So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[Relayer1]

...I went on to start and finish the Voyager novel Unworthy by Kristen Beyer and I thought it was excellent. Multiple threads of mystery and suspense, some starship fire-fight action, good dialogue and interesting character drama. Everything I want in a Trek novel. I've read very few of the Voyager novels, and this is the first one I've read set after the TV series, so getting some new (to me) plot points was refreshing. I'll probably put a higher priority on Voyager novels after reading Unworthy.

Too bad! It was the second book of the 'new' relaunch. Full Circle came directly before it. You really should check it out as soon as possible. It's one of the best trek books ever

Yeah, Full Circle really is fantastic. Unworthy is very very good too, but for me it's been diminishing returns with each subsequent Voyager novel.

KMFBeyer is a great writer, but there's just too much seeking out strange new worlds for me, I'm more into the political stuff. YMMV...

 

[JD]

I got the Star Wars book "Choices of One" by Tim Zahn for kindle -- when it's showing 75% through the book ends. The remaining 25% was a timeline and excerpts of other novels. Star Wars novels are notorious for that.

It really weirds me out when people complain about this. I read an amazon review of one of these that was like "I paid for 100% of a book, not 75% of a book plus a bunch of other stuff." No, you actually got the whole book, same as everyone else, they just added a bunch of extra stuff at the end because size is free when you're publishing an ebook.

I didn't say I got cheated somehow. I was just disappointed since I thought there'd be 25% more book left and I was enjoying it.

It is very annoying when you're reading the book, though, and you think "cool, there's at least 2 chapters left because there's 50 pages to go, I wonder what the next twist will be" and then reach the end of the book 2 pages later.

Exactly so.

Besides, countless print books have had extra material after the end of the story, whether afterwords or appendices or previews of future books or advertisements or whatever.

Yes, in the whole of human history regarding the written word I'm sure you're right. The problem is we're talking about ST/SW books and this isn't the norm - or at least it wasn't for SW pre-ebooks. I can assure you no print Star Wars prose book had 25% of its content be material of this type.

I don't know if they were 25% of the book, but quite a few of the paperbacks did include short stories and novella's that were originally e-books in the back.
As for TrekLit, back in the '90s they did Starfleet Year One as a serial novel, with a new chapter in the end of each month's books. At the time the only TrekLit I was reading was New Frontier, so I only have a couple of the chapters, and I never read them.
It's pretty common for this kind of thing to happen, I read the first Iron Druid novel (in e-book form) a few months back and it had two complete short stories in the back. A lot of books in series I'm reading have done that with either novella's or short stories. I like it when they do, it's a nice little bit of extra content for no extra price. If it's a story that I plan on reading, and would have to buy separately, it even saves me money.

 

[Corran Horn]

Sure, SW novels usually did a few pages at the end and there was usually a timeline of the novels in the front. It was never so voluminous, though, but that's pretty plainly because of the e-book format.

And to be back on topic: "Spell or High Water" by Scott Meyer.

 

[Reanok]

I'm reading Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.The space journey getting to Mars has been an interesting read. especially reading the astronauts trying to use aerobraking to get their spaceship into Mars orbit and the dangers of spacetravel.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Finished Brinkmanship. Quite good. Great moments for Crusher and Dax. Picard did feel the slightest bit off outside of speechifying. I'd also very gladly plunk down cash for a Ilka novel. I must admit, I was confused about the placement of the novel. I feel like being set after the DS9 events doesn't make sense with the relatively tame political maneuvering. (Indeed it would actually make sense to come right before it!) But that's a minor quibble.

Started in on Prof. Bernice Summerfield and the Gods of the Underwold the second full-length novel from Big Finish that ties into the second season of their Benny audios. Outside of an overabundance of Star Wars jokes - A chapter titled "Scum and Villainy," an extended play on the Mos Eisley sequence - it's not bad, a marked improvement on the first novel, so far.

A question of procedure:
Should I finish out the Vanguard novels before getting to The Fall? I definitely want to finish them out soon enough to get caught up on the The Seekers novels, but I thought I saw a few mentions of some dependence on Vanguard plot points in the Fall mentioned around here before.

 

[Cap'n Crunch]

Last night I finished Star Trek: Serpents in the Garden by Jeff Mariotte.

I'm now reading Stargate Atlantis: Homecoming, book one of the Legacy series, by Jo Graham & Melissa Scott.

 

[Thrawn]

Finished Brinkmanship. Quite good. Great moments for Crusher and Dax. Picard did feel the slightest bit off outside of speechifying. I'd also very gladly plunk down cash for a Ilka novel. I must admit, I was confused about the placement of the novel. I feel like being set after the DS9 events doesn't make sense with the relatively tame political maneuvering. (Indeed it would actually make sense to come right before it!) But that's a minor quibble.

Started in on Prof. Bernice Summerfield and the Gods of the Underwold the second full-length novel from Big Finish that ties into the second season of their Benny audios. Outside of an overabundance of Star Wars jokes - A chapter titled "Scum and Villainy," an extended play on the Mos Eisley sequence - it's not bad, a marked improvement on the first novel, so far.

