NF: Blind Man's Bluff by Peter A. David Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[David cgc]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

I think it's easier to just bump it back pre-Destiny. The small references to a Borg invasion and defeat and the visage of a certain character are much easier to overlook than the setting and character chronology issues that make things problematic if it goes after Destiny. Plus, it seems to be set immediately after "Treason," and "Paths of Disharmony" (IIRC) explicitly placed that one about a year prior to Destiny. Let's just go with that, rather than, I don't know, have another time-travel accident.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

It's set after Destiny...if you squint a bit...I'm not being funny but every other author has had no problem accommodating themselves within the extended universe - including incorporating whatever whacky thing Peter David's done now...would it really have been too much for him to have made it fit with the Post-Destiny Universe?

I don't mean this in any sort of bad way, but you really have to expect that with PAD's work. Look at his comics work -- he's never played well with others when it comes to crossovers, especially when they interrupt the rhythm and flow of the story he wants to tell. That New Frontier may not align especially well with the rest of the post-Nemesis universe isn't an unexpected event. To deal with it, I like to think that something like New Frontier happens within the continuity of the other novels, but not exactly.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

I like to think that something like New Frontier happens within the continuity of the other novels, but not exactly.

Yeah, I agree that's probably the best way to deal with it, for those of us who care. The basic series of events that is New Frontier "happened" in the mainstream continuity too, as the many references to them demonstrate, but not quite as the internal continuity of the series itself has it. The same thing with the Stargazer series - plenty of references and callbacks to it in other novels, and the events, people and races get further attention in the mainstream, but it doesn't fully fit.

 

[Defcon]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

It's set after Destiny...if you squint a bit...I'm not being funny but every other author has had no problem accommodating themselves within the extended universe - including incorporating whatever whacky thing Peter David's done now...would it really have been too much for him to have made it fit with the Post-Destiny Universe?

Why? He has always done his own thing and I doubt that he ever demanded that his stuff is incorporated into the ongoing continuity of the other novels, so why should he be forced to follow it 100%?

I liked the ongoing continuity as much as the next for a long time, but with all the overzealous "fans" who now demand that everything has to fit in I begin to wonder if it is doing more harm than good.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

I liked the ongoing continuity as much as the next for a long time, but with all the overzealous "fans" who now demand that everything has to fit in I begin to wonder if it is doing more harm than good.

If this were Facebook, I would Like this.

 

[ICW]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

As a reader, I only have interest in books that fit in the current continuity. Just my preference.

 

[JB2005]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

It's set after Destiny...if you squint a bit...I'm not being funny but every other author has had no problem accommodating themselves within the extended universe - including incorporating whatever whacky thing Peter David's done now...would it really have been too much for him to have made it fit with the Post-Destiny Universe?

Why? He has always done his own thing and I doubt that he ever demanded that his stuff is incorporated into the ongoing continuity of the other novels, so why should he be forced to follow it 100%?

I liked the ongoing continuity as much as the next for a long time, but with all the overzealous "fans" who now demand that everything has to fit in I begin to wonder if it is doing more harm than good.

If he was just going along and doing his own thing, then fine, if he hadn't mentioned

Spoiler: Minor things

the borg invasion and Seven's implants

then I wouldn't have minded, but when he does then he's saying that it takes place Post-Destiny and if that's the case:

Spoiler: Why?

Why isn't Jellico either still CinC or retired?
Why is there no mention of Excalibur being crippled fighting the Borg?
Why is Seven not preoccupied with the whole "You are Annika Hanson" thing, or her dying Aunt who she wouldn't leave Earth for?
Why isn't the Doctor at Jupiter Station? He left the Federation Institute pre-Destiny...

Take out the two references and it fits fine, perfectly in fact and wouldn't change the story at all...

Spoiler: Well

Well apart from the whole Nechayev thing, but that can be explained that the real one was found a'la Bashir or whatever...

I just think that PD has this big New Frontier sandbox to play in, and if he wants to bring his novels into line with the Destinyverse then he should actually do it, rather than basically saying "yeah, I'm going to deliberately fly in the face of everyone else"

In other news did anyone else pick up what seemed like an implicit apology for killing Janeway?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

I read both DTI:WTC and NF:BMB on my Spring vacation.

I thought they were both quite good. For some reason, NF:BMB seemed to be a quicker read. Which doesn't make one better than the other.

There is some speculation about this being the last NF novel; I hope not. Just as I hope that DTI:WTC is not the last of its kind.

Regarding the D’myurj and the Bretheren: I don't see a lot about them, and it's been a while since Treason came out. I did a Google search on "D’myurj," and one of the things that came up said "D’myurj (sound it out)," which suggests that there might be some pun that I'm not getting, hidden in the pronunciation (sort of like the late, great John Allen's HO model railroad, the Gorre and Daphetid, pronounced "gory and defeated"). Is there indeed some hidden pun in there?

 

[David cgc]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

"The Demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not quite the creator figure in the familiar monotheistic sense; both the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are considered either uncreated and eternal, or the product of some other being, depending on the system."

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

Ah.

 

[Trilliam]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

Ok, finally finished this today. Did anyone else want to kick (the original) Xyon up the Khyber?

 

[MatthiasRussell]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

Yep. I have a feeling if NF continues, you are going to see a face-off between Calhoun and Xyon that can only end with one of them killing the either. Xyon's bitterness has grown into an irrational hatred. It especially angers me how he holds Calhoun responsible for something HE himself caused.

 

[Trilliam]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

He certainly needs to be taken out the back of the bike shed and be given a hiding. Or at the very least needs stop acting like a "big girl's blouse"! Talk about whiney, gonadally deficient, ....

 

[Trilliam]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

Pocket Books - enough with the font so big that I don't need my glasses. It's padding out the page count.

Wasn't the concept of trade paperbacks partly meant to appeal to a demographic that found regular MMPB fonts too small?

I thought it might have been that people were arcing up over having to pay for hardcovers.

 

[Kertrats47]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

Just posted a short review. Link in my sig!

 

[Trilliam]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

Also increasingly disappointed the seemingly short shrift that one of my favourite characters has been gwtting over the last 3-4 books.

 

[timothy]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

have yet to read any of the new frontier series. but, later this year plan to read the series strieght through.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

You won't regret it. One of the hardbound books comes with a cd with all the previous books in pdf format if you can find it.

 

[timothy]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

well they are ready aviable on the nook. can't wait love peter david's writing style.

 

[JD]

Re: Star Trek: New Frontier: Blind Man's Bluff Review Thread

The CD came with the first printing of Stone and Anvil, from 2004. I don't know if something that old would be compatible with a modern E-Reader.