Dear TOS novel writers, it's not you. It's me.

[Jinn]

My approach is basically what this thread tries to figure out. (+ I'm sure there are a lot of TOS novels that don't work with modern canon)

 

[RandyS]

We must suspend disbelief and not get caught up in the minutiae of it all, correct?

Correct.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Well, that's just crazy talk.

 

[RandyS]

Well, that's just crazy talk.

Well, we're Star Trek fans. Aren't we a crazy bunch to begin with?

 

[Starbreaker]

I haven't read a TOS novel in a long time. I just watched a couple of episodes for the first time in many years, and it got me interested in reading one again. I probably haven't read any TOS since the 90s hardbacks, so I'll be looking over blurbs!

 

[David Strickhouser]

A subset of Star Trek fans do live for the minutiae; that the world of Star Trek must fit ... logically. And they find fun and enjoyment "placing" everything in some sort of order.
I find myself sometimes vacillating between obsession of the minutiae and just sitting back and enjoying a good romp of a story.
But ... the adventure continues! (Is that becoming cliché?)

 

[David cgc]

I remember hearing someone talking about sports fans (specifically baseball) a few months ago, and observing that there were "stats" fans and "drama" fans. Everyone cares about both, but you usually found a given person is more interested in one than the other. I immediately realized you could use the same framing for sci-fi fans, except instead of batting averages you're talking about precise dates and ship-sizes.

 

[Christopher]

I remember hearing someone talking about sports fans (specifically baseball) a few months ago, and observing that there were "stats" fans and "drama" fans. Everyone cares about both, but you usually found a given person is more interested in one than the other. I immediately realized you could use the same framing for sci-fi fans, except instead of batting averages you're talking about precise dates and ship-sizes.

I'd say the difference is that in sports, it's the stats that are the point of the exercise (e.g. who scores more points and wins the game) and the drama is a side effect, while in fiction it's the drama that's the point and the stats are secondary to it. In a story, you can fudge the exact numbers and details if it serves the drama, but if a sports team tried to alter the score to make the game seem more exciting, that would be a serious no-no.

 

[Idran]

I'd say the difference is that in sports, it's the stats that are the point of the exercise (e.g. who scores more points and wins the game) and the drama is a side effect, while in fiction it's the drama that's the point and the stats are secondary to it. In a story, you can fudge the exact numbers and details if it serves the drama, but if a sports team tried to alter the score to make the game seem more exciting, that would be a serious no-no.

Eh, in sports, there's also the fallout from the increasing roll of data science in analysis; data scientists getting into sports and finding that a lot of common beliefs were completely wrong and unsubstantiated and finding completely unexpected metrics that are actually more explanatory or predictive, but with pushback from fans and industry figures more in favor of a narrative or qualitative approach and seeing that as somehow neglecting a human factor. "This data's what matters" vs. "but what about clutch?", basically. There's some pretty heavy factionalization there, though as data science proves its effectiveness more but as most of the big quick wins in sports data science are getting used up, it seems to be getting to be less of a divisive factor except at the extremes.

(Honestly, Christopher, even if you have no interest in sports, you should check out Nate Silver's work in it; it's some really cool statistical analysis, I think you might be into it. At least, I don't really have much interest in sports in general, and I still find 538's articles completely fascinating. Then again, I'm a huge data science nerd, so maybe I'm biased. )