Spoilers IKS Gorkon: A Good Day to Die by KRAD Review Thread
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None that I'm aware of. But they basically look like bipedal wolves.
Wait until you try and picture the Elabrej from later in the series. 
Although, actually, I do have a pretty clear personal image of the Elabrej. They look a bit like butterbeans with stilt-like limbs jutting off....
Although, actually, I do have a pretty clear personal image of the Elabrej. They look a bit like butterbeans with stilt-like limbs jutting off....
None that I'm aware of. But they basically look like bipedal wolves.
That's even better than what I was talking about! My memory of the in-book description must be fuzzy. My bad.
Oh, that's easy: the Elabrej look like Chode from Tripping the Rift......Wait until you try and picture the Elabrej from later in the series.
I pictured the San-Tarh as feline...probably personal projection due to my own cats, I doubt a re-read would support my imagination.
I pictured the Elabrej as big mitochondria.
Props for mentioning 'Tripping the Rift', KRAD...I haven't thought about that show in years but in my opinion it was brilliant and under appreciated.
I pictured the Elabrej as big mitochondria.
Props for mentioning 'Tripping the Rift', KRAD...I haven't thought about that show in years but in my opinion it was brilliant and under appreciated.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2144727767?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
STAR TREK: IKS GORKON: A GOOD DAY TO DIE by Keith R.A. Decandido is a book which is impossible for me to dislike. I actually have complaints about the book and a few criticisms (which aren't quite the same thing) but they aren't going to keep from giving it five stars because KLINGONS. Geeks are genetically engineered to like Klingons. Even more so than Star Trek as a whole, everyone loves the honorable and dishonorable warriors of Kahless.
Honestly, I'm stunned I didn't start this series earlier but my love of Star Trek is mitigated by my love of Star Wars so I spent my first twenty years only reading its Expanded Universe and only got into the post-Star Trek: Nemesis novels five years ago. I also tend to mostly just read the works of Christopher Bennet--which is no excuse for not picking up this entire series when it first came out in 2003. Bah, but what is 15 years! *random Klingon phrase*
The premise for IKS Gorkon is it follows the crew of the titular ship introduced in Diplomatic Implausibility (A TNG book) with a number of original as well as extremely minor characters from Star Trek fandom. There's Captain Klag who is a warrior and experimentee arm transplant donar (the technology having never been developed on Oo'noS), Kurnak the prickly engineer, Lestik the randy bridge officer, and Top the ambitious young up and commer. These are characters we've seen before (or at least their archetypes) but that helps make the unfamiliar more familiar--which is part of Star Trek's appeal.
The IKS Gorkon is a new ship with a new mission now that the Klingons have redeemed their warrior credentials by defeating the Dominion as well as Cardassians. They are to seek out new life, to boldly go where no Klingon has gone before, and kill them before taking their stuff. I have some problems with this premise as I'll get into below but I like this as a sort of anti Star Trek: Titan as the books having the ship actually explore things helps make up for the fact we've been off that mission since ENT season 3.
The book follows Klag visiting a newly discovered hunter-gatherer society world which is full of mining deposits. The Children of San-Tarah are a race of humanoid tigers (at least that's how I imagine them) are incredibly vicious but honorable warriors. Klag, eager to earn glory by outshining his brother, allows them the chance to keep their world free from conquest by winning a series of events in a Olympics-style contest. He promises the Klingons will leave and never return if they lose--which is perhaps the only time such a promise would be binding.
My biggest issue with the IKS Gorkon is it doesn't quite fit my conception of the time period and cultures involved. If it was set during the Original Series, yes, certainly, I could see this story happening. The Klingons were as conquest happy then as Genghis Khan. The thing is, I can't actually buy a Alexander the Great-style crusade of conquest by the Klingons is something the Federation would not be throwing an enormous fit over. This is almost certainly something which would have been covered in the Khitomer Accords since I can't imagine it reads, "You can conquer anyone you want as long as it's not us."
Another small issue I have is one of my favorite characters, Kurak, should be dead. Basically, Kurak hates being in the military as she was conscripted by her father and wants to be working at Klingon DARPA again so she continuously half-asses her job. This puts the crew, the ship, and their efforts always at risk. Given she was demoted in the last book because of this and shows no sign of changing, I see no reason why they wouldn't have gutted her like a fish by now. Its frustrating for what is an otherwise intriguing and fascinating character.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this book and immediately bought the sequel. The book ends on a cliffhanger and while I would have preferred a complete story, I'm guilty of this myself. I also like how all the various Klingon characters come together (except for Kurak--but she's always a problem). I recommend it to all fans of the empire who wish to see it crush the Federation and rule the Alpha and Beta Quadrants!
