Battling apathy
- Thread starter Ood Sigma
- Start date
I don't know. People seem to speak of ZSG in much less positive words here compared to its review thread.
I can't comment myself since my copy hasn't got much farther than my shelf. Just finished Over A Torrent Sea though, and it did nothing else but solidify my opinion that 2009 was a great year for Treklit.
Last edited:
I've been apathetic toward the Star Trek line for some time (with the exception of some of the TOS novels) but I don't blame the writers. I figure they must be good at what they do, or they would not get published.
I personally don't like picking up a Star Trek book where most of the characters are people I've never heard of and don't care about. However, I completely understand why they're there. A very wise editorial decision has been made to show the passage of time in this universe,and not allow the Star Trek books to become like the Hardy Boys stories, where our characters have tons of adventures but no time ever passes.
My personal preferences draw me more towards the early pre-Richard Arnold TOS novels, when much less of the universe was defined and the writers had a bigger sandbox to play in. One of difficult things about writing for Star Trek now is that there are hundreds of television episodes and nine movies worth of "canon" to keep track of, and there are many chunks of it (the Enterprise and Voyager parts, for example) that weren't that good. And yet they have to work within all that stuff, and try to wring good stories out of it. Granted, I do not personally enjoy many of these stories, but I think the writers do a bang-up job of telling them. If that makes any sense.
I personally don't like picking up a Star Trek book where most of the characters are people I've never heard of and don't care about. However, I completely understand why they're there. A very wise editorial decision has been made to show the passage of time in this universe,and not allow the Star Trek books to become like the Hardy Boys stories, where our characters have tons of adventures but no time ever passes.
My personal preferences draw me more towards the early pre-Richard Arnold TOS novels, when much less of the universe was defined and the writers had a bigger sandbox to play in. One of difficult things about writing for Star Trek now is that there are hundreds of television episodes and nine movies worth of "canon" to keep track of, and there are many chunks of it (the Enterprise and Voyager parts, for example) that weren't that good. And yet they have to work within all that stuff, and try to wring good stories out of it. Granted, I do not personally enjoy many of these stories, but I think the writers do a bang-up job of telling them. If that makes any sense.
It comes and goes for me. I do enjoy the TrekLit section of the BBS and I've read some of the novels that I may have otherwise skipped over based upon good recommends in this forum.
In particular, I enjoyed Christopher's delving into more hard science in the Titan series book "Over A Torrent Sea"...I come to Trek not necessarily to be educated but rather to be entertained, though it is good when both can be accomplished provided it doesn't bring the story down or make it overlong. To the same extent, I enjoyed the work of Tom Clancy, but I didn't need a friggin' doctoral dissertation on sonar or Stealth materials to take up several pages that could have been condensed without taking away from the narrative. "Torrent Sea" educated without going into it ad nauseum and entertained simultaneously.
Was looking forward to the Typhon Pact miniseries, but at this point I'm waiting until I have all four books. Yeah, I know I can read them nonsequentially and they'll be fine, but I'm that way.
Regarding the Myriad Universe books, those were very enjoyable. My only regret is that there is so much that can be told that has to be jammed into so few pages. As they let David Mack do with "Sorrows of Empire", they should do likewise with the Myriad Universe tales.
In particular, I enjoyed Christopher's delving into more hard science in the Titan series book "Over A Torrent Sea"...I come to Trek not necessarily to be educated but rather to be entertained, though it is good when both can be accomplished provided it doesn't bring the story down or make it overlong. To the same extent, I enjoyed the work of Tom Clancy, but I didn't need a friggin' doctoral dissertation on sonar or Stealth materials to take up several pages that could have been condensed without taking away from the narrative. "Torrent Sea" educated without going into it ad nauseum and entertained simultaneously.
Was looking forward to the Typhon Pact miniseries, but at this point I'm waiting until I have all four books. Yeah, I know I can read them nonsequentially and they'll be fine, but I'm that way.
Regarding the Myriad Universe books, those were very enjoyable. My only regret is that there is so much that can be told that has to be jammed into so few pages. As they let David Mack do with "Sorrows of Empire", they should do likewise with the Myriad Universe tales.
Well, most of them would've been outlined with that target length in mind to begin with, so probably nothing would've needed to be cut. The exception is my Places of Exile, which I originally pitched to Marco early in the development of the alternate-histories project, before he'd decided on the format and length. So I outlined it with a full-length novel in mind. When it ended up being a short novel, I had to trim the outline substantially. I combined two major plot threads; the confrontation with the Voth at the end of part 1 is an amalgam of the climaxes of parts 1 and 2 of the original outline, one of which would've been a confrontation with a different group. I also left out a lot of the stuff I'd wanted to do in part 1 showing the crew adjusting to their new lives, having various adventures on their new ships (which I saw as a way of using up a number of unsold story pitches I developed for the show). Other than that, I just told the story more compactly than I would have at novel length.
I really like what I've read, but it was a bit hard having such huge delays in my favourite series (CoE and DS9). I don't care as much for the other series, so even the really well written novels I sometimes struggle with. But sometimes, I'm pleasantly surprised, and I find that the characters don't bug me as much as they did in the shows!
