Yes. An absolute Trek classic; it's a must read.
Greater Than the Sum
- Thread starter Dick1979
- Start date
I liked T'Ryssa Chen, but I can see why others might not, just as I generally enjoy New Frontier but understand why others don't (and I know the character is an RPG/Whedon mix rather than modeled after New Frontier; it's just the go-to referent for zany characters). I too occasionally felt that some of her scenes were over-the-top, pushing the aren't-I-unconventional aspect a little too strongly, but generally speaking she makes for a nice, carpe diem contrast with the generally stolid TNG crew. It might be useful to think of her as a kind of Ro Laren figure, someone with a noticeably different mindset than the rest of the main characters to spark conflict, only ebulliant/flighty to Ro's bitterness/cynicism.
Funny thing: another way Chen seems less unlikely a characterization is by the standards of a Luna-class vessel, which was her original posting: she'd fit in better with the crew of the Titan than Enterprise. Wondering why I thought so, I realized it was because the diversity of species leads one to expect all kinds of different attitudes and outlooks, including some--like Choblik's latent misandry or the mess the carnivores make when they eat--that I couldn't picture lasting long aboard the more decorous Big E either. By the same token, I realized that if Chen had been presented as an alien who was simply acting as per her cultural mores, I would have found myself more tolerant of her eccentricities--even though, objectively, there's no reason why behaviour should be more or less acceptable for being cultural or individual. So a useful character in terms of challenging (my) preconceptions, if nothing else.
That's probably part of the problem, I'd say. As is, Kaz is little more than an Ezri redux.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Funny thing: another way Chen seems less unlikely a characterization is by the standards of a Luna-class vessel, which was her original posting: she'd fit in better with the crew of the Titan than Enterprise. Wondering why I thought so, I realized it was because the diversity of species leads one to expect all kinds of different attitudes and outlooks, including some--like Choblik's latent misandry or the mess the carnivores make when they eat--that I couldn't picture lasting long aboard the more decorous Big E either. By the same token, I realized that if Chen had been presented as an alien who was simply acting as per her cultural mores, I would have found myself more tolerant of her eccentricities--even though, objectively, there's no reason why behaviour should be more or less acceptable for being cultural or individual. So a useful character in terms of challenging (my) preconceptions, if nothing else.
That's probably part of the problem, I'd say. As is, Kaz is little more than an Ezri redux.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Kaz's origin is a little too similar to Ezri's, but honestly, that's really where the similarities end.
Exactly. The only real simialrity to Ezri is the fact that both of them were the only Trills available when their respective symbionts needed to be joined right away. Admittedly, both of their previous hosts were killed, but Kaz's host was a Maquis who died in battle while Dax's previous host, Jadzia, was a Starfleet officer just like Ezri, who was murdered. The redux arguement can be made for any Trill who is joined with little preparation, which during the Dominion War, probably happened more than the symbiosis commission would have liked.
Tiny nitpick because I can't help myself:
It's not the Choblik (in the person of Torvig) but the Pak'shree (in the person of Chaka) who have issues with adult males.
As to the topic, haven't read GTTS, but have definitely enjoyed what I have read of Christopher's stuff.
Only because there is no such thing as an adult male in the Pak'shree species. All Pak'shree males are essentially adolescents, doing their reproductive duty and then maturing into females. So there's no "misandry," no dislike for adult males -- merely a difficulty getting used to the fact that the males of other species can be responsible adults. And it's not that Chaka thinks it's wrong for males to be acting responsibly; she just finds it adorably incongruous. It's like how we'd react to, say, Balok's species -- what looks like a bunch of children functioning as adults. You might be able to accept that and relate to them in a respectful and positive manner, but deep inside, you'd still find it funny and endearing to watch.
Well, as I implied upthread, I don't feel that Kaz has a character beyond his origin. He's the-Trill-who-had-to-join-inexpectedly-with-past-host-issues and little more. Just one of the blank or single-issue characters floating about those novels.
My mistake; thanks for the correction. Confused the Ch-ks.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Not to stroke your ego too much, but i would rank Q&A as the strongest of the relaunch so far. For a start it made a nice change to all the Borging about in the other books of the series, and really marked the point where the relaunch really got going for me.
By told what to do, i didnt mean to imply the story was dictated to you. Rather when it came to the new characters i was unsure whether it was an individual creation, or whether the new characters were created as a group.
It may just be my own sense of humour when it comes to my dislike of T'yrssa but i really disliked her. She just didnt work for me.
However if Choudhury was your invention too then that i can applaud. Of the newbies added to the TNG crew so far, she is by far the strongest in my opinion.
^^Dave Mack created Choudhury, but I wrote her first and thus was tasked with much of her development. So she's a collaborative creation.
I'm a little confused about your meaning Chris. Could you explain, as a writer, what the distinction is between "creating" a character and "developing" one? I'm afraid I'm not very good at these things.
