Dumb and Bizarre Trek Novel Moments...

[Thrawn]

How about the Voyager Gateways book & novella?

At the beginning, a dog comes out of a Gateway, and at the end, Janeway decides to go through an exactly identical Gateway. Alone. Why? Because - I shit you not - the dog came out of the first one, so whoever's over there has to be trustworthy.

Then: it turns out to be Q. The A-plot of the novel has Janeway shepherding a huge fleet of ships left stranded because of the Gateways; once she sees Q, he reveals to her that he sent them all to her so that she could teach them Valuable Moral Lessons. Yes: Q sent a bunch of ships to Janeway so she could teach them how to be better people.

Uhm - three things.

1) Q could give a fuck. Seriously.

2) Janeway is going to teach them how to be good people? Mrs. "if you threaten the 150 people on my ship in any way I will have no qualms about destroying your entire civilization"?

3) Even more ridiculously, it actually works; spending a few days around Janeway convinces a race of beings that never communicate with others to come out of their shell, a race of slavers to free their slaves, another group of Hirogen to want holodecks instead of hunting real prey, and two races in a millenia-old feud to make peace.

Yeah....no.

 

[Therin of Andor]

How about the Voyager Gateways book & novella?

Yeah. After reading the VOY instalment of "Gateways", I was almost scared to read the Janeway novella in the hardcover.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It sounds like those die-hard Janeway fans on the "Bring back..." thread would *love* the Voyager Gateways book!

 

[Therin of Andor]

It sounds like those die-hard Janeway fans on the "Bring back..." thread would *love* the Voyager Gateways book!

Despite really enjoying Christie Golden's "Seven of Nine" (and her previous "The Murdered Sun" and "Marooned" were well-received, if forgettable), I felt she really started to lose her way with "Gateways: No Man's Land" and the very tedious "Dark Matters" trilogy.

I loved the excitement of her "Homecoming" preview in the back of the Diane Carey "Endgame" novelization, but the expanded duology not as much.

 

[JD]

How about the Voyager Gateways book & novella?

At the beginning, a dog comes out of a Gateway, and at the end, Janeway decides to go through an exactly identical Gateway. Alone. Why? Because - I shit you not - the dog came out of the first one, so whoever's over there has to be trustworthy.

Then: it turns out to be Q. The A-plot of the novel has Janeway shepherding a huge fleet of ships left stranded because of the Gateways; once she sees Q, he reveals to her that he sent them all to her so that she could teach them Valuable Moral Lessons. Yes: Q sent a bunch of ships to Janeway so she could teach them how to be better people.

Uhm - three things.

1) Q could give a fuck. Seriously.

2) Janeway is going to teach them how to be good people? Mrs. "if you threaten the 150 people on my ship in any way I will have no qualms about destroying your entire civilization"?

3) Even more ridiculously, it actually works; spending a few days around Janeway convinces a race of beings that never communicate with others to come out of their shell, a race of slavers to free their slaves, another group of Hirogen to want holodecks instead of hunting real prey, and two races in a millenia-old feud to make peace.

Yeah....no.

I've actually had this book sitting unread in my bookcase since the miniseries first came out, aaannnndddd I'm thinking it's going to stay that way.

 

[diankra]

The one which sticks in my mind as just an unfortunate bit of editing is that A Flag Full of Stars states that Enterprise is the only space shuttle still in existence, but the next book out had Chekov observe that the locals on the planet he was visting looked like the space shuttles which were lovingly preserved in museums (plural).

 

[Starbreaker]

Well, that's just the bygone days of authors not collaborating.

 

[Thrawn]

Go hang out in the recent Before Dishonor thread; it's not *that* bygone...

 

[Starbreaker]

Yeah... that's a big one... but you know what I mean. Diane Duane never called David Dvorkin up and asked him if he talked about shuttles in his book.

 

[Thrawn]

Oh right, that was YOUR thread. You changed your avatar and I didn't notice. Oops! Didn't mean to sound patronizing.

 

[Starbreaker]

Oh, I know you didn't mean it like that. No problem.

 

[mbruno]

I think Laas may have gone to warp in "Chimera," but I'm not sure if I trust my memory on that one.

As for a couple books that were just big WTF moments all around, I'd go for The Prometheus Design and How Much for Just the Planet? I found reading both to be quite excruciating.

I completely agree with you about "How Much For Just the Planet?". When I finished reading that book, I remember wonder just what, exactly, happened in that book. I didn't understand it at all.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Yeah... that's a big one... but you know what I mean. Diane Duane never called David Dvorkin up and asked him if he talked about shuttles in his book.

But Brad Ferguson wrote "A Flag Full of Stars" anyway.

 

[Starbreaker]

I just randomly picked two authors.

 

[JoeZhang]

Yeah... that's a big one... but you know what I mean. Diane Duane never called David Dvorkin up and asked him if he talked about shuttles in his book.

But Brad Ferguson wrote "A Flag Full of Stars" anyway.

Didn't J.M. Dillard do a significant rewrite of that book (but not as significant as the rewrite of Probe)?

 

[JarodRussell]

Didn't J.M. Dillard do a significant rewrite of that book (but not as significant as the rewrite of Probe)?

I read somewhere it was the other way round.

 

[ClayinCA]

3. Beverly making jokes about a gift shop on a tourist planet while the ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM is in danger in Before Dishonor. Beverly would never do that.

I don't know, but I'd suspect, that PAD was riffing on the tenth Doctor's fascination with gift shops from Doctor Who. (See "New Earth" and "Smith & Jones.") The Doctor (Crusher) joking about gift shops, with death on the line.

What? Peter David sacrificed character believability and credulity for the sake of an in-joke?!? Say it ain't so....

 

[Therin of Andor]

Didn't J.M. Dillard do a significant rewrite of that book (but not as significant as the rewrite of Probe)?

Brad Ferguson was dismayed that his proposal (ie. already approved) led to changes that had to be made to the final manuscript, even though he'd followed his approved outline, IIRC (eg. changing Number One to Admiral Timothea Rogers).

According to his interview in "Voyages of Imagination", he had a six month recuperation from a back operation when he should have been writing - and then ran about four months late with his draft. He did three more rewrites, trying to appease a request to not "put Kirk in conflict", and yet Ferguson had been asked to show the souring of Kirk's marriage to Lori Ciana. He also had to remove references to a massive San Francisco earthquake that explained why Chekov didn't know the location of Alameda in ST IV. The editor gave it to JM Dillard to complete, much to Ferguson's relief.

 

[Christopher]

He also had to remove references to a massive San Francisco earthquake that explained why Chekov didn't know the location of Alameda in ST IV.

Hunh. Wouldn't it have been simpler just to assume the name had changed, as place names often do over the centuries?

 

[elaithin]

Wait, he was dismayed that his proposal was approved?