So What Are you Reading?: Generations
- Thread starter captcalhoun
- Start date
Why are you running John Scalzi's errands for him? Can't he go to the drycleaner's himself?
I just finished George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood, and have picked up John Scalzi's Red shirts
I haven't read Fire & Blood yet, but I did enjoy Redshirts.
I'm giving the Alita prequel Novel, Iron City, By Pat Cadigan a go at the moment.
M
marlboro
Guest
Voyager #3: Ragnarok
Not a particularly good book. As a matter of fact, I started skimming about halfway through. However, there is one amazing aspect of it: the author spotted the chief complaint that fans would have about Janeway from the jump.
Having only seen the pilot episode, and read the series Bible, the author was able to anticipate 7 seasons worth of "Bad Janeway" stories. Nostradamus has nothing on this guy. It would be like if TNG's Ghost Ship had been about Troi being useless for 250 pages except for one brief moment where she disguised herself as a Romulan and kicked ass.
Spoilers:
Neelix warns Janeway about going into a dangerous area of space. Janeway ignores him. The entire first half of the book is Janeway blithely leading Voyager deeper and deeper into a cataclysmic warzone while Neelix begs her to reconsider. They eventually meet some hardheaded aliens hellbent on mutually assured destruction who have been at war for thousands of years. It's the war to end all wars...
... and, somehow, Janeway manages to make Armageddon worse.
In the end, her bumbling, insane, unasked for do-gooding leads to a happy ending: her actions lead to the deaths of hundreds of people on both sides which results in the two ancient enemies being so outraged that they put aside their differences to destroy Voyager and the Federation!
Janeway is cool with that result though because Voyager is faster than they are and the Federation is really far away, so they'll probably never find it. Hooray!s
Final judgment: not good, but amusing because it is sadly prophetic.
Not a particularly good book. As a matter of fact, I started skimming about halfway through. However, there is one amazing aspect of it: the author spotted the chief complaint that fans would have about Janeway from the jump.
Having only seen the pilot episode, and read the series Bible, the author was able to anticipate 7 seasons worth of "Bad Janeway" stories. Nostradamus has nothing on this guy. It would be like if TNG's Ghost Ship had been about Troi being useless for 250 pages except for one brief moment where she disguised herself as a Romulan and kicked ass.
Spoilers:
Neelix warns Janeway about going into a dangerous area of space. Janeway ignores him. The entire first half of the book is Janeway blithely leading Voyager deeper and deeper into a cataclysmic warzone while Neelix begs her to reconsider. They eventually meet some hardheaded aliens hellbent on mutually assured destruction who have been at war for thousands of years. It's the war to end all wars...
... and, somehow, Janeway manages to make Armageddon worse.
In the end, her bumbling, insane, unasked for do-gooding leads to a happy ending: her actions lead to the deaths of hundreds of people on both sides which results in the two ancient enemies being so outraged that they put aside their differences to destroy Voyager and the Federation!
Janeway is cool with that result though because Voyager is faster than they are and the Federation is really far away, so they'll probably never find it. Hooray!s
Final judgment: not good, but amusing because it is sadly prophetic.
M
marlboro
Guest
Voyager: Marooned
I liked it. There is one big strike against it, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who couldn't get past it. The issue is the story's villain. The dude is straight out of a Harlequin romance novel. He's a handsome, brooding, pirate with a tragic past. He kidnaps Kes after instantly falling in love with her and gets all creepy and possessive. Though, I suppose most kidnappers are pretty possessive by their very nature. Anyways, the love-sick pirate isn't any creepier than the way Neelix usually acts around Kes, so we should all be immune to it by now.
I know, I'm making the book sound terrible, but it really isn't. I'm a fan of stories set on Hellish planets (TOS's Miasma, for instance) and the world in this story fits right into this category. It's a failed prison planet turned into an overgrown wilderness filled with dangerous natives, man-eating plants, psychic fauna, and living quicksand that digests you as you sink. There is also some nice worldbuilding with one of the planet's native species.
