the Doctor, Tom Paris, Tuvok, Chakotay, B'elanna. all not in their canon positions.
My problems with Kirstens Voyager Novels
- Thread starter JonLuck Pickerd
- Start date
Umm, now I'm totally lost. Aunt Kate asked, "Why is it that recent writers (like Beyers) are determined to replace the on-screen characters with new, unfamiliar ones?"
Okay, perhaps the Doctor, Tom Paris, Tuvok, Chakotay and B'elanna are not in their canonical positions, but they haven't been "replaced" as characters. They are still appearing in ST novels. The novels have added original characters, but the novels have always added original characters.
But they can certainly outsell canonical characters. "New Frontier" novels' sales were way beyond DS9 and VOY sales for many years.
Actually, I think JonLuck has a point worth discussing. Why is it that recent writers (like Beyers) are determined to replace the on-screen characters with new, unfamiliar ones? No novel-generated character is ever going to gain the recognition and popularity of a character from television or movies, and to suggest that novel-generated characters are equal is a pipe dream. If the current writers are tired of writing about the familiar character and want to create new ones of their own, maybe it’s time for them to move on and write non-Trek books. And if the “march of time” in the current Destiny series means that these characters are too old to carry on, then bring the Destiny story line to a rapid close and roll back the clock.
It’s important to remember that the posters in this forum, who buy and read everything Trek, are the exception, not the rule. Many Trek fans don’t want to commit to the current novels with a plot line that stretches over a long list of books and focuses on unfamiliar ships and characters. They read a variety of things, not just Trekfic or even scifi, and want to be able to pick up a TNG, DS9, or VOY novel in the airport or bookstore and read about the familiar crew on the title ship (or station), interacting as they did on screen. They're unhappy to spend good money only to find those characters missing or glossed over and, because of that, are unlikely to buy another Trek book. There are few, if any novels that cater to that reader, and it’s past time for a change, imho.
SHE'S STILL DEAD. GET OVER IT!For those not in the know that thought that this was a legitimate critique of TrekLit...its not, just a very thinly veiled Bring Back Janeway post.
Given Pocket don't release sales figures, how'd you come by this information?
Most of the "replacements" were the result of changes made in canon. When DS9 ended, Sisko, Odo, and O'Brien were gone. Nemesis promoted Janeway to admiral, sent Riker and Troi to their own ship, and killed Data. Therefore, the novels had no choice but to replace these characters, because they canonically were no longer serving on their respective crews. So this is a very disingenuous question.
And if anything, Kirsten Beyer (not "Beyers") has done the opposite of "replac[ing] the on-screen characters." When Christie Golden left off, Janeway was an admiral, Neelix was still in the DQ, B'Elanna was off on Boreth with her daughter, Tuvok was teaching at the Academy (and Icheb was a student there), and the Doctor and Seven were working for a think tank. Only Chakotay, Tom, and Harry were still serving aboard Voyager. But Kirsten reunited the crew as completely as she could, given that Janeway and Tuvok remained unavailable thanks to other peoples' choices. She brought B'Elanna, Seven, and the Doctor back aboard (at least aboard the overall fleet), and has featured Neelix in her second and third books in the sequence.
On numerous occasions, right here on this BBS, Marco Palmieri would mention that TNG, "New Frontier" and TOS (and, I believe, the Shatnerverse) all outsold DS9 and VOY. "New Frontier" even moved to hardcover (and later trade) due to its excellent sales figures.
DS9's sales were revived by the Relaunch, and ditto for VOY.
Hah! If only. It looked like Del Rey was going that direction nine years and twenty books ago, writing out Han/Luke/Leia in favor of the next generation, but that didn't actually happen.
Pulling up the newest timeline from the books available on Del Rey's website, and incorporating the few I know are missing, I come up with 132 novels total. (I'm deliberately skipping the novelizations and anthologies here.)
Of those 132, I would say that only 36 primarily concern non-canon characters, with another 4-7 (depends on how you count Lando and Palpatine) only focusing on minor canon characters. And there's probably a few more NJO novels you could move into the box as well (I put four there - which four I leave up to the reader to decide
),My numbers are probably off somewhere, but certainly not enough to make the novels concerned with canon characters in the minority.
</digression>
This. Kirsten Beyer's novels have re-focused the VOY series by bringing the crew (or, as many of them as possible) back together and returning them to the DQ where the television series took place. But it isn't just a reset button where everyone goes back to doing what they were doing before. Realistically, it wouldn't make sense of all of the characters to go back to their old positions. That would imply no growth. There isn't a single major VOY character who is still stuck in the same position that they were in for seven years on the show. But they are still serving together in the fleet and are featured prominently in the books. Sure, there are new characters, too, but I don't find the newbies to be overcrowding the scene or taking away from the others. In fact, I think that Beyer has done something quite remarkable - she's introduced some fantastic, compelling new characters while also making the familiar VOY characters far more complex and interesting than they were before.
Impressive list, until you realize that two of those are the novelization of NuTrek, the TNG novel is a reissue of #24 published in 1992, and the rest are all TOS. So really, if I read your listing correctly, there isn't a single new novel that is set during the run of TNG, DS9, VOY, or ENT?
