It's a canard regularly tossed off to dismiss the professionals who write licensed Star Trek fiction. "It's just fanfic" comes across as an attempt to insult the work of Treklit writers.
New Frontier book series and New Earth. Anyone else like them?
- Thread starter urrutiap
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Yes, I HATE that attitude. It's such....baktag. For some people, the novels of a franchise are some of their greatest treasures.
Seriously, the Star Wars Expanded Universe was basically my early adult reading life and discovering that Star Trek had a Novelverse with continuity was like discovering a unicorn to me. I hate when franchises write books and just treat them as a cash cow. I've written some upcoming products for Vampire: The Masquerade and you put your soul in them.
So I'm confused by your reaction. I think the owners of Trek prior to the novelverse should have treated the novels (including such amazing work as John Ford's stuff) with a bit more respect.
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What can I say? The first paragraph(s) come across as "Everything in Treklit was unmitigated shit until Peter David came along and Showed us the Light!!"
And, at that point, I quit reading your review, because Peter David's best Star Trek work was already in the past when he started writing New Frontier (Q-in-Law, I'm looking at you.)
If I might offer a suggestion, don't start your review of something you love by slamming stuff you don't love. Start by convincing me New Frontier is super-wonderful (which I'm not convinced of, but then I quit reading the series when the Excalibur blew up.)
And, at that point, I quit reading your review, because Peter David's best Star Trek work was already in the past when he started writing New Frontier (Q-in-Law, I'm looking at you.)
If I might offer a suggestion, don't start your review of something you love by slamming stuff you don't love. Start by convincing me New Frontier is super-wonderful (which I'm not convinced of, but then I quit reading the series when the Excalibur blew up.)
You...do realize that it is criticizing that attitude, right? Particularly since the next sentence includes describing lots of it as amazing. It's ripping into Paramount for not allowing shared continuity between novels.
And sorry, New Frontier is the best. As much as I love Imzadi, NF triumphs.
I'm sorry but I Heart Shared Continuity.
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Eh, my attitude is to praise the EU and how awesome if it. I'm changing my opening because I don't want people to think that I'm criticizing anything but franchises dismissing their books (it seems weird you assume I'm approving of the attitude when it was the exact opposite).
5/5
For anyone who knows me, I am a fan of Expanded Universes. There's only so much you can fit into even long-running series like Star Wars and Star Trek. Indeed, these are my two favorite franchises and I have devoured hundreds of books set in them. Some people have dismissive attitudes to these books but they're missing some real quality works. The Thrawn Trilogy, Rogue Squadron, Star Trek: Vanguard, Star Trek: Destiny, The Department of Temporal Investigations, and more. If I had to praise my favorite Star Trek series, though, it would be New Frontier. Essentially, a novel-only series combining original series wackiness with TNG stuffiness to great action-adventure and humorous effect.
New Frontier provided a self-contained corner of the Alpha Quadrant written entirely by Peter David, carrying the consequences from one story to the next. For over twenty years, the adventures of Captain Calhoun have entertained fans of Star Trek and created a bedrock to let publishers know fans were willing to follow original characters into the void. Thanks to the existence of Discovery, Star Trek is no longer in need of the Expanded Universe to continue its legacy [though I hope it continues as its own thing for as long as possible] but I still love these classic books written by Peter David. So what do I have to say about this series, now that I've talked it up for so long? It is very-very silly.
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It's also pretty insulting to fan fic, asserting it's so definitionally inferior to the canon you can just use it as a synonym for lousy stories that have nothing going for them but enthusiasm (and, even then, not the respectable kind of enthusiasm, but the kind that makes people say liking Star Trek is self-destructive to the writer). Hell, some of the most widely beloved TrekLit writers (including Peter David) were putting out fan fic before they got published.
Maybe it's not always 100% great but it's a labor of love. Much of Trek fandom owes itself to early fanzines.
Companies should value their EUs.
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Anyway, some things I absolutely loved about New Frontier:
SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES
Mac
Soleta
General Weirdness
Mac and Shelby
The Thallonian Empire
Criticisms
SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES
Mac
The contrast between Mac and the typical TNG character. He's not a human and grew up on an oppressed barbarian planet so his instincts are entirely the opposite of a Roddenberry-esque enlightened human.
I don't think the way he was acting in "The Returned" was unbelievable but I think the crew would have relieved him when he was planning genocide [and succeeded!]
I don't think the way he was acting in "The Returned" was unbelievable but I think the crew would have relieved him when he was planning genocide [and succeeded!]
Soleta
I always liked the exploration of Soleta as both Romulan and Vulcan. She's a person who tries to get in touch with her Romulan heritage but it's not something that works out because, well, they're a bunch of targs.
