Spoilers ENT: To Brave the Storm by Michael A. Martin Review Thread

[ex Zane Gray]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

I’m glad the overabundance of side stories involving forgettable characters and the author’s philosophical musings about warfare that plagued “Beneath the Raptor’s Wings” are not in this book.

Totally disagree about this. That's one of the things I liked about Raptor's Wing - the scope covering multiple characters and storylines. That's part of what made that book really - for me at least - feel worthy of a conflict as big as the Romulan War. The problem for me about this book - on that score at least - is that there wasn't enough time or space to continue that in a way that paid off all the stories.

As for "the author’s philosophical musings"... that's part of being an author. Every writer brings his or her own feelings and thoughts and perspective into their writing. While some of your criticisms are certainly fair, I think you're being a bit overly harsh against Martin in particular. Honestly, he was making the best of a bad situation (having the trilogy cut down by the editors) and I think he did the best he could. It's not my favorite book in the series, and I'm disappointed that it doesn't pay off the promise raised by Raptor's Wing, but Martin did a creditable job.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

I’m glad the overabundance of side stories involving forgettable characters and the author’s philosophical musings about warfare that plagued “Beneath the Raptor’s Wings” are not in this book.

Totally disagree about this. That's one of the things I liked about Raptor's Wing - the scope covering multiple characters and storylines. That's part of what made that book really - for me at least - feel worthy of a conflict as big as the Romulan War. The problem for me about this book - on that score at least - is that there wasn't enough time or space to continue that in a way that paid off all the stories.

As for "the author’s philosophical musings"... that's part of being an author. Every writer brings his or her own feelings and thoughts and perspective into their writing. While some of your criticisms are certainly fair, I think you're being a bit overly harsh against Martin in particular. Honestly, he was making the best of a bad situation (having the trilogy cut down by the editors) and I think he did the best he could. It's not my favorite book in the series, and I'm disappointed that it doesn't pay off the promise raised by Raptor's Wing, but Martin did a creditable job.

I'd second this, if I may.

 

[ex Zane Gray]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

Just wrote my review of it. I think I liked it more than most people here seemed to, but it's very clear that the book suffered from the shortening of the trilogy down to a duology. It's really unfortunate, but I did still enjoy it for the most part.

Excellent review. Definitely my feelings too.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

If people like the side-stories, fine. I understand that. But when you have a bunch of stories that don't really contribute to the central plot or developing key characters, it lacks any kind of pleasant flow. Too many of the scenes in this book lacked really deep character development or would drag on aimlessless. And what was with the skipping over the battle scenes? A Romulan ship is doing something peculiar . . . our ships have been disabled. Where are the interveneing minutes where the action should be? The war comes home with the attacks on Earth and Mars, but we only find out what happened on earth in a few lines of coversation between Archer and the admiral. Before that I was like, "What, I thought they stopped the attack?" All the jumping around in time made the story disjointed and the skipping of the really good parts made it lacking in action in drama. The book was just poorly organized and executed in a manner that made it frustrating to read.

 

[Reanok]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

I’m glad the overabundance of side stories involving forgettable characters and the author’s philosophical musings about warfare that plagued “Beneath the Raptor’s Wings” are not in this book.

Totally disagree about this. That's one of the things I liked about Raptor's Wing - the scope covering multiple characters and storylines. That's part of what made that book really - for me at least - feel worthy of a conflict as big as the Romulan War. The problem for me about this book - on that score at least - is that there wasn't enough time or space to continue that in a way that paid off all the stories.

As for "the author’s philosophical musings"... that's part of being an author. Every writer brings his or her own feelings and thoughts and perspective into their writing. While some of your criticisms are certainly fair, I think you're being a bit overly harsh against Martin in particular. Honestly, he was making the best of a bad situation (having the trilogy cut down by the editors) and I think he did the best he could. It's not my favorite book in the series, and I'm disappointed that it doesn't pay off the promise raised by Raptor's Wing, but Martin did a creditable job.

I'd second this, if I may.

Ditto I totally agree about Micheal making the best he could of a unfair situation when it came to the editors making him cut out large sections with important character scenes in the latest Enterprise Romulan war novel.I want to see him write another novel that would explain the missing scenes we weren't able to have near the end of To Brave the storm.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

So the consensus is that the "missing" action scenes in "To Brave the Storm" are the editors fault? I find it hard to believe that ANY editor would eliminate a compelling action scene to reduce a book's length.

 

[ATimson]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

So the consensus is that the "missing" action scenes in "To Brave the Storm" are the editors fault? I find it hard to believe that ANY editor would eliminate a compelling action scene to reduce a book's length.

Welcome to market realities. If the publisher's accounting department thinks that they book will only be profitable (based on the known production costs & the sales figures for earlier books in the series) if it's under a certain length and thus price to print/ship, then the editor needs to keep it under that length or the book won't get published.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

So the consensus is that the "missing" action scenes in "To Brave the Storm" are the editors fault? I find it hard to believe that ANY editor would eliminate a compelling action scene to reduce a book's length.

Welcome to market realities. If the publisher's accounting department thinks that they book will only be profitable (based on the known production costs & the sales figures for earlier books in the series) if it's under a certain length and thus price to print/ship, then the editor needs to keep it under that length or the book won't get published.

But does the EDITOR choose what gets removed? Or does the author. When a movie is edited the Director, Producer, and even some of the Actors get to help make decisions on what is removed. The movie is not handed to the Editor and never seen again. Does an editor really have the authority to excise large chunks of material without the authors approval? And why are we giving Martin a free pass on this one?

