Finally Starting "New Frontier" - 10 years later!

[Damian]

About those (The Returned) - is there a way to get a print version? as (effectively) the end of the series, my OCD demands that I have the "last volume" in the same print size as the rest of the series...

At this point no, and I'm not confident they will see a print format. I remember reading some time before after "Treason" that Pocketbooks was not renewing his contract (or not responding to his requests, I forget which) so they thought "Treason" might be the end at the time. But thankfully he got to do "The Returned" which closed up some storylines (I gather since there have been no other Peter David books other than those in recent years that this was just a one off thing). There are still plenty of threads that can be pursued should Pocketbooks decide to continue the series.

I will say I did enjoy "The Returned". If you put the 3 volumes together you basically get a full sized novel.

I sort of get the impression Peter David is in the same boat as KRAD in that Pocketbooks has not gotten in touch with him to do any more Star Trek books (assuming he is still interested in doing Star Trek novels of course).

This was a great book series though. I do agree with others though that after the first ship was destroyed and the crew sort of scattered they sort of lost their punch just a bit. They were still good books but some of the magic was gone. Those first several books up to that point were great reads. I always took a NF book with me on my week to the beach and I never had any problems finishing them. In fact, I may start over next year on vacation since it's been years since I read the early books

 

[JD]

I loved New Frontier until they blew up the first Excalibur, the books after that started out good, but the quality pretty steadily dropped from that point on. It really lost something once the cast was split the cast up, it wasn't bad when they were on two ships, but by the end there were about 4 or 5 different settings.

 

[Kilana2]

The only New Frontier book I didn't like was No Limits with the short stories. They remained bland.

 

[thribs]

They destroy the Excalibur? Let me guess, they get a ship that is exactly the same.

 

[tomswift2002]

They destroy the Excalibur? Let me guess, they get a ship that is exactly the same.

Nope.

 

[marlboro]

Attention Trek writers: never blow up the ship.

Blowing up the ship is like burning down Cheers and moving the cast to a TGI Fridays or having the 4077 relocate to a new state of the art hospital.

PS: This also goes for space stations!

 

[thribs]

Is it a Galaxy Class ship? That could explain the cover art in the later novels.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Yes, it is and I think that's even why they picked that class (easier for the cover department).

 

[USS Firefly]

They destroy the Excalibur? Let me guess, they get a ship that is exactly the same.

You forget a number

 

[thribs]

He seems to me a chap better suited commanding a Akira Class vessel.

 

[David cgc]

He seems to me a chap better suited commanding a Akira Class vessel.

John Ordover and PAD considered making the second Excalibur a Prometheus-class. I don't think I ever read why they decided against that, though.

 

[tomswift2002]

Attention Trek writers: never blow up the ship.

Blowing up the ship is like burning down Cheers and moving the cast to a TGI Fridays or having the 4077 relocate to a new state of the art hospital.

PS: This also goes for space stations!

Well then, you’d better not read the new DS9 books because the original DS9 was also blown up and replaced.

 

[USS Firefly]

Well then, you’d better not read the new DS9 books because the original DS9 was also blown up and replaced.

And that wasn't a good desicion.
The DS9 books weren't getting better after that

 

[David cgc]

And that wasn't a good desicion.
The DS9 books weren't getting better after that

They weren't exactly getting better before that, either (what little we'd seen of them since Destiny, at least). The back-burnering of DS9-R happened long before the "visual" reboot. I don't think imagining the old station would've helped with being 90% through the book, reading a stray line, and going "Oh, Prynn is still on the crew" or "Right, I forgot O'Brian came back."

 

[thribs]

Without Sisko onboard, it isn’t the same.
Plus I always feel sorry for Bashir in it.

 

[marlboro]

I love Sisko, but I think they did a great job of reinvigorating the cast with new characters when they began the relaunch. I think knowing that he would eventually be back helped. The high quality of the writing also made the transition much easier.


The writers of all of the relaunch series were really behind the eightball, imo. Look at where the tv series left them as a starting point:

DS9 - No more war and most of the crew going there separate ways. No way you could bring Ben back right off the bat.

TNG: Piece of cake if they could have started after All Good Things, but instead they have to pick up the pieces of Nemesis. No Data. No Riker. TNG without Data is almost like TOS without Spock to me.

VOY: Hell, they're already home.

ENT: Ended with a Valentine to the fans that was the equivalent of Cupid pulling an arrow out of his ass and shooting it into the audience's eye.


Blowing up the ship/station.

Like I said, the settings of these shows are almost like a member of the cast. If they are gonna get killed off they deserve more than a Tasha Yar style death. The story needs to be worthy of sacrificing the character.

Even worse than the lame "deaths" are the immediate resurrections.

So you've killed a character for shock value, removed any interesting story possibilities by instantly replacing them, and ended up with a new character that may be cool in its own right but one that the audience can't have any sentimental attachment. You've combined the death of Tasha with the reset button resurrection of Harry Kim 2.0 with a healthy dose of the awkward transition of Jadzia to Dax. To top it off, you have characters constantly reminiscing about how cool the old ship/station was.


DS9 jumping the shark.

The post Soul Key books is where they've lost me. The characters and storylines have just spun in some directions that I don't care for, or find particularly interesting.

Instead of using the time jump to synchronize all of the series, I wish they had just split the cast up amongst the writers. Characters like Bashir and Captain Dax are written about only in the later time period, while the rest of the DS9 characters continue on in the "old" time period. The greatest strength of DS9 is its number of interesting characters, so you get to have your cake and eat it too. David Mack gets to do his Section 31 stories, Dax gets the Aventine, and we dont have to screw up the ongoing DS9 story via the time jump. And, since we know exactly which characters you can and can't use, you don't have to worry about continuity issues.

 

[JD]

Without Sisko onboard, it isn’t the same.
Plus I always feel sorry for Bashir in it.

I've gotta disagree, the early DS9 Relaunch books, most of which didn't have Sisko, is one of the most consistently great groups Trek books we've ever gotten. In terms of DS9, I'd put most of them up right up there with episodes like In The Pale Moonlight or The Visitor.

 

[thribs]

I’m up to book 5. Love the interactions between the captain and Shelby. It’s very similar to that of Mercer’s and Grayson’s from the Orville. I could easily see them having an argument in a lift, similar to the one they had.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I’m up to book 5. Love the interactions between the captain and Shelby. It’s very similar to that of Mercer’s and Grayson’s from the Orville. I could easily see them having an argument in a lift, similar to the one they had.

Definitely. My initial reaction to The Orville -- and it hasn't really changed -- is that The Orville is what a New Frontier television series would have been like.

 

[Jinn]

Definitely. My initial reaction to The Orville -- and it hasn't really changed -- is that The Orville is what a New Frontier television series would have been like.

Now I actually want to watch Orville