Spoilers ENT: Rise of the Federation: Uncertain Logic by C. L. Bennett Review Thread

[Long Syntax]

^Do you mean the scenes where the viewpoint character is listening to a speaker on the viewscreen or intercom, like when Tobin hears Iloja's address?

Christopher - yes, that's what I was referring to. I hadn't noticed the lengthy italicized sections when reading the previous stories, from STE: TGTMD trough Tower of Babel.

I had became aware of the book series in January 2014 and immediately binge-read the first 5 books and then read the 6th STE:TOB- all in digital form on an iPad, Surface, or PC.

Having a back-lit electronic object displaying the text was probably easier for me to read as opposed to the paper of the last book (Uncertain Logic) along with a poorly lit environment. In fact I'm now sure that's why I had difficulty with the italics on paper.

Ok, and old eyes too

 

[Ronald Held]

I find lengthy italic sections are hard to read on paper. Maybe something can be done sbout it for your next book?

 

[Christopher]

I've had some trouble reading the italics in the galleys I get sent for editing, but I figured that was just an issue with my display. Maybe a font change is called for. That's not up to me, but I could suggest it.

 

[voyager1]

So how far into writing the next book are you Christopher?

 

[Christopher]

^Not as far as I'd like to be, though not as far behind as I've often been in the past. I fell behind this month due to the need to reconstruct my website.

 

[Ronald Held]

I've had some trouble reading the italics in the galleys I get sent for editing, but I figured that was just an issue with my display. Maybe a font change is called for. That's not up to me, but I could suggest it.

Please do so.

 

[Reanok]

Yes please Christopher you could please recommend to the editors a larger type setting for the next Enterprise book please. The smaller print and italics gets hard to read after a few chapters.It's hard to focus on reading the small print after awhile and having to get a manifying glass to finish reading a chapter .

 

[Christopher]

There's not much I can do about the print size aside from writing shorter books. Larger print size means more pages, and if a book has too many pages, they have to charge a higher price for it.

Of course, you could buy the e-book and adjust the print size to whatever you want it to be.

 

[Long Syntax]

Of course, you could buy the e-book and adjust the print size to whatever you want it to be.

^This... probably the best solution.

 

[Ronald Held]

There's not much I can do about the print size aside from writing shorter books. Larger print size means more pages, and if a book has too many pages, they have to charge a higher price for it.

Of course, you could buy the e-book and adjust the print size to whatever you want it to be.

That would work, except I but these books in paper.

 

[Paris]

There's not much I can do about the print size aside from writing shorter books. Larger print size means more pages, and if a book has too many pages, they have to charge a higher price for it.

Of course, you could buy the e-book and adjust the print size to whatever you want it to be.

That would work, except I but these books in paper.

You're out of luck then.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

^Do you mean the scenes where the viewpoint character is listening to a speaker on the viewscreen or intercom, like when Tobin hears Iloja's address? I'm afraid it's the established style to use italics for that. The only way to avoid it would be to make sure the characters in a scene are always in the same room, and that's not tenable in Trek.

Heck, it's hardly tenable today. I've often been struck by how much of present-day TV features characters by themselves, talking to people over the phone or an earbud or something. It's the standard MO for shows like Person of Interest or Leverage, both of which are filled with scenes of characters in the field talking over their earbuds to advisors sitting at their computers, or to other field agents somewhere else. And tons of other shows have scenes of people talking on the phone, videoconferencing, etc. This week's iZombie entailed the lead character developing temporary agoraphobia and spending most of the episode at home, Skyping the other characters over their laptops. It's interesting how much less face-to-face interaction there is in present-day TV versus '70s or '80s TV, say. A sign of the times, I guess.

I'm reading Death in Winter and some portions of the book don't follow the Treklit convention of transmitted dialogue = italicized print. But after reading so many Trek novels and stories, my mind associates transmitted dialogue with italicization to such a high degree that, when printed normally, I naturally assume that the speaking character is in the same room as the listener, regardless of other written cues.

In one scene, Worf hits his combadge and talks with Geordi. The dialogue is all printed sans italicization, so it took a moment for me to register that they were speaking via the combadge and not in the same room together.

Personally, I prefer the standard format of transmitted = italicized as it helps differentiate the source of dialogue without extraneous attribution in the text. Also, as in the example I cited above, after so many years as the Treklit standard, their omission can damage a reading experience by pulling a reader out of the story.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Loved the scene from Our Man Flint. (I like the Flint movies better than I like the Bond movies.) And I was rather amused by

Spoiler: . . .

the way it foreshadowed a scene that followed.

 

[Christopher]

^Any foreshadowing was purely accidental. I'm not even sure which scene you're referring to.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Spoiler: The other scene to which I was referring

First, we're treated to a description of the scene where Cramden is about to beg Derek Flint to take on Galaxy, from Our Man Flint, and then, not too many pages later, Trip recruits Flint the Immortal.

 

[Christopher]

Oh, that. Pure coincidence.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Well, it was a happy coincidence.

Now (and this Derek Flint allusion is especially appropriate today, in light of the turn of conversation on the "DTI/MU" thread), everybody:

Repeat after me: "I am NOT a pleasure unit!"

(Remember: Derek Flint's female companions were not merely beautiful: they were all supremely competent at duties that had absolutely zip to do with being a "pleasure unit.")

 

[Stephen!]

^Not as far as I'd like to be, though not as far behind as I've often been in the past. I fell behind this month due to the need to reconstruct my website.

Do the books have to be written within a short amount of time, or are they quite lenient with allowing plenty of time to get it done?

 

[Christopher]

^I often manage to get fairly generous deadlines. But I usually end up falling behind anyway and have to rush to catch up at the end. I'm trying to improve my work habits, though. I actually had a really good day yesterday, writing a good 4,000 words and making major progress on several subplots.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I liked it overall, but it seemed to have a bit of a slow start (and I'm saying that as a rabid fan of Alan Dean Foster, who is rather well known for slow starts).

I see that the Ware have not yet been taken care of for good. Nor the transporter problem. But of course, we know they get taken care of by Pike's era, presumably by April's era.