Spoilers NF: The Returned, Part III by Peter David Review Thread

[Defcon]

Blurb:
The final installment in a brand-new three-part digital-first Star Trek: New Frontier e-novel from New York Times bestselling author Peter David!

Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the crew of the U.S.S. Excalibur are back, picking up three months after the stunning events depicted in New Frontier: Blind Man’s Bluff. Calhoun's search of Xenex has failed to find any survivors, and now he is bound and determined to track down the race that killed them—the D'myurj and their associates, the Brethren—and exact vengeance upon them. His search will take the Excalibur crew into a pocket universe, where he discovers not only the homeworld of the D’myurj, but another race that shares Calhoun's determination to obliterate his opponents. But is this new race truly an ally…or an even greater threat?

____________________________

Just got the eMail that the eBook has been sent to my Kindle. Enjoyed The Returned so far, so I hope Part III won't be a disappointment either.

 

[Dsven43]

Not as good as the other two. IDK. Maybe PAD is getting tired of NF. And the cliff hanger seems like something straight out of General Hospital or something. I do hope enough were bought so he writes another one and puts more effort into it.

 

[Jim Gamma]

^This ends on a cliffhanger? Ugh... I hate when authors do that. Plus, the whole series is really getting confusing, I no longer know who's where, or what half of the events PAD is referring to are. I guess there's some stuff that's not in novel format that gives some more detail, and also I think the books have been too infrequent for me to keep everything in my memory.

Oh well... bought, reading, about 30% through.

 

[Dsven43]

^This ends on a cliffhanger? Ugh... I hate when authors do that. Plus, the whole series is really getting confusing, I no longer know who's where, or what half of the events PAD is referring to are. I guess there's some stuff that's not in novel format that gives some more detail, and also I think the books have been too infrequent for me to keep everything in my memory.

Oh well... bought, reading, about 30% through.

It's not really a main story cliffhanger. Things get pretty much wrapped up. It's more of a soap opera type one.

 

[Jim Gamma]

Ahh, ok. That I can appreciate, I just don't like story cliffhangers when you don't know if there's going to be a continuation (which is why I don't watch TV series that end on season cliffhangers, until they've had their finale-without-a-cliffhanger, in case they get cancelled mid-story).

 

[zarkon]

I actually thought this was better then part one or part two in many respects, but yeah, nothing astounding. Stone and Anvil was still the last time this series was top class.

 

[Ben]

I kind of feel like the Soleta story was a bit too heavy for this series, but then once it started, it was handled too lightly. Does that make sense? The scene itself was outstandingly written and had real weight to it. But then the follow up was like, "Oh sorry, tee hee!" I just don't think you can do that kind of event justice in what's essentially a Star Trek sitcom.

 

[zarkon]

I kind of feel like the Soleta story was a bit too heavy for this series, but then once it started, it was handled too lightly. Does that make sense? The scene itself was outstandingly written and had real weight to it. But then the follow up was like, "Oh sorry, tee hee!" I just don't think you can do that kind of event justice in what's essentially a Star Trek sitcom.

To be fair, that's pretty much exactly how Kirk took Spock trying to kill him in pon farr.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

I kind of feel like the Soleta story was a bit too heavy for this series, but then once it started, it was handled too lightly. Does that make sense? The scene itself was outstandingly written and had real weight to it. But then the follow up was like, "Oh sorry, tee hee!" I just don't think you can do that kind of event justice in what's essentially a Star Trek sitcom.

To be fair, that's pretty much exactly how Kirk took Spock trying to kill him in pon farr.

But Soleta didn't just try to rape Calhoun. She raped him, both mentally and physically.

The pon farr excuse was weak and dismissive in the story. I agree with Ben: this whole thing was taken far too lightly at the end, with characters teasing each other about it.

What I found most repugnant in this story is the Excalibur crew and her captain aiding and abetting in not one, but TWO genocides over the course of this arc with absolutely no consequences. Nechayev sweeps it all under the rug while presumably burying the report that Dr. Lochley promised to write about Calhoun nearly beating a prisoner in his custody to death.

I was hoping this final volume would redeem the Returned trilogy for me, but instead it pushed New Frontier into something that I don't even recognize as being Star Trek.