STAR TREK: IKS GORKON: A GOOD DAY TO DIE by Keith R.A. Decandido is a book which is impossible for me to dislike. I actually have complaints about the book and a few criticisms (which aren't quite the same thing) but they aren't going to keep from giving it five stars because KLINGONS. Geeks are genetically engineered to like Klingons. Even more so than Star Trek as a whole, everyone loves the honorable and dishonorable warriors of Kahless.
Honestly, I'm stunned I didn't start this series earlier but my love of Star Trek is mitigated by my love of Star Wars so I spent my first twenty years only reading its Expanded Universe and only got into the post-Star Trek: Nemesis novels five years ago. I also tend to mostly just read the works of Christopher Bennet--which is no excuse for not picking up this entire series when it first came out in 2003. Bah, but what is 15 years! *random Klingon phrase*
The premise for IKS Gorkon is it follows the crew of the titular ship introduced in Diplomatic Implausibility (A TNG book) with a number of original as well as extremely minor characters from Star Trek fandom. There's Captain Klag who is a warrior and experimentee arm transplant donar (the technology having never been developed on Oo'noS), Kurnak the prickly engineer, Lestik the randy bridge officer, and Top the ambitious young up and commer. These are characters we've seen before (or at least their archetypes) but that helps make the unfamiliar more familiar--which is part of Star Trek's appeal.
The IKS Gorkon is a new ship with a new mission now that the Klingons have redeemed their warrior credentials by defeating the Dominion as well as Cardassians. They are to seek out new life, to boldly go where no Klingon has gone before, and kill them before taking their stuff. I have some problems with this premise as I'll get into below but I like this as a sort of anti Star Trek: Titan as the books having the ship actually explore things helps make up for the fact we've been off that mission since ENT season 3.
The book follows Klag visiting a newly discovered hunter-gatherer society world which is full of mining deposits. The Children of San-Tarah are a race of humanoid tigers (at least that's how I imagine them) are incredibly vicious but honorable warriors. Klag, eager to earn glory by outshining his brother, allows them the chance to keep their world free from conquest by winning a series of events in a Olympics-style contest. He promises the Klingons will leave and never return if they lose--which is perhaps the only time such a promise would be binding.
My biggest issue with the IKS Gorkon is it doesn't quite fit my conception of the time period and cultures involved. If it was set during the Original Series, yes, certainly, I could see this story happening. The Klingons were as conquest happy then as Genghis Khan. The thing is, I can't actually buy a Alexander the Great-style crusade of conquest by the Klingons is something the Federation would not be throwing an enormous fit over. This is almost certainly something which would have been covered in the Khitomer Accords since I can't imagine it reads, "You can conquer anyone you want as long as it's not us."
Another small issue I have is one of my favorite characters, Kurak, should be dead. Basically, Kurak hates being in the military as she was conscripted by her father and wants to be working at Klingon DARPA again so she continuously half-asses her job. This puts the crew, the ship, and their efforts always at risk. Given she was demoted in the last book because of this and shows no sign of changing, I see no reason why they wouldn't have gutted her like a fish by now. Its frustrating for what is an otherwise intriguing and fascinating character.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this book and immediately bought the sequel. The book ends on a cliffhanger and while I would have preferred a complete story, I'm guilty of this myself. I also like how all the various Klingon characters come together (except for Kurak--but she's always a problem). I recommend it to all fans of the empire who wish to see it crush the Federation and rule the Alpha and Beta Quadrants!
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Why would the Klingon Empire have agreed to something like that, though? Imagine if they tried to put a clause in the Accords that forced the Federation to abide by Klingon values in some interstellar diplomatic aspect by the same reasoning. And the Federation might object, sure, but it's not going to be something worth breaking the Accords over, as blunt as that sounds. The alliance between the two is too important, and this all isn't happening anywhere the Federation has any jurisdiction or power over. You can't force another country to abide by your values by force, because that doesn't actually work in practice; all you can do is provide pressure or an example of behavior.
The Accords aren't "we tell you what to do and you'd better listen", they're a treaty between equals.
Just so you know, it takes place between DI and AGDTD. I'm not sure, but I believe the stories in TB&TB build of off each other, so you'll probably want to read Book 1 too.Not yet. I have book 2# but didn't want to start it without a guarantee of Klingon focus.
I think the point is that it's inconsistent for the Federation to have been willing to form an alliance with a conquering power in the first place. As I've mentioned before, TNG: "Heart of Glory" implied that the Empire had outgrown its warlike ways for the most part and it was only renegades like Korris who still wanted to expand and conquer. But later Trek contradicted that by portraying the Empire to be just as aggressive and warlike as ever, which made it retroactively out of character for the Federation to accept them as a close ally.
