So what are you reading now?
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Finally finished Mere Mortals, which did not enthuse me the way the first book did. Need to pause before moving on to book three to placate my thesis supervisor, so I've got the coincidently named Arctic Hell-ship: The Voyage of HMS Enterprise, 1850-55 lined up next.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Safely Home by Randy Alcorn. I'm just about finished with it and think I'm going to read The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter next.
Finished the Vanguard novel, finished Clone Wars: No prisoners, and just started the book "Reign in Hell" (not the Khan one either) which is interesting so far. It was on for $7 in the discontinued bin and while I'm only 40 pages in, is quite good.
Oh as for the much earlier talk on Great Expectations. It was the first book that I ever fell asleep reading. I was between words in a sentence and I had a 40 minute blink. I know it's heresy, but Dickens was obviously paid by the word...
Oh as for the much earlier talk on Great Expectations. It was the first book that I ever fell asleep reading. I was between words in a sentence and I had a 40 minute blink. I know it's heresy, but Dickens was obviously paid by the word...
Don't worry, the last one knocks it out of the park. Knowing the way you feel about the Trek universe, I think the ending will really make you happy.
The thing about Mere Mortals is that it's probably the darkest part of the Destiny trilogy. If Book I was about the inevitability of war and conflict, Book II is about the darkness of one's own soul that leads into that conflict -- the inner prisons we create for ourselves. Book III, therefore, becomes about how we overcome our inner darkness and conflict.
^ I didn't find it particularly dark, actually--at least, no more so than the circumstances required. I found it stagnant, with regards to most of the characters' actions ultimately being rendered futile, and lacking movement in terms of the overall narrative outside the very beginning and very end. And I felt somehwat cheated about what happened in the Azure Nebula; like the book had been building up to something which then fizzled. I'll write a fuller review eventually, in the spoiler thread, when I get sick of reading about frostbite and starvation.
Fictititiously yours, Trent Roman
Fictititiously yours, Trent Roman
Well, I think that stagnancy is part of the point -- as I said, it's about your inner darkness and inner prisons. It's not a story that allows for a dynamic plot, really -- any such story would be inherently stagnant.
(Though I will say that as an aside, I rather enjoyed the Bacco scenes.)
Just now finished this, and am still loving it.
Between this, and Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union, it seems the best SF I've read recently isn't being marketed as SF...
"There Is No Alternative": Why Margaret Thatcher Matters by Claire Berlinski.
Yesterday I read the first Star Wars Adventures comic novella, Han Solo and the Hