last tuesday at 3pm...

[JoeZhang]

Riker trimmed his beard.

Are there too many Star Trek books "filling gaps" ("The thrilling story of how Geordi went from a flat top to a grade one!") rather than looking forward or telling an entirely original tale?

Is it a proper Star Trek book if the writer doesn't explain why the buttons on replicators changed colour?

 

[Dayton Ward]

Hyperbole, thy name is Joe.


ETA: There are books that fill in the gaps in Trek history, those that strike out into new territory, and those that blend from both "camps." Given the vast amount of unexplained/unknown history up and down the Trek timeline, there's room for both kinds of stories.

 

[LightningStorm]

I think books that "fill in the gaps" can tell a new and original story too. I don't think that simply because a book is set in Trek's past or links with a past story makes it unoriginal.

 

[JoeZhang]

Hyperbole, thy name is Joe.


psss... never be even-handed in the opening post..get more replies that way, Jerry Springer and the sun taught me that...

 

[KRAD]

Hard for me to say. The two novels I consider to be my strongest Trek work are The Art of the Impossible -- a gap-filler -- and Articles of the Federation -- an entirely original tale.

Actually, it's not hard for me to say, because I reject the premise that the two are mutually exclusive. Like Dayton said, the cool thing is that we can do both, and other things besides.

 

[Dayton Ward]

^ Besides, I always wanted to know about Geordi's haircut.

 

[William Leisner]

JoeZhang said:
psss... never be even-handed in the opening post..get more replies that way, Jerry Springer and the sun taught me that...

Okay, well, now that you've got two posts out of the way, would you care to write one that makes a genuine point? Which fill-in-the-blank stories do you find so egregious, and why?

 

[RonG]

truthfully, I do understand where JoeZhang is coming from. I can't point to too many books, but one does stand out in my mind.

IMO, Rogue Saucer existed only to shed light on the Saucer crach scene from Generations . Was that really needed or demanded by the readership?

 

[Adam Holmberg]

IMO...it depends entirely on the story being told.

I would argue...in many ways...most novels set during a show's run or between movies would be - by definition "gap fillers." Heck...you could say that every novel that covers a period between the first scene of Broken Bow to the last scene of Nemesis to be a gap filler...showing us something in the Trek universe not filmed.

But...to my mind...the only barometer a story should be judged by is...is it good and worthy of being told. Even if an event is a seemingly insignificant moon to the universe of Trek...if it casts light or shows us a different aspect of a character...or even just is engaging, entertaining, and perhaps moving...it's worth it.

Two solid examples recently read are Christopher L. Bennett's excellent Ex Machina and SD Perry's Section 31 novel (Cloak)...both of which are "gap fillers" in the way I think you may mean...but at the same time both showed the characters in a new light and allowed us to visit (and in the case of Ex Machina) revisit some corners of the Trek universe in a new and engaging light.

 

[David cgc]

I believe Rogue Saucer also explained a carpeting replacement on the bridge set.

 

[JoeZhang]

William Leisner said:

JoeZhang said:
psss... never be even-handed in the opening post..get more replies that way, Jerry Springer and the sun taught me that...

Okay, well, now that you've got two posts out of the way, would you care to write one that makes a genuine point? Which fill-in-the-blank stories do you find so egregious, and why?

Ok let me give an example - I enjoyed The buried age but there are elements of that - "how Tasha Yar got her haircut" that you read and wonder what trees had to die (or electrons had to be fired in my case).

 

[Therin of Andor]

JoeZhang said:
"how Tasha Yar got her haircut"

"Tasha tugged at a strand of her long orange hair" would have people complain that they wanted to know when it got that way.

I actually loved the VOY "Captain's Table" novel, "Fire Ship", which managed to tell us exactly how Janeway lost her infamous "bun of steel" hairdo - because many TV viewers had wanted to know why the change happened.

Why shouldn't ST novels be alowed to "fill gaps"? It's not as if it's on every page, and not even noticed by many readers.

 

[JoeZhang]

I actually loved the VOY "Captain's Table" novel, "Fire Ship", which managed to tell us exactly how Janeway lost her infamous "bun of steel" hairdo - because many TV viewers had wanted to know why the change happened.

That was a matter of debate amongst viewer? why her haircut changed?

 

[Christopher]

RonG said:
IMO, Rogue Saucer existed only to shed light on the Saucer crach scene from Generations . Was that really needed or demanded by the readership?

