E-Book Pricing Alerts

I actually remember thinking that Lorrah probably had a better handle on Data's character than the show's writers did in S1, and she writes a great Yar too. Survivors is one of the best Star Trek novels, in my view.

 

Hey all,

March’s Trek ebook deals webpage is up now here:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/p/star-trek-ebook-deals

ALL OF THE DEALS ARE .99 CENTS AND ARE GOOD UNTIL: 4/2/2023

Thanks goes to @Smiley as well too back at post #1454.
All the best,
-Koric

 

You cut off the end of my quote where I specifically said that about Tasha's backstory. At the point Survivors was written/published, pretty much everything about Tasha and her home planet was consistent with what little had been shown on screen, including the brief scene in Where No One Has Gone Before, which very much stuck in my head as a visual while I was reading this.

Any inconsistencies in characterisation from the early books are certainly no criticism of the authors - it must be close to impossible to capture the voice of a character at a point where no episodes have been broadcast, working from the writers' bible and perhaps some scripts. Survivors certainly comes a lot closer to Season 1 characterisations than, say, Ghost Ship, in which several characters act very different to how they would even in early Season 1 episodes. But again, that's no criticism of Diane Carey, who was presumably working from the very thin characterisations in the writers' bible - and Ghost Ship is really enjoyable if you're prepared to put that aside.

But while it's no criticism of the authors, I don't think it's unreasonable to provide that warning to a reader - some people understandably find it very off-putting.

 

I think that if people understand that something is not "wrong" for its day but simply representing what was "right" in an earlier version of the series, they might be more receptive to it as a glimpse into history, a chance to explore how the concepts of the franchise evolved. Granted, some people need to convince themselves this imaginary universe is somehow "real" and don't like things that break the illusion, but others are able to engage with fiction as a creative work and find value in exploring how a fictional universe has changed over time.

Presenting it as a "warning" strikes me as taking one of those sides over the other. Better simply to present the context as fully and objectively as possible and let people decide for themselves whether they see it as a positive or a negative.