Poll: Bring Janeway back?

[Therin of Andor]

It's like "Now I'm gonna smash Mr Brown's window with a baseball, just to really p*** that old geek off"

or

"I would really like to smash Mr Brown's window with a baseball just to see the effect and hear the window crash but I know that Mr Brown will be very upset and angry so should I do it or not?"

What we do know that the result in both cases will be that the window is broken and Mr Brown will be upset and angry.

No, it's more like:

"How can we tell the most compelling story about Mr Brown and those kids. Yes, when they smash his window he suffers a fatal heart attack, and we now follow the story of how the kids cope with their guilt and grief."

A nice suggestion actually but I won't do it.

You just spent several paragraphs telling Kristen Beyer how she might have approached her novel, but you have no intention of reading it?

 

[Defcon]

^ TNZ = "The Neutral Zone" - it's a BBS forum for discussions on more controversial subjects.

Correct.

You have to have made a certain number of posts to go there, and you have to ask for mod approval.

Wrong. You just have to join the group in your User CP.

 

[Lynx]

It's like "Now I'm gonna smash Mr Brown's window with a baseball, just to really p*** that old geek off"

or

"I would really like to smash Mr Brown's window with a baseball just to see the effect and hear the window crash but I know that Mr Brown will be very upset and angry so should I do it or not?"

What we do know that the result in both cases will be that the window is broken and Mr Brown will be upset and angry.

No, it's more like:

"How can we tell the most compelling story about Mr Brown and those kids. Yes, when they smash his window he suffers a fatal heart attack, and we now follow the story of how the kids cope with their guilt and grief."

A nice suggestion actually but I won't do it.

You just spent several paragraphs telling Kristen Beyer how she might have approached her novel, but you have no intention of reading it?

No, because I don't want to read about how Janeway is killed off and how the crew (well, those who are left of the original crew) wallop in grief and sorrow. It's not what I want to read about when it comes to my favorite characters.

In my universe, Janeway is still alive and I want to keep it that way.

As I've written before, if they want to kill off main characters in order to create effects, they should create some new "Dark Trek" book series where they could do that. They should leave the main characters from the TV series alone.

 

[Steve Roby]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I get the impression from your post that the decision to kill off Janeway was made by the editor and that you and some authors decided to get along with it. Am I correct?

What I'm interested about here is how much impact the editors have on the ongoing Voyager saga in this case. I mean, if I was a writer, I wouldn't be that happy if the editors demanded a new direction for my characters if that direction was too different from what I would like to do and write about.

If you were writing your own stuff, then, yeah, having the editor tell you to kill off a main character would be unusual. But this is Star Trek. With the odd possible exception like New Frontier, some of the story direction comes from the editors. Not all the plot details, no, but some of the wide strokes.

The fact that the editor decided to kill off Janeway, not Peter David or Kirsten Beyer, has been mentioned repeatedly in all of these Janeway threads.

 

[captcalhoun]

repeatedly. ad nauseum.

you'd think people would've got the message by now.

 

[Turtletrekker]

repeatedly. ad nauseum.

you'd think people would've got the message by now.

You'd think.

Seriously, the "Janeway-inistas" are begining to remind me of the TOS-BSG fans who mindlessly bash the new show and it's creators for any reason just because it isn't the show that they wanted.

 

[Thrawn]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I get the impression from your post that the decision to kill off Janeway was made by the editor and that you and some authors decided to get along with it. Am I correct?

What I'm interested about here is how much impact the editors have on the ongoing Voyager saga in this case. I mean, if I was a writer, I wouldn't be that happy if the editors demanded a new direction for my characters if that direction was too different from what I would like to do and write about.

If you were writing your own stuff, then, yeah, having the editor tell you to kill off a main character would be unusual. But this is Star Trek. With the odd possible exception like New Frontier, some of the story direction comes from the editors. Not all the plot details, no, but some of the wide strokes.

The fact that the editor decided to kill off Janeway, not Peter David or Kirsten Beyer, has been mentioned repeatedly in all of these Janeway threads.

And if it'd been a writer that made that call, people would be in here saying "I can't believe the editor in charge of these characters, who so clearly loves them, would ever let a writer do such a horrible thing."

