Reading New Frontier from the beginning

[KRAD]

I don’t know how much of New Frontier was planned from the start and how much was made up as the series went along, I dare say a good deal of both.

That would be, respectively, none of it and all of it. Contrary to popular myth, things like Babylon 5 where an entire series was plotted out meticulously or Jim Butcher's Dresden Files where he had 20 books all mostly plotted, is VERY VERY MUCH the exception to the rule. Most of us are making it up as we go, and even if there's a vague plan, it rarely survives contact with the enemy, as it were, and it changes radically by the time it's executed.

A lot of times you don't want to tie yourselves to a big-ass long-term plan because then Future You is stuck with some dopey-ass idea that Past You had and you have to execute it. Much better to keep it vague.

To give a New Frontier example, when Peter wrote House of Cards, he had no idea what actually happened on the Grissom when Calhoun served there. It was, in essence, a placeholder which would be a springboard for Future Peter to tell a story when the opportunity presented itself. Said opportunity came in the Captain's Table miniseries.

 

[Thrawn]

Hey fun fact: Babylon 5's 5-year plan as JMS started writing season 1 is REALLY REALLY different from what the show ended up being (cf this write-up) so really JMS was a lot closer to the "plan doesn't survive contact with the enemy" version than people usually think...

Which really just makes your point stronger.

 

[Markonian]

Xyon is an interesting character, especially with context from later on. A rogue Han Solo type fits pretty well into NF.

I only now realize that Xyon's name is a pun/hint. Xyon - scion - son.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I only now realize that Xyon's name is a pun/hint. Xyon - scion - son.

I thought it was pronounced Zion.

 

[Faldor]

To give a New Frontier example, when Peter wrote House of Cards, he had no idea what actually happened on the Grissom when Calhoun served there. It was, in essence, a placeholder which would be a springboard for Future Peter to tell a story when the opportunity presented itself. Said opportunity came in the Captain's Table miniseries.

Thanks KRAD! that makes Once Burned even more impressive.

9 – Dark Allies

I liked this book a lot, perhaps New Frontier alternates between good even-numbered entries and weaker odd-numbered ones? Is that a thing Star Trek can do? Also, I’m going to suggest something that NF does not often get accused of here, This book felt a bit small.

The Redeemers are a nasty piece of work, Trek often presents villains who are likeable in their own way, often to make the point that they are just misunderstood. You have the likes of Weyoun and Gul Dukat who are certainly not nice people, yet you kind of enjoy being in their company at the same time. But these guys are, irredeemable.

The Redeemers are threatened by something called The Black Mass, it could be a natural phenomenon, it could be a lifeform. All great Star Trek fodder. So they turn to their greatest enemy, Captain Calhoun to sort it out, but not before taking a planet hostage to make sure he does.

It all feels like it could be the season finale but the scale seems off. There feels like there should be enough here to stretch it out over another book instead it feels somewhat rushed.

It was reading the reference to Riker in Chapter 4 that I realised Goodreads had failed me and this (and The Quiet Place) were set after Double Or Nothing. and Double Time.

It’s interesting to see Calhoun’s relationship with Xyon and I’m curious what will happen next after how the book leaves things, Both presumably are left assuming the other is dead.

I read this book at work and would happily have skipped the Double Helix entry and gone straight to The Excalibur trilogy to find out how that cliffhanger resolves!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I felt the same way about the Double Helix crossovers. It didn't help that they were branded as TNG, and I had no interest in TNG novels.

FWIW, John Ordover said later that branding all of Double Helix as "TNG" was a mistake. Thinking back twenty-five years... oh, jeez, it's been that long?!?... I thought it wasn't a bad decision with solid reasoning behind it -- the TNG novels sold best at the time, none of the novels with characters from other series were representative of what those series were -- but the gains on the one side might not have fully captured the losses on the other.

 

[David cgc]

FWIW, John Ordover said later that branding all of Double Helix as "TNG" was a mistake. Thinking back twenty-five years... oh, jeez, it's been that long?!?... I thought it wasn't a bad decision with solid reasoning behind it -- the TNG novels sold best at the time, none of the novels with characters from other series were representative of what those series were -- but the gains on the one side might not have fully captured the losses on the other.

New Frontier is the only one that really suffered for it, since none of the other series were serialized at the time (I assume, I never went back and read the other five books). As it turned out, you could've skipped the other unnumbered seventh New Frontier novel, Once Burned, with a lot less confusion over the long-term story, even though that was the one labeled "New Frontier."

Well, maybe it would've been just as confusing that Calhoun suddenly had an extra back-up first officer who was also his ex.

 

[Csalem]

Should do a TrekLit bookclub where everyone rereads Double Helix series from beginning to end as it mainly only appears in New Frontier threads or "Worse Book" threads. Be interesting to cover the series on its own.

 

[Thrawn]

Not that interesting.

