David Mack owes my three days of my life for making such great novels. 
David Mack owes me 24 hours of my life...
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Lestater- The SCE series is gold-en! (Pun intended.) It's really a lot of fun, you tend to get invested in the characters because the esteemed author puts a lot into their thoughts and feelings and the overall arch of the plots rings true. As a fanfic author/reader I am vividly aware of how hard it is to step away from canon characters and still keep the plausibility and feel of the Star Trek universe and the SCE stories do just that. You think David owes you time now-wait until you take the SCE plunge. I do suggest staying with the original order-it matters in too many ways to read them willy-nilly. Or to put it another way, Wildfire is not a stand-alone novel, despite the advice of the cretin at Borders Books who tried to tell someone otherwise. Good thing I was there and overheard. 
Lestater- The SCE series is gold-en! (Pun intended.) It's really a lot of fun, you tend to get invested in the characters because the esteemed author puts a lot into their thoughts and feelings and the overall arch of the plots rings true. As a fanfic author/reader I am vividly aware of how hard it is to step away from canon characters and still keep the plausibility and feel of the Star Trek universe and the SCE stories do just that. You think David owes you time now-wait until you take the SCE plunge. I do suggest staying with the original order-it matters in too many ways to read them willy-nilly. Or to put it another way, Wildfire is not a stand-alone novel, despite the advice of the cretin at Borders Books who tried to tell someone otherwise. Good thing I was there and overheard.
Mistral: Thanks for the heads up! I am a self-confessed OCD sufferer so I tend to do many things in sequence [just because!] - I am prepared to start from the first SCE book and go through the series in order. I look forward to it! I totally understand KRAD's fondness for this series and like I said, I very much enjoyed the 2 or 3 installments of SCE books I read as a result of the DS9 relaunch [VERY COOL how the Nog and the SCE gang managed to TOW Empok Nor!] so I imagine the rest of the books will be just as compelling. Good work always shines through, especially when someone loves what they're doing. Tough part may be getting my hands on all 70+ books!
I know I have singled out David Mack and KRAD here with my praise, but in all honesty, I am so grateful to every writer out there who is working to keep the STLitverse alive and well. With relatively few exceptions, I have really enjoyed my own "Trek" through the vast STLitverse - Peter David, John Vornholt, Dayton Ward, Greg Cox, Diane Carey, Shatner and the Reeves-Stevens, S.D. Perry, Mangels and Martin, Jeff Lang, Chris Bennet...the list of authors whose work I have so enjoyed is nealy endless and too long to acknowledge here...
...BRAVO to all and may you continue to prosper!
Mistral, a small comment/question to you as an author yourself: like I said, I have enjoyed immensely so much of what I have read thus far in the STLitverse, but there is one stylistic thing I have come across that really drives me crazy.
For some reason, when authors refer to Janeway's ship as "THE Voyager", I simply can't help but wince. To me, a passage like "Paris nimbly navigated the Voyager through the field of space debris..." simply SOUNDS HORRIBLE to my reading ear as opposed to "Paris nimbly navigated Voyager through the field of space debris..."
For whatever reason, making the same substitution for "the Enterprise" or "the Defiant" doesn't seem to sound as wrong. Is this a case similar to the grammatical rule regarding "an historian" versus "a historian"?
What do you think? Does this Voyager thing stick in your craw when you encounter it as well? Is this a real grammatical faux pas or is it just me being a complete jacka$$?
I'd love to hear from any other authors here who might want to chime in on this admittedly silly pecadillo of mine...
cheers,
-lestatar
For some reason, when authors refer to Janeway's ship as "THE Voyager", I simply can't help but wince. To me, a passage like "Paris nimbly navigated the Voyager through the field of space debris..." simply SOUNDS HORRIBLE to my reading ear as opposed to "Paris nimbly navigated Voyager through the field of space debris..."
For whatever reason, making the same substitution for "the Enterprise" or "the Defiant" doesn't seem to sound as wrong. Is this a case similar to the grammatical rule regarding "an historian" versus "a historian"?
What do you think? Does this Voyager thing stick in your craw when you encounter it as well? Is this a real grammatical faux pas or is it just me being a complete jacka$$?
I'd love to hear from any other authors here who might want to chime in on this admittedly silly pecadillo of mine...
cheers,
-lestatar
I'm not an author, but that bothers the shit out of me too. And what bothers me more is that every time I see it I think about it and it further bothers me that I am actually bothered by something this "silly." For me I also have a thing about Enterprise too. Kirk and Picard are captains of The Enterprise, while Archer is captain of Enterprise.
I think it has to do with the shows. On Voyager they never referred to it as "The Voyager" but simply "Voyager" and thus hearing the extra article is strange. Same with Enterprise.
"The Voyager" comes up in the early episodes, but they soon dropped it--probably because they, too, thought it sounded terrible. I remember a Hallmark ornament commercial had a clip of Tom Paris saying "It's the Voyager" from "Parallax", and it bugged me every time I heard it.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
LightningStorm:
Glad to hear I am not the only one! Your response is EXACTLY how I feel about the issue. I just hate reading passages with "The Voyager", but then, like you, the more I think about it, the sillier I feel.
There are many other things to be worried about, right?
In any case, it still, and will in all likelihood, continue to bug the heck out of me...
