Spoilers Coda: Book 1: Moments Asunder by Dayton Ward Review Thread

Only you can make that determination for yourself.

 

Sigh. Hard story.

It was kind of weird how Worf had no depicted reaction to Ezri's "death" especially since it was also the supposed death of Dax itself. The remnant of his lost wife.

I couldn't stop thinking about how the Bajoran wormhole is a major target for the Devidians. I suspect the flash of light was Dax's rescue by the Emissary.

 

I did wonder on that point as well, the description in the book didn't feel like a death.

In some ways I thought the deaths were the weakest part of the book. They were so relentless at points and none of the characters had much time to react that it felt more like clearing out cannon fodder.

 

The story was very action-oriented. It did feel like the reflections were brief, or too much focused on Picard. I thought T'Ryssa's grief for Dina, Taurik, and Rennan was well done, but T'Ryssa herself was mostly from Picard's POV, and even the early Wesley death was entirely from Picard's POV too, a man known for his restrained reactions.

 

I just got to the Wesley death part.

NOOOOOOOO!

NOOOooo!



I am feeling this way more than Ezri.

 

Will anyone miss "the big talking donut"?

 

Well we know he survives in some form. With a new human body too!

 

"Dies, died, will die... Lives, lived, will live..."

 

I forgot about "Carl" from DSC.

 

You beat me to my big question. I wonder if it, like the first few chapters of Dead Endless is a subtle clue, or if it's an actual whoopsie and, if so, is it the kind where next time I pull up the eBook, I'll find that character has been quietly replaced with a different character, the same way the occasional reference to Vale being on the ship but off-screen during NEM vanishes from the eBook editions after it's pointed out.

As for the rest, yeah, it's pretty freakin' grim. I don't necessarily have a problem with it, since I have a feeling that there's an "always darkest before the dawn" thing going on. While the book ends with a very clear foreshadowing of the means by which this story will end, and we all know how it must end in its ending-ness, it's almost too clear where things are going; like the man said, "Don't watch the mouth, watch the hands." There are enough loose ends, like Dax's nonstandard PoV death scene, and Trys's epiphany (though there's a decent chance that the plot function was to remind us that other people knew what Taurik saw about the future and leave her with even more unfulfillable potential) to make me think this isn't going for the straight-up "Year of Hell" ending where rocks fall, everybody dies, close curtain, open curtain on the new timeline where none of this has ever happened, there, you got an ending.

Also, the perfunctory evil aliens from the wacky Mark Twain episode being the (apparent) architects of multiversal destruction reminds me of the villain of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?"

 

Sjy reference to Jean Airey's "The Doctor and the Enterprise" on page 12?

Well, even if it's unintentional, I'll take it as such.

 

You killed Ezri? Trying to make us hate the novelVerse now? It's still 100 times better than whatever Picard was.
It was pretty good. I did get many Crisis vibes at the start; with the alternate universes being destroyed and Wesley acting like the Pariah of sorts. Just witnessing their destruction. Shame there was no JJVerse, DiscoVerse or Mirror Universe scenes. Maybe in the next books.
It was nice to read scenes about the Relativity. As far as I know, they haven't been in the book before which was a nice surprise. All that's left on my bucket list is something about the Enterprise J.
The reveal of the villains was a little underwhelming to me. I don't know why but I expected something bigger for the reveal than some obscure TNG baddie. I've been playing Death Stranding recently and so the way the baddies killed their prey reminded me of the BTs from that game; with the accelerated aging. Picard and co. will need to get themselves a Bridge Baby.
Reading the thing at the end with how this book came to be was a little sad. I still don't get why this continuity has to end. I mean if comic books can have multiple continuities then why can't the books? It's not like the books are the biggest draw to the franchise anyway. The people who read them won't get confused.
If this story ends with the timeline reverting to the one in Picard then I'll be disappointed. I wouldn't want to wish that on Picard or any of the characters.

 

Got it today. Also finished it today. Entertaining, grim, hard to see things go. Definitely tells us where it’s going, but hopefully there’s another way to get there other than the stated ‘trim our branch to save the tree’ sacrifice where they just lose for 3 books and go out in a hail of gunfire.

what’s left on the ‘things that need closure’ list we want to see? Bashir? Wormhole mystery that was going on in DS9? Data? Assume we’ll leave VOY alone to perish in peace, having sailed off Into the sunset in the previous book? Any other decent sized dangling threads that need to be wrapped up (or murdered)?

 

No one ever doubted your kill ratios

 

Hmm

Spoiler

I wonder if Worf having those dreams of the other reality is connected to his experience in Parallels. Maybe having crossed various quantum realities has made him sensitive to it. Though That wouldn't explain Riker's dream.

Also I had a morbid thought, Symbiotes live longer than their hosts, so if a Trill was killed be a Devidian, you'd probably see the host rot away before the symbiote would.

 

^I did briefly wonder if the meaning of the nonstandard death scene would be that Dax aged into being one of those whale-sized ancient symbionts right on the bridge.

 

This big talking donut reference is eluding me.

 

"THE GUARDIAN OF FOREVERRRRRRRR"

 

And to think, right after this they have the supernova and Spock’s disappearance to deal about.

 

My guess is the Romulan supernova is not an event in this timeline. That it is a "post-Crisis" event only.