NF question

[Manisphere]

I asked the same question a year and a half ago. Missing much? Not especially. Are they competent PD reads? Damn right. They're well worth having if you're collecting the series.

 

[ryan123450]

What makes Red Sector so controversial?

I thoroughly enjoyed it, but many people found the young protagonist totally unlikable. He was a descendant of Stiles from "Balance of Terror" (TOS), and both were descendants of humans killed in the Romulan Wars. Some readers also felt that Spock was out of character, that Spock and McCoy weren't featured enough, that the story seemed to be more about Stiles and his Romulan colleague than the "Double Helix" virus problem (but that's mainly why I liked it), and that Diane Carey's personal politics showed through too strongly.

The only Diane Carey book I can remember reading is Ship of the Line. I thought all the naval references were out of place and distracting, and that led me to decide not to read the New Earth series. I can't recall anything political, though maybe I just didn't notice. What's her politics that comes through in her writing?

 

[James Cole]

What makes Red Sector so controversial?

I thoroughly enjoyed it, but many people found the young protagonist totally unlikable. He was a descendant of Stiles from "Balance of Terror" (TOS), and both were descendants of humans killed in the Romulan Wars. Some readers also felt that Spock was out of character, that Spock and McCoy weren't featured enough, that the story seemed to be more about Stiles and his Romulan colleague than the "Double Helix" virus problem (but that's mainly why I liked it), and that Diane Carey's personal politics showed through too strongly.

The only Diane Carey book I can remember reading is Ship of the Line. I thought all the naval references were out of place and distracting, and that led me to decide not to read the New Earth series. I can't recall anything political, though maybe I just didn't notice. What's her politics that comes through in her writing?

I consider myself to be located on the moderate center/center-left politically (by American standards) so that's my bias going in.

Diane Carey offers a conservative libertarian point of view on Star Trek and a more militaristic nautical interpretation of Starfleet. Some argue this contradicts the social democratic statist future depicted in the Federation.

She is largely a TOS fan, interjects a lot of TOS into her 24th century work, has admitted to not having watched many DS9 episodes while novelizing the Dominion War arc (granted Peter David has admitted much the same thing), and managed to contradict almost every single thing about the ten seconds shown of the Bozeman from "Cause and Effect" while writing Ship of the Line.

I really enjoyed her Invasion First Strike book as well as her concept but not the execution for New Earth. Two events depicted in Challenger and Chainmail outraged me to the point I wanted to throw the books across the room. I do think the Challenger series deserves a conclusion however.

For more on Diane Carey in her own words (with some spoilers for Red Sector and her other projects) check out this interview that Turtletrekker kindly dug up for me a month ago.

Granted, there is also a very liberal-left Star Trek author who injects way too much of their own political point of view so this happens on both sides of the political spectrum sometimes. At least Diane's politics aren't on EVERY SINGLE PAGE.

 

[Steve Roby]

I have that disk. If you pm me your email address I can send you the pdf for those books.

Not legally, you can't.

Anyway, the Captain's Table NF book is one of the best of the series, the Double Helix one is one of the worst.

 

[ryan123450]

Seems the concensus is to read them all. So that's what I'll do. Now to decide this: can I just read the NF part of Double Helix? It seems like it's the final book where they catch the bad guy and then the Stargazer book details why he did what he did. Is that right? If I just go into it knowing this isn't the first time this plague has been seen shouldn't I be ok? And will I really be left wondering about the villian's motivation?

Ok, so I finished Double or Nothing. Thought it was one of the best of the first 7 New Frontier books I've read. I didn't feel like I missed anything by skipping the first 4 books, but I am left wondering about the motivation of the villian. Memory-Beta doesn't have any info, and I don't plan on reading Stargazer for a while yet, so can anybody spoil me as to why this guy blamed Picard and the Federation for his son's death?

 

[Technobuilder]

Double Or Nothing was a great read as I recall.

Not really sure I've been keen on where the NF books direction has been going of late though... (It probably started around Missing In Action, but Treason made it obvious.)

Here's hoping Calhoun continues to be one of my favorite Captains.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

I think we need another Redeemers story. Maybe have the Redeemers clash with the religious fanatics in the Typhon Pact.