I admit one of my favorite storylines in the book is when she meets her "father", finds out he's found religion, bonds with him, and then realizes he played her for a sucker. It's surprisingly serious for a work that so frequently played itself for broad comedy. I also love her complete failure to win over her Romulan crew and the fact she had to kill them all--it's tragic but believable given she's a Federation citizen and half-Vulcan in charge of a Romulan crew.
I kind of dislike where they ended it with her having Mac's baby via Pon Far rape. Mostly because I actually think Soleta and Mac would have made an interesting pairing.
I admit one of my favorite storylines in the book is when she meets her "father", finds out he's found religion, bonds with him, and then realizes he played her for a sucker. It's surprisingly serious for a work that so frequently played itself for broad comedy. I also love her complete failure to win over her Romulan crew and the fact she had to kill them all--it's tragic but believable given she's a Federation citizen and half-Vulcan in charge of a Romulan crew.
I kind of dislike where they ended it with her having Mac's baby via Pon Far rape. Mostly because I actually think Soleta and Mac would have made an interesting pairing.
General Weirdness
The regular use of TOS weirdness like Odin, the Great Bird of the Galaxy, and so on felt surprisingly real to me. I also loved how it could juxtapose the surreal and ridiculous like the fact the Redeemers are pure evil monsters but are tiny critters that are completely nonthreatening in appearance.
Mac and Shelby
I actually support the Mac and Shelby romance even if it is portrayed way too cartoonishly at times. The fact he's the renegade captain and she's the by the book first officer is a dynamic that works.
I also really liked the fact that she eventually did get her own Galaxy-class Starship and it wasn't going to forever be an unequal pairing. Up and out with the promotion track.
I also really liked the fact that she eventually did get her own Galaxy-class Starship and it wasn't going to forever be an unequal pairing. Up and out with the promotion track.
The Thallonian Empire
The collapse of something akin to the Soviet Union and the resulting Balkanization of the region was a hot topic in the 90s and handled about as worse as it possibly could have been. However, it provides rich adventure fodder for a starship giving humanitarian relief and exploring a previously closed off society. You could do the same with the Romulan Empire.
I kind of hate that Si Cwan ended up reviving it to an extent but we saw how that worked out for him.
I kind of hate that Si Cwan ended up reviving it to an extent but we saw how that worked out for him.
Criticisms
If I did have a problem with the series, it's the fact that it really did kind of eventually run the vast majority of its characters down. This is a surprisingly high casualty series and lots of the main cast ends up dead by the end of things. Si Cwan, Morgan Primus, Selar, the entirety of Mac's race, and so on. The traumatic events of your typical TOS series carry over from book to book and end up taking their severe toll.
Some of the attitudes didn't age well either as Chief Engineer Burgoyne subjects poor Doctor Selar to what we would call today a sustained campaign of gaslighting, negging, and sexual harrassment. The fact it works doesn't make the behavior any less creepy or awful.
I also feel like the books did come around to having too much of an investment in Mac's renegade POV. As stated, the final trilogy of the books ended on such a dark and unpleasant note even though we're supposed to feel its an uplifting one. Soleta sexually assaulting Mac, our heroes committing genocide, and more feels like a sorrowful way to end the series.
Also, weirdly, I never liked the Robin Lefler/Si Cwan romance because I support her ans Wesley Crusher. What can I say. Maybe he marries her after a transporter accident created a quantum duplicate of her.
Some of the attitudes didn't age well either as Chief Engineer Burgoyne subjects poor Doctor Selar to what we would call today a sustained campaign of gaslighting, negging, and sexual harrassment. The fact it works doesn't make the behavior any less creepy or awful.
I also feel like the books did come around to having too much of an investment in Mac's renegade POV. As stated, the final trilogy of the books ended on such a dark and unpleasant note even though we're supposed to feel its an uplifting one. Soleta sexually assaulting Mac, our heroes committing genocide, and more feels like a sorrowful way to end the series.
Also, weirdly, I never liked the Robin Lefler/Si Cwan romance because I support her ans Wesley Crusher. What can I say. Maybe he marries her after a transporter accident created a quantum duplicate of her.
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I don't think that's fair to Paramount. They're under no obligation to acknowledge someone else's stories no matter how good they are. That's confusing two separate issues, continuity and quality. Many fictional franchises have multiple incompatible continuities, and they can all be equally good.
Besides, it's really, really hard to keep a canon consistent with its tie-ins, since it takes so much work just to create the canon that there's little room for anything else. In those few cases where canonical tie-ins have been attempted, it usually hasn't worked out -- like how the Dell Babylon 5 novels were meant to be canonical, yet all but two of them ended up contradicting the show and being designated apocryphal. It's hard to keep two simultaneous ongoing things straight like that, which is why canonical tie-ins are usually only possible for series that have come to an end so that their creators have time to supervise the literature (e.g. the Del Rey B5 novels, various Joss Whedon series, or the Avatar/Korra comics). Lucasfilm/Disney is pulling it off so far with their current Star Wars continuity (though as far as I know, the screen continuity has yet to acknowledge anything specific to the current novel/comics continuity), but that's a rare exception and required them to create a whole department just to keep everything straight.
