So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[John Clark]

Started on Ghost Rider One by Gerry Carroll at lunch.
(It's a naval aviation book rather than the character one). I've read it before but it's been a while.

 

[Reanok]

Star trek Ds9 Force and Motion by Jeffrey Lang

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'm sure there are at least some aliens out there that have developed along an upright bipedal body plan. I very much doubt that they could wear human clothes off the rack or that their heads would be shaped like human heads with rubber bits attached.

But alas, it would be kind of hard to find actors who could fit into, for example, a Motie* suit. Much less, say, a Thranx** suit.
_____
* I read The Mote in God's Eye, decades ago. I didn't care much for Pournelle's milieu, although I suppose I don't actively dislike it nearly as much as I do Frank Herbert's milieu.
**On the other hand, I love Foster's Humanx Commonwealth mileu.

 

[Christopher]

But alas, it would be kind of hard to find actors who could fit into, for example, a Motie* suit. Much less, say, a Thranx** suit.

Not questioning that. Just saying that if you can suspend disbelief about that, a statite should be far easier to accept.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I quite agree, actually. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Many years ago, I read Tolkien's essay, On Fairy-Stories. Tolkien had a problem with the phrase, "willing suspension of disbelief," preferring "literary belief," and I find his argument most persuasive.

That state of mind has been called "willing suspension of disbelief." But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful "sub-creator." He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is "true": it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying ... to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed.

 

[Smiley]

I finished Desperate Hours. There's a lot to like there, especially for fans of Burnham and Spock. I also really liked the mini-adventure with Saru and Una. The stuff with the colonists did not amount to much for me, and I would be just as happy to have the Juggernaut and Starfleet's orders be the main problems of the story. I'd recommend it to any Star Trek fan for at least one read. My rating is a strong 7/10, Above Average.

Did anybody else get reminded even a little bit of the Qella Lando/Lobot story from the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy in Star Wars Legends? Unfortunately for the Trek characters, the Juggernaut was a little more antagonistic in purpose than the Qella egg.

 

[JD]

But alas, it would be kind of hard to find actors who could fit into, for example, a Motie* suit. Much less, say, a Thranx** suit.

That's what we have mo-cap for.

I finished up ST Titan: Fortune of War last night, I really enjoyed it. I'll post more detailed thought in it's review thread.
Once that was done I tried to read the digital edition of the comic collection STVOY: Encounters with the Unknown, but once I saw that it was missing a page, I decided to just wait and read the scanned version off the comics DVD, and read the ST: Waypoint Special 2018, instead. I got the comics from Hoopla.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

That's what we have mo-cap for.

Uh, but the only "mo-cap" we had in 1966 was rotoscoped cel animation.

 

[JD]

You didn't specify that you were talking about the '60s.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

TOS debuted in 1966.

Of course, ADF didn't write The Tar-Aiym Krang until years later, and Pournelle & Niven didn't write The Mote in God's Eye until later still, but my point was that depicting non-hominid sentients on a TV series budget was not exactly practical when ST began. And non-hominid sentients were hardly new; consider Arthur C. Clarke's short story, "Second Dawn."

 

[Christopher]

my point was that depicting non-hominid sentients on a TV series budget was not exactly practical when ST began.

On the contrary, The Outer Limits did it frequently starting three years earlier, with techniques ranging from monster suits to puppetry to stop-motion animation. For that matter, TOS featured non-humanoid alien "monsters" far more frequently than the later, higher-budget Trek series did, because that was part and parcel of screen sci-fi in the '60s.

And I ask again, since when was anyone talking about what was practical on a TV budget? I was talking about the real-world credibility of the concept. I was questioning the assertion that statites, a perfectly reasonable idea achievable in theory with known technology, are somehow harder to buy in a Trek novel than all the fanciful contrivances it routinely uses for the sake of storytelling (humanoid aliens being simply one of many).

 

[JD]

TOS debuted in 1966.

Of course, ADF didn't write The Tar-Aiym Krang until years later, and Pournelle & Niven didn't write The Mote in God's Eye until later still, but my point was that depicting non-hominid sentients on a TV series budget was not exactly practical when ST began. And non-hominid sentients were hardly new; consider Arthur C. Clarke's short story, "Second Dawn."

But you never specified that you were talking when TOS began, all you said was that those aliens couldn't be played by people in costumes.

 

[theblitz]

Done with "To Reign in Hell".
Loved it.
Still plenty of room for more story lines.

Decided it was time for some lighter reading (both physically and metaphorically):
The Star Ghost

 

[theblitz]

Less so than warp drive, universal translators, and humanoid aliens.

Yes and no.
Remember that they are based in the 20th century.

 

[Smiley]

I am halfway through Child of Two Worlds by Greg Cox. So far, the situation reminds me a lot of "Suddenly Human" from TNG. In both cases, there really is no fully satisfying solution. More information may come to light to make the final outcome more palatable, though.

 

[Christopher]

Yes and no.
Remember that they are based in the 20th century.

So what? Robert L. Forward patented statites in 1993. And we're talking about a version of the 20th century where they have genetic engineering in the 1960s and an interstellar sleeper ship by 1996, so I ask again, how is a solar-sail satellite the one thing you find implausible here?

 

[JD]

I finished up ST: SCE: Cold Fusion in the second paperback collection Miracle Workers last night, which I really enjoyed. Reading this really made miss having @KRAD as one of our regular Trek authors. I know the Corsi/Stephens relationship is an ongoing thing for a while, so I enjoyed seeing how it all got started. I'm a big fan of Nog, so I really enjoyed his role in the story. The introduction of the Androssi was good to, they were pretty interesting antagonists, and their interest in technology makes them a good match for the SCE.
I had originally planned on going straight to the next story, Invincible, which is technically two novellas, but put together to make one story in the paperback, but I decided to take a break and started the first story arc of the DC's New 52 Aquaman series, written by Geoff Johns and art by Ivan Reis. I have the individual digital issues and I got through #1 and started #2 so far.

 

[Nyotarules]

Just bought Picard Last great hope cos it was cheap

 

[KRAD]

I finished up ST: SCE: Cold Fusion in the second paperback collection Miracle Workers last night, which I really enjoyed. Reading this really made miss having @KRAD as one of our regular Trek authors.

Thanks, JD! I miss being a regular Trek author, too.....

 

[USS Firefly]

Reading this really made miss having @KRAD as one of our regular Trek authors.

Next to canceling the current Trek novels that was the dumbest decision they could make