this series were ok...it was at least an explanation as to what happened to Datas emotion chip. The second 2 were kinda just thrown in there, i liked them...the third 2 were good i thought cause it tied up loose plot threads with Riker and his dad; and with Riker and Troi. The 4th 2 were the best 2 i thought, the most action...plus i think the stories worked better when ALL of the TNG main characters are invovled. The last book was of course fantastic. I guess all in all the series was satisfying for me, a way of bridging gaps between movies always interests me.

 

[JD]

I really think the emotion chip was one of the biggest missed oportunities for Data's character, it was the perfect oportunity to give Data a chance to learn alot more about being human. I think they did some pretty good stuff with it in First Contact and Insurrection, but IMO it was total crap that they took it away in Nemesis. I really think that that movie should have put the most focus on Data and the emotion chip, IMO since they were killing him off they could have least let him die with emotions.

 

[Cap'n Crunch]

What I don't understand is how Starfleet had the authority to take Data's emotion chip anyway. I think the way the novel explained it was that Data received the emotion chip after joining Starfleet so it was considered an "add-on", thus making it Starfleet property. But wouldn't that make Geordi's ocular implants and Picards artificial heart Starfleet property. It just doesn't make much sense to me.