I think that at its longest (Michael and I tend to overwrite and then cut down as a matter of course), the manuscript for The Tears of Eridanus was some 70,000+ words, well over the 50,000-word requirement! The full final version is about 55,000. Nothing from the outline was lost in that editing, though; it was simply a matter of doing things more efficiently, or not using so many words to do something, or skipping details that turned out to be unimportant. In fact, the 55,000-word version has a couple scenes that aren't in the original outline or even the 70,000-word version.
Apart from the excellent Vanguard books I find that there is very little to get excited about,or that I woud miss about the current treklit universe.That is a statement that I never thought I would make.
Perhaps the dilution of the tv crews and the endless delays(epp.DS9)do not help.Or maybe it's that certain characters(I'm thinking of Picard)bear little or no resemblance to their tv incarnation.
Personally,the MU is something I have avoided like the plague,it's popularity baffels me.
Perhaps the dilution of the tv crews and the endless delays(epp.DS9)do not help.Or maybe it's that certain characters(I'm thinking of Picard)bear little or no resemblance to their tv incarnation.
Personally,the MU is something I have avoided like the plague,it's popularity baffels me.
I'm nowhere near up to date on my Treklit, but the recent books I have read/am reading (Inception, Losing the Peace, A Singular Destiny, Children of Kings, Full Circle, Unworthy, The Needs of the Many) I've enjoyed very much. I'm apathetic toward the Enterprise relaunch, I lost faith in IDW when Nero merged with V'Ger and I have my reservations about the various series moving too far from their TV/film roots, but my overall enthusiasm for Treklit is very healthy.
I must admit that the cancellation of the post-STXI books in the summer hurt - I was hyped for them like you wouldn't believe. I feel the Trek line suffered from mismanagement in 2009 - where were the re-releases of Final Frontier and Best Destiny with STXI's George Kirk on the cover? What about Enterprise: The First Adventure with "Read how the Star Trek crew met the first time!" written all over it?
But despite all of that, I have an endless supply of both old and new Treklit which I love
.
I must admit that the cancellation of the post-STXI books in the summer hurt - I was hyped for them like you wouldn't believe. I feel the Trek line suffered from mismanagement in 2009 - where were the re-releases of Final Frontier and Best Destiny with STXI's George Kirk on the cover? What about Enterprise: The First Adventure with "Read how the Star Trek crew met the first time!" written all over it?
But despite all of that, I have an endless supply of both old and new Treklit which I love
.
Agreed. The Never Ending Sacrifice was excellent indeed.
Una McCormack became a "must-read" author with that particular yarn.
Last edited:
I think, for me, it's been a few things that have veered me away from Trek Lit:
1. my disappointment with Inception and Unspoken Truth
2. the cancellation of the movie tie-in books
3. the many delays in the DS9 novels (and the whole mirror universe saga to boot)
4. the demise of the SCE/CoE e-books
5. the many changes in characters and characterizations
Re: #5: I'm more of a "group dynamics" person than a science or techno person. Most of what I enjoyed about the tv and movie Trek was the dynamics of and synergy within the crews. I didn't mind a little shake-up now and then because, hey, life goes on. But it seems to have gone past the point of no return. Even with Vanguard, my favorite lit series, the crew is no longer together on the station. The Voyager crew seems to be the one most intact, and not surprisingly, that's the only tv tie-in "relaunch" I'm interested in right now.
So, other than Vanguard and Voyager, I've pretty much moved on to other things.
But, KRAD, I'd buy an Articles of the Federation sequel as soon as I could get it downloaded to my nook!
1. my disappointment with Inception and Unspoken Truth
2. the cancellation of the movie tie-in books
3. the many delays in the DS9 novels (and the whole mirror universe saga to boot)
4. the demise of the SCE/CoE e-books
5. the many changes in characters and characterizations
Re: #5: I'm more of a "group dynamics" person than a science or techno person. Most of what I enjoyed about the tv and movie Trek was the dynamics of and synergy within the crews. I didn't mind a little shake-up now and then because, hey, life goes on. But it seems to have gone past the point of no return. Even with Vanguard, my favorite lit series, the crew is no longer together on the station. The Voyager crew seems to be the one most intact, and not surprisingly, that's the only tv tie-in "relaunch" I'm interested in right now.
So, other than Vanguard and Voyager, I've pretty much moved on to other things.
But, KRAD, I'd buy an Articles of the Federation sequel as soon as I could get it downloaded to my nook!
I think that my excitement for Treklit began to wane a bit in 2008, and particularly after the Destiny trilogy. This is not a criticism of the books (I loved them). I just think that some of Pocket's efforts after the epic, dramatic, game-changing crossover trilogy haven't been up to par. We've had a couple of direct follow-ups to Destiny like A Singular Destiny and Losing the Peace, which were pretty good. Titan went back to their mission of exploration but the last two novels disappointed me a bit. The DS9 relaunch's last two installments were drawn out (seriously, how long were we waiting for Fearful Symmetry, again?!) and also a little disappointing. The switch in focus to the Mirror Universe for the past 2 novels seems like a creative mis-step. The Ascendants storyline deserves to be front and center. The series lost any momentum that it had been building up over the years, and now it's fate seems uncertain given the lack of upcoming new DS9 titles and the time-jumping going on in recent novels.