The thing that still won't get through is that an editor, writer, or anyone else in the creative process can simultaneously 1) love each character, 2) respect fans of each character, and 3) still decide to kill one off, the fundamental misunderstanding that Lynx's oft-repeated "if they are a fan of the character they sure have a funny way of showing it!" so thoroughly demonstrates.

 

[Praetor]

I'm going to chime in only briefly on this (hopefully while there's a bit of a truce) and hopefully avoid pissing anyone off.

The way I see it is this: the books are basically a separate entity. They have always taken a backseat to what the live-action shows and movies did and filled in between them. If something said in a book was countered by something on television, it was either retconned away or ignored as if it didn't happened.

What we have here is an unprecedented situation: there may not be any more Trek in the TNG/DS9/VGR era. The editors and writers have made bold choices to seize this opportunity and actually take the literary Trekverse in a distinct direction. Among these choices was killing Janeway. Now, obviously this did not make a lot of people happy. I myself would rather the Janeway character 'lived on' but I can understand the argument that it might have been difficult to write stories for a desk-bound Admiral, and I can appreciate what they are trying to do by forging their own direction.

Do I feel that Janeway's death was a 'stunt'? To me, yes. I happen to like the writers and staff that work on the books so I hope you don't take too much offense at me saying that. But I also feel that the writers had the right to do it and should not be forced to undermine their work by pulling a Mary Sue and 'unkill' her. If they can find a legitmate reason and good story that involves her coming back, then by all means bring her back. But characters must ultimately serve the story, and not the other way around.

Will this particular incident or the 'new direction' affect the amount of Trek books I read one way or the other? No. Will it affect others? Maybe.

For those who are unhappy with this decision, I have one final thing to say and one final piece of advice for dealing with the situation: the novels aren't canon. Period.

These arguments really need to stop.

You may now resume your previous skirmishes and completely ignore anything I've had to say...

 

[rfmcdpei]

^ Even assuming such a notion as 'karma', the Janeway who went back in time is not the same person as the Janeway who died at the hands of the Borg. That Janeway already died using herself as a Trojan horse during the attack on the transwarp hub; if there are any 'karmic bills' to be paid, life has already been spent.

But the attack on the transwarp hub would never have happened if "our" Janeway hadn't accepted the time-traveller's plan.

 

[Trent Roman]

What does that have to do with anything?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Lynx]

I'm going to chime in only briefly on this (hopefully while there's a bit of a truce) and hopefully avoid pissing anyone off.

The way I see it is this: the books are basically a separate entity. They have always taken a backseat to what the live-action shows and movies did and filled in between them. If something said in a book was countered by something on television, it was either retconned away or ignored as if it didn't happened.

What we have here is an unprecedented situation: there may not be any more Trek in the TNG/DS9/VGR era. The editors and writers have made bold choices to seize this opportunity and actually take the literary Trekverse in a distinct direction. Among these choices was killing Janeway. Now, obviously this did not make a lot of people happy. I myself would rather the Janeway character 'lived on' but I can understand the argument that it might have been difficult to write stories for a desk-bound Admiral, and I can appreciate what they are trying to do by forging their own direction.

Do I feel that Janeway's death was a 'stunt'? To me, yes. I happen to like the writers and staff that work on the books so I hope you don't take too much offense at me saying that. But I also feel that the writers had the right to do it and should not be forced to undermine their work by pulling a Mary Sue and 'unkill' her. If they can find a legitmate reason and good story that involves her coming back, then by all means bring her back. But characters must ultimately serve the story, and not the other way around.

Will this particular incident or the 'new direction' affect the amount of Trek books I read one way or the other? No. Will it affect others? Maybe.

For those who are unhappy with this decision, I have one final thing to say and one final piece of advice for dealing with the situation: the novels aren't canon. Period.

These arguments really need to stop.

You may now resume your previous skirmishes and completely ignore anything I've had to say...

Some good points here.

I totally agree with you about further production of TNG/DS9/VOY. There will be no more episodes or movies about the crews from those series. We may have a return to the 24th century on screen or on TV, that's not impossible but there will be very few (if any) of the characters from TNG/DS9/VOY involved. Don't forget that the actors are getting older, they are involved in other things and I also guess that some of them don't want to do more Star Trek for different reasons.

