Issues with current Enterprise E Bridge/senior officer staff

[Defcon]

^But if every series had only one writer, then there'd only be a half-dozen or so people writing Trek novels on a regular basis, depending on how many book-original series there were.

I had a feeling that there aren't much more than half a dozen regulars either way, so I've gone through the schedules from 2011 to 2014 (as far as we know if ATM), and if I haven't miscounted there are eight authors/writing duos who have three or more novels during that time frame (I would say less than that shouldn't count as regular). So I guess there are a couple more "regulars" than I thought.

9 novels: David Mack
7 novels: Dayton Ward (3 with Kevin Dilmore)
6 novels: David R. George III
4 novels: Christopher L. Bennett
3 novels: Michael A. Martin, Kirsten Beyer, Greg Cox, Una McCormack

------

2 novels: James Swallow, Jeff Mariotte
1 novel: David McIntee, Peter David (published twice), Marco Palmieri, Steve Mollmann & Michael Schuster, Tony Daniel, Alan Dean Foster, William Leisner, Jeffrey Lang



By the way, that KRAD isn't even on this list with a single novel is a fucking shame.

 

[Paris]

^But if every series had only one writer, then there'd only be a half-dozen or so people writing Trek novels on a regular basis, depending on how many book-original series there were. So some of the series should be open to multiple writers.

Totally. I realize this. I wasn't saying that I wanted only one writer per series, I was just saying that one writer would probably make it feel all the more cohesive in terms of characterization. Stuff like the differences of the personalities of the senior E-E staff in Before Dishonor / Q&A for example. That's all. If new writers weren't let into the club house, then we wouldn't get any new voices or perspectives.

Maybe it would be better if TNG featured more trilogies or duologies by the same writer...at least for some of these characters. I'd love to see Una give us more Dygan for example.

Hopefully yourself and Kirsten aren't interupted in your series for the forseeable future. So far i like how they are going

 

[Avro Arrow]

Miranda Kadohata was interesting.

Agreed. I would really like to see her return to the fold at some point.

Leybenzon was interesting.

I thought Leybenzon had a fantastic set-up in his first novel, and he sounded like he was going to be a really interesting, nuanced character. Ever since then, he was simply portrayed as a less-than-intelligent brawler type who shot first and thought later, if at all... to the point where they had to kill him off with a bad case of the stupids. To me, this was the single biggest waste of potential in the initial batch of new characters.

Šmrhová and Elfiki are just names.

I don't know, Šmrhová has seemed to had a fair bit of development through the few novels that feature her, so she does seem like a bit more than just a name to me. Elfiki, though, I will agree with. Even after a novel that featured her fairly extensively (Watching the Clock?), I don't feel that I really know her all that well. But then, the same is true of, say, Patel in VOY.

By the way, that KRAD isn't even on this list with a single novel is a fucking shame.

I'm not a huge fan of "like" or "+1" or "QFT" posts, but I'm going to have to make an exception in this case!

 

[Paris]

...By the way, that KRAD isn't even on this list with a single novel is a fucking shame.

Agreed! I've been re-reading a lot of his trek books lately and wish there were more. Total fucking shame. Hopefully we get our wish down the line

 

[JD]

By the way, that KRAD isn't even on this list with a single novel is a fucking shame.

I keep hoping that the fact that he was hired to write Klingon Art of War might mean that he is or will be back writing Trek books.

 

[Stevil2001]

^But if every series had only one writer, then there'd only be a half-dozen or so people writing Trek novels on a regular basis, depending on how many book-original series there were. So some of the series should be open to multiple writers.

Totally. I realize this. I wasn't saying that I wanted only one writer per series, I was just saying that one writer would probably make it feel all the more cohesive in terms of characterization. Stuff like the differences of the personalities of the senior E-E staff in Before Dishonor / Q&A for example. That's all. If new writers weren't let into the club house, then we wouldn't get any new voices or perspectives.

I dunno-- the DS9 relaunch is the high watermark of lit-only characters, and it had a pretty varied set of writers. I suspect it's about strong editing and good co-ordination, among other things.

 

[Defcon]

By the way, that KRAD isn't even on this list with a single novel is a fucking shame.

I keep hoping that the fact that he was hired to write Klingon Art of War might mean that he is or will be back writing Trek books.

Different creative team behind the book, so I doubt it has much influence on KRAD'S chances with the current editorial regime at Pocket Books. As far as I understand it Becker&Mayer is doing all the creative work and S&S "just" publishes the book.

 

[TJ Sinclair]

For me, the only new Enterprise crewmember that I've cared about at all was Kadohata. She was interesting, you clearly got a sense of who she was, and her interactions with the "D crew" were good, I could easily see her becoming part of the family, as it were. I think writing her out of the series was one of the worst editorial choices in recent years. Anyway, next to Miranda, Dygan is certainly the most compelling and could grow into a good character if given the chance.

But none of the others have clicked as well as Kadohata did, not even Choudhury, and I do think a lot of that has to do with the wildly inconsistent characterizations and quality of the early TNG relaunch novels. Of those four, Q&A was the only one that actually felt right, and though it ultimately was the one that mattered least in terms of the story arc, it certainly did the best with the characters.

I know that Christopher did a lot to redeem the TNG relaunch with Greater Than the Sum, but after how badly burned I'd been by Before Dishonor, and how tired of the Borg I'd been for years, I stopped reading 24th century books all together until A Singular Destiny.

In any case, even going back and reading things that I'd skipped when they were first published, there's really nothing to make these new TNG characters as interesting and compelling as the characters created for Vanguard, or the early DS9 Relaunch, or even some members of Titan's crew. Heck, I care more about Counselor Haaj than I do about the majority of the new Enterprise crew these days. It's like reading stick figure sketches whose names are the most interesting thing about them.