And you may be absolutely right about the TV shows being responsible, though in truth, I think I would find hearing "The Voyager" spoken aloud still to be wrong...
cheers,
-lestatar
Trent Roman:
Thanks for jumping in. I didn't know that "The Voyager" was used in early episodes. Will have to go back to the DVDs and check it out. Though I am SO GLAD they ditched it...it just makes me cringe hearing/reading that phrase.
cheers and thanks for the info,
-lestatar
So it's not just me then, because I've felt the same way for ages. So which would be grammatically correct?
Actually, depending on how you want to read them, you might not have to find 70+ books. The e-books have also been collected in paperbacks that originally collected 4 ebooks in a MMPB, and then changed over to trades with 6-8 ebooks in each one after the 7th collection. So far 56 ebooks have been collected in 11 books.
I wish I could remember how they reffered to the Nimitz in CARRIER, but it's been way to long since I watched it. For those who don't know CARRIER was a 10-part series from PBS following the real life crew of the US Air Craft Carrier USS Nimitz.
Edit: I was just looking around the show's site, and most of the stuff on there reffers to it as the Nimitz.
Edit: I was just looking around the show's site, and most of the stuff on there reffers to it as the Nimitz.
"The Voyager" *shoots self*
Hate it! Like Christopher's comment!
Drives me crazy. A ship is a lady, not a thing. I might reference the Enterprise as being in orbit, but generally "Enterprise is coming and she's bringing help" is how I would refer to the community the ship represents. Does that make any sense?
Oh, and I may write but I'm not a real author-the guys in this forum are. I just dabble. They make $. Big difference.Hey Christopher, thanks a million for chiming in, especially from a professional writer's standpoint of the grammatical side of this oh-so-silly, but so very IRRITATING issue...
BTW, while you are here, you should know you are in the same company as Mssrs. Mack and KRAD in my view. I have greatly enjoyed your contributions to the STLitverse and you too are responsible for making me lose track of precious time! GTTS was terrific on so many levels, not the least of which was the part it played in leading to the Destiny saga and your Orion's Hounds was fantastic as well. I can't wait to dig into OATS and catching up with the rest of your work.
At the risk of sounding TOO sycophantic here [maybe it's too late!], my intention with this thread is simply to express my sincere appreciation to all the authors whose work I have loved so very much.
Continued success sir!
cheers,
-lestatar
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"The Voyager" *shoots self*
Like Christopher's comment!
Drives me crazy. A ship is a lady, not a thing. I might reference the Enterprise as being in orbit, but generally "Enterprise is coming and she's bringing help" is how I would refer to the community the ship represents. Does that make any sense?
Mistral:
LOL! You are not alone my friend - every time I read a passage like "Janeway ordered THE Voyager to fire...", I just want to pound my head against the nearest hard object.
You make an interesting point re: the anthropomorphization of vessels as being feminine. I completely agree that this just seems right, if not simply being a tradition from the earliest days of [especially] ocean-going travel.
But even though I am with you on this, the nagging issue of using or not using a grammatical article to preface a given ship name is an inconsistent irritant for me.
A small test, if you will indulge me:
-
Without warning, the Enterprise dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Enterprise dropped out of warp and...
Both read/sound OK to me;
-
Without warning, the Defiant dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Defiant dropped out of warp and...
Both read/sound OK to me, but strangely, use of the "the" seems to work for me slightly better in this case!
-
Without warning, the Titan dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Titan dropped out of warp and...
No question: the dropped article works for me here;
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Without warning, the Constellation dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Constellation dropped out of warp and...
Both work OK, but I am leaning towards the second one;
-
Without warning, the Scimitar dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Scimitar dropped out of warp and...
Both seem OK, but the first one seems more appropriate;
-
Without warning, the Gorkon dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Gorkon dropped out of warp and...
No doubt, the first one works here;
-
Without warning, the Negh'Var dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Negh'Var dropped out of warp and...
Same with the Gorkon example;
-
Without warning, the Rotarran dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Rotarran dropped out of warp and...
On the fence, but leaning towards the first one;
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Without warning, the Stargazer dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Stargazer dropped out of warp and...
On the fence here...
-
Without warning, the Delta Flyer dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Delta Flyer dropped out of warp and...
The grammatical article works here;
-
Without warning, the Mekong dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Mekong dropped out of warp and...
The grammatical article works here too;
-
Without warning, the Valiant dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Valiant dropped out of warp and...
Both OK;
-
Without warning, the Reliant dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Reliant dropped out of warp and...
Both OK, but first one seems slightly more correct;
-
Without warning, the Valdore dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Valdore dropped out of warp and...
Like the Klingon examples, using the grammatical article seems more right;
-
Without warning, the Terix dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Terix dropped out of warp and...
First one for sure;
...And finally...
-
Without warning, the Voyager dropped out of warp and...
Without warning, Voyager dropped out of warp and...
AARRRRGGGHH!!! The first example is SOOOOO WRONG!
So what have we learned with this not-so scientific experiment of a silly grammatical issue? Not a whole lot boys and girls.
In most cases, it seems that the use of the grammatical article in a given sentence immediately preceding a proper ship name is generally just as OK as omitting it.
In fact, it seems from the few Klingon and Romulan ship examples, using the grammatical article is a must!
And for whatever insane reason, using the grammatical article in some cases evokes unusually strong, negative responses [see Titan and especially Voyager].
<sigh> I am vexed...terribly vexed.
In any event, I clearly have too much time on my hands right now...
It would be very interesting though if someone more grammatically learned could shed some more light on this.
Thanks for the indulgence!
cheers,
-lestatar
