I think I remember the promotional stuff before the pilot also calling her Commander, and that stuff usually seems to use their full rank too.
Spoilers DSC: Desperate Hours by David Mack Review Thread
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I always found it odd that the Maquis crew members had special pips on Voyager. All it did was single them out when the point was to integrate them properly into the crew.
Didn't Chocolaty resign from Starfleet as a Commander? Janeway would have had the authority to reinstate him to that rank proper under those circumstances. Wouldn't have to be "provisional" or anything.
Didn't Chocolaty resign from Starfleet as a Commander? Janeway would have had the authority to reinstate him to that rank proper under those circumstances. Wouldn't have to be "provisional" or anything.
It's especially confusing that Tom Paris was given his proper Starfleet rank back to, despite himself being former Maquis (it's the whole reason he was in prison). But I guess even seventy thousand light-years away from home, daddy being an admiral still means something.
Tom was only a Maquis for one mission before getting caught, though. It was too brief to really count, I guess.
Maybe it's some kind of legal thing, because Tom was discharged, whereas Chakotay resigned? So Starfleet forced Tom out, so Starfleet could reverse that, but Chakotay left on his own volition?
Plus, of course, Tom wasn't active Maquis at the time he was brought into Voyager's crew, but all the people on Chakotay's ship were.
Plus, of course, Tom wasn't active Maquis at the time he was brought into Voyager's crew, but all the people on Chakotay's ship were.
But Spock resigned before TMP, and when Kirk reactivated him, he was given proper rank insignia and officer status...
Yes, they did both resign, but Spock simply retired to civilian life. Chakotay elected to join an armed insurrectionist group. There's the difference.
We don't actually know if Spock resigned. According to the transcript, the ship's computer identified him as "Starfleet inactive". He may just have been on sabbatical or something.
The better example is probably McCoy, though. Although apparently not stated outright, it seems he probably did resign. It was Nogura who invoked the reserve activation clause, so maybe you have to be a flag officer to do so, and Voyager didn't have any handy in the Delta Quadrant.
Or maybe the rules just changed over the course of a century?
(Another possibility is that Chakotay had the right to have his full rank reinstated, but chose to just accept a brevet rank as a show of solidarity with his crew?)
Desperate Hours has been nominated for a Dragon Award in the category Best Media Tie-In Novel.
Congratulations, Mr. Mack!
Congratulations, Mr. Mack!
Thank you very much. If any of the folks on this board would be interested in casting a vote for Desperate Hours (among other works in other categories), you can register free of charge to vote in the Dragon Awards here until Friday, August 31, at 11:59pm EDT.
Just bumping this thread to remind you lovely folks that you still have ~12 days in which to cast your FREE vote for Desperate Hours in the Dragon Awards. Just sayin'.
It took me a while but I finally finished this book last week. I started it before I saw the first Discovery season and finished it after completing the first season and the second season premiere and I think that shifted my perspectives on the book. If I had finished it before watching the show the small discrepancies or things that didn't quite jibe with the show would've not been as noticeable. They didn't tamp down on my enjoyment of the story, but they did stick out.
I thought the writing was solid for the most part, the character work was good, though I do think there was a bit of nastiness and pettiness, particularly when it came to the Burnham and Saru relationship that wasn't as hard-edged on the series. I also thought Pike was out of step, definitely from how Anson Mount or Bruce Greenwood portrayed him, but even the gruffer Jeffrey Hunter performance. I think the story might have been better served if there had been another ship that was the foil instead of Pike's Enterprise. Correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression that when the novel was written there wasn't any plans to bring Pike on the show, or even Spock in a major way, so this allowed Mr. Mack to have some leeway with Pike's characterization and the Burnham-Spock relationship. I did find the Burnham-Spock relationship fascinating (pun intended) and nicely thought out. It made Burnham come across as a lonelier character than what I've seen on the show, and actually I think what Mack does here works better for the character on the show. I find it hard to buy the Georgiou-Burnham mother/daughter relationship on the show since Amanda seemed like a pretty loving foster mother. However, if Burnham knew, or felt, like in the book, that she was just a substitute for Spock, she would still need that mother figure that Georgiou provided.
I also liked the revelations about Spock and how he felt he had to pull back emotionally from his mother and how that affected him. I also liked the katric echo idea in the book more than part of Sarek's soul being a part of Burnham, and also that Amanda played a role in Sarek making that happen; that he was going to let her die if not for Amanda's intervention. It makes the book's take on the Sarek-Burnham relationship colder.
I liked the Shenzhou crew. After watching the first two Discovery episodes I had wanted to see more of this crew, and the novels and comics will supposedly be the best places to see more of their adventures. I also liked the Trek Lit. take on the Andorians and wished that is carried over into the show. I thought Mack nailed Georgiou's depiction. The dialogue felt like something I would've seen Georgiou say on the show. I also didn't mind the Enterprise crew, though I'm not a fan of the name "Una" for Number One.