So, that means that TOS is the only series that is still using the original crew/ship and also the only series-based novels outselling all the other TV series' novels. Could those sales figures have something to do with the fact that they have stuck with the most popular characters and the most familiar setting? I think it is more than simple coincidence.
Yeah, but even if they are popular, they must not be as popular as the Novelverse stuff, since it still tends to outnumber the TOS stuff on a regular basis.
Ok, first of all the people behind the books were continuing on from where the shows left off, and the shows got rid of those characters not the people behind the books. I guess they could have tried to come up with a bunch of retcons that put everyone back where they were when the shows ended, but IMO that would have been a lot less interesting because it would have meant that we would have gotten more of the same kinds of stories we'd already been getting for the entire runs of the shows. I really think that the way they decided to go about it was the best way to go in terms of story generation. By introducing new characters they were able to change the dynamics between the characters, introduce new story arcs, and create new relationships.
Disagree again. Sure they might not get the same kind of recognition in the fandom as a whole, but I consider them just as much a part of the Trek universe as any of the onscreen characters. And really I don't see why it would matter, a character created in a secondary part of a franchise is never going to be as popular as a character created by the canon, and I don't think anyone would ever expect them too.
I don't see what would make you think they're tired of writting the screen characters, because in all of the books I've read they still played a huge role in all of the stories. Sure there are new characters in there too, but they are pretty much always play at least an equal, if not a smaller, role in the story.If the current writers are tired of writing about the familiar character and want to create new ones of their own, maybe it’s time for them to move on and write non-Trek books. And if the “march of time” in the current Destiny series means that these characters are too old to carry on, then bring the Destiny story line to a rapid close and roll back the clock.
Except they have been writting series with original characters for 15 years and they show no signs of stopping. In fact they're still introducing new series, which I doubt would be happening if people weren't buying these books. I really think your confusing opinions for facts here.It’s important to remember that the posters in this forum, who buy and read everything Trek, are the exception, not the rule. Many Trek fans don’t want to commit to the current novels with a plot line that stretches over a long list of books and focuses on unfamiliar ships and characters. They read a variety of things, not just Trekfic or even scifi, and want to be able to pick up a TNG, DS9, or VOY novel in the airport or bookstore and read about the familiar crew on the title ship (or station), interacting as they did on screen. They're unhappy to spend good money only to find those characters missing or glossed over and, because of that, are unlikely to buy another Trek book. There are few, if any novels that cater to that reader, and it’s past time for a change, imho.
So, that means that TOS is the only series that is still using the original crew/ship and also the only series-based novels outselling all the other TV series' novels. Could those sales figures have something to do with the fact that they have stuck with the most popular characters and the most familiar setting? I think it is more than simple coincidence.
'Outselling'? Who said anything about outselling? The list you were using in your quote was merely of the list of the 'set during the show's run' novels. I don't even know if we've seen a listing of how well any of the novels are selling.
And CLEARLY the post-series novels are selling. Pocket is a business at the end of the day, and if they weren't turning a profit on the novels they were selling, they wouldn't be ordering more novels that take place post-series.
pocket never reveals sales figures. all we get is 'it sold very well' or 'it didn't sell well enough to merit a sequel' or such-and-such sold so well it's gone to a second printing (or third or fourth) type comments.
and since Marco's no longer around, we don't even get that any more unless an author says 'sorry folks, it didn't sell well enough for a sequel'.
and since Marco's no longer around, we don't even get that any more unless an author says 'sorry folks, it didn't sell well enough for a sequel'.
"Until you realize?" I noted both facts right there in the list.
So? Your complaint was about a lack of novels focusing primarily on canonical characters during the canonical eras; you said there were "few, if any." I pointed out that there are quite a few. Now you're complaining about an insufficient variety of those canonical-era/canonical-character novels. You're moving the goal posts and being inconsistent.
The String Theory trilogy was set during the run of VOY, but I excluded that because it was published before 2009. There have been several anthologies set during their respective series' runs -- Distant Shores, Prophecy and Change, etc -- that I excluded for the same reason. Same thing with the Crucible trilogy. DS9: Hollow Men was set during the series run, but this was published in about -- oh, what was it, 2004, 2005, something like that?
DS9: The Never-Ending Sacrifice just came out in 2009, and was mostly set during the run of the series, but it followed the life of Rugal, the Cardassian boy raised by Bajorans from Season Two who was sent back to live on Cardassia, and follows his life on Cardassia as the events of DS9 the series affect him and his society -- so even though it focused on a canonical character during a canonical era, I considered its premise and setting too innovative for your preferences.
If you'd like, we can be more extensive and look at books published over the last ten years rather than the last 3. But I considered the volume that fit your criteria just within the last 3 sufficient to disprove your accusation that there were "few, if any" like what you're looking for.
Or it means that TNG-era fans are more interested in post-series continuations than TOS-era fans, and would get bored of most series-era stories.
ETA:
And at the end of the day -- if the post-series continuations' novels and original-settings series' novels so outnumber the canonical-era/canonical-character/familiar-situations novels, maybe that's because the majority of Trek Lit customers are more interested in those than in the kinds of books you're looking for. Pocket wouldn't be selling those books if "canonical paradigm" books like what you prefer sold better than the "post-series continuation" books.