Morgan Bateson
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It's not just the gender of the officers, though; there's also the fact that Bateson et al. look pretty damn relaxed and casual for people whose ship was just about to be destroyed by Klingons. In the novel, the ship has experienced significant battle damage. "'Damn it! Pulse flow's impeded. Must've been one of those aft hits. Main systems are losing power.'" [...] "Dennis shook his head again, clicked at his board, and shoved aside a piece of conduit support that had flaked down onto his controls." At least one crew member is injured.
There's only a minute or so of onscreen canon relating Bateson and his ship. That doesn't seem like an outrageous constraint on anyone's creativity, but Carey completely contradicted that one minute of canon. Inserting herself into the book with her real world sailing logs was more than a bit much, too. And if C.S Forester or Patrick O'Brian ever wrote a sentence as bad as "After the horror of the statement thudded to the deck at everyone's feet, Mike Dennis was the only one to speak." I never read it.
There's only a minute or so of onscreen canon relating Bateson and his ship. That doesn't seem like an outrageous constraint on anyone's creativity, but Carey completely contradicted that one minute of canon. Inserting herself into the book with her real world sailing logs was more than a bit much, too. And if C.S Forester or Patrick O'Brian ever wrote a sentence as bad as "After the horror of the statement thudded to the deck at everyone's feet, Mike Dennis was the only one to speak." I never read it.
So what? Diane Carey made changes and ignored a few things to suit her story. As other authors have done before and will continue to do in the future. I could write a massive list of the other retcons and discontinuities in Treklit. It's no worse than any of them.
Yeah, no. I don't think I've seen a more blatant ignoring of what's on the screen when it comes to something in a book. And if she was going to ignore what's on the screen to tell her story, at least it could have been a good story. What we have is such total worship of Kirk that the mere presence a hologram of him makes Picard realize "Hey, maybe I can be a good star ship captain after all". It's just total junk.
That's not correct. We're allowed to reinterpret what's shown onscreen, to suggest that it had some hidden meaning or cause or wasn't what it appeared, but as tie-in authors we're not permitted to directly and intentionally contradict onscreen information (unless it's something that's been contradicted by other canon, like "The Alternative Factor"'s portrayal of antimatter). A big part of the job of the studio licensing people is to make sure that the tie-ins don't contain any direct contradictions of canonical information. Now, the onscreen information being contradicted here (the sex of the extras behind Kelsey Grammer and a log entry about the Typhon Expanse being uncharted) is fairly minor in the grand scheme of things (although that log entry was repeated four times), but it's still surprising that the discrepancy was allowed through the approval process. It was an anomaly, not a standard practice.
Although there has been another, more recent instance I'm aware of: John Byrne's TOS comics for IDW assert the existence of a Klingon emperor in the 2260s, contradicting Gowron's statement in "Rightful Heir" that the Klingons had had no emperor for three centuries. Although it's easy enough to devise a retcon for that, given that we have canonical evidence that Gowron and other Klingon chancellors rewrite their history books to suit them, which renders any assertions about Klingon history potentially suspect.
Well, Christopher took care of that, but I'd just add: if you have to ignore everything established in canon about Bateson, his ship, and his crew... maybe you should be telling a story about Captain Somebodyelse of the USS Someothership.
Maybe it was all deliberate by Carey. The later Hornblower novels contradict backstory details established in the earlier ones-- what better way to make her tribute to C. S. Forester? 
Unless you're interested in getting Kelsey Grammer on the cover no matter what.
That one minute was 100% of what we saw of him. Contradicting all of what it was supposedly based on may have suited her story, but not the one she was tasked to write.
I would love to read that story!
Imagine the adventures the USS Someothership with Captain Somebodyelse and Commander GenericFirstOfficer would have! They could chart the Unnamedarea of space and fight the UndefinedAlienMenace. Good stuff.
You know what she could've done for that? Write a crossover with Frasier. Not like it's unprecedented in TrekLit; look at Ishmael!
Sounds familiar...
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6iI1iSdXGM[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6iI1iSdXGM[/yt]
To me, it reflects an aspect of Starfleet decision-making: while it does shuffle people around due to organizational needs, it also recognizes the value of keeping good teams together, and the psychological aspects of the bonds that can form between longtime shipmates, where they become practically in loco familias.
It's just part of the balancing act Starfleet does to get the most out of its people, so you wind up with some ships that have people serving together for decades.
Hate all you want, this book is one of my favorites in my library. Though I am a much happier reader now that better editorial controls are available and in place. But still, could we maybe keep George Hill, his pet Decapus, and that pieces of the D went into the E's construction?
^"Hate" has nothing to do with it. Pointing out that a book is inconsistent with canon is not even remotely the same thing as saying that it's a bad book. This is fiction, after all. These aren't history texts that have to be accurate, they're stories for our enjoyment. And a story can be very enjoyable even if it directly contradicts another story that purports to be set in the same universe, while conversely a story that gets all its continuity details right can nonetheless be dull or unpleasant. None of the things I've pointed out about Ship of the Line's inconsistencies was meant to be an attack on the quality of the writing or the storytelling. I was simply pointing out that the inconsistency exists, with no value judgment intended.
I'm not saying anything about you at all Christopher. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen you do less than defend a fellow author's abilities and style.
However, there have been ones who just don't like this book or Carey at all whereas I've liked every Carey book I've read and enjoyed the naval/sail perspective of this book and that Bateson reminded me A LOT of Frazier Crane. Her style may not fit in with the current style of trek lit but during the time she was a prolific trek writer, i considered Diane Carey and Michael Jan Friedman my favorite authors. I've missed their contributions.
However, there have been ones who just don't like this book or Carey at all whereas I've liked every Carey book I've read and enjoyed the naval/sail perspective of this book and that Bateson reminded me A LOT of Frazier Crane. Her style may not fit in with the current style of trek lit but during the time she was a prolific trek writer, i considered Diane Carey and Michael Jan Friedman my favorite authors. I've missed their contributions.
Agreed. Maybe not so much about MJF, but as far as Diane Carey goes, I think you're dead-on.
I think that if TOS was the only Trek we knew, Carey would be at the top of the heap as far as treklit goes. But, trek sensibilities ahave changed since the advent of TNG. I always repsected that she didn't try to shoehorn the later trek "feel" (for lack of a better word at the moment) into her TOS work.
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