Last Best Hope

[Cake Is Eternal]

Yes, agree there. I read the novel before seeing the show and I found it helpful. One example is when Raffi visits her son. Having read the novel I knew some of the back story behind what happened between her and her family. Also, when Picard first visits her on the show I already knew she was not going to be too happy to see him. And there are other examples, Agnes' background, and Picard's post-Nemesis as well.

Now, of course, we must all be cautioned that the novels are not canon. The show runners can changes something that nullifies some part of that 'back story' at any time. Though in large part I didn't see anything in season 1 that conflicts with anything in the novel. My biggest disappointment I think was that the novel hints that there might have been something more sinister going on with the Romulan Star's nova. Season 1 didn't really delve at all into the nova event. I'm hoping season 2 maybe gets into that a bit more. Also, I wonder if the upcoming Coda trilogy will get into that at all. I get the distinct impression that trilogy will attempt to link the relaunch timeline with that of the Picard timeline, and it will be interesting to see if the nova is part of that overall story in some way. I doubt they will provide a cause in the Picard timeline, since it's very possible the show may do that in a future season, but perhaps it affects the relaunch timeline or even causes some unforeseen catastrophe in the relaunch timeline. Well, we'll see.

Anyway, for any fan of Picard I'd highly recommend The Last, Best Hope. It definitely fleshes out season 1 of the show. And I started reading The Dark Veil (while so far it doesn't seem to add a whole lot to season 1 of Picard, so far it's a good read and it's nice to see some Titan series characters like Christine Vale and Keru make the transition).

I am wildly excited for the Coda trilogy!

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

W

I do hope to see that angle covered at some point. I doubt the show will go there since the event happened at least 12 years prior, and obviously Nimoy isn't available for any cameos, sadly. But perhaps in some future novel there might be a good place to tell that part of the story. Maybe Coda will do that in some fashion, or maybe it will be left up to some future Picard novel, or maybe the show will surprise us and cover it themselves at some point.

We miss Nimoy SO much.

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

I just get tired of people feeling the need to point that out every time. It's not so overarchingly important that it needs to be harped on so constantly, so it just feels like gatekeeping. Any story might be contradicted by future stories, but if it hasn't happened yet, there's no sense worrying about it.

And it doesn't matter anyway. Fiction is not about saying "This is real." It's about exploring possibilities, imagining things that might be. Which means there's room for exploring more than one alternative possibility.

And Star Trek is big enough for all those stories and all those voices. We can always create alternate timelines.

 

[mastadge]

Yeah. Rihannsu is still awesome, even if the first couple books were tweaked and then the shows contradicted them and then Romulan culture was soft-rebooted a couple more times since. Some of the early stories with Cochrane or the early Enterprise crews are still a blast even if they don't "officially" exist in the current continuity. Just enjoy the story and, if important to you, keep in mind the context of where Trek was when it was written instead of how much it's changed since then.

 

[Christopher]

We can always create alternate timelines.

Or just let them be different works of imagination, without any need to force some artificial consistency on them. Not everything has to be about shared universes. It can be more interesting to look at stories as imaginary creations, to think about how they reflect their creators' perception and attitudes at the time they were written and how that reflects the evolution of the franchise over time.

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

Or just let them be different works of imagination, without any need to force some artificial consistency on them. Not everything has to be about shared universes. It can be more interesting to look at stories as imaginary creations, to think about how they reflect their creators' perception and attitudes at the time they were written and how that reflects the evolution of the franchise over time.

Some rich meaty material for academic essays or papers in those reflections.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Also I was reflecting as I was reading how refreshing it is to read a Star Trek novel by an author with a UK perspective. What I mean by that is, there is a bit of a tendency in earlier Trek novels to be troublingly American-centric, and I do think that a book written by someone like Una, directly experiencing Brexit, is a very good change of perspective. This is I think a very Brexit novel.

Well, there are times when this works very effectively (like in a Brexit analogy!) and times when it doesn't--Tilly is a Star Trek regular with a much more "American" vibe (though not troublingly so ), so it took me out of The Way to the Stars somewhat to have scenes written from her perspective where she feels "quite cross" or takes "the best part of a fortnight" to do something.

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

Well, there are times when this works very effectively (like in a Brexit analogy!) and times when it doesn't--Tilly is a Star Trek regular with a much more "American" vibe (though not troublingly so ), so it took me out of The Way to the Stars somewhat to have scenes written from her perspective where she feels "quite cross" or takes "the best part of a fortnight" to do something.

Hahaha that is funny to think about! I’m an Anglophile so I was chuffed to bits over those parts.

 

[Damian]

Or just let them be different works of imagination, without any need to force some artificial consistency on them. Not everything has to be about shared universes. It can be more interesting to look at stories as imaginary creations, to think about how they reflect their creators' perception and attitudes at the time they were written and how that reflects the evolution of the franchise over time.

That's certainly a helpful way to look at the early Star Trek novels, pre-TNG.

When it comes to the relaunch novels, I prefer to think of that as an alternate universe, or parallel timeline. Probably because there are more than 20 years worth of stories all tied together in a single timeline. So, at least for me, in that case I prefer to think of it as an alternate universe.

But when it comes to pre-TNG novels, I think it's best to treat them as simply a different works. There are too many conflicting timelines and stories to try to reconcile all of them together.

And there are other examples. For me, I think the more stories there are that follow a share continuity, the more likely I'm to treat that as a parallel timeline (assuming it conflicts with the continuity of what's on screen--in the case of the Enterprise relaunch novels there's no reason to treat those as an alternate timeline for the most part).