I've been slowly (very slowly) reading Martin's ST:Typhon Pact - Seize The Fire and thus far it's been meh. Not terrible, but none to exciting either.
I'm personally of the opinion that Martin & Mangels worked well together as a team (in terms of production), but that Martin's solo efforts have been less than stellar on the whole.
I'm only just starting Chapter 5, and (for the most part) the story just hasn't been as unreadable as I feared it would be based on board criticisms. However, it's just not coming together like I was hoping for either.
Even though it wasn't a favorite book experience of mine, I'd been eager to see the "The Romulan War" sequel in hopes of getting "more", but now I'm hearing reports of the story being rushed with whole plot threads dropped by the wayside...
I'm kinda pissed off by this.
It's hard to know what or who to specifically criticize in terms of Pocket's handling of Star Trek Literature of late (since it's been happening largely behind the scenes), but I get the feeling that by and large it's the authors themselves who have been saving what's left of the line in terms of story direction and keeping it afloat.
If that's the case, then authors who might've done better in the past with more extensive oversight may not be up to producing what they were or have been capable of in the past when given clear direction and a guiding plan.
To be fair, I probably don't know what I'm talking about, and don't understand the inns and outs of "the business" side of things...
It might not even BE anyone's fault.
I just can't get past this overall feeling I have that Trek Literature at Pocket is adrift without a life preserver.
As a result, each individual novel seems to be more of a crapshoot of late that it had been in the past over the last 10 years, especially in terms of unified story cohesiveness, plotting, and attention to detail across the larger universe.
Some novels have been outstanding while other have been mediocre with just a few having been terrible. Maybe that's just the way of things, but as someone who's been buying books since 2001 practically every month, I'm buying far fewer books than I used to.
And while I would have definitely picked up a new Titan Book without thinking about it regardless of author in the past... It's more likely I won't here and in the future since Martin hasn't proven himself to be one of the standout authors who (in my opinion) works well without a net.
Anyways, just my thoughts.
That put a smile on my face.