So did David just create the name, gender, and position, and then your created her personality and backstory?
Dave wrote the outline for Destiny before I was hired to write GTTS, which took place before Destiny. His outline included a security chief named Jasminder Choudhury and described her actions in the novel. But since GTTS was be written before most of DES, we agreed that I'd come up with her backstory and the specifics of her personality. So things like her Denevan origin and her bond with Worf are from Dave, while her career history, her spirituality, and her serene nature are from me.
i suspect it's more like Mack created her name, rank, gender, position and some of her personality, but Chris fleshed it out more by adding more details.
[edit]or what he just said...
[edit]or what he just said...
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Just finished reading this book, and I really liked it!
The recapping of the previous stories didn't bother me in most parts, because I skipped straight to this book from <i>Death in Winter</i>. I say in most parts, because at times I felt a sentence or two could have been enough recap instead of half a page to a page. Maybe because I read all the discussions of the other books, and I know what happened in them, so these recaps were a bit redundant.
I like T'Ryssa Chen, she is a lot of fun! Now, if I were to work with her, then I might get annoyed at her attitude towards her work, maybe, but as a reader, I can't help but like her free spirit. I wonder what that says about me? and I love Jasminder, she's a different type of security chief than we've seen previously. I would love to see more of T'Ryssa and Jasminder in future books.
Great to see some follow up on the story from The Inner Light, and I was moved to tears during two scenes where Picard and Crusher were talking what happened to him during that time.
One thing that didn't work for me was the descriptions of the battle scenes, I understand wanting to explain why things happen, and it was great to see someone putting in a bit more thoughts into battle in space (crushing the Borg ship into the moon was definitely great to read and see!) but at times, the description felt too long and slow.
Overall, another great read from CLB.
The recapping of the previous stories didn't bother me in most parts, because I skipped straight to this book from <i>Death in Winter</i>. I say in most parts, because at times I felt a sentence or two could have been enough recap instead of half a page to a page. Maybe because I read all the discussions of the other books, and I know what happened in them, so these recaps were a bit redundant.
I like T'Ryssa Chen, she is a lot of fun! Now, if I were to work with her, then I might get annoyed at her attitude towards her work, maybe, but as a reader, I can't help but like her free spirit. I wonder what that says about me?
and I love Jasminder, she's a different type of security chief than we've seen previously. I would love to see more of T'Ryssa and Jasminder in future books. Great to see some follow up on the story from The Inner Light, and I was moved to tears during two scenes where Picard and Crusher were talking what happened to him during that time.
One thing that didn't work for me was the descriptions of the battle scenes, I understand wanting to explain why things happen, and it was great to see someone putting in a bit more thoughts into battle in space (crushing the Borg ship into the moon was definitely great to read and see!) but at times, the description felt too long and slow.
Overall, another great read from CLB.
I don't know if you've read Destiny yet, but if you haven't you'll be happy to know that Jasminder plays a fairly big role in the story. But Chen on the other hand, only has a few lines in each book, although if I remember correctly David Mack said that this was mainly because he hadn't found out about her character's role in GTTS until he was pretty far into writing the Destiny books.
Thank you!
That's gratifying to hear. It played out very movingly on the TV screen in my head, and I'm glad I was able to get that across to you.
Well, to each one's own. For me, reading about ships shooting at each other and tactical officers reporting shield percentages and extras being blown across the room is tedious in the extreme, whereas reading about people using knowledge and imagination to solve problems is interesting. And basing the strategy and tactics on real physics helps get away from the naval-battle or aerial-dogfight cliches that sci-fi space combat usually cleaves to.
That's not what I meant when I say I found the descriptions long and slow, I like the different tactics you used here, but it was more about how it was put together. For example, the scene where the Enterprise broke through the barrier, shot four torpedos just before, where two hit the Borg ship and the other two came back and hit the Borg ship afterwards. I found the description of what happened to the other two dragged the action a bit, because I was focused on the action of the Enterprise, I didn't need to know the other two missed because they were aimed at two other possible location the borg ship would be in, I didn't need to know they turned around. When it's on film, you need to show that, because you can't go back after these torpedos hit the Borg ship and show how they come back, but with a book, you can. For me at least, I think it would be better if you showed four torpedos were fired, two hit the borg ship, blah, blah, blah, the Enterprise forced the Borg ship "down", and the other two torpedos hit it. Then explain how that came about. I hope that makes some sense.
Overall, I found the battles scenes here are a lot more memorable than normal, because they are not simple shoot and dodge, followed by sparks flying and crewmen injured. But sometimes, I wish the explanation can be shorter or kept till later, because I found you wrote the battles scenes with a sense of urgency, and then I had to slow down to figure out angular momentum and speed, for example, that's what I meant by long and slow.
no, haven't read Destiny yet, but I do read the spoiler threads, so I know Chen isn't in there much.
T'Ryssa and Jasminder will return in Quantum of Solace... er, Losing the Peace.
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