Have any of the novels ever just made you mad? (
- Thread starter darkwing_duck1
- Start date
Not that it was a bad story by any means, but I found it distressingly silly that the entire universe ended at the end of the second Millennium book (The War of the Prophets, I believe).
I understand the dramatic purpose of it all, but I find it hard to believe that events in one relatively small, unimportant galaxy could affect things on such a, uh, universal scale.
I wonder if, in the Star Trek reality, the actions of beings all over the cosmos routinely destroy the universe. Thankfully for everyone else, nothing works like a little time travel to fix things right up. It's like the duct tape of cosmic problems.
I understand the dramatic purpose of it all, but I find it hard to believe that events in one relatively small, unimportant galaxy could affect things on such a, uh, universal scale.
I wonder if, in the Star Trek reality, the actions of beings all over the cosmos routinely destroy the universe. Thankfully for everyone else, nothing works like a little time travel to fix things right up. It's like the duct tape of cosmic problems.
It didn't make me mad exactly, but a lot of the characters felt off when I reread Debtor's Planet recently. I can't exactly say what exactly gave me that feeling, but the portrayal of how Worf viewed humanity seemed particularly off, especially given how he'd lived among them for most of his life.
^Well, as I said, the quintessential "out-of-character" Trek novel is Balance of Power.
Good grief...the darned thing was practically a guidebook on what NOT to do with established characters.
(Was that thing published in the Arnold era, or the Ordolver era? If the former...I'm dissapointed. Arnold, of course, was notorious for intense "don't take the characters in that direction". If that book somehow got by him...
If it was Ordolver...well, I just expected better.)
Good grief...the darned thing was practically a guidebook on what NOT to do with established characters.
(Was that thing published in the Arnold era, or the Ordolver era? If the former...I'm dissapointed. Arnold, of course, was notorious for intense "don't take the characters in that direction". If that book somehow got by him...
If it was Ordolver...well, I just expected better.)
I really don't recall it being so bad, but it's a 1995 book and Richard Arnold's direct influence on new books ended in September 1991, when Gene Roddenberry died. Quite a few of the manuscripts he commented upon would have still been shunted along the line after that date, but probably not this one.
As for editor John Ordover, there are quite a few of the ST books published under his leadership that fans get angry about, including problems such as typos, incorrect cover blurbs, crossover stunts, under-editing, etc. (Didn't he also allow Dafydd ab Hugh's name to be incorrectly spelt on three covers of "DS9: Rebels"?)
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/John_J._Ordover
As for ab Hugh, he had already written "DS9: Fallen Heroes", to great acclaim, before writing "Balance of Power".
It isn't meaningful to speak of an "Arnold era" versus an "Ordover era," since the two men had very different jobs. Richard Arnold was Gene Roddenberry's assistant and "Star Trek archivist," and one of the responsibilities he assumed was the oversight of all licensed material (including novels, comics, and whatever else was out there), vetting it for consistency with canon -- the job that has since been performed by Paramount/CBS Licensing, formerly under Paula Block and John Van Citters, now just by JVC. John Ordover was an editor of the Star Trek novel line, responsible for developing and editing novels, and answering to the people with oversight of licensed materials.
At the time Arnold was in charge of vetting novels and comics, the late '80s through 1991, the main editor of Pocket's Trek novel line was, I believe, Dave Stern, with Kevin Ryan coming in as a junior editor somewhere around '89, as far as I can tell. Stern left and Ryan took over around '92, and Ordover came along a few years later. The earliest book I'm aware of in which the author acknowledges Ordover as the editor is Twilight's End from January '96. So a book from '95 would probably have been edited by Kevin Ryan, I would guess (though I could be wrong).
At the time Arnold was in charge of vetting novels and comics, the late '80s through 1991, the main editor of Pocket's Trek novel line was, I believe, Dave Stern, with Kevin Ryan coming in as a junior editor somewhere around '89, as far as I can tell. Stern left and Ryan took over around '92, and Ordover came along a few years later. The earliest book I'm aware of in which the author acknowledges Ordover as the editor is Twilight's End from January '96. So a book from '95 would probably have been edited by Kevin Ryan, I would guess (though I could be wrong).
And, IIRC, for a time tie-in proposals and manuscripts were being vetted by both the Star Trek Office (ie. Susan Sackett and then Richard Arnold on behalf of GR) and Paramount Licensing (Paula Block on behalf of the ST copyright holder).
ab Hugh coins the Ordover System in February 1994's "DS9: Fallen Heroes", so I guess JJO was already at Pocket by then - and Shatner coins the alien beast of burden, the ordover, in May 1998's "Spectre".
That sounds familiar, even though I haven't read Destiny. Where have I seen a situation like that? Some movie I saw last year, maybe?...
Exactly. Arnold worked for Roddenberry. Ordover was an editor at Pocket Books. Arnold never actually edited the Trek books; he was just in charge of approving them for a time.
I just read through this whole biiiig thread only to find it....revived for no particular reason.
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