 

[David cgc]

I kind of feel like the Soleta story was a bit too heavy for this series, but then once it started, it was handled too lightly. Does that make sense? The scene itself was outstandingly written and had real weight to it. But then the follow up was like, "Oh sorry, tee hee!" I just don't think you can do that kind of event justice in what's essentially a Star Trek sitcom.

I wonder if there isn't some kind of subtext intended here that wasn't paid off, either because it's being saved for a future book or because PAD changed his mind between conceiving and writing the story. Calhoun and Soleta both became what they hated most about their formative experiences, a captain destroyed by grief and driven to mass-murder, and Soleta being the conceived in a rape. The twist ending also echoed the ending of an earlier book, and so did the resolution of the Cwansi storyline. I can see some sort of full-circle, can't run from the past thing in the foundations, here, but none of it is actually expressed. I'd have wondered if it all were just a bunch of coincidences if there wasn't an aside mentioning the time Calhoun went into space without a suit, referencing "Once Burned" directly.

I don't know. New Frontier has felt weird and oddly shallow ever since the soft-reboot for "After the Fall." Each book since then has felt like a reunion special long after the show has ended, just checking in with all our favorite characters without committing to their three-dimensionality the same way as when the series was a going concern.

I can't remember the last few books well enough to say if "The Returned" is much of a change, but it feels like a doubling down on everything I haven't liked about this phase of New Frontier. Soleta's feelings for Calhoun at the end of the last book came out of the blue, but there was some justification with her not having realized it herself and their mirror-counterparts being involved. McHenry's secret crush on Lefler, not so much. I can't really square that with him chatting away with her about his dating Burgoyne, for instance. Things just keep happening by themselves, and the cast just gets further and further from what they were, and not in the good, character-development way.

 

[VDCNI]

Well this just fizzled out.

Despite the humour the New Frontier books used to have consequences - things changed, people moved on, people died. Here everything just seemed to get waved away - the rape, the bad guys (can't remember their name and don't have the book to hand) and as already mentioned multiple genocides.

Also things previously developed from the characters - here things just happened - why did Q do what he did, where did the McHenry/Lefler relationship come from and at a time when other Star Trek books are digging deep into the culture of alien races here they just exist to be a problem - the new ones were basically just very tough - their potentially interesting hook of wanting to destroy all life not explored in any real sense - instead we got silly stuff like the chef and big guns.

For me part of the problem is that New Frontier started at a time when the main series novels were still pretty shallow episode of the week books and New Frontier were a breath of fresh air even went he went a bit OTT. Now the main series books are telling more interesting stories, full of character development and consequences and New Frontier has been left behind a little.

I still voted average as some of it was a fun ride but like a run of the mill summer blockbuster I'll have forgotten all about it tomorrow.

 

[Ben]

I feel like PAD must have some sort of fallout planned for the next book. He's too good a writer to not see how this would look to readers. But not knowing if there would be another book, maybe he didn't want to end it on such a down ending as the last book. As strange as the tone of this book's ending was, it might be unsatisfying to have it end with Calhoun getting court marshalled and Soleta getting arrested. So he instead went with a more sitcomy freeze-frame-during-group-laughter or wah-wah trombone type ending! I don't know. I wish PAD hung out on these boards.

 

[Ben]

To be fair, that's pretty much exactly how Kirk took Spock trying to kill him in pon farr.

But Soleta didn't just try to rape Calhoun. She raped him, both mentally and physically.

The pon farr excuse was weak and dismissive in the story. I agree with Ben: this whole thing was taken far too lightly at the end, with characters teasing each other about it.

If Spock had killed Kirk, maybe he wouldn't be sent to prison, but it would definitely have changed his relationship with all the other characters. I didn't really see that here.

I'm going to use spoiler tags just in case.

Spoiler: What Soleta done did

After it happened, it seemed like Soleta was now unredeemable, even with the pon farr explanation. When she "died," I figured that was the only place left for her character because I couldn't imagine her still hanging out with the gang after she raped Calhoun, whether it was her fault or not. But then she came back and helped save the day. Great! But that's not enough. And now with the baby?

It just seems like a mess and a minefield. I'd love to hear PAD's comments on it. Has he done any interviews since this third one came out? He hasn't really posted about the trilogy on his blog since the first one was released.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

But Soleta didn't just try to rape Calhoun. She raped him, both mentally and physically.

