Yeah. I was just stating the obvious. It’s not TOS. Only TOS is Star Trek. The rest is product. DS9 is a soap opera. The “Founders” are nothing.
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Yeah. I was just stating the obvious. It’s not TOS. Only TOS is Star Trek. The rest is product. DS9 is a soap opera. The “Founders” are nothing.
^So much for seeking out the strange and new...
You are right. I am wrong. I apologize.
Remember: Pittsburgh Penguin players listed as Star Fleet personnel in one of the early novels. Mary Sue.
Remember: Pittsburgh Penguin players listed as Star Fleet personnel in one of the early novels. Mary Sue.
Well, that would be Gold Key, which created their own share of quibbles.
Were they all attractive females who save the day and fall in love with the captain?
Just ordered all the Expanse novels.
TOS (my personal favorite) was product as well. Roddenberry wasn’t working for free.
The writer imagined himself a pro-hockey player. Very sophomoric to include the names of pro athletes.
Source, please...? Which author? Which novel?
Don’t remember. I read it twenty years ago. The writer contributes to this BBS.
The novel is Death Count, written by L.A. Graf (which in this specific case means Karen Rose Cercone and Julia Ecklar). I can't find any evidence that either of them ever aspired to be a pro hockey atlethe or ever posted on this BBS, but I only did a few minutes of googling, so who knows.
Here’s a review on Amazon:
“...And perhaps most offensive to the intellect, the authors decided to mine the early 1990s roster of the Pittsburgh Penguins for character names. Why do such a thing, which will surely be found out? What, did they think there were no SF/ST:TOS fans who also followed ice hockey? It's not just that it's lazy, it's that it's needlessly lazy. It isn't hard to come up with credible supporting character surnames. One need not swipe them from one's hometown hockey team--and if one does so anyway, one will surely be found out...”
“...And perhaps most offensive to the intellect, the authors decided to mine the early 1990s roster of the Pittsburgh Penguins for character names. Why do such a thing, which will surely be found out? What, did they think there were no SF/ST:TOS fans who also followed ice hockey? It's not just that it's lazy, it's that it's needlessly lazy. It isn't hard to come up with credible supporting character surnames. One need not swipe them from one's hometown hockey team--and if one does so anyway, one will surely be found out...”
“Strange and new” doesn’t always translate into compelling and worthwhile. Cheers!
Maybe the authors were fans and wanted to reference players from their favorite team in their work?
I think you’re right, but it’s silly and something someone would do in a high-school history essay, as I once did when I referenced Kareem-Abdul Jabbar in a made-up footnote.
Not sure who you think LA Graf is, but I don't recall that any of the three writers under that shared pseudonym have contributed here.
Naming minor characters as in-jokes, to any readers with a common interest, is not "lazy", it is simply homage. Plucking names at random from a phonebook would be lazy, too, by your standards, just not easily identified. I have been Tuckerized in several Trek novels. It is a thrill to me, but something that only a few people ever pick up on. (Well, I guess I tell too many people.)
Some writers even auction off the naming rights in novels to fans, raising money for charity. Also "lazy", or just fun?
I completely agree, writers of all genres will name characters for numerous reasons, choosing some obscure players in an equally obscure team in a not very widely played game shouldn't be any different.
It's silly to you, not others.
I wouldn't take much credence of a random Amazon review from a decades old book.
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I'll give you the sport (at least from a non-American perspective; many Eastern Europeans might disagree), but back then, the team was among the best in the league for several years in a row (winning two championships), with several all-stars on the roster, one of them still considered one of the greatest players of all time. Hardly obscure. (Though certainly moving a bit off-topic now).
From my Non-American viewpoint, my points stand.
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