And Let Us NOT forget Chris Bennett

[Dark Dreamer]

I just want to say that I've enjoyed all of Christopher's books and that I am looking forward to his next one.

 

[Epsilon IX]

I'd like to add my praises for Christopher Bennett as well. I enjoyed reading the novels 'Orion's Hounds', 'Greater Than The Sum' and 'Over a Torrent Sea' immensly. They really gave me hours of reading pleasure to brighten those otherwise immensly boring, uneventful train journeys I frequently have to make.

The only bad thing I have to say though is that when reading 'Over a Torrent Sea' I didn't exactly enjoy being given the mental image of a naked Riker, who's crapped himself!

 

[Rush Limborg]

Seven barfs...not exactly a good visual, either. Ah, well....




Chis Bennet is indeed an awesome writer. Some of you may remember my (belated) review for Ex Machina. Great story, great dialogue, great characterization--EXCELLENT continuity.

He's one great writer. Kudos to ye, mate!

 

[TerraUnam]

^^

Did Troi breastfeeding their daughter not do much for you either then?

 

[Myasishchev]

The only bad thing I have to say though is that when reading 'Over a Torrent Sea' I didn't exactly enjoy being given the mental image of a naked Riker, who's crapped himself!

I liked it. A good realist detail.

Did not like the fake made-up kablooium of the Dropletian asteroids. What's interesting is that since they did use antimatter in the attempt to deflect that asteroid, they could have accidentally produced enough photodisintegrated, short-lived radioactive material that the kablooium wasn't strictly necessary.

 

[Starbreaker]

Re: And Let Us NOT forget Chris Bennet

When did Christopher become a multiple personality?

I ask myself that a lot...

As long as you don't respond.

 

[Christopher]

Did not like the fake made-up kablooium of the Dropletian asteroids. What's interesting is that since they did use antimatter in the attempt to deflect that asteroid, they could have accidentally produced enough photodisintegrated, short-lived radioactive material that the kablooium wasn't strictly necessary.

I'm amused that you singled that out, since it was one of the few bits of technobabble in what's otherwise the most hard-SF Trek novel I've ever written. I wasn't sure if conventional radioisotopes would be sufficient to cause the kind of disruption I wanted -- particularly since there needed to be a technological fix provided by the Titan crew. Short-lived radionuclides would decay on their own. I needed something that would be a lasting problem unless our guys fixed it.

Besides, exotic elements and minerals are an established reality within the Trek universe, so arguably it would be less credible not to use them in a story within that setting. I took care to mostly use established substances that had been demonstrated as having the kinds of properties I needed. (Although I think I added a couple, including voltairium, after a stable transuranic element in the Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda universe, and timonium, after a neighborhood near the hotel where the Shore Leave convention is held.)

 

[Myasishchev]

Did not like the fake made-up kablooium of the Dropletian asteroids. What's interesting is that since they did use antimatter in the attempt to deflect that asteroid, they could have accidentally produced enough photodisintegrated, short-lived radioactive material that the kablooium wasn't strictly necessary.

I'm amused that you singled that out, since it was one of the few bits of technobabble in what's otherwise the most hard-SF Trek novel I've ever written.

That was exactly it! It was jarring.

At least you didn't call it kablooium...

I wasn't sure if conventional radioisotopes would be sufficient to cause the kind of disruption I wanted -- particularly since there needed to be a technological fix provided by the Titan crew. Short-lived radionuclides would decay on their own. I needed something that would be a lasting problem unless our guys fixed it.

I suppose that's true--Torrent Sea had a happy ending, so there needed to be some way to connect A to C there.

Besides, exotic elements and minerals are an established reality within the Trek universe, so arguably it would be less credible not to use them in a story within that setting.

True story; although it's not an attractive trait of the Trek universe, and one that should be eschewed, with necessary fictional substances having as close as possible a relationship to reality--dilithium should be ekalithium*, damnit.

*Or dvalithium. Or ekafrancium. I forget exactly how that works.

I took care to mostly use established substances that had been demonstrated as having the kinds of properties I needed. (Although I think I added a couple, including voltairium, after a stable transuranic element in the Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda universe, and timonium, after a neighborhood near the hotel where the Shore Leave convention is held.)

Voltairium may disapprove of your beta+ emissions, but it will defend to decay your right to do it.

(^No, I know. )

Anyway, it didn't ruin it or anything (far from it, Torrent Sea's the best Trek book I've read since The Motion Picture novelization, despite any other criticisms I've made of it, because it's tremendously imaginative and has a warm human heart to it). But it was just funny to switch gears from the serious exploration of life on Kevin Costner's homeworld to phlebotinum.

 

[Christopher]

I admit that the asteroid-caused problem and its solution were the handwaviest parts of the novel. But sometimes the story requires certain things that it's hard to find a hard-science way of achieving, and that's why we have poetic license.

And you know, the picture on my poetic license doesn't look a thing like me...

 

[Rush Limborg]

^Well...I was under the allegedly not-so-mistaken impression that the element of kablooium is, by an exponential factor, possesive of a more disruptive effect than antimatter--and is, for similar reasons, unrequiring of the deuterium element in order for said kablooium to approach the desired state of flux.

(Phew!)

 

[Myasishchev]

I mean, I did like "The Kablooium Maneuver."

 

[UncleRogi]

Did not like the fake made-up kablooium of the Dropletian asteroids. What's interesting is that since they did use antimatter in the attempt to deflect that asteroid, they could have accidentally produced enough photodisintegrated, short-lived radioactive material that the kablooium wasn't strictly necessary.

I'm amused that you singled that out, since it was one of the few bits of technobabble in what's otherwise the most hard-SF Trek novel I've ever written. I wasn't sure if conventional radioisotopes would be sufficient to cause the kind of disruption I wanted -- particularly since there needed to be a technological fix provided by the Titan crew. Short-lived radionuclides would decay on their own. I needed something that would be a lasting problem unless our guys fixed it.

Besides, exotic elements and minerals are an established reality within the Trek universe, so arguably it would be less credible not to use them in a story within that setting. I took care to mostly use established substances that had been demonstrated as having the kinds of properties I needed. (Although I think I added a couple, including voltairium, after a stable transuranic element in the Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda universe, and timonium, after a neighborhood near the hotel where the Shore Leave convention is held.)

Mr Bennett--You know your Star Trek better than anyone--Except Spock