I don't understand the Piller family's problem with the book being out there at all. Michael wrote the book so that people would read it. Unless the Piller's intend to publish it, there's no sense in sitting on it.
NP
Im abut 52 pages in. I'm reading the treatment for
Stardust. Even in an
extremely rough form it is far superior to
Insurrection and has some great ideas. I like the Kirklike Duffy character and the android dream team idea is cool. I do find one of Piller's notions both interesting and odd. The treatment suggests that the philosophical transitions between Kirk's and Picard's era were rough. Much like the 60s. Duffy represented old school Starfleet and Picard, the next...
*ahem... generation. All of that is well and good but the way Piller defines the philosophical divide makes no sense.
Piller suggests Kirk's era was about going to space and
teaching alien species, in old school British Colonial fashion. Whereas Picard's era is about going out into space and
learning from alien species.
Essentially Piller seems to view Kirk as just a conqueror, engaging in gunboat diplomacy, while Picard is just an enlightened diplomat.
I dunno about that. What about
Corbomite Manuever? What about
Devil in the Dark? Hell, even in
Balance of Terror Kirk managed to learn something about himself from fighting his Romulan adversary. Kirk was
extremely open minded and learned frequently.
Picard on the other hand was
constantly lecturing other life forms on how humans were the single greatest thing in the universe since the invention of individually wrapped slices of processed cheese. Picard was exceedingly arrogant about humanity's place in the cosmos.
It's weird how Picard took some of the worst excesses of the 24th Century era and projected them on the 23rd in an attempt to make Picard look evolved, and Kirk look like an ape.
Just annoys the shit out of me.