So Trek canon not acknowledging the novels and comics was not a judgment or dismissal of their worth, merely a matter of practicality.
Fair enough.
________.
Suppose it also depends on how the Powers That Be see the tie-ins; J. Michael Straczynski, as I understand it, wanted his B5 tie-ins to be "canonical" extensions of his TV show (recall that one episode referenced a comic without any context), but, as noted above, things didn't always keep straight. In pre-Disney Star Wars, George Lucas didn't consider anything outside of his movies and the CGI Clone Wars show binding (although he did borrow it and the Legends tie-ins were marketed as being canonical, or at least there being a "film/Clone Wars + EU" canon that existed alongside Lucas's film-only canon). Star Trek: Discovery's team seems to be wanting their tie-ins to be in continuity as much as possible, irregardless of their actual canon status, which is pretty different from how all the other ones were not given much thought to. Most franchises never even bother codifying what's in or out.
Can't think of anything specific myself. The movies have made extensive references to the cartoons (Rogue One borrowed Saw Guerra from Clone Wars and referenced/cameoed Hera Syndulla, Chopper, and the Ghost from Rebels, for instance). Solo did borrow a lot from the tie-ins, but many of those were from the non-canon Legends novels and stuff, so bringing things into continuity over taking existing continuity into account. The tie-ins do seed stuff for upcoming film projects sometimes and their tendency to stay out of the movie's way of advancing the big stories has kept continuity errors to a minimum (there are some, but just the kind you would expect with multiple artists and licensees working on stuff at the same time). The movies may not've used the books yet, but I would say that, in comparison to before, they do seem to be paying more then lip service to the idea of the tie-ins being canon.
Fictional universes borrow from their non-canonical adaptations all the time. DC Comics borrowed Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, and kryptonite from the Superman radio show, Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya from Batman: The Animated Series, etc. Marvel Comics borrowed Phil Coulson from the Cinematic Universe. Doctor Who has done episodes based on a few of its tie-in novels and radio dramas, rewriting them into stories rather different from the originals. So borrowing isn't evidence of shared continuity, just of the fact that character and story concepts can transcend continuities.
And the marketing of the EU tie-ins as "canonical" was always a scam, or at best a misunderstanding of the term.
Whether tie-ins are in continuity with the source is a completely separate question from whether the source is in continuity with the tie-ins. As a rule, all tie-ins are expected to do their best to maintain continuity with screen canon. That's always been a given, certainly for Star Trek, and it does not imply that the reciprocal relationship is true.
However, it's hard for tie-ins, which take a long time to create and publish, to keep current with the rapid changes in a new series whose creators are still feeling it out, so early tie-ins are rarely as consistent with the source as they aspire to be. The close coordination between Discovery's staff and the tie-ins is only about making sure the books are as faithful to the show as possible. It doesn't mean the staff is trying to keep the show faithful to the books. They might borrow the odd character name or concept if it's convenient, but their priority is the show itself, and the books exist to support that, not the other way around.
That's because in most franchises, the tie-ins are not canonical by default. That's the normal situation, so it doesn't need to be "codified," it just automatically is. There are only a few exceptions, a few cases where an attempt is made to include tie-ins in canon, but those exceptions get more attention, giving fandom the false perception that the exceptions are the norm.
All you need to remember is that canon is about who the creator is, where the work comes from. Not what medium it's in, not whether some imaginary authority has "codified" it -- just who created it. Usually, tie-ins are only canon when they're from the original creators, because only the original creators are in a position to keep everything straight. And sometimes not even then.
It wasn't that authoritarian. The holoconference scene that was in Doors Into Chaos, Demons of Air and Darkness, and Cold Wars was worked out in the bar at the Hunt Valley Inn in Maryland during the Farpoint convention in September 2000 among myself, Bob Greenberger, and Peter David. Bob then took our notes from that gathering and wrote a draft of the scene, Peter and I made notes, and then we each wrote our books. At the final stages, I went through each manuscript to make sure that we had remained consistent in the end.
So much TrekLit has originated in the Hunt Valley bar...
I will now I was very pleased to see "Xenexian wood" appear in the last Star Trek book I read.
I do find that interesting. It does seem at least for Discovery they are trying to keep the show and it's tie ins as consistent as possible. As Christopher noted, it won't be a perfect union, but I don't recall any other Star Trek production even making an attempt at such consistency.