Ah, fair, yeah. I can still see it, though I'm having trouble putting the reasoning I'm feeling into words at the moment. It feels to me like a number of various factors coming together, including providing aid to Qo'noS following the Praxis disaster and a desire to find an end to the cold war between them, leading over time to an attempt at moderating the Klingon Empire through formal diplomatic relations rather than military action, but I can't really put that together into a cogent argument.
I can better see the view you're (and possibly Charles is) talking about, though, yeah.
My biggest issue isn't the fact the Klingons are still war-like and vicious as while early episodes of TNG had them as possibly members of the Federation, the majority of them showed a Klingon Empire which was still bewildering to people like Picard. They're clearly an independent power and doing independent things, just not hostile to the Federation.
No, my biggest issue with these novels is the Federation might as well not exist after Diplomatic Implausibility. It's one of those things which I felt really needed to be addressed and I'm hoping will be in later books (but I don't think they were since A Burning House came out a decade ago.
Basically, a simple, "The Federation is furious about this, threatening sanctions, and feels betrayed by Martrok but he tells them to suck it up as it's not breaking any treaties as these aren't EXISTING worlds in the Empire."
That sort of thing.
Ahh, okay. Yeah, something like that would've been nice to see.
Will go purchase it!
I'm a little late to the Gorkon series party. When it came out initially I bypassed it for some reason. I was far behind in my Star Trek reading at the time thanks to my college years in the 90's and focused mostly on books based on the TV series and the various relaunches.
But recently I decided to rectify that error and bought the 4 Gorkon novels. Unbeknownst to me I actually already had the 'first' Gorkon novel with the TNG novel "Diplomatic Implausibility". I read that this summer and enjoyed it, making me happy I finally bought the other Gorkon novels. Unfortunately I still have to get "The Brave and the Bold, Book 2" which is the '2nd' book in the Gorkon series, but another fan on another thread noted it's not vitally necessary to read that before this novel. That I should read "A Good Day to Die" followed by Book 2 and then go back to "The Brave and the Bold" (and I can see why since Book 2 follows this book narratively).
On to the review. I rated it excellent, not a rating a give out freely. Prior reviews have noted some of the major plot points so I won't belabor them here. I do like the idea of them agreeing to the 'tests' with the San-Tarah. A novel way to settle whether the planet joins the Empire or not, necessitated by the difficulty the Gorkon would have subduing the planet as Klingons normally would. And the ending was a bit surprising. I figured it would come down to the end, but never thought it would end with the Klingons losing. I thought Klag would win after a long, hard fought battle. I compliment KRAD on his unorthodox ending. I can't say I'm surprised at Talak's reaction and I'm looking forward to the next book which I'll read next.
I really enjoyed the character development, and a few major characters even died. I was sad at the demise of Krevor. The only character that annoys me a bit is the chief engineer. She is just such a kill joy and it will be interesting to see in the future novels if there is some change of heart with her.
And it was an interesting look at Klingon society. We get a Worf cameo with his induction into the Order of the Bat'leth. All in all an excellent read and I can't find any faults with the story, hence my excellent rating.
But recently I decided to rectify that error and bought the 4 Gorkon novels. Unbeknownst to me I actually already had the 'first' Gorkon novel with the TNG novel "Diplomatic Implausibility". I read that this summer and enjoyed it, making me happy I finally bought the other Gorkon novels. Unfortunately I still have to get "The Brave and the Bold, Book 2" which is the '2nd' book in the Gorkon series, but another fan on another thread noted it's not vitally necessary to read that before this novel. That I should read "A Good Day to Die" followed by Book 2 and then go back to "The Brave and the Bold" (and I can see why since Book 2 follows this book narratively).
On to the review. I rated it excellent, not a rating a give out freely. Prior reviews have noted some of the major plot points so I won't belabor them here. I do like the idea of them agreeing to the 'tests' with the San-Tarah. A novel way to settle whether the planet joins the Empire or not, necessitated by the difficulty the Gorkon would have subduing the planet as Klingons normally would. And the ending was a bit surprising. I figured it would come down to the end, but never thought it would end with the Klingons losing. I thought Klag would win after a long, hard fought battle. I compliment KRAD on his unorthodox ending. I can't say I'm surprised at Talak's reaction and I'm looking forward to the next book which I'll read next.
I really enjoyed the character development, and a few major characters even died. I was sad at the demise of Krevor. The only character that annoys me a bit is the chief engineer. She is just such a kill joy and it will be interesting to see in the future novels if there is some change of heart with her.
And it was an interesting look at Klingon society. We get a Worf cameo with his induction into the Order of the Bat'leth. All in all an excellent read and I can't find any faults with the story, hence my excellent rating.
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