Reading Derailment

[Stoek]

The thread about the novel Debtors Planet got me to wondering. What is the novel or novels that you were chugging along, enjoying and then for some reason or another you hit a big WTF wall and have found that you either are unable to re-read the work, or you have to grit your teeth and hold your nose to get past the "bad" part?

For me the biggest two are Ship Of The Line by Diane Carey and Devil's Heart by Carmen Carter.

I was chugging along enjoy the hell out of SOTL, loving the return of Morgan Bateson, loving watching him put Riker in his place (and I love Riker so that's saying something) finding the follow up with Gul Madred very interesting. And then without warning I run into a huge wall of WTF. Picard lighting into Madred and telling him that he has no power to terrify him now because AFTER Madred had captured and tortured him Picard was assimilated by the Borg.

Now I have never blamed Carey for this, after all each author has a greater and lesser awareness of the different series depending on their inclinations. Not everyone is a total Geek over all things Trek, and I always got the sense that Carey resonated most with TOS. But I've always wandered how it got missed in editorial.

It however I am able to grit my teeth over and largely ignore since the rest of the book is really good.

Devil's Heart is another matter. I only read it the once, and for me the whole thing was just kind of "off". From the way the characters were portrayed to a scene set on old Vulcan involving Surak. It just didn't work for me.

Another one I had a hard time with has been the second of the Crucible trilogy focusing on Spock. I liked the one featuring McCoy quite a bit but when I tried to read the Spock one the first time I got roadblocked by his decision to re-undertake Kolinahr. However I am giving it another go.

So how about the rest of you? What novels did you get roadblocked by a WTF moment or moments?

 

[F. King Daniel]

For me, it was the ending to The Wounded Sky. After a wonderful book (Kirk and co in the rec room looking down on the Milky Way was awesome, and before that visiting an alien-run Starfleet station was really cool) Diane Duane went way OTT in depicting the TOS crew as impossibly perfect beings who taught a mere god how to live. Others have used words like "transcendant" to describe it, but for me it was one big facepalm moment.

 

[shanejayell]

Strangers in the Sky was a very interesting book. We have a 'secret' first contact with Vulcans, a novel within a novel that Admiral Kirk is reading, a flashback to Kirk's first mission....

Then I hit the bit with the TIME TRAVELING WIZARD. Seriously, A WIZARD DID IT. *lol* I was just... WTF?!

 

[JD]

^I really like the book, but I will admit I did have pretty much the same reaction when they first ran into the wizard. I was able to continue on with the book, and I loved it from beginning to end, but that was still a little odd.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

The wizard's a little less startling the second time around... I think that's one of the few novels that confused me at once, and just glad it was maybe the fourth or so book I'd read that involved time travel.

 

[Stoek]

Actually I had always just assumed the "wizard" was a powerful alien ala the Metrons or Organians who was using the whole wizard thing as a cover story.

 

[shanejayell]

Not according to the book. *lol* Born on Earth & everything.

 

[black_dranzer]

Born on Earth & everything.

Amanda Rogers was born on Earth, and she was a Q

That said, I haven't read the book in question so I don't have a clue what it says regarding the wizard lol

 

[JoeZhang]

It's been years since I read that - I can't remember a wizard?

 

[bfollowell]

It's been years since I read that - I can't remember a wizard?

Same here. I read this one back after it came out, in the eighties, while in college. Of course, I don't remember a lot of what happened and a lot of what I did during those years...

- Byron

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Then I hit the bit with the TIME TRAVELING WIZARD. Seriously, A WIZARD DID IT. *lol* I was just... WTF?!

He was a time traveler, in the sense that we're all time travelers -- moving in time, one day every twenty-four hours.

I'm blanking on the wizard's name, but he never ever bothered me, because I took him as (or, rather, very much like) T.H. White's Merlyn -- a near-immortal born backwards in time.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Since I've already dealt with Debtors' Planet in its own thread, the other books where I experienced a bit of a derailment were:

-The Death of Princes: One of my favorite books, and the first Trek Lit I ever read. I'm getting through the story, towards the end, and the fiancè of Prince J'Kara of Buran is giving this passionate speech about how important it is that he stay...and then she says something on the level of "Your destiny is to rule Iomides!"

Iomides, just in case you didn't know, is the other planet involved in the story. A pre-warp civilization where people have Bajoran-like noses (based on my interpretation of what I read) and extra-ribs. At first it didn't really register. Then I went "Huh?" and reread it, and got thrown off by the catch and the moment was ruined.

-Before Dishonor: The whole book is just one big derailment.

-War Drums: The part where the "prophetess" (or the "goddess" or whatever the feral Klingon children called her) had sex with the leader. The whole part made me go "Squick".

-Rogue Saucer: The whole book was okay, but the part where Nechayev's aide starts shrieking made me stop and think "Really? What the f**k". (Also, I thought the whole book was just a way to say "Hey, here's a reason Generations can work!"

-A Fury Scorned: When they mentioned the fat guy in the hover wheelchair who is not only a Starfleet admiral but a native of the planet that needs to be saved, I almost threw it in then.

 

[JWolf]

The most recent WTF if in Seize the Fire when it was said that Hawk was killed by the Gorn when he was really killed by the Borg. Just one small line that made me stop and go WTF. I have since fixed the eBook so that's no longer an error. But it was when I read it the first time. So if I ever reread, I won't be going WTF.

 

[Csalem]

^Yeah I had the same reaction to that little typo/mistake in STF.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Anything written by Myrshak/Culbreath.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

The majority of the reporter plot in Beneath a Raptor's Wing

 

[Sky]

He was a time traveler, in the sense that we're all time travelers -- moving in time, one day every twenty-four hours.

I'm blanking on the wizard's name, but he never ever bothered me, because I took him as (or, rather, very much like) T.H. White's Merlyn -- a near-immortal born backwards in time.

Parneb. Here's the Memory Beta article (spoilers for the book, obviously)

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Mahmoud_Gamal_al-Parneb_Nezaj

And yeah, now that I think of it, it was a bit of an odd part of the book. But it's OK, it's still my favorite Star Trek book of all, and I reread it often.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Between the outrageous alien weirdos in old novels like Death's Angel, Babylon 5's nutty Technomages and Stargate SG-1 (where Merlin was an advanced human from the lost city of Atlantis, which was a city-sized intergalactic spaceship over 10,000 years old), Parneb didn't faze me at all.

Maybe I'm just too accepting.

 

[Sky]

It's not like canon Trek doesn't have time travelers, very old beings or characters of old Earth mythology popping up here and there..

 

[JD]

Yeah, I guess if you think about it more, he really does fit in pretty well with alot of the other stuff the Big E ran into during TOS.