Author Habits That Annoy You

[Christopher]

Never heard of White Collar. Looking it up in Wikipedia, it looks almost like a retread of Switch.

I presume you mean the 1975 Glen Larson series with Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner, which I had to look up, since I don't remember it. It's a similar premise, a cop and a con man solving crimes together, but it's quite different. Albert's character was a retired cop and the two opened a private detective agency after Wagner's character got out of prison -- which reminds me of the short-lived Stephen J. Cannell series Tenspeed and Brown Shoe, where straitlaced ex-stockbroker Jeff Goldblum and con artist Ben Vereen formed a detective agency together. White Collar is about a debonair gentleman thief and forger compelled to work as a criminal informant for an active FBI agent as a condition of his parole. The friendship and tension between the partners with conflicting agendas and values was the heart of the show. It's kind of like if Lupin III had to work for Inspector Zenigata.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Hmm. Glen Larson. Thought it was a Quinn Martin series. Hmm Wikipedia says that Larson started out working for Quinn Martin. That might explain my error. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the series, but I know I liked the first season open (with the spinning coin motif and the lighter arrangement of the music) better than the second-third season open. And I liked the ex-cop/ex-con-man dynamic, and the chemistry between Eddie Albert (whom I fondly remembered from Green Acres) and Robert Wagner.

 

[JD]

Now, what I found awkward were the car chases in Alias where they'd suddenly cut to a close-up of the logo of the heroes' sportscar.

Yeah, that always cracked me up, just because it could not have been more obvious what they were doing. I don't mind subtle product place, but it gets pretty ridiculous when they're that obvious about it.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Sometimes it feels weird when a writer includes characters from previous books in their later books where other characters are the focus. I can't say why; it just strikes me as strange sometimes - not because of "small universe", but just seeing how they're perceived by the new characters.

 

[DonIago]

I seem to remember that with the books leading up to Destiny it felt like the secondary characters who'd joined the Enterprise were kind of painted differently in different books, leaving me unsure whether I was supposed to find them at all sympathetic or ultimately just kind of awful people (Leybenzon(?) in particular?). I'm not saying this is the fault of the authors, since presumably they were written based on material the authors had received (and presumably they're supposed to be working under some higher-level oversight), but it felt like a larger-scale incongruity.

 

[Enterprise1701]

I seem to remember that with the books leading up to Destiny it felt like the secondary characters who'd joined the Enterprise were kind of painted differently in different books, leaving me unsure whether I was supposed to find them at all sympathetic or ultimately just kind of awful people (Leybenzon(?) in particular?). I'm not saying this is the fault of the authors, since presumably they were written based on material the authors had received (and presumably they're supposed to be working under some higher-level oversight), but it felt like a larger-scale incongruity.

I am still flummoxed whose idea it was to assign Peter David to knock off Kathryn Janeway in a TNG novel! And that book came out in 2007, so it wasn't Great Recession bedlam.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I seem to remember that with the books leading up to Destiny it felt like the secondary characters who'd joined the Enterprise were kind of painted differently in different books, leaving me unsure whether I was supposed to find them at all sympathetic or ultimately just kind of awful people (Leybenzon(?) in particular?).

Yeah, those first wave "relaunch" characters didn't fare too well. IIRC, it was KRAD who had originated Leybenzon, and when he was first introduced, he came across as an interesting, multi-faceted character. Unfortunately, by Before Dishonor, he was basically reduced to a caricature.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Sometimes it feels weird when a writer includes characters from previous books in their later books where other characters are the focus. I can't say why; it just strikes me as strange sometimes - not because of "small universe", but just seeing how they're perceived by the new characters.

Why? I've written at least a dozen short stories in the same milieu as my novel. Some of them exploring backstory of supporting (or peripheral) characters in the novel, and some only vaguely connected.
And of course, ADF is up to about 27 inches of shelf-space in Humanx Commonwealth novels, all growing out of The Tar-Aiym Krang, and some of them are about his first original protagonist, Flinx, and some don't involve him at all, and there's at least one (Bloodhype) in which he's a guest-star who doesn't show up at all until about 2/3 of the way in.

What's so weird about wanting to explore the rest of a universe of your own creation? Every new story told in a given milieu enriches the milieu.

 

[DonIago]

I am still flummoxed whose idea it was to assign Peter David to knock off Kathryn Janeway in a TNG novel! And that book came out in 2007, so it wasn't Great Recession bedlam.

I have to admit I don't mind Before Dishonor as much as many seem to, but I also kind of rationalize it as an example of what happens when Peter David is left to his own devices while writing. I feel the same way about Peter Jackson and certain other film directors, which is to say that they can produce really good work but can let their own worst impulses run wild if they're not kept in check.

 

[Christopher]

I am still flummoxed whose idea it was to assign Peter David to knock off Kathryn Janeway in a TNG novel! And that book came out in 2007, so it wasn't Great Recession bedlam.

It was the late Margaret Clark's idea to kill off Janeway, and it was Margaret's idea to resurrect her a few years later.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Why? I've written at least a dozen short stories in the same milieu as my novel. Some of them exploring backstory of supporting (or peripheral) characters in the novel, and some only vaguely connected.
And of course, ADF is up to about 27 inches of shelf-space in Humanx Commonwealth novels, all growing out of The Tar-Aiym Krang, and some of them are about his first original protagonist, Flinx, and some don't involve him at all, and there's at least one (Bloodhype) in which he's a guest-star who doesn't show up at all until about 2/3 of the way in.

What's so weird about wanting to explore the rest of a universe of your own creation? Every new story told in a given milieu enriches the milieu.

Not all the time, just sometimes. It depends on the author and the story being told.

 

[Steve Roby]

Yeah, those first wave "relaunch" characters didn't fare too well. IIRC, it was KRAD who had originated Leybenzon, and when he was first introduced, he came across as an interesting, multi-faceted character. Unfortunately, by Before Dishonor, he was basically reduced to a caricature.

The TV characters (Shelby, Selar, Lefler, Jellico) who appeared in PAD's New Frontier novels weren't necessarily caricatures, but they certainly weren't the same as the TV versions. I long had the impression that a certain editor let certain writers indulge themselves too much. PAD was one of those writers.

 

[DonIago]

I've never read the New Frontier books. I'd kind of like to, but when I've read stories including the characters original to those books in other Trek fiction I've gotten the sense I might be uncomfortable with the excesses.

I was really enjoying PAD's take on the Trek comics post-TFF though.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I was really enjoying PAD's take on the Trek comics post-TFF though.

I liked PAD's first run on DC's Star Trek comic, the tail end of the first volume. The second volume that came after TFF got too goofy and self-indulgent for my tastes. There were good ideas, like a bounty being placed on Kirk's head after STIV's "There will be no peace as long as Kirk lives!" but with utterly silly executions like Sweeney, the feared bounty hunter who looked and acted like John Cleese.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I've never read the New Frontier books. I'd kind of like to, but when I've read stories including the characters original to those books in other Trek fiction I've gotten the sense I might be uncomfortable with the excesses.

I enjoyed them. When I think about it, it seems to me that NF has a lot in common with LD, and with the abortive "Challenger" offshoot series from the "New Earth" miniseries: a crew of misfits, that somehow manage to accomplish what they set out to do in spite of being misfits.

Then again, that sort of thing appeals to me in all genres. Some of my favorite TV sitcoms are about misfits somehow defying expectations. Welcome Back, Kotter; WKRP in Cincinnati; Barney Miller; and as I think of it, M*A*S*H kind of fits this concept.

 

[Greg Cox]

Then again, that sort of thing appeals to me in all genres. Some of my favorite TV sitcoms are about misfits somehow defying expectations. Welcome Back, Kotter; WKRP in Cincinnati; Barney Miller; and as I think of it, M*A*S*H kind of fits this concept.

You definitely need to check out Farscape, if you haven't already. Talk about a crew of misfits, defying everyone's expectations -- including their own.

See also the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

 

[Cicero]

I seem to remember that with the books leading up to Destiny it felt like the secondary characters who'd joined the Enterprise were kind of painted differently in different books, leaving me unsure whether I was supposed to find them at all sympathetic or ultimately just kind of awful people (Leybenzon(?) in particular?). I'm not saying this is the fault of the authors, since presumably they were written based on material the authors had received (and presumably they're supposed to be working under some higher-level oversight), but it felt like a larger-scale incongruity.

I still don't understand why the TNG relaunch was so scornful of its new characters. I didn't even like her, but I stopped reading the 24th Century novels entirely after Choudhury's pointless, mean-spirited death.

 

[Steve Roby]

I enjoyed them. When I think about it, it seems to me that NF has a lot in common with LD, and with the abortive "Challenger" offshoot series from the "New Earth" miniseries: a crew of misfits, that somehow manage to accomplish what they set out to do in spite of being misfits.

I don't think "misfits" is the lens I'd use to look at these series.

New Frontier is Star Trek as Marvel superhero comic.

Lower Decks is Star Trek as workplace sitcom.

New Earth/Challenger, at least in the books by Diane Carey, who as I recall created the concept, is politically motivated anti-Star Trek.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

You definitely need to check out Farscape, if you haven't already. Talk about a crew of misfits, defying everyone's expectations -- including their own.

See also the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

I do find Farscape intriguing. Just haven't had a chance to tune in (and I don't even know who carries it -- maybe Cartoon Network?) And I bought used DVDs (out of Alibris) of the Guardians movies, and so yes, I do like them.

 

[bdub76]

I do find Farscape intriguing. Just haven't had a chance to tune in (and I don't even know who carries it -- maybe Cartoon Network?) And I bought used DVDs (out of Alibris) of the Guardians movies, and so yes, I do like them.

Last I checked it was on Prime on the US.

It does get a little dark.

But you have to like puppets.