There's obviously been a lot of changes and shuffling going on behind the scenes at Pocket. Marco's unfortunate departure really had a ripple effect on the quality and direction of some of the series. Margaret's departure just compounded things even further (though I wasn't as pleased with the titles under her leadership). At the moment, we have no clear idea of who's guiding Treklit and what their vision for the franchise is. Throw in all of the controversy about giving the green light to create content for the Abramsverse and then pulling those 4 novels after they've been written, creating a huge hole in their release schedule and disappointing many fans. The 2010 release schedule is very uneven and has a huge gap right in the middle of the year. I'm not terribly impressed with 2011's schedule, either.
The only real bright spot in Treklit for me right now, shockingly, VOY. The re-relaunch has been a huge breath of fresh air. VOY the series was always a disappointment for me, and the relaunch novels as written by Christie Golden were just dreadful. Bringing in a new author to tie-up loose ends and then spin the series in a new direction was the absolute right thing to do, and I have been very impressed with Kirsten Beyer's first two novels and I eagerly await the next installment.
Treklit has really grown and expanded so much, and I can see how it must be difficult to try and service everyone. There are so many on-going series (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, New Frontier, Vanguard, Titan, SCE), plus stand-alone stories, crossovers, anthologies, etc. and only so many slots in the schedule for each year. Trying to keep all of these balls in the air, keep new stories coming and getting them published in a timely fashion must be incredibly challenging. But as a fan and consumer, it's a little frustrating to have long waits between books sometimes.
There's obviously been a lot of changes and shuffling going on behind the scenes at Pocket. Marco's unfortunate departure really had a ripple effect on the quality and direction of some of the series. Margaret's departure just compounded things even further (though I wasn't as pleased with the titles under her leadership). At the moment, we have no clear idea of who's guiding Treklit and what their vision for the franchise is. Throw in all of the controversy about giving the green light to create content for the Abramsverse and then pulling those 4 novels after they've been written, creating a huge hole in their release schedule and disappointing many fans. The 2010 release schedule is very uneven and has a huge gap right in the middle of the year. I'm not terribly impressed with 2011's schedule, either.
The only real bright spot in Treklit for me right now, shockingly, VOY. The re-relaunch has been a huge breath of fresh air. VOY the series was always a disappointment for me, and the relaunch novels as written by Christie Golden were just dreadful. Bringing in a new author to tie-up loose ends and then spin the series in a new direction was the absolute right thing to do, and I have been very impressed with Kirsten Beyer's first two novels and I eagerly await the next installment.
Treklit has really grown and expanded so much, and I can see how it must be difficult to try and service everyone. There are so many on-going series (TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, New Frontier, Vanguard, Titan, SCE), plus stand-alone stories, crossovers, anthologies, etc. and only so many slots in the schedule for each year. Trying to keep all of these balls in the air, keep new stories coming and getting them published in a timely fashion must be incredibly challenging. But as a fan and consumer, it's a little frustrating to have long waits between books sometimes.
As an aside, I picked up Shattered Light at B&N last night, and was shocked to discover that Mr. Mollmann and Schuster had written a longer work than David R. George III had!!
As an aside, I picked up Shattered Light at B&N last night, and was shocked to discover that Mr. Mollmann and Schuster had written a longer work than David R. George III had!!
Steve could only do that because he outsourced some of the writing to Austria.
Got the book earlier this week, but I think I'll read the second Eureka novel first.
Okay, the end of the world isn't far away, then.As an aside, I picked up Shattered Light at B&N last night, and was shocked to discover that Mr. Mollmann and Schuster had written a longer work than David R. George III had!!
Okay, the end of the world isn't far away, then.As an aside, I picked up Shattered Light at B&N last night, and was shocked to discover that Mr. Mollmann and Schuster had written a longer work than David R. George III had!!
After looking at the page proofs, I was afraid of that.
Serves me right for all those cracks I made about DRG3 not being able to write a "short novel."
Hey, I was given a word limit, and I aimed for it. Amazing what a little discipline will do.
Actually, I intentionally structured my tale as one that would be relatively quick in the telling. Not overly complex, and with a lot of the subsequent fallout from the story implied. Mine is also, I believe, a more personal story than most of the other what-if works.
Also, the marketing for The Embrace of Cold Architects seems to imply a particular point of departure for my alternate-history piece, but the critical moment is not correct. I actually went with the granddaddy of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, otherwise known as the butterfly effect: the weather.
Actually, I intentionally structured my tale as one that would be relatively quick in the telling. Not overly complex, and with a lot of the subsequent fallout from the story implied. Mine is also, I believe, a more personal story than most of the other what-if works.
Also, the marketing for The Embrace of Cold Architects seems to imply a particular point of departure for my alternate-history piece, but the critical moment is not correct. I actually went with the granddaddy of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, otherwise known as the butterfly effect: the weather.
Similar threads
