Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS*****

[David Mack]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

^ Greater Than the Sum is an upcoming (2008) TNG novel by Christopher L. Bennett. It will continue the adventures of the crew of the Enterprise-E, and help set the stage for the events of the Destiny trilogy.

Christopher and I have been working hard to coordinate our efforts and make certain that our character depictions and continuity details will track properly from one book to the next (and KRAD has kindly vetted character and continuity bits for both of us, as well).

 

[Turtletrekker]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

^Very cool. Despite the fact that you are the sole author, the project still seems to have a real collaborative vibe to it.

 

[fleetcaptain]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

Ok that clears everything up now. I couldn't remember the name of the last TNG book before Destiny at all, thanks both of you.

 

[JD]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

David Mack said:
^ When I'm done, you'll be driving down a highway one afternoon, and someone will say, "What's that roadkill we just passed?" And you'll have to tell them, "It's what's left of Treklit's status quo after Destiny."

You are really making the wait for these books torture. Can you at least promise us that there still will be a Treklit universe after Destiny?

 

[David Mack]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

^ It's possible. The editors are very clever. I'm sure they'll think of something.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

Can you at least promise us that there still will be a Treklit universe after Destiny?

Yes, but it will only consist of Spock Must Die!, The Prometheus Design, and Articles of the Federation.

Okay, and "Bum Radish: Five Spins on a Turquoise Reindeer" from SNW VI.

But that's it!

 

[David Mack]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

^ But will I have to read "Bum Radish: Five Spins on a Turquoise Reindeer" in order to understand Articles of the Federation? And what's the correct reading order for the three novels?

 

[Dayton Ward]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

Well, it obviously can't be publication order. That's just a diversion to throw people off.

We'll probably have to write annotations once you're done kicking the shit out of everything.

Thanks, dude. Thanks a lot.

 

[D Man]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

David Mack said:
^ But will I have to read "Bum Radish: Five Spins on a Turquoise Reindeer" in order to understand Articles of the Federation? And what's the correct reading order for the three novels?

Don't tell KRAD, but I'm laughing hard at this one.

 

[Ben]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

I thought this book was excellent. I thought the actions of the new crewmembers made sense considering their circumstances. I don't think you can really claim they were acting out-of-character when they've only appeared in one other book. Another great job by PAD!!

 

[kickinitoldschool]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

When go Greater than the Sum and the Destiny trilogy come out? Also, what do we know about the plots of them (besides that Destiny will shake things up to, to put it mildly)?

 

[Christopher]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

kickinitoldschool said:
When go Greater than the Sum and the Destiny trilogy come out?

GTTS (which I'm sometimes tempted to abbreviate as ">+")is in August '08, Destiny in Oct-Dec '08.

Also, what do we know about the plots of them (besides that Destiny will shake things up to, to put it mildly)?

All that's been publicly released about GTTS is the following tagline on the Voyages of Imagination site:

"Picking up on the events of Before Dishonor, the crew of the Enterprise embarks on a dangerous mission while dealing with personal upheavals that will define the characters' lives forever after."

 

[Brendan Moody]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

Ben said:
I thought the actions of the new crewmembers made sense considering their circumstances. I don't think you can really claim they were acting out-of-character when they've only appeared in one other book.

Sure you can, if they get halfway decent characterization in that other book, which Kadohata and Leybenzon most definitely did in the excellent Q & A. That book sets up several personality traits for each; PAD appears to have noticed "British" for one and "something about chain of command" for the other and ditched everything else.

 

[LastGL]

Re: "Before Dishonor" — A Darn Good Read!

Kirks_Flying_Wig said:

Christopher said:

flandry84 said:
Mutiny??This would never have happened on Maddens' watch!

Don't be silly. When have we ever seen a Starfleet officer wearing a watch?

Code of Honor of course.

Star Trek 2

 

[LastGL]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

David Mack said:
^ And even then he received post-facto permission from Starfleet Command.

After T'Pau intervened.

 

[Ronald Held]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

I just finished. I was not surprised by the last chapter,seeing as no novel is likely to end the threat of the Borg permanently.
Or by an appearance by Calhoun.

 

[Warp Coil]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

I finished Before Dishonor a few days ago. A good read. More substantial than Resistance. However, I had some issues with it. I agree with other posters about the poor characterizations of Kadohata and Leybenzon. Their behavior was noticably different from their previous appearance in Q&A. I took particular offense to how PAD wrote Kadohata - she may be a new character to the audience, but supposedly she's served with Picard since way back in the days of TNG, so why doesn't she fully trust him the same way Geordi and Worf do? I could understand T'Lana or Leybenzon having issues with Picard, but not her.

I wasn't thrilled with the Janeway-as-Queen angle, simply because I thought PAD didn't like the idea of the Borg Queen, and with her destruction in Resistance I had a feeling he was going to try to take the Borg in a different direction. I also wish we had the Borg being more terrifying and scary - I thought they were pretty creepy in Resistance but I didn't feel so scared reading about the living Cube.

The ending was somewhat expected. The Borg are destoyed (but not really, since the Einstein ship gets away with some Borg still alive), Janeway dies, which would have been awesome and dramatic - except that she'll clearly be back. Meh.

I have to say that, so far, the TNG relaunch hasn't gripped me the way the DS9 relaunch has. Two Borg novels with Q thrown into the mix. I suppose I just liked the more serialized nature of the DS9 novels.

One thing this novel did do was give me nostalgia. I've since gone back and re-watched "Q Who?", "The Best of Both Worlds" and "I, Borg." I've even picked up PAD's first Borg novel, Vendetta and have started to re-read it. It was the first Trek novel that I read... and that was like 15 years ago!

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

Its strting to sound like Destiny is the Infinite/Final Crisis of the Trek Lit Universe.

 

[CaptainDonovin]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

^ At least we'll have fan fic to fall back on or the Star Wars universe to read! (ducks for cover)

 

[PhotoM]

Re: Before Dishonor -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS****

Great Great book. I love the reference to the other TNG Doomsday book. I just read that book 6 months ago. I got it at a used book store. So to me that is pretty cool. For you all who read the first book years ago I bet that was really pretty damn cool.

The mutiny at first bothered me because it did not go along with what I thought the charters were in Q&A. But if you think about it they did what they were ordered to do. They are not Picards personal Starfleet they are Starfleet.

Q? I really don't know if she was needed. It's really hard to do anything with them. They are after all very powerful. Gods in a lot of terms. The whole idea they don't destroy the borg or help destroy because they see people as flies dont well... Fly. She came to Janaway and tried to warn her. Why warn a fly?

It was hard to believe that that she would stand there with Janaway as the queen and do nothing. Or do nothing when the queen threaten the Q. Come on Q froze a security officer for drawing A weapon. Besides I will swat a fly if it threatens my food.

The comedy elements was great. I really want to see the Gift Shop myself.

Janaways so called death. Was a unexpected very bold as a author to do. Mite piss off other authors She really had no real role in the books since Voyagers return. I have read them all. Sad to see her go

I wonder what effect all the ships & people lost will have on the federation. I would guess at least 40 lost. Maybe more. The orginal Armada. Then at least most of the ships at earth.