Pathways and other Voyager novels

[Tracy Trek]

I read Pathways years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Seven not get a section in the book? I know there was a section for Kes although she had left the show by then. And I can remember details about some of the stuff written for the other characters but not for Seven. But I think there was another novel written by another author that dealt with Seven's backstory later on. I can't remember the title though.

 

[Christopher]

I think that Pathways was written or at least outlined before Seven came along -- and she couldn't really have had a backstory chapter anyway, since most of it would just be "We are Borg."

The novel you're thinking of is probably Seven of Nine (surprisingly enough) by Christie Golden, which followed up on the episode "The Raven." It basically covered the same ground as the later episode "Infinite Regress" but did it better.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Seven is in the framing story of "Pathways", and on the cover, but she doesn't tell her backstory round the campfire. The hardcover was held up for a while, IIRC, because Jeri Taylor had to rejig it somewhat to reflect the onscreen departure of Kes (who is on the cover as glowing figure) - and Neelix had to channel Kes's spirit to tell her backstory in her absence.

A similar situation happened with a few early TNG novels; if I recall two involved Peter David. He had to switch Crusher for Pulaski in "Strike Zone" (as did Jean Lorrah in "Metamorphosis"), and vice versa in "A Rock and a Hard Place".

 

[Christopher]

I never understood that pressure to rewrite novels to keep them "current" rather than just establishing that they were set in an earlier season -- like the way Valhalla had to slip in a passing reference to the Defiant being under repairs even though it was set before the early-second-season novel Betrayal (it had been meant to come out first, but delayed considerably). I mean, there were always plenty of TOS novels set during the 5-year mission even back in the '80s while the movies were a going concern. Readers can understand that a book is set in the "past." So the practice of tweaking a novel to be set in the "current" season always annoyed me -- especially since the long lead time in publishing meant that those books generally came out after the season in question had ended anyway.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I never understood that pressure to rewrite novels to keep them "current" rather than just establishing that they were set in an earlier season...

It's certainly not consistent, but the times it has happened in Trek, it has perhaps been reacting to controversial cast changes.

 

[Christopher]

It's certainly not consistent, but the times it has happened in Trek, it has perhaps been reacting to controversial cast changes.

That wasn't the case with Valhalla. The only change they had to acknowledge was the addition of the Defiant.

 

[Tracy Trek]

I remember that Seven was in the framing story. I believe they had to use her nanoprobes in some way to facilitate their escape.

Was there not a passage in the the section for Tom Paris that had his character (when he was a cadet) go skiing in the Sierra Nevada Mtns? IIRC correctly, he and his fellow cadets that went with him were talking about the Donner party. When I read this, I remembered that Robert Duncan McNeill had been in a TV movie about the Donner Party about a year or so before Voyager started. I wondered at the time if Jeri Taylor gave little nods to other roles that the other actors played in their careers when she wrote the sections for the different characters. Or maybe it was just a coincidence.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Star Trek novels are filled with little in-jokes. All part of the fun, including that not everyone picks them all up, or appreciates them. Of course, for some readers, such gags can "pull them out of the narrative".

 

[Jinn]

Star Trek novels are filled with little in-jokes. All part of the fun, including that not everyone picks them all up, or appreciates them. Of course, for some readers, such gags can "pull them out of the narrative".

I couldn't exactly see myself running a school for gifted youngster.

It is more of an multiple-franchise due to actor in-joke.

 

[DS9forever]

My favourite in-joke isn't in a novel, it isn't even seen in the episode, but in Far Beyond the Stars, there is a note on Armin Shimerman's character's desk which says something like "no one will believe that a teenage girl fights vampires".

 

[Therin of Andor]

Spock having "an animated conversation" with Arex and M'Ress. (Thanks Peter David!)

 

[Tracy Trek]

Star Trek novels are filled with little in-jokes. All part of the fun, including that not everyone picks them all up, or appreciates them. Of course, for some readers, such gags can "pull them out of the narrative".

In that case, maybe there was another one in the chapter for Paris in Pathways. His best friend and fellow cadet (and one of the three that died in the incident) was Charlie Day. Another role that McNeill did in the 80's was the character of CHARLIE Brent on the DAYtime soap All My Children.