I haven't seen season 2 but one of the things I've heard is that at least parts of "Desperate Hours" has been, um, overwritten I guess you could say. Now it does sound like "The Enterprise War" tried to fit some of the pieces back together (for lack of a better word) to some extent. I'll be curious once I see season 2 to see how well "TEW" did and what about "Desperate Hours" is inconsistent now.
But, even keeping that in mind, it's still a bit of a change for Star Trek to even give partial consideration to tie-ins. We'll see if Picard does anything similar. I imagine since it's the same showrunning team for the most part, it'll probably do the same thing with its own tie ins. The question is, does it retain anything from the existing relaunches? And to be honest, that is something that will probably evolve as the show continues. It may gradually nullify areas of the relaunches over time (i.e. maybe no mention will be made of the Borg from the get go...but maybe episode 4, for example, mentions the Borg are still a threat nullifying "Destiny").
I mean, I hate to say "nullify" since the stories will still exist, but it's the best I can come up with as far as the new show is concerned, since some stories will not be able to exist within the current canon as it is created.
I like to say that if canon is history, tie-ins are historical fiction. They're just conjectures about what might have happened between the parts of "history" depicted onscreen. As we learn more of the "actual" history, it requires adjusting the historical fiction to follow suit.
I think it's pretty clear by now that Picard is establishing a version of history from 2384 onward that's very distinct from the novels. Certainly the continued presence of the Borg proves that it diverges from everything in the Lit from Destiny onward -- and the presence of one particular Borg contradicts Greater than the Sum.
Star Trek history, at least in my opinion as a fan, has always been something knit together like a quilt from numerous contradictory sources. So, I fully believe that people like you and John Jackson Miller, Dayton Ward, David Mack, and whoever else COULD if you wanted to--come up with something sufficiently quilt-like. I think of Star Trek canon not too dissimilar to comic book canon anyway and that means I view it as somewhat flexible at the best of times. It'd be wonderful if Paramount/CBS did treat it as canon (I was over-enthusiastic in my opinion of that in this thread) but if not then you guys can do what you want: fix what can fit together together or not.
One of the strangest posts I've read in the Literature forum here was in A CEREMONY OF LOSSES where a poster was confused and appalled at all the changes in the book: Ezri broken up with Julian, Sarina with Julian, Deep Space Nine being replaced, and so on. He apparently desired a status quo to be maintained forever. Change is inevitable in storytelling but I also understand if it has to be a bit jerked behind.
So, yeah, I'd love it if you guys somehow made this all work by having them discover a Borg Remnant rebuilding itself, Hugh returning, or so on. Margaret Weis did the same for "fixing" Dragonlance in the War of Souls and while it was an obvious patch--a patch it still was.
Well, sure, but I'm not talking about whether it's consistent. I'm talking about the relationship between a series and its tie-ins. As a rule -- though there are more exceptions to that rule in recent years -- tie-ins are not part of the main series, just conjectural stories that might have happened in the world of that series. That's why the Trek novels, comics, and games can simultaneously have different, contradictory versions of what went on between the shows and movies, while all still agreeing on what happened in the shows and movies. By analogy, there are a bunch of different works of historical fiction that depict different, incompatible things going on around and between the known events of WWII or whatever, but they all agree on the known facts of WWII. There's a single consensus reality that provides the foundation, and there are conjectural stories that add onto it in their own distinct ways. And the conjectural stories all agree on the same established reality but are under no obligation to acknowledge each other.
More or less what I mean, in fewer words.
Don't tell a "Give Us Legends" person that; they will mob you with quotes from the Powers That Be on how it was totally canon and that Disney could've made new movies that fit into that canon without flushing everything for "creative freedom." (There are reasons I do not belong to this fandom, despite liking Legends).
That said, I have done research on this (sad to say, random quotes like the ones alluded to above are documented a lot better then harder evidence). As far as I can tell, the facts are that the EU was canon (albeit on a secondary tier, literally) until the Disney reboot. How much value that designation had, though, is something I think is very debatable.
Sure, I was thinking more that the DSC arrangement seems different then anything Paramount/CBS/etc. did before and it does make one wonder why a different tact was taken now.
Yeah, I assumed as much that a Star Wars-style setup was rarer then just the Powers That Be just not having tie-ins count. On the other hand, if there's nothing but silence on the issue, kinda hard to prove or disprove. The 2017 Power Rangers movie got a graphic novel sequel (packaged with the BluRay in select editions). Was it intended to be canon? No comment. Would future movies have taking it into account? Probably not. Since the movie series was canceled, could it be considered canon? No real reason not to, given that Saban is silent on the issue and it's not like it's going to impede anything down the road or likely to get reevaluated.
Most of these things have multiple creators, including ones who come and go. Heck, in the Star Trek Kelvin movies, the writing teams had mutually contradictory ideas on how the time travel accident worked and what changed it did and did not make to history (granted, neither was canonical, but still...).
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