Another aspect that I liked is that Janeway leads the landing party while Chakotay commands Voyager. Not only do we get some good Janeway scenes during the rescue mission and during first contact with the natives, we also get to see Chakotay leading a mostly Maquis crew against the pirates.
Some random bits:
- The villain isn't actually a bad character, exactly, he's just written in a style too reminiscent of a romance novel. Kes is ok in her scenes with him, but it's still kind of weird. I like how their part of the story ended.
- Neelix and his new little friend are, in turns, creepy, funny, and kinda cool.
-At one point, the pompous bad guy asks B'Elanna "if her ridges hurt" and I was really hoping she was about to headbutt the fop to death and while screaming "You tell me!" Sadly, this did not happen.
Final verdict: if you're a fan of early Voyager I think you'll like this one. And, even if you're not, the setting and story make this one worth a read, I think.
I liked it. There is one big strike against it, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who couldn't get past it. The issue is the story's villain. The dude is straight out of a Harlequin romance novel. He's a handsome, brooding, pirate with a tragic past. He kidnaps Kes after instantly falling in love with her and gets all creepy and possessive. Though, I suppose most kidnappers are pretty possessive by their very nature. Anyways, the love-sick pirate isn't any creepier than the way Neelix usually acts around Kes, so we should all be immune to it by now.
I know, I'm making the book sound terrible, but it really isn't. I'm a fan of stories set on Hellish planets (TOS's Miasma, for instance) and the world in this story fits right into this category. It's a failed prison planet turned into an overgrown wilderness filled with dangerous natives, man-eating plants, psychic fauna, and living quicksand that digests you as you sink. There is also some nice worldbuilding with one of the planet's native species.
Another aspect that I liked is that Janeway leads the landing party while Chakotay commands Voyager. Not only do we get some good Janeway scenes during the rescue mission and during first contact with the natives, we also get to see Chakotay leading a mostly Maquis crew against the pirates.
Some random bits:
- The villain isn't actually a bad character, exactly, he's just written in a style too reminiscent of a romance novel. Kes is ok in her scenes with him, but it's still kind of weird. I like how their part of the story ended.
- Neelix and his new little friend are, in turns, creepy, funny, and kinda cool.
-At one point, the pompous bad guy asks B'Elanna "if her ridges hurt" and I was really hoping she was about to headbutt the fop to death and while screaming "You tell me!" Sadly, this did not happen.
Final verdict: if you're a fan of early Voyager I think you'll like this one. And, even if you're not, the setting and story make this one worth a read, I think.
Marooned is one of my favorite Voyager novels, because Kes was my favorite character and it was refreshing to get a book focusing on her, even with the "romance novel" aspects, as you put it. It's true Golden's books have a lot of emotion to them, but they were among the few books that really stood out from the early pack of VGR novels.
M
marlboro
Guest
I think Kes is pretty underrated, too. She was handled very poorly by the shows writers, imo. You could say that about several of the show's characters, but it's especially true in her case. On paper she should be an interesting character, and she's played by an attractive actress who may have not been the best actor on the show but certainly wasn't the worst. They just seemed to have no clue what to do with her.
That's a good one. I also like her book Ghost-Walker.
I don't agree with you about Jennifer Lien's acting, but I do agree that the producers wasted her potential. A character with only a 9-year lifespan should be intense and driven, eager to devour every experience she can, and yet they just stuck her in sickbay and let her mostly stagnate there for a third of her life. That's one of Voyager's many missed opportunities that I tried to remedy in Myriad Universes: Places of Exile.
Oh, that's sad to hear. I've heard about her problems in later years, but I didn't know they were an issue that early. I never would've guessed it from her performance. She was, I think, 18 when she started on Voyager, and she was playing a character less than 2 years old, but she always managed to convey the wisdom and dignity of a far older soul, which was what impressed me so much about Kes. She also did some excellent voice acting for a while after leaving Trek, mainly in Men in Black: The Series (as Agent L, Linda Fiorentino's character from the first movie).
Her lifespan always confused me. When the Kazon said that, does that mean Earth years or Ocumpian years? For all we know, their planet has a longer year.