So here was that golden opportunity for Pocket Books to "take control" over this era of Star Trek, an era which, thanks to three excellent series, has many fans. This could have been the perfect haven for those fans.

And what does Pocket Books do? In an attempt to create something "controversial", they kill off Janeway!

There went their chance to attract many ardent fans of the 24th century era. The result will be that almost all Janeway fans and many Voyager fans will turn their backs to the books and a golden opportunity to attract Voyager fans who normally don't buy the books is gone too. and you know, it's very easy to lose ardent fans by wrong decisions, it's much harder to win them back.

I don't buy the comments about the character Janeway being painted into a corned by being promoted to admiral. OK, I see the problems with writing stories for a desk-bound Admiral and I have actually complained about this in the past, about turning one of Star trek's best characters into a desk-clerk. But it can be changed!

Now wouldn't that have been a challenge for the writers? To come up with something constructive to bring back Janeway on a space ship (most likely Voyager) again. I mean, Kirk was an admiral but there wer no problems to put him in command of the Enterprise and his old crew. Finding and creating a similar solution would have been a lot more challenging and constructive for the writers than killing off the character.

In fact, the only thing this not so constructive move has done so far is angering a lot of people and created distrust and conflicts.

I can agree that bringing back Janeway in a constructive way can be difficult ( see, they should never have killed her off in the first place). But it can be done with some will, skill and imagination.

I can see your point when it comes to your wish that those arguments must stop. However, I don't think that it will be that easy. There are a lot of people who are angry and unhappy over this and I don't think they will just sit down, nod and say "yes" to something they can't or won't accept.

 

[BillJ]

What I'm seeing here on an internet message board is a 1:1 trade-off. People like me who wouldn't have given any Voyager books a second look without a major change vs. people who won't buy the book because of the major change.

Which then puts it to reviews and word of mouth (which are so far seemingly positive). I may even be able to get some people at work to give Voyager a second look because of the major changes.

In the end, if there is a net gain in readership... Janeway stays dead until readership begins to decline again. If Full Circle and Unworthy lose sales, you guys'll get Janeway back in the following installment. Or if the fall is dramatic... you may not see any more books for a long time.

 

[Rig Reiley]

Hi there. Personally, I thought that Janeway's death in "Before Dishonor" wasn't even really a death. It wasn't final. She is effectively in limbo with Lady Q. But it can be called a corporeal death. Which is somewhat in vain because as it stands, the USS Einstein is out there and the Borg are going to rebuild.

I think Janeway should be brought back (if nothing else) because of the unfinished ending. Wherever she is with Lady Q, they should talk about it. It might be interesting for her to be a Q for a while, and then go back to corporeal form. At least that is what Janeway seems to be trying to do at the end of the story.

So like I said, the story seems to me to be unfinished more than anything.

 

[Therin of Andor]

the story seems to me to be unfinished more than anything.

That's the nature of story arcs.

Picard got a whole episode out of being dead with Q!

 

[Brit]

In the end, if there is a net gain in readership... Janeway stays dead until readership begins to decline again. If Full Circle and Unworthy lose sales, you guys'll get Janeway back in the following installment. Or if the fall is dramatic... you may not see any more books for a long time.

Which is exactly what I've been saying, and my very educated (yes as an aspiring romance writer, I have done a lot of research and I do know my audience) guess is that both books will not sell as well as Pocket Books is hoping, and that has a lot to do with today's economy and why people do not, in general, read dark fiction, or go to dark movies in economic downturns. (This is also very well documented.)

I wouldn't be a bit surprised that the ending might be very dramatic and that it also may be quite a while before you see any Trek books at all. The timing depends a lot on just how well the new movie is received.

Brit

 

[Therin of Andor]

and that it also may be quite a while before you see any Trek books at all.

You're predicting the cancellation of Pocket's license, or a reduction in the monthly output???

 

[BillJ]

In the end, if there is a net gain in readership... Janeway stays dead until readership begins to decline again. If Full Circle and Unworthy lose sales, you guys'll get Janeway back in the following installment. Or if the fall is dramatic... you may not see any more books for a long time.