The pon farr excuse was weak and dismissive in the story. I agree with Ben: this whole thing was taken far too lightly at the end, with characters teasing each other about it.

What I found most repugnant in this story is the Excalibur crew and her captain aiding and abetting in not one, but TWO genocides over the course of this arc with absolutely no consequences. Nechayev sweeps it all under the rug while presumably burying the report that Dr. Lochley promised to write about Calhoun nearly beating a prisoner in his custody to death.

I was hoping this final volume would redeem the Returned trilogy for me, but instead it pushed New Frontier into something that I don't even recognize as being Star Trek.

...well that convinced me to never buy this book.

their mirror-counterparts

And now I'm conflicted.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

their mirror-counterparts

And now I'm conflicted.

There are no "mirror-counterparts" in this book.

 

[Idran]

I assume that when David cgc said

but there was some justification with[...]their mirror-counterparts being involved

that he meant how they are involved with each other; romantically involved with one another. Not that they are involved with the events of this book.

 

[JD]

Soleta rapes Calhoun? WTF? I would think with that being such a controversial topic right now, authors would just want to avoid that unless it was handled very carefully. From what you guys are saying, it sounds like that was not the case here.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

Apparently I misunderstood the MU reference. Thanks for the corrections!

 

[David cgc]

I assume that when David cgc said

but there was some justification with[...]their mirror-counterparts being involved

that he meant how they are involved with each other; romantically involved with one another. Not that they are involved with the events of this book.

Bingo. Sorry about the unclear phrasing, I didn't realize there was another way to take that.

 

[Steve Roby]

My review, posted at Netgalley and written in exchange for an advance ebook copy:

Spoiler: spoilers

Well. Definitely a must-read for New Frontier fans and possibly a what the heck?! experience for the unconverted.

It may seem like an easy shot to say that Peter A. David, who's written a lot of comics for Marvel, DC, and other publishers, writes New Frontier more like a Marvel comic than any Star Trek TV series, but I think there's some truth to it. And for some readers, that's probably what draws them in. It's a uniquely over the top and action-packed take on the Star Trek universe.

Part 3 of the saga wraps up everything set up in the first two installments -- unsurprisingly, as it was originally announced as a single novel. It's been said that, depending on sales, this may be the end of this particular series. If so, at least the D'myurj storyline and the Thallonian storyline are wrapped up, and there's some character resolution as well, but PAD also drops a revelation or two that can lead to new stories if the series continues. Either way, job done.

I still have some issues with this miniseries within the series, though. Throughout all three parts, characters are much too eager to jump into violent hand-to-hand combat as their preferred method of dispute resolution. Captain Calhoun in particular commits some acts of violence that should have him drummed out of Starfleet and into a psych ward, but at the end of the book everyone seems to be happy with him staying in command of his ship. A surprise guest star whose identity is revealed at the end of the second part is also played as much more of a bloodthirsty and physically violent character than we've seen him in a very long time. The flipside to all this is that characters keep deciding the only way for them to resolve an issue is to let themselves get killed. It's kill or be killed, except during the sex scenes, and one of them is pretty unpleasant, too. Nobody is capable of thinking their way out of a situation. What the D'myurj do doesn't make much sense; what their enemies do doesn't make much sense; how Calhoun tries to deal with them doesn't make much sense. No one pays attention to what should be obvious developments just so they can be shocked by utterly predictable things they missed.

One minor example of the characters' not thinking about anything but just blindly acting based on emotion, and this isn't much of a spoiler: one Starfleet officer has had a baby with the late leader of an alien empire. She takes it for granted that the baby must some day lead that empire because of the divine right of kings or something, and no one questions it; no one says, maybe this empire would be a much better place as a democracy. It's just not an issue. Of course this months-old baby is the only logical choice for leader of an interstellar empire not allied with the Federation because that's what his dad wanted, and of course Federation/Starfleet people should interfere with the empire's internal politics to make it happen.

But. It's fast-paced, full of action, brings together a lot of the old gang again, ties up some story lines, and sets up a couple of things that could be explored in future books. So it does what it set out to do, and no doubt many readers will wonder how I could have any problems with it. It really is essential reading for New Frontier fans.