I wonder there are enough "cast off" characters like Kadohata and Shar to make their own crew these days? Probably not, but it might be close.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

The fact that, although the time elapsed in-universe is going at a decent pace, we really aren't spending much of that time with the Enterprise crew, having to bounce around the various 24th century crews to check in on everyone in the ongoing storylines, is really working against the new characters. Trys and Dygan are really the only current 'new' characters who've really left an impact with me. I think of the current Enterprise roster, and I'm not even really sure who's supposed to be where. Picard, Crusher, Worf, and La Forge are easy, but every other position has been so much up in the air since that the names aren't sticking.

While I enjoy Trek Lit's ongoing overall narrative for the 24th century crews, I think there's been a bit of a heavy focus on these major, game-change type of events in what's going on in the Trek universe, rather than smaller scale, character based stories. While I enjoy that the stories that are being told are advancing the story lines that have been set up and put into play over the years, I would really like to see some slow down when it comes to things, scale things down and focus just on the individual crews for a few books, allow us to actually get a better sense of the characters.

What'd be really nice would be for some forthcoming books to be set back a bit in the timeline, so that we can see these characters when they aren't in danger of watching the Federation collapse or something. I remember that there were periods of time in like Titan that were meant to allow for future stories to be set between them, but instead, things have continued barreling forward. At the least, it could be a chance to provide characterization for these newer characters. Given the turnover rate on the Enterprise, not to mention the fact that only about a fourth or so of the current crew on DS9 are characters we knew from the earlier novels, this could be really helpful just in allowing us a consistent idea of who are the important people of each crew.

 

[Paper Moon]

The fact that, although the time elapsed in-universe is going at a decent pace, we really aren't spending much of that time with the Enterprise crew, having to bounce around the various 24th century crews to check in on everyone in the ongoing storylines, is really working against the new characters. Trys and Dygan are really the only current 'new' characters who've really left an impact with me. I think of the current Enterprise roster, and I'm not even really sure who's supposed to be where. Picard, Crusher, Worf, and La Forge are easy, but every other position has been so much up in the air since that the names aren't sticking.

While I enjoy Trek Lit's ongoing overall narrative for the 24th century crews, I think there's been a bit of a heavy focus on these major, game-change type of events in what's going on in the Trek universe, rather than smaller scale, character based stories. While I enjoy that the stories that are being told are advancing the story lines that have been set up and put into play over the years, I would really like to see some slow down when it comes to things, scale things down and focus just on the individual crews for a few books, allow us to actually get a better sense of the characters.

What'd be really nice would be for some forthcoming books to be set back a bit in the timeline, so that we can see these characters when they aren't in danger of watching the Federation collapse or something. I remember that there were periods of time in like Titan that were meant to allow for future stories to be set between them, but instead, things have continued barreling forward. At the least, it could be a chance to provide characterization for these newer characters. Given the turnover rate on the Enterprise, not to mention the fact that only about a fourth or so of the current crew on DS9 are characters we knew from the earlier novels, this could be really helpful just in allowing us a consistent idea of who are the important people of each crew.

I agree with what you said about Trys and Dygan being the only two to really impact you (although I did like Choudhury– but she was interesting in a somewhat abstract way, and didn't "click" the way Trys and Dygan have).

As I have said elsewhere on the board, I think what you've described in your last two paragraphs are what's actually going to happen. If you're bored, the posts in question are here, here, here and here; note that these come from the review thread for A Ceremony of Losses and so THERE ARE LOTS OF SPOILERS in them for the first three novels in The Fall (Revelation and Dust, The Crimson Shadow, A Ceremony of Losses).

 

[KRAD]

As far as I understand it Becker&Mayer is doing all the creative work and S&S "just" publishes the book.

While my primary editor on TKAOW was indeed the mighty Ben Grossblatt at becker&mayer! I did also have contact not only with John Van Citters at CBS (as always), but with Ed Schlesinger at S&S. It was very much a collaborative effort among author, packager, licensor, and publisher.

And thanks to folks who said nice things about Kadohata and Leybenzon and about me in general. A nice new year's present, that.

 

[TheUsualSuspect]

Like DGCatAniSiri and Paper Moon above, I think part of the lack of developed characters has to do with the pace of the larger 24th century story and how it's unfolded. It would be nice to get some novels that are set during the last few years and stand more independently of the "big" stories of Federation politics and can provide more character development, especially of the novel only characters.

I'm not as sure as Paper Moon, however, that we're basically done with advancing the 24th century chronology. I could see some of that continuing, albeit at a much slower pace, while other books with a smaller scope are coming out set in the time period between the end of Destiny and whatever the outcome of The Fall books is.

 

[Paper Moon]

I'm not as sure as Paper Moon, however, that we're basically done with advancing the 24th century chronology. I could see some of that continuing, albeit at a much slower pace, while other books with a smaller scope are coming out set in the time period between the end of Destiny and whatever the outcome of The Fall books is.

I mean, yeah, I'm basically with you; I think the chronology will be advanced, just at such a reduced pace that it'll feel like we're here to stay for a while.

And yeah, I suspect we'll get some "fill in the gaps" stories.

 

[Defcon]

As far as I understand it Becker&Mayer is doing all the creative work and S&S "just" publishes the book.

While my primary editor on TKAOW was indeed the mighty Ben Grossblatt at becker&mayer! I did also have contact not only with John Van Citters at CBS (as always), but with Ed Schlesinger at S&S. It was very much a collaborative effort among author, packager, licensor, and publisher.

I stand corrected.