Which is exactly what I've been saying, and my very educated (yes as an aspiring romance writer, I have done a lot of research and I do know my audience) guess is that both books will not sell as well as Pocket Books is hoping, and that has a lot to do with today's economy and why people do not, in general, read dark fiction, or go to dark movies in economic downturns. (This is also very well documented.)

I wouldn't be a bit surprised that the ending might be very dramatic and that it also may be quite a while before you see any Trek books at all. The timing depends a lot on just how well the new movie is received.

Brit

I was talking about Voyager books, not the entire line. Guess I didn't spell that out clearly enough.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Um yesterday I finished reading A Singular Destiny and I have to say

1) Great job KRAD you ROCK!

And

2) Anybody reading the books expecting them to reture to a pre-definde status quo by the end and are greatly annoyed when they don't the status quo went out the window if you can't continue reading the books with out this status quo then you might want to move on because hopefully that ain't coming back Here is why...

Spoiler: [B][U]Everything[/U][/B] in the books so far

Janeway died, Tom Paris's father DIED, Picard and Crusher got hitched and are expecting a little Picard, Riker and Troi are expecting a kid, The Borg launched an invasion and wiped out 36 BILLION people and destroyed many planets we give a crap about ie Deneva, Risa, and ect, and devestated many planets we give a crap about ie Vulcan, Andor, Qu'onos, the Romulans have split into two poweres the still around Romulan Star Empire and the Imperial Romulan State, as a result pf devestation to Qu'onos the Klingons have temporarily moved their capital to Ty'Gokor and its sounding like it wll turn into a perminant move, The Romulan Star Empire, Tholians, Tzenkethi, Breen, Gorn, and Kinshaya have formed a very close alliance called the Typhon Pact, and the Federation and Klingon Empire are planning to expand the Khitomer Accords to include th Cardassians, Imperial Romulan State, Ferengi, and the Talarians

What does this have to do with Janeway's death you might ask well no offense to the anti-Janeway's death Janeway fans but the authors are busy with stuff that I consider more important in my enjoyment of Trek novels and I'm pretty sure Janeway isn't important to the Typhon Pact stuff which I'm more interested in (see spoilers to know why) so sadly besides making a group of fans happy I don't see any other reqasons to bring her back plus we all have to except that the old status quo of the Trek lit universe is gone and may never come back attemps to get it back probably won't work if you can't except that and feel that you can't continue reading well I respect that.

 

[JD]

Hi there. Personally, I thought that Janeway's death in "Before Dishonor" wasn't even really a death. It wasn't final. She is effectively in limbo with Lady Q. But it can be called a corporeal death. Which is somewhat in vain because as it stands, the USS Einstein is out there and the Borg are going to rebuild.

I think Janeway should be brought back (if nothing else) because of the unfinished ending. Wherever she is with Lady Q, they should talk about it. It might be interesting for her to be a Q for a while, and then go back to corporeal form. At least that is what Janeway seems to be trying to do at the end of the story.

So like I said, the story seems to me to be unfinished more than anything.

You haven't read Greater than the Sum or Destiny yet, have you?

I also just wanted that it has really amused me just how much all of the Janeway fans are overestimating her importance.I'm sorry, but there is no way that her death is going to destry the Trek book line. I mean Voyager was one of the least popular Trek series after all.

 

[Trek]

In the end, if there is a net gain in readership... Janeway stays dead until readership begins to decline again. If Full Circle and Unworthy lose sales, you guys'll get Janeway back in the following installment. Or if the fall is dramatic... you may not see any more books for a long time.

Which is exactly what I've been saying, and my very educated (yes as an aspiring romance writer, I have done a lot of research and I do know my audience) guess is that both books will not sell as well as Pocket Books is hoping, and that has a lot to do with today's economy and why people do not, in general, read dark fiction, or go to dark movies in economic downturns. (This is also very well documented.)

I wouldn't be a bit surprised that the ending might be very dramatic and that it also may be quite a while before you see any Trek books at all. The timing depends a lot on just how well the new movie is received.

Brit

Considering that the books have been doing well while Star Trek has been off the screen, I'd be very surprised if the multi-million dollar movie has any effect other than to increase sales.