I thought this novel could've worked as a solid pilot episode instead of "The Vulcan Hello" which rushed through things too much to get to the action.
My experience with this novel wasn't all positive though. I thought it was too long and it felt padded just to get to the page length needed for the price. The ending was anti-climactic, with the resisting colonialists just giving up after so much time and page space was spent on them. I think they could've mostly been written out of the novel and nothing would've been lost. I also thought the very end, with Saru, which I suppose was supposed to be a tease of what's to come didn't really do that for me and went back to the pettiness that was earlier in the book. The Una-Saru friendship was a step in the right direction for Saru's depiction, but then it swung back at the end.
I thought the writing was solid for the most part, the character work was good, though I do think there was a bit of nastiness and pettiness, particularly when it came to the Burnham and Saru relationship that wasn't as hard-edged on the series. I also thought Pike was out of step, definitely from how Anson Mount or Bruce Greenwood portrayed him, but even the gruffer Jeffrey Hunter performance. I think the story might have been better served if there had been another ship that was the foil instead of Pike's Enterprise. Correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression that when the novel was written there wasn't any plans to bring Pike on the show, or even Spock in a major way, so this allowed Mr. Mack to have some leeway with Pike's characterization and the Burnham-Spock relationship. I did find the Burnham-Spock relationship fascinating (pun intended) and nicely thought out. It made Burnham come across as a lonelier character than what I've seen on the show, and actually I think what Mack does here works better for the character on the show. I find it hard to buy the Georgiou-Burnham mother/daughter relationship on the show since Amanda seemed like a pretty loving foster mother. However, if Burnham knew, or felt, like in the book, that she was just a substitute for Spock, she would still need that mother figure that Georgiou provided.
I also liked the revelations about Spock and how he felt he had to pull back emotionally from his mother and how that affected him. I also liked the katric echo idea in the book more than part of Sarek's soul being a part of Burnham, and also that Amanda played a role in Sarek making that happen; that he was going to let her die if not for Amanda's intervention. It makes the book's take on the Sarek-Burnham relationship colder.
I liked the Shenzhou crew. After watching the first two Discovery episodes I had wanted to see more of this crew, and the novels and comics will supposedly be the best places to see more of their adventures. I also liked the Trek Lit. take on the Andorians and wished that is carried over into the show. I thought Mack nailed Georgiou's depiction. The dialogue felt like something I would've seen Georgiou say on the show. I also didn't mind the Enterprise crew, though I'm not a fan of the name "Una" for Number One.
I thought this novel could've worked as a solid pilot episode instead of "The Vulcan Hello" which rushed through things too much to get to the action.
My experience with this novel wasn't all positive though. I thought it was too long and it felt padded just to get to the page length needed for the price. The ending was anti-climactic, with the resisting colonialists just giving up after so much time and page space was spent on them. I think they could've mostly been written out of the novel and nothing would've been lost. I also thought the very end, with Saru, which I suppose was supposed to be a tease of what's to come didn't really do that for me and went back to the pettiness that was earlier in the book. The Una-Saru friendship was a step in the right direction for Saru's depiction, but then it swung back at the end.
Pretty significant at this point...
- Burnham and Spock are on very bad terms in DSC S2 stemming from an incident in their (seeming) adolescence - and Burnham basically says she hasn't spoken to Spock since then - whereas in Desperate Hours they go on a mission, share a significant life event for a Vulcan, and leave on okay terms.
- Pike is characterized very differently.
- In "Saints of Imperfection" Pike heavily implies that he hasn't seen Georgiou since the Academy, whereas they had a mission together in this novel.
It's still a great book and worth a read, though!
In my opinion, my biggest gripe is the way Pike was portrayed in the book...I would even say he acted a bit "cowardly" at times (I commented on it somewhere in this thread.) Not at all like Jeff Hunter's Pike or Anson Mount's version (who does such a great job, he should be given a Pike series.)
I guess I should also comment on Bruce Greenwood's version of Pike. While he wasn't too bad, somehow I just couldn't picture him with his hands wrapped around the neck of a Talosian threatening to twist its head off if they didn't stop the illusion.
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My eBook edition has 265 pages.
In my experience, ebook page count depends on your reader's font-size setting.
When you read with RMSDK (the software behind DE), you get the same page number no matter what the font, font size, margins, and line-height. ADE age numbers are calculated to be 1024 compressed characters per page.
Well, Desperate Hours has been contradicted some by season 2 of Discovery.
Not if you read ePub using ADE (RMSDK). The page numbers as the same regardless of font, font-size, margins, line height, or screen size. So the page count of 265 is the same even if I change any number of things.
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