There was also that line about them only having one kid in their life time which makes no sense as the population would be half of the previous generation.
There was also that line about them only having one kid in their life time which makes no sense as the population would be half of the previous generation.
Yeah, Kes was an example of some wasted potential on Voyager. She had some great episodes. And I always loved her voice. She has such a soothing, relaxing voice. I was sad to see her go. I was fine with Seven coming on the show, I just wished it hadn't been at Kes' expense. I imagine Kes could have had some interesting interactions with Seven.
I came to enjoy Voyager, but it ranks last for me in Star Trek shows. The main reason was it had some missed opportunities. I think of Equinox and thought in some respects that could have been Voyager. Voyager never seemed to have any significant issues with being so far from the Federation. Oh, individual episodes here and there, and they had replicator rations early on (which mysteriously seemed to disappear later in the show). I'm not saying Voyager had to be exactly like the Equinox, almost falling apart. But there should have been a bit more in the way of difficulties. And I think there should have been more growing pains between the Maquis and Starfleet crews. Other than a few episodes here and there, the crews integrated by what, the 3rd episode. Now, I think eventually the crews would have integrated. But there should have been some growth, some shared pain, and some learning to trust and respect each other over time. Another missed opportunity.
But I always enjoyed the growth of the Doctor on the show. He had the most steady, observable changes on the show, to becoming a respected member of the crew, and even friend. Paris was another that I thought showed real growth on the show. Janeway, well, she was fine I guess, but I can't say there was a huge amount of change in her character. Ditto for Chakotay--I liked some of what he brought to the show, a certain wisdom and even serenity, but I didn't see much growth. The others were hit or miss. Torres was fine I guess, but I usually found Neelix and Kim annoying, outside a handful of episodes.
I guess this would be more appropriate on a Voyager thread, but I got carried away.
I don't think it's mysterious. Replicator rations were needed initially because power reserves were low, but there was no reason they should stay low. After all, energy is ubiquitous in space; the universe is littered with ginormous fusion reactors called "stars" spilling out free energy in every direction. And we know from the tech manuals that starships have onboard systems to create antimatter, and the Bussard collectors could capture plenty of deuterium and the occasional natural trace amounts of antimatter. Otherwise they could trade with local civilizations for fuel.
So presumably their initial power shortages were due to damaged power systems rather than a lack of available energy sources. Which means that once they succeeded in restoring those systems to full function, there would've been no more power shortages and no more need for replicator rations.
Otherwise, I agree -- the show glossed over the potential conflicts and the long-term consequences of episodes way too much. And I agree that there wasn't a lot of character development for most of the cast after a while. When I got a chance to pitch for VGR's fourth season, I tried to avoid coming up with pitches centering on Seven or the Doctor, since I figured everyone else would be doing those and I wanted to offer something different; but I had trouble coming up with pitches about anyone but Seven and the Doctor, since they were the characters with the most potential for growth and conflict. Everyone else had already resolved their main character tensions by then, so other than Seven and the Doctor, the only real character growth we got in later seasons was the Tom-B'Elanna romance.
People tend to dislike the Voyager Spirit Walk books, but at least they introduced Chakotay's sister Sekaya. One of the original books had her on the cover. On the German cover she was replaced with Harry Kim. In this case I like the original covers more than the German ones. (Geistreise)
http://www.startrekromane.de/romane/star_trek_-_voyager.html
http://www.startrekromane.de/romane/star_trek_-_voyager.html
That certainly would not make much sense.
So I would interpret this, that Ocampa only can get children once in life, but that they mostly get multiple children, at least twins, just like many animals do.
Just imagine Neelix's joy when Kes announces her pregnancy with tripletts.....
. It might have happened in a parallel universe....Three little Neelixes onboard the Voyager? (With Tuvok as their godfather...) You really scare me
Authors, please DON'T write this
Although I would really like to read more about Neelix & Kes (I just read Janeway's return story last month with at least a little bit about Kes' current life)
Authors, please DON'T write this
Although I would really like to read more about Neelix & Kes (I just read Janeway's return story last month with at least a little bit about Kes' current life)
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