Spoilers ENT: Rise of the Federation: Patterns of Interference by C.L. Bennett Review Thread

Yeah, me too. I have serious doubts we'll see books based on the 'older' spin offs, including Enterprise. From a marketing perspective I'm sure S&S figures they'll make more money on book based on current shows (and the original series) then based on TV series that ended over a decade ago. Add to that it seems S&S isn't going back to the one book/month schedule which leaves less room for books. There are those of us who are hard-core fans who would eat up those books of course. And I'd love to think we haven't seen the last of Jonathan Archer et al.

The only hope we probably have is something Christopher mentioned some time ago...the possibility of E-books based on Enterprise (and maybe the other spin-offs). Those obviously cost less money. Personally I prefer print books but I'd take an E-book over nothing any day. It's interesting there are no Star Trek E-book-only works in the pipeline right now (or at least that we are currently aware of). I'm kind of surprised by that. Before the last contract ended there seemed to be a couple a year at least.

Of course you'd have to have an author willing to write an e-book-only story. I honestly have no idea what the earnings are for an e-book compared to a print novel are. If anything I'd have to think it would be less money for an author (as opposed to more for an e-book)--though I could be wrong. So it might be a situation where an author takes less money for such a story. And how long would that story be. Star Trek E-book only stories seemed to be of shorter length, around 100 pages. Nothing stops them from doing a full length e-book though.

Christopher has never come out and said it but I get the impression he might like to continue the Enterprise saga in some fashion. Certainly his last book has a number of open story threads that can be continued. I have no idea how strong that desire might be of course. Is it something he really wants to do...or is it one of those would be nice but not a big deal sort of things? I'd be interested to know that as well though I'm not sure how much he can say about the subject or wants to say about it.

 

I would dearly love to see Mr Bennett given more work - having discovered his novels only this year (in fact courtesy of the RISE OF THE FEDERATION book, two of which I stumbled onto in a library close enough to my place of work for some lunchtime browsing) one would definitely be glad to read through more of them.

A man who write such excellent annotations not only deserves my support but may COMMAND it!

 

Well you're in luck as he's written a number of Star Trek novels. If you haven't read it yet I'd highly recommend "Ex Machina" a post TMP book. And I really enjoyed "The Buried Age"--a Lost Era novel that fills in some of the gaps between Captain Picard's loss of the Stargazer and his taking command of the Enterprise (and probably timely with the upcoming Picard show). And of course he has an upcoming book in a few months that I believe follows "Ex Machina" (if you haven't already reading the novel now might be a good idea). His Department of Temporal Investigations books were also good. Memory Alpha has an article for him that lists all his books so you can make sure you have everything.

I enjoy all our current authors, and each has some things that make them unique. I find Christopher's to focus more on the science end of science fiction and he's also one of a number of our 'fix-it' guys I like to call them (Greg Cox is another that does this a lot). What I mean is they take things that might not fit well in canon and find creative ways to make them fit. Now they'll all tell you inconsistencies happen in a universe as large as Star Trek. I've learned during my time here it's more like a fun exercise for them. They don't fix things because they feel they have to, but more because it's like a puzzle. How can they make something work together. That sort of thing. And his stories are always well written and engaging--which ultimately is the most important thing. Is it enjoyable to read and his are.

 

The problem is that I HAVE!

 

He has another TOS novel due in March, so keep an eye out.

I don’t discount the idea that we might see some in-series 24th century Trek novels in late 2020/2021, though. Maybe I’m just an optimist, but I would think that with Picard coming out, it’s going to draw some attention to those Treks - if you’re watching Picard, you have access to what’s come before, after all.

Like I said, call me an optimist, but I don’t feel ready to set aside the possibility of anything not TOS/Discovery/Picard. Sure, a focus on the new stuff is to be expected, but there should still be room.

 

Well, the good news is he's still an active Star Trek novelist and is still writing Star Trek novels.

And if you really enjoy his writings he has a number of non Star Trek science fiction he's written.

And if you haven't already I'd encourage you to check out some of our other authors as well. It's hard to say who might be similar to Christopher. They all have their unique characteristics. Greg Cox has written a lot of great Star Trek books as well--and like Christopher he likes to puzzle Star Trek inconsistencies together a bit. And like Christopher, Greg is very positive in his writing of our main characters. That is they focus a lot on the positive characteristics of the main characters of whatever Star Trek series he's writing for. They both leave you with a positive impression of our heros. He also has a good eye for science fiction.