As I saw it, Rogue Saucer used the concept of saucer separation as a launching point for telling a story about the Maquis, Ro Laren, and Admiral Nechayev. John Vornholt was really on a Maquis kick for a few years there, hardly writing a single book in that period that didn't involve them.

JoeZhang said:
Ok let me give an example - I enjoyed The buried age but there are elements of that - "how Tasha Yar got her haircut" that you read and wonder what trees had to die (or electrons had to be fired in my case).

I think you're missing the point in terms of cause and effect. Any book, unless it's really, really concise, is going to offer details about its world and its characters in order to flesh them out for the readers. If it's an original character, the author will make up details from their past in order to build up their descriptions and personalities. But if it's a pre-existing screen character, then that gives a writer pre-existing details to work with in crafting the portait of the character. That doesn't mean the only purpose of the portrayal is to "explain" onscreen details. Just the opposite -- the onscreen details are used the exact same way that originally invented details would be, to add something to the depiction of a character.

To counter your example, The Buried Age also includes discussion about how Ariel's hair grows and changes following her rescue. If you had never seen TNG, then the discussion of Tasha Yar's hairstyle (or Picard's progressive hair loss) wouldn't have seemed any different to you than the discussion of Ariel's. All I'm doing is trying to give the readers a picture of the characters and events in the book. If there are pre-existing details I can use to do that, then I'll use them, for the sake of consistency and efficiency. After all, if we already know something about a character, it wouldn't make any sense for me to ignore it and invent some contradictory detail instead.

 

[JD]

JoeZhang said:

William Leisner said:

JoeZhang said:
psss... never be even-handed in the opening post..get more replies that way, Jerry Springer and the sun taught me that...

Okay, well, now that you've got two posts out of the way, would you care to write one that makes a genuine point? Which fill-in-the-blank stories do you find so egregious, and why?

Ok let me give an example - I enjoyed The buried age but there are elements of that - "how Tasha Yar got her haircut" that you read and wonder what trees had to die (or electrons had to be fired in my case).

Personally, I really enjoy stuff like that, I really like pretty much all of the Trek characters and I enjoy any new information we can get about them. Besides, it's not like that was a major element of the book, it was just a breif mention IIRC.

 

[Therin of Andor]

JoeZhang said:
That was a matter of debate amongst viewer? why her haircut changed?

Certainly. Everything about Star Trek ends up being debated at some point.

I've been at several conventions where panels discussing ST captains have used Janeway's hairstyles as a guide for her seemingly changing principles throughout the series. ("Fire Ship" went to the trouble of placing a traumatic experience between the stardates of her major hairstyle change.)

Ditto other fan discussions: Riker's beard, Worf's ponytail, Geordi's prosthetics, etc.

 

[Dayton Ward]

JoeZhang said:
That was a matter of debate amongst viewer? why her haircut changed?

The author opted to throw something into the mix. It wasn't the focus of the plot, and neither are the other examples you're using to drive this discussion. It's backstory or exposition done because the writer thought it would help to better flesh out a character, or maybe just because they thought it was fun. They weren't a driving force behind the story.

As for the stuff Trekkies can and will debate about....what? Are you new to fandom or something? Go take a stroll around the forums just on this message board, and let us know what you find

 

[William Leisner]

JoeZhang said:

William Leisner said:

JoeZhang said:
psss... never be even-handed in the opening post..get more replies that way, Jerry Springer and the sun taught me that...

Okay, well, now that you've got two posts out of the way, would you care to write one that makes a genuine point? Which fill-in-the-blank stories do you find so egregious, and why?

Ok let me give an example - I enjoyed The buried age but there are elements of that - "how Tasha Yar got her haircut" that you read and wonder what trees had to die (or electrons had to be fired in my case).

So let me get this straight. You're sitting there, pointing to a couple of paragraphs in The Buried Age to support your point... when the entire fucking novel is a fill-in-the-blank story, and one which you enjoyed. That about right?

 

[JoeZhang]

Dayton Ward said:

JoeZhang said:
That was a matter of debate amongst viewer? why her haircut changed?

As for the stuff Trekkies can and will debate about....what? Are you new to fandom or something? Go take a stroll around the forums just on this message board, and let us know what you find

Trek fandom - yes, I've read a lot of stuff and see a lot of shows but in isolation so large elements of how this fan stuff works is all new to me.

 

[Dayton Ward]

^ Well, heck, you've been missing out on all the best parts!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to debate whether the teaser trailer for the new Trek film is actually a heralding of the pending apocalypse or is just something of a smaller scale, such as a simple raping of our childhoods.