He also wrote a Titan eBook, "Absent Enemies". It had a mixed reaction here, but I kinda liked it.
Dear TOS novel writers, it's not you. It's me.
- Thread starter Stoek
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He also wrote a Titan eBook, "Absent Enemies". It had a mixed reaction here, but I kinda liked it.
I'll second that.
Yeah, I like this idea too.
You should remember that with TNG there are a few things from the TV era that are reflected in the current books:
-Death/departure of characters: During the show we saw the death of Tasha Yar, the departure and return of Dr. Crusher, the joining and departure of Dr. Pulaski and the joining of Ro Laren and her leaving the ship and eventually Starfleet. Even Star Trek Nemesis had setup Riker and Troi leaving for the Titan. So even if you had a stand-alone book set within the TV series, you could easily have a book set with no E-D present, but just a mission that Ro was on during her Advance Tactical Training.
-Wesley Crusher had left witht the Traveller
DS9 also had a few things with its series finale:
-Season 6 had killed off Jadzia Dax, so we had Ezri Dax.
-Worf was headed off to Quo'nos to take up the Ambassadorial post at the Federation embassy. Nemesis established that while Worf did take up that position, by the time of the movie, he had returned to the Enterprise for some reason.
-Captain Sisko was with the Prophets. So while he may've still been in command of DS9, he was MIA, along with his wife expecting their first child.
-The O'Brien's were returning to Earth with Miles taking up a teaching post at Starfleet Academy.
-Odo had returned to the Great Link to share his experiences with the link.
-Nog and Leeta had moved to Ferenginar to become the Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance
-Gul Dukat had been killed
-Damara was also dead
-The Female Changeling was in a Federation stockade
-Chancellor Martok was heading back to Quo'nos to take his place on the High Council
-Weyoun 8 was dead, but there were still more copies in the Gamma Quadrant.
-Kira, Jake Sisko, Quark, Bashir and Dax were the only series charactes left on DS9.
Voyager also saw a number of crew members leave in its final season, aside from Kes leaving for good in Season 6:
-Lt. Carey was killed in season 7.
-Neelix had joined the Taalaxian colony as an Ambassador for Starfleet
-Voyager had finally reached Earth.
And with Voyager, I think a lot of people were disappointed by how the producers ended the series with Voyager reaching Earth right at the last second, with no follow-up to how the crewmembers are accepted back into Federaiton society, especially since, while they had worked together for seven years, a number of crewmembers, such as Chakotay and Torres were still considered criminals by most of Starfleet for their roles in the Maquis, which had started the entire series. So I like how the books have continued the different 24th century series, and how you see the characters crossing over with each other (something that I wish we had seen some more of on the TV shows, since it would've been nice to have seen a few characters from TNG make an appearance on DS9 at least once, or twice to see what they were up to during the war.
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Yeah. But it's the stuff novels and fanfics are made of. No ambiguity or unanswered questions = no fiction tie-ins. (Except for alternate timelines, that is.)
I have been reading the relaunches for years, it's essentially that which I am commenting on.
In fact one trilogy sums up both the good and the bad of the relaunch:
Cold Equations
In which a major character come back in order to do basically sod all, and isn't really back at all. There's some great moments, some good ties to older Trek, and the now traditional death, once again proving a certain character should never ever be allowed near dating.
And sod all is changed. Then it gets an epilogue sequel. Which meanders and has some great moments, and at the end of it....sod all is changed.
We don't get the major character back, there's still no familiarity, after a bunch of stories which do nothing but talk about familiar things.
Oh and there's a requisite fight in a corridor, which is amusing and action movie like, but you realise this the umpteenth time you have read it (every bashir book also seems to have the same plot and the same corridor fight...and it's all fun, until you look back and realise nothing has changed there has been almost no progress) and at the end of it you still have nothing familiar from the series that is the reason you read the books in the first place, and that by now things should be more in line with that.
Ds9 at least mostly tries different stories, but again, a combination of the release schedule and the lack of similarity to it source makes you wonder when we, as a reader, are going to get anywhere...and if we aren't getting anywhere, can we at least go nowhere with the characters that led us to buy the book in the first place, rather than two years and 6 novels learning precisely nothing about a new character we don't actually care about and even less about the ones we do.
What the Voyager books get right is that every single story is about the characters we saw on screen, no matter where they are now, whether in the Delta Quadrant or back on Earth,
What the Ds9 books, and the Tng books, get wrong is that they pretty much don't . Ds9 is literally not even the same place anymore. For a long time it didn't even have the wormhole. It was random star base with guest stars nine. Benjamin Sisko, the absolute centre of the show, is a cameo going through similar motions every time. Other characters are not even that because they have been hived off for future stories...which then never happen.
The reads are fun, but at the end, you wonder....is this going anywhere? Is this even a book about these titles anymore?
Either ditch the series branding (as is sometimes done) or use it.
It's very very unsatisfactory , and with the non TOS books on a tiny schedule, really painfully slow.
As I said, there's been an upswing of late, but really, it's time to get back to basics. I want Ds9 books to be about Ds9 characters, and Tng books to be about Tng characters, whether on Titan or Enterprise. Hell...even Doctor Crusher buggered off to Ds9 and barely a thing changed.
Anyway. Fingers crossed.
Tuvok hasn't been on Voyager since Full Circle. Sure he did return in Acts of Contrition, but he's been aboard Titan for the past several years.
Wow, I couldn't agree more!
Agreed on the bolded part.
However, I agree that the TV characters should be getting more focus (like they are in the Rise of the Federation series). They are, after all, probably the main reason we're reading this stuff.
Ehhhhh...
The initial cause for me, sure, but not the main reason nowadays.
Okay.
What is your main reason now?
i definitely don't read the TNG books to read about the same TV characters doing the same TV thing. No plot advancement, no point. Without new and interesting characters to interact with, the TV characters are stale. Without new purposes and new responsibilities, the TV characters are stale. Without new ships, new worlds to explore, new scale to their adventures, the setting is stale.
I really can't make it through a single TOS or numbered TNG book, and I never want to go back.
I really can't make it through a single TOS or numbered TNG book, and I never want to go back.
Quite the contrary, I find the TOS 5YM novels continue to be fresh and interesting, despite a setting that's 50 years old.
The TV characters are the initial draw, but the new characters have become just as interesting to me, so I read just as much for them as I do the TV characters now. I think the success of series like Vanguard, SCE, and New Frontier show that I'm not the only one who feels that way.
I'll admit, TNG doesn't really have any standout new character besides T'Ryssa, but Voyager and DS9 both have some fairly interesting new characters.
So do I. In fact those are the only books I still read. All the 24th century books changed things beyond recognition, and entirely too much and got tedious FAST. We need the 24th century books to return to their series setups.
Well, I don't know what the sales figures are like, but I imagine if the old flushable filler had sold better than a modern style continuing story, Pocket would only be publishing that. If they ever stop with the post relaunch series and return to babysitting the safe old fans with canned stories that can by definition never have real stakes for the characters, I'll gladly stop buying their output. You already have the TOS range for that. It worries me that you want to kill the only Star Trek left that still has a pulse and a brain.
Exactly. The kind of detailed writing that some numbered books were lacking, that gave you an idea what they were thinking or where they were coming from, not just bullet points of action and dialog.
That would be a great compromise. I just don't want to see an end to the Star Trek relaunch universe.
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