Jeffrey Lang is another good sci-fi Star Trek story writer, though he doesn't have as many Star Trek books to his name. Those would be two writers that I would say seem to have a similar feel in their books to Christopher's.

But all the current writers are great IMO and they are all pretty good sci-fi writers in their own right. The focus just varies a bit (for instance, David Mack, another great Star Trek writer, tends toward more action/adventure stories, Uma McCormick's are more character driven I find, etc.). Now that's not to say they don't overlap, but like all writers, they have areas they are stronger in. It gives some good variety in the Star Trek novels too.

 

I have actually just finished STARFLEET YEAR ONE, which makes an interesting contrast to THE RISE OF THE FEDERATION - although it's not hard to imagine counterpart to the likes of Hiro Matsura* and Alonis Cobaryn cropping up in the latter timeline, in the same way Captain Bryce Shumar & Lieutenant Kelly have.

*Or should that be Matsūra Hiro?

I'd be especially happy to see more of Captain Cobaryn, who struck me as an extremely charming fellow (although his description suggests a species very different to those described as native to the Rigel System in RISE OF THE FEDERATION; perhaps his family are more recent immigrants?); it would certainly be interesting to see a majority-Rigelian crew at work as part of Starfleet, if only to learn whether they would serve in a division all their own or if they would be incorporated into one of the existing ones.

My suspicion is that they'd fit in quite well with the Tellar Space Administration on supply & support missions! (Mr Bennett, all this isn't going too far into speculation is it? I love to share my thoughts and know that sort of this can cause difficulties - please let me know when I should haul my ideas away down into Fan Fiction!).

 

Trek characters of Japanese or other East Asian origin tend to adopt Western name order, so it would be Hiro Matsura. Except maybe in the Japanese translation of the novel, if any.

In Tower of Babel, I approached the silver-skinned Rigelians seen in other novels (with some tweaks in appearance) as the endomales/endofemales of the four-sexed Jelna species, while the exomale/exofemale Jelna look like the ones seen in Enterprise's fourth season.

See the first post in this pinned thread: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/moderator-notices-read-this-first-rules-of-behaviour.280025/

 

It's interesting to note that - so far as I can tell after online research - the name Matsūra appears to derive from the island of Kyushu, which suggests that he could bracket Lieutenant Commander Sato (Honshu) and Kimura-Shi (Hokkaido) quite neatly; doubtless the Lieutenant Commander would be terribly disappointed to be cheated of a REAL linguistic challenge if Captain Matsura (in any timeline) didn't speak in the broadest Kagoshima dialect imaginable!

Ah-HA, I knew you'd mentioned silver-skinned Rigelians somewhere but have not yet looked up the relevant section of your annotations; so much to look up, so little time, so many distractions! On a more serious note, one can only wonder if status as an endomale/endofemale (who would, if I remember correctly, traditionally have been identified as the less aggressive/outgoings section of the species) might serve in the 22nd Century more as a spur to go where no Rigelian has gone before, in a bid to subvert historic cultural expectations?

Really, I'll just have to reread TOWER OF BABEL to get another look at your take on Rigel and all who rotate around it - rather a delightful prospect, it must be said.

Out of curiosity, may I please ask if you see the 'Endo' Jelna as wearing the same costumes & facial patterns as their 'Exo' relations (differing only in detail) or would they make more substantial efforts to distinguish themselves?

Thank You for your consideration!

 

Hard to say. If they did, it would be like different male and female attire in human cultures, since all four sexes are part of the same cultural community. I don't think there's ever been any mention of, say, Andorians' four sexes having different modes of dress. So it could happen, but it's not a given.

 

I suppose one must also factor in the high likelihood of variation across geographical areas & periods of history; such distinctions would likely vary by place and time in the same way Human costume differs according to era & nation or tribe.

 

I can't recall the details, it might have been in Worlds of the Federation, but I believe it has been established that the traditional formal dress varies according to the sex (IIRC the leather tunic from TOS is described as traditional chan), but IFAIK normal day-to-day are likely to be either generic or follow the more common bi-gender norms).

 

Can't have been Worlds of the Federation, which was written in 1989. Maybe you mean Worlds of Deep Space Nine -- Andor: Paradigm? That does sound familiar.

 

Yeah, that's the one I meant.

 

If the RotF books ever continue I kinda wanna see a storyline explore Tellar or Tellarite culture since I don't think it's explored much. Obviously go with the USS Pioneer since Bodor chim Grev is Tellarite.