I have to admit, I always had a soft spot for Lt. Piper. Why? Because my very first original Star Trek novel was Battlestations! Once I discovered it was a sequel to Dreadnought I of course picked that up and read that later (unfortunately out of order, but not a huge deal).
I have to admit, I didn't have a keen understanding of the Mary Sue issue before some people brought it up on my comments about the 70's novel Vulcan! From what I understand that is a good example of a Mary Sue type of book. I actually liked the underlying story itself, it was an interesting premise, but the problem was the guest character ended up being correct and it meant Spock had to be wrong. Now that in and of itself wasn't necessarily a problem. I mean, Spock isn't infallible, occasionally he might err. The problem I think was he was so stubbornly attached to his opinion that he wouldn't even consider her viewpoint. So when she was right he kind of looked like an idiot. It was out of character for Spock to react the way he did (even if she was bigoted toward Vulcans). We know Spock was always willing to entertain alternatives. He might not agree with her, but he'd consider her viewpoint at least and weigh it. There were other examples of that in Vulcan!, some of the other characters, like McCoy, were subverted in the story.
Now it's been years since I read Dreadnought and Battlestations but I don't recall the same impressions from those books. They did focus on a 'guest' character, and it was interesting to read a novel in first person narrative, but Piper isn't made to look good by making the regulars look bad. And I think that's the key difference between Mary Sueish and not being Mary Sueish. Piper is part of a team, turns out a valuable and integral part of the 2 stories she's in, but Kirk, Spock and co. aren't brought down to make Piper look good.
I have to admit, I didn't have a keen understanding of the Mary Sue issue before some people brought it up on my comments about the 70's novel Vulcan! From what I understand that is a good example of a Mary Sue type of book. I actually liked the underlying story itself, it was an interesting premise, but the problem was the guest character ended up being correct and it meant Spock had to be wrong. Now that in and of itself wasn't necessarily a problem. I mean, Spock isn't infallible, occasionally he might err. The problem I think was he was so stubbornly attached to his opinion that he wouldn't even consider her viewpoint. So when she was right he kind of looked like an idiot. It was out of character for Spock to react the way he did (even if she was bigoted toward Vulcans). We know Spock was always willing to entertain alternatives. He might not agree with her, but he'd consider her viewpoint at least and weigh it. There were other examples of that in Vulcan!, some of the other characters, like McCoy, were subverted in the story.
Now it's been years since I read Dreadnought and Battlestations but I don't recall the same impressions from those books. They did focus on a 'guest' character, and it was interesting to read a novel in first person narrative, but Piper isn't made to look good by making the regulars look bad. And I think that's the key difference between Mary Sueish and not being Mary Sueish. Piper is part of a team, turns out a valuable and integral part of the 2 stories she's in, but Kirk, Spock and co. aren't brought down to make Piper look good.
GREGORY! What would your mother say 