 

[Christopher]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

So the consensus is that the "missing" action scenes in "To Brave the Storm" are the editors fault? I find it hard to believe that ANY editor would eliminate a compelling action scene to reduce a book's length.

I don't think that's an accurate assessment. It's not like those scenes were written and then cut out. There was going to be a trilogy, but economic and logistical factors beyond the author's and editor's control required them to reduce it to two books. The editor thus told the author that he only had one book to finish it, and presumably the author, with guidance and input from the editor, decided how to cut the outline down to fit in one book -- what to keep and what to skip -- and then wrote that book from the revised outline.

 

[Corran Horn]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

Somewhat weird (and a testament to the quality of the 'relaunches' I suppose) that the Typhon Pact ends up getting more books dedicated to it than the Romulan War--a canonical 'happening' in the ST universe.

 

[ATimson]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

Somewhat weird (and a testament to the quality of the 'relaunches' I suppose) that the Typhon Pact ends up getting more books dedicated to it than the Romulan War--a canonical 'happening' in the ST universe.

More likely a testament to the popularity of the TOS and TNG characters who feature prominently on most of the Typhon Pact covers versus Enterprise.

 

[Reanok]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

Yes I think there's been more than enough Tng era typhon pact books already.I'm tired of all these books stories being so repeatative it's like a broken record already.It's the Same plot basically fill in blank name of aliens and planets in a crisis stay with the Federation or join the Typhon pact.. Move on to other book series already. personally I think there ought be more ds9 and Enterprise books.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

So the consensus is that the "missing" action scenes in "To Brave the Storm" are the editors fault? I find it hard to believe that ANY editor would eliminate a compelling action scene to reduce a book's length.

I don't think that's an accurate assessment. It's not like those scenes were written and then cut out. There was going to be a trilogy, but economic and logistical factors beyond the author's and editor's control required them to reduce it to two books. The editor thus told the author that he only had one book to finish it, and presumably the author, with guidance and input from the editor, decided how to cut the outline down to fit in one book -- what to keep and what to skip -- and then wrote that book from the revised outline.

Then they should have cut out some of Vissian chapters or even the part with Mayweather, Garnet, and Picard on the Martian surface in favor of those missing action scenes. There was plenty of slow and meaningless material in the book that could/should have been cut out in favor of some action sequences that would have picked up the pace a little. Just because the series was trimmed down from 3 to 2 doesn't mean this was the best way to execute it.

Imagine Ent season 3 if the attack on Florida wasn't shown but it was just mentioned in dialog. That is what happened in the book. Sure this action scene isn't essential, but it reminds you of your protagonists' motivation and those events are so pivotal that they really need to be shown.

 

[fleetcaptain]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

So did Enterprise get her refit? I'm asking cause in the beginning of part 3, Enterprise is in Spacedock and Archer is looking out at Enterprise and mentions mostly the primary hull, which is just the saucer section anyways. I'm lost on that part.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

^The refit seen in the Ships of the Line calendar is just conjectural, Doug Drexler's attempt to rework the design into something closer to what he would've preferred if he hadn't had to answer to the producers' requirements. There's no reason to assume that the books would include it, though of course they could if they chose to.

But if the book is ambiguous on that count, then you could certainly imagine it as the refitted version in your own mind.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

So the consensus is that the "missing" action scenes in "To Brave the Storm" are the editors fault? I find it hard to believe that ANY editor would eliminate a compelling action scene to reduce a book's length.

I don't think that's an accurate assessment. It's not like those scenes were written and then cut out. There was going to be a trilogy, but economic and logistical factors beyond the author's and editor's control required them to reduce it to two books. The editor thus told the author that he only had one book to finish it, and presumably the author, with guidance and input from the editor, decided how to cut the outline down to fit in one book -- what to keep and what to skip -- and then wrote that book from the revised outline.

So if scenes are missing they are the CHOICE of the author. Understood. It is a shame that the author chose to not include some of the more compelling events in his reduced size novel. Those omissions made the novel feel like an outline and very, very rushed.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

So if scenes are missing they are the CHOICE of the author. Understood.

Well, that's oversimplfying it. If you're required to sacrifice things due to factors beyond your control, and you get to choose which specific things you sacrifice, that's still only a limited amount of choice in the matter.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

So if scenes are missing they are the CHOICE of the author. Understood.

Well, that's oversimplfying it. If you're required to sacrifice things due to factors beyond your control, and you get to choose which specific things you sacrifice, that's still only a limited amount of choice in the matter.

I disagree. An author has a 600 page book. He is told to make it 400 pages. He did not choose to cut the book, but the parts he cuts ARE his choice.
Mr. Martin was told to pare down his trilogy (apparently) but the parts he eliminated or did not even write were his choice, and the decision of some fans to lay the blame for the uneven and hurried pace of his newest Trek novel at the feet of some nameless editor has (in my opinion) allowed the author to get away with a poor quality book.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

Well, I don't know. That presupposes there was a way to tell the story in the required length without leaving a lot of important things out, and there's no way of knowing if that's the case since we don't have access to an alternate reality in which the book was written differently.

I was required to keep The Struggle Within under 35,000 words, and people keep saying they wish it had been longer and more detailed, but I don't recall anyone blaming me for its shortness.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

Re: Enterprise: The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm review thread

^ That brings up a question. How do the authors get paid in the franchise? Is it by the book, by the word, or do the nature of your contracts vary? I would also imagine your rates are also somewhat dependant on how well your past books have sold.