So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[oddment]

I'm reading DS9 #3 Bloodletter. I'm about 3/4 through and the story is okay, nothing special, but it suffers from the same problems a lot of the novels written during a first season of Trek. Character's are a bit off. And they keep referring to Bajorans as humans.

"Horen Rygis was as human as she [Kira]"

This happens a couple times and I just shake my head every time I read it. Overall though if I found another Trek book by K.W. Jeter I would read it.

You have to remember that we started writing those early DS9 books before the series hit the air. At first, all we had to go on was an early bible and the script of the pilot. If Bloodletter was #3, it's very possible Jeter hadn't even had a chance to watch an episode yet.

Readers sometimes comment that Kira is too on hard Bashir in the book John Betancourt and I wrote (#9), but that was just us picking up on that scene in the pilot where Kirk and Bashir first meet--and she rips him a new one. Obviously, the characters' relationship ended up evolving in a different direction, but we didn't know that back in 1993.

No, don't get the wrong idea, I completely understand. That's why I said that if there are other books by K.W. Jeter I would give them a look. I couldn't imagine writing a novel based on the series bible. I've enjoyed many of the novels that were written very early in the series, you just have to go into them understanding that they had very little to go on at the time and that Major Kira is not going to be the same exact character as Season 7 Major Kira.

 

[oddment]

Or should I say Season 7 Colonel Kira haha

 

[Christopher]

You have to remember that we started writing those early DS9 books before the series hit the air. At first, all we had to go on was an early bible and the script of the pilot. If Bloodletter was #3, it's very possible Jeter hadn't even had a chance to watch an episode yet.

Well, that would explain the thing that always bugged me about Bloodletter, which is that it misinterpreted the wormhole aliens' manifestations. In "Emissary," Sisko was immersed in scenes from his own memory with the aliens speaking through people who'd actually been in those scenes in real life. I think Michael Piller's intent was that Sisko's own mind was filtering the alien sensations of the wormhole through his own memories, so that his mind interpreted the Prophets' inquisitive aspect as Jake, their hostile aspect as Locutus, their wise aspect as Opaka, and so forth. But Bloodletter portrayed the wormhole aliens as choosing the forms they took, and appearing in front of Kira in the runabout rather than communicating through a scene from her memory. Basically Jeter treated them like Organians or Q rather than the far more alien thing they actually were. And that disappointed me.

 

[Killie]

Finally read the first book in the Mere Anarchy series, "Things Fall Apart" and quite liked although it was rather short. Anyway, if people are interested I posted my review here.

 

[NightJim]

My dive backwards into Trek-lit finally hits the TNG era. First up, Double Helix: Infection.

 

[flandry84]

Pandora's star and then Judas unchained by Peter F Hamilton.
Large scale space opera done rather well IMO.

 

[Thrawn]

Pandora's star and then Judas unchained by Peter F Hamilton.
Large scale space opera done rather well IMO.

Yeah, that's really good stuff. The sequel Void trilogy is also excellent, though the ending is a bit hand-wave-y.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Just on the last few chapters of Vanguard: Precipice .

 

[Cap'n Crunch]

Over that last few days I read The Walking Dead, Volume 2: Miles Behind Us.

Up next is Star Trek: The Brave and the Bold by KRAD.

 

[Sakrysta]

FINALLY managed to slog through Consider Phlebas. Yeah, I don't think I'll be bothering with any more of his stuff. It was brutal, completely lacking in sympathetic or relate-able characters, and horribly anti-climactic. I only finished it out of stubbornness.

Revelation and Dust is next. I can't wait to read something pleasant again.

 

[Paris]

I've been on a Vanguard binge lately, stopping only to read Revelations & Dust, and having finished the second story in Vanguard #6 Declassified, i've decided to put it aside for a day or two and try and catch up on my comicbook reading that has gone by the wayside for the last 2 weeks. Hopefully I can resist the urge!

 

[Slyvon]

Just finished the Jake Sisko novel, Rising Son and jumped straight into Unity. The DS9 relaunch stuff has been really good and I'm looking forward to see if the storylines from Mission Gamma are concluded in a satisfying way.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

Finished Precipice this morning, and part way into the first story in Vanguard: Declassified. I liked the way the characters developed in Precipice, some of them went in interesting directions. Holding off on Revelations and Dust until I finish Vanguard, by which time The Crimson Shadow will probably be out, so I'll read them both back to back.

 

[Greg Cox]

Picked up DOOMWAR, a Dr. Doom graphic novel, at a book signing for Jonathan Maberry, who autographed it for me.

 

[Mysterion]

About half-way through Walter Isaacson's bio of Steve Jobs.

 

[Garrovick]

Over the weekend, finished up:
Valhalla (DS9 #10) by Nathan Archer - really liked the story, although you can tell (as he states in Voyages of the Imagination) that it was written and intended to be published earlier in the series' run. The book was originally written before the introduction of the Defiant so they had to shoehorn in some dialogue explaining why it wasn't present in the book.

Caretaker novelization (VOY #1) by L.A. Graf

Currently reading:

Warped by K. W. Jeter
Gone for Soldiers by Jeff Shaara

 

[Use of Time]

I finished up TNG#8 The Captain's Honor by David and Daniel Dvorkin. I have to say that this one was awful to me. The starship full of Roman's thing was a tad bit ridiculous to me. Tough to get into.

I am halfway through Andrew Robinson's A Stich In Time and it has been a fantastic read so far.

 

[NightJim]

I know some here warned me, but I'm really struggling with Double Helix: Infection. The constant internal thoughts, then repeating them in prose, or just breaking up the action/dialogue to get someone's own opinion. I get what the author is going for, but it really doesn't work.

Beverly really doesn't sound like Beverly either.

 

[Endgame]

I read "City of Bones" by Cassandra Clare after seeing the movie for opening matinee. I read "The Laertian Gamble" by Robert Sheckley (ST-DS9 #12) then finished totally reading my Authorized King James Bible (over 3 years). Did some reading of documents for work. And now, have less that 100 pages to go in "Station Rage" by Diane Carey (ST-DS9 #13). Maybe read "Destiny Trilogy" after. Hoping to read modern classic in IR (international relations): "International Regimes" edited by Stephen D. Krasner (1983) sometime soon too.

 

[RoB]

I finished TP: Plagues of Night and just started Raise the Dawn. I will miss the old DS9.