A question of procedure:
Should I finish out the Vanguard novels before getting to The Fall? I definitely want to finish them out soon enough to get caught up on the The Seekers novels, but I thought I saw a few mentions of some dependence on Vanguard plot points in the Fall mentioned around here before.

I think if you've read the first three books of Vanguard, you already know everything that's mentioned.

 

[kirk55555]

I finished Indistinguishable From Magic yesterday. It was pretty good, although the death of a main character felt cheap and more of a shock value thing. Hopefully it gets retconned, like Geordi's promotion and his relationship with Brahms Actually, I liked his promotion and thought the relationship was decent (even though I thought going in that they only knew each other from the TNG episode where she shows up and learns about his holo program of her). Overall, I liked the book a good deal, and without the death it wouldn't have had any major annoyances.

 

[Starscape]

Finished Jim Butcher's Skin Game. And so begins the long wait for the next Dresden Files novel.

I've just started The Omega Factor by Jack Gerson.

 

[Paris]

I finished Indistinguishable From Magic yesterday. It was pretty good, although the death of a main character felt cheap and more of a shock value thing. Hopefully it gets retconned, like Geordi's promotion and his relationship with Brahms Actually, I liked his promotion and thought the relationship was decent (even though I thought going in that they only knew each other from the TNG episode where she shows up and learns about his holo program of her). Overall, I liked the book a good deal, and without the death it wouldn't have had any major annoyances.

For more about

Spoiler: Spoiler for TLF

The whole Geordi/Brahms thing

, see the newly released The Light Fantastic by Jeffrey Lang

Speaking of which, I'm knee deep into , Jeffrey Lang's Data centric TNG:The Light Fantastic. It came to my local chapters earlier than amazon could get it to my door. I had to put aside another novel by the same author, Section 31: Abyss.

I'm loving TLF. It's really nice to get back into the life of the Soong family, and so far, it's been a great follow up to not only David Mack's Cold Equations trilogy, but also Indistinguishable from Magic. Jeff Lang has dealt with a favourite little continuity issue on these boards. It was cool of him to touch on it. Totally felt like it was a nod to the fans, but who knows

 

[WarsTrek1993]

I'm currently reading DS9: Lesser Evil. So far, I really like it due to the extra development of Elias Vaughn. I'd have to say it might be my second favorite of the Mission Gamma novels right behind the amazing Twilight (This Gray Spirit was very sub-par, and Cathedral had a slow first half and an enjoyable second half).

 

[Kertrats47]

Unfortunately, I recently took a bit of an unplanned hiatus from writing reviews, but I just published my review of Jeff Mariotte's Serpents in the Garden. Going to be playing catch-up on my reviews of new releases!

Right now I'm reading Insurgent by Veronica Roth, The Klingon Art of War by Keith R.A. DeCandido, and The Light Fantastic by Jeffrey Lang.

 

[Endgame]

Bit slower reading: read a couple of Martin Luther's works and then something about repentance & teshuvah translated from Maimonides. As for Trek: finished "Trial by Error" by Mark Garland (DS9 #21) and read the beginning of "Final Frontier" by Diane Carey (not to be confused with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier by J. M. Dillard). Carey's book is a bit of a found hidden treasure so far. Shall have to read the many unread current books that I have though.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

In the last couple of days I've read "An Excellent Mystery" by Ellis Peters, and "The Seige" by Peter David.
The Seige was one of the very early DS9 novels, so some mis-characterisation can be forgiven, but this novel was awful. Oddly, I remember reading it back when it was first published, and enjoying it at the time.

 

[Use of Time]

Shatnerverse novel Preserver.

 

[JD5000]

I took the advice given to me below and started the Voyager novel Full Circle a couple days ago. I'm not reading as fast as I have been for the last couple months, job #2 has started and I need more nap time. I kinda screwed myself by reading Unworthy first, but I do pretty much everything in my life out of order, so I'm sure I'll adapt just fine. I usually just read what ever Amazon tells me to. I assume there are some Voyager relaunch novels after Unworthy, so I'll do my research and try to read them in order. Kristen Beyer is becoming one of my favorite Trek novelists.

I also pre-ordered the first two "Seekers" novels coming out later this summer, they look pretty promising to me. Also checked out a sample of KRAD's Klingon Art of War book, which seems like something I will enjoy reading more this winter, but looks interesting.

 

[Paris]

.. I assume there are some Voyager relaunch novels after Unworthy, so I'll do my research and try to read them in order. Kristen Beyer is becoming one of my favorite Trek novelists.

1-Full Circle
2-Unworthy
3-Children of the Storm
4-The Eternal Tide
5-Protectors
...coming in September 2014
6-Acts of Contrition
...and coming in 2015
7-Atonement

 

[JD5000]

Gracias, amigo!

 

[ryan123450]

Just read Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi- The Prisoner of Bogan. Pretty interesting but I peobably could have done without this whole series.

 

[Paris]

Gracias, amigo!

No problem my friend. Welcome to the loving embrace of the Church of Kirsten !