Anyway, I didn't mean to derail the thread into "Here are some in-jokes I think are lame." I only meant to comment on one minor criticism of PAD's writing, which I overall like quite a bit. Between both his comics and his novels, he's written some of my all-time favorite scenes in Trek.
Something tells me you probably wouldn't care much for the Easter-egg-strewn opening chapters of CLB's present opus. But yes, I'd be delighted to see PAD pen another ST opus.
I missed the reference to what the program was, so I took the out-of-universe element that as more, "Hey, it's stupid that holodeck safeties are something that can be turned off." It wasn't a subplot, it was one scene (actually, I just looked it up: two pages) showing Shelby's growing-pains as Captain in the form of not noticing one of her crew was engaging in risky behavior that got them killed. It's a spectrum. There's an incoherent scene in one of the books where an advanced alien takes the form of a southern gentleman where no one's reactions entirely make sense, because the editor put the kibosh on the alien taking the form of Elvis, and the rewrite of the scene didn't remove all of the Elvis-specific parts. On the other hand, it could also go better; around the same time, there was going to be an elaborate subplot about Shelby being embarrassed that she became delirious after a head-wound and saw "bunnies" with the crew pulling an elaborate prank involving rabbit-aliens to show it didn't cost her any respect with them, which was thankfully trimmed down into her just seeing colors, and the "nobody thinks less of you scene" was boiled down a very sweet moment of Calhoun telling her about a similar experience he had after he was wounded in a battle.
I love his earlier stuff, Captain's Daughter, Vendetta etc. I haven't read his more recent stuff due to some negative reviews and because it was part of current book continuity rather than standalone. I read the first 4 books of New Frontier, it did what newer Trek is attempting to do today. I'm not really into reading continuing series books but the idea excited me because it was the first time in my memory that there was a spin off series from Star Trek that was telling stories of new characters with a darker tone. Adore his Trek comics, there were some really rich stories he told. Always get a warm fuzzy feeling when I think of his work.
Ugh, I couldn't even make it through the first two chapters of Before Dishonor, and everything I've heard about it sounds like it just got worse and worse as it went on. That was one of Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore's Vanguard books, I think either Summon the Thunder or Open Secrets.
Do you mean The Higher Frontier? I don't know if I'm going to get to that one. I'm not as into the TMP era as Christopher is, and I'm still trying to polish off his Captain Kirk novel The Captain's Oath. And I still have two of the Department of Temporal Investigations books to read, as well. (This is no reflection on Christopher's work, I should say. My deteriorating eyesight and my short attention span have been defeating me there, I'm afraid.) But I'm fine with Easter eggs. It's in-jokes that immediately take me out of the story that bug me. I don't consider the two to be the same thing. Me too! I haven't read New Frontier beyond the initial four-part story, so it'd be fun to see him tackle the TOS or TNG crews again.
After the last few books in New Frontier before the e-book trilogy, and Before Dishonor, I'd prefer he stay far away from Star Trek.
I don't think I've been more disappointed in anything with the "Star Trek" name on it as I was with The Returned. I was with New Frontier through Missing In Action, but almost every choice since then has been steadily worse and worse. (And I count the first part of NF, from House of Card to Stone & Anvil, as some of my favorite Trek.) Since then, main characters are dropping like flies so quickly that any dramatic resonance is lost, characters are behaving in willfully incompetent ways, deeply troubling moments are treated as if they were jokes... Ugh. Genuinely distasteful. New Frontier was always turned up to 11, which made writing it a pretty difficult balancing act; it had to be grand and epic and bizarre and hilarious without losing its essential humanity and believability, and I know for some people it failed that balancing act already with the ending of the first four books. For others, they're still with him even through The Returned, not seeing much of a difference between the series's earlier wackiness and its current wackiness. But for me, it has fallen apart completely; it was always a difficult balance, so small changes can make a big difference in suspension of disbelief. Objectively, I don't think his writing has actually changed all that much, but subjectively it was enough to lose me completely.
I think New Frontier started to become a parody of itself. The early books were brilliant. I liked how they dealt with issues within one sector, not galactic-level problems. But then they started to move towards the latter and became very broad.
And I think the cast became too big. We had at one point two or three Starships and a space station to follow, It became too much.
Not Trek related but I read news today that Peter David will be doing a prequel to his popular Hulk 'Maestro' comic. It's due to be released in August. Maestro is a future version of the Hulk that has become a Villain. There's a rumor he might show up in the marvel cinematic universe.
I loved his X-Factor series; especially after Grant Morrison's New X-Men - it really carried on well Morrison's themes and ideas (such as the mutant ghetto in New York) that were unfortuantely wiped by No More Mutants also the series was interrupted by so many crossovers
Can some moderator-type-person please fix the title of this thread so that "peter" is capitalized? Thank you. (Been driving me nuts....)