So What Are you Reading?: Generations
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I'm about halfway through TNG: Survivors by Jean Lorrah. This has been a great early TNG novel focusing on Yar and Data. Next up will be TNG: The Children of Hamlin by Carmen Carter. I'm using this list created for this reading challenge site: http://killie-booktalk.blogspot.com/p/star-trek-reading-challenge.html. I've always wanted to read all the 24th century stuff in chronological order. I used TNG: Encounter at Farpoint by David Gerrold as a starting point. I'm now 4 books in. I skipped over TNG: Double Helix: Infection. I just plan to read that all together once I get to the fifth book, the New Frontier entry Double Helix: Double or Nothing, and read it all together then.
I'm currently about midway through Brightstar by Harold Coyle.
Finished Mindshadow which was flawed in ways that didn't really bother me, because overall it was just a fun read. Spock's injury is made scary by the potential long term consequences, and by the paranoia that is cultivated around the specialist brought in to treat him, and by the treatment prescribed to him.
The character of Emma Saenz is effectively creepy, giving the story a sense of starship life being complicated by domestic living issues. It made me think of the subgenre of Domestic Noir, except that would be retroactively applying a genre framework that didn't exist when the book was written. So even though I tried to be conscious of the book's place in the time it was written (particularly where Star Trek was at in the mainstream), modern concepts still encroached a little.
For some reason, I still kind of liked Emma, but I'm not sure why. IRL This kind of person is emotionally draining with all the double talk, ambiguity, and making you think you're the crazy one; but it's fun and safer to read in a work of fiction, much less stressful (better Kirk, Spock, and McCoy deal with that than me).
The book explores suicide in a way that I found very disturbing, I really felt uncomfortable when that came up with regards to one of the characters.
I liked Spock's journey to recovery, especially the return to Vulcan. There was something spiritual about that, making me think of The Search For Spock mystical depiction of a return to Vulcan, but it's more subtle in the book. There's a moment where he contemplates medication, and his difficulty with meditating to put his mind back on the right track, and then the story cuts away; it made me think of the fade-away visual of the Katra ritual in TSFS. Something happens overnight, and Spock is in a different place.
The sequences on Vulcan made me want to revisit the animated episode where Spock visits himself in the past while he was a child growing up. I was curious to see the depiction of the family home of Sarek, Amanda, and Spock. Ultimately, I decided to stick with what my mind's eye created out of Dillard's description, maybe I'll revisit that episode later.
Ingrit Tomson was a fun character, I liked her interaction with Kirk; mostly because she made me laugh. Kirk contemplates the prospect that she will throw him in the brig. Scotty says to Kirk effectively, "Shame, shame," as Tomson hauls Scotty away, and Kirk feels shame because he sicced Tomson on him. The build up and payoff to that whole situation was priceless.
I was a little dismayed at the way the book rushes through to the end though; there's some details that are a bit vague and makes it a little choppy. In the end, a fun book overall. I would say it's a guilty pleasure, but I have no regrets.
The character of Emma Saenz is effectively creepy, giving the story a sense of starship life being complicated by domestic living issues. It made me think of the subgenre of Domestic Noir, except that would be retroactively applying a genre framework that didn't exist when the book was written. So even though I tried to be conscious of the book's place in the time it was written (particularly where Star Trek was at in the mainstream), modern concepts still encroached a little.
For some reason, I still kind of liked Emma, but I'm not sure why. IRL This kind of person is emotionally draining with all the double talk, ambiguity, and making you think you're the crazy one; but it's fun and safer to read in a work of fiction, much less stressful (better Kirk, Spock, and McCoy deal with that than me).
The book explores suicide in a way that I found very disturbing, I really felt uncomfortable when that came up with regards to one of the characters.
I liked Spock's journey to recovery, especially the return to Vulcan. There was something spiritual about that, making me think of The Search For Spock mystical depiction of a return to Vulcan, but it's more subtle in the book. There's a moment where he contemplates medication, and his difficulty with meditating to put his mind back on the right track, and then the story cuts away; it made me think of the fade-away visual of the Katra ritual in TSFS. Something happens overnight, and Spock is in a different place.
The sequences on Vulcan made me want to revisit the animated episode where Spock visits himself in the past while he was a child growing up. I was curious to see the depiction of the family home of Sarek, Amanda, and Spock. Ultimately, I decided to stick with what my mind's eye created out of Dillard's description, maybe I'll revisit that episode later.
Ingrit Tomson was a fun character, I liked her interaction with Kirk; mostly because she made me laugh. Kirk contemplates the prospect that she will throw him in the brig. Scotty says to Kirk effectively, "Shame, shame," as Tomson hauls Scotty away, and Kirk feels shame because he sicced Tomson on him. The build up and payoff to that whole situation was priceless.
I was a little dismayed at the way the book rushes through to the end though; there's some details that are a bit vague and makes it a little choppy. In the end, a fun book overall. I would say it's a guilty pleasure, but I have no regrets.
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I seem to recall considering Mindshadow the weakest of Dillard's TOS novels, so it's a good thing it was her first. I also remember finding it distracting that there was a character named "Emma Saenz," because an actress named Emma Samms was rather prominent on TV at the time.
That bodes well for the future. I liked her novelizations back in the day, but I have difficulty reading novelizations now. If it's her weakest, then the follow-ups from this one will hopefully work well for me; although I have had it happen plenty of times where I have not enjoyed a work of fiction that I was still able to recognize as more effectively put together. I'm feel optimistic though.
I occasionally got the impression of the name Saenz as sounding like "saints" phoenetically.
On the other hand, it could be that our tastes are different and the parts I didn't like here are the parts you did like. So you may like her other books less. Hard to know.
Hmm. Did she ever go marching in?
Whatever her surname, she was no saint. Too creepy; the fun of her character is reading about what she does and going "eww!"
After seeing the trailer, I decided to pick up Ready Player One.
Just finished Legacies: Captain to Captain. Great read. Now on to book two: Best Defense.
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
Finished Bright Star. Now it's Tennison by Linda LaPlante
Ah, reached a suitable chapter end in Pandora's Star where I can hear cliffhanger music, and go read something else for a break... I'll come back to Chapter 12 later..
Of course now I have to decide what to read in between, before taking Pandora's Star to Raglan...
Of course now I have to decide what to read in between, before taking Pandora's Star to Raglan...
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Star Trek Destiny: Mere mortals
I've never heard of Meddling Kids before, so I just looked it up on Goodreads, and that does sound pretty good.
I finished up Journey to Star Wars The Force Awakens: Shattered Empire and I posted my thoughts over in the Star Wars Books thread in the Star Wars forum.
Next up I'm going to check out the FCDB #0 issue of STTNG: Mirror Broken.
I finished up Journey to Star Wars The Force Awakens: Shattered Empire and I posted my thoughts over in the Star Wars Books thread in the Star Wars forum.
Next up I'm going to check out the FCDB #0 issue of STTNG: Mirror Broken.
The Alaska Brides Collection, from Barbour Publishing.
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