Really, almost any miniseries or ongoing series would be a better choice. I think the only one worse than Double Helix is New Earth? Maybe Day of Honor.

 

[Stevil2001]

Hm, "rank the John Ordover event miniseries" would be a fun thread concept. (Which is worse, New Earth or Double Helix? I keep going back and forth here.)

 

[Faldor]

Double Or Nothing

I’ve not read the rest of the Double Helix novels and didn’t feel like I’d missed anything for it. I remember reading a review in Star Trek Monthly describing this novel as being like a Bond movie with Calhoun as Bond and Nechayev as M. For some reason I had misremembered that as being a review of Once Burned and spent much of that novel wondering when that would happen.

There is a gag fairly early on during the battle with Sela where upon seeing Riker, she orders her crew to Fire at Will. I can’t believe no one has made that joke earlier, it tickled me.

Riker getting to Captain the Excalibur was fun and it’s always great to see Calhoun and Picard spend time together. I was worried that this would take us away from the ongoing NF plot but we saw some interesting character growth and events that tie in with later books.

 

[Steve Roby]

Hm, "rank the John Ordover event miniseries" would be a fun thread concept. (Which is worse, New Earth or Double Helix? I keep going back and forth here.)

I got so damn tired of those gimmicky crossovers. I'll be predictable here for those who remember the old days. Double Helix was bad... but it only had one Diane Carey novel, so for my money it was less bad than New Earth,

 

[Stevil2001]

I got so damn tired of those gimmicky crossovers. I'll be predictable here for those who remember the old days. Double Helix was bad... but it only had one Diane Carey novel, so for my money it was less bad than New Earth,

Okay, but in New Earth the Diane Carey novels were the good ones!

 

[Thrawn]

Okay, but in New Earth the Diane Carey novels were the good ones!

This is true. Distressing, but true.

 

[Steve Roby]

I can almost go along with that, because the middle books were repetitive and not the best work by any of their authors, whereas Carey was actually excited about doing a he-man libertarian anti-Federation fantasy and put some work into her books.

 

[Faldor]

9 - Requiem

Firstly, what a badass cover. It has shades of The Wrath Of Kahn and once again gives NF a sense of scale. This is the first of a trilogy called Excalibur that deals with the surprise cliffhanger at the end of Dark Allies without spelling out exactly what happened.

I don’t think anyone actually believed Mac had been killed, and his presence is very much missed here.

The memorial scene early on showing the characters going their separate ways is interesting as is Shelby’s awkwardness at the crew's reaction when they realise that she does not want them to join her on her new ship The Exeter.

We get some great stuff with Soleta and Kebron and McHenry being sent on the kind of undercover mission that Mac used to get.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I don’t think anyone actually believed Mac had been killed, and his presence is very much missed here.

I did.

 

[Faldor]

10 - Renaissance

The Excalibur trilogy, where the X is crossed out to indicate that there is no longer an Excalibur continues to underwhelm. Both the main narratives feel like the B-Story you’d find on Trek towards the end of the season when they just needed to fill time. Both this and the previous book could have been trimmed down into a single volume and been much stronger for it.

There were bits I liked, Burgoyne finding the only bar on Vulcan was fun, and I’m all for the books moving beyond just having a Starfleet crew manning their stations. I’ll say this about The Excalibur Trilogy, they took a risk and whilst it didn’t win me over this time, I’m all for series having that ambition and taking a chance over repeating what has worked up until now. (Because let's be honest, that’s how you get Star Trek: Voyager)

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Peter David yelled at me over Renaissance. I read the book by reading the two threads separately, which would be easier to do now with an ereader. Characters switched off, I'd jump to the next chapter with the character I'd be following. Then, repeat when I reached the end of the book with the other plot thread. He said that was the wrong way to read the book, and he wasn't wrong to say that, yet I'd rather have had separate novella-length works about each character coping than the way he actually structured the Excalibur trilogy.

 

[David cgc]

That brings to mind two things. Thanks to the bimonthly schedule, the vagaries of bookstore shelving (or someone else buying the earlier book first) and lack of clear numerical markings (IIRC, I don't have a hardcopy to check), I read Renaissance before Requiem, which was a little weird, but not entirely befuddling (no, the befuddlement came when I got to the cliffhanger ending; back when the Excalibur computer was infected by a whatnow while they were tracking down who? I mean, I'd been confused when Calhoun mentioned Shelby had been weird since Riker visited the ship, but this felt like something that couldn't possibly have happened off-screen, because it hadn't).

And in a fashion that would probably also annoy Peter David, while I did read these books straight through, I had a habit of skipping the prologues relating to the planet-of-the-week in NF and then doubling back later once I had context for why I should care about these people. I seem to remember feeling like one or two of the books actually worked better that way, there was a little more mystery and ambiguity about what was going on and I was more in the main characters' shoes figuring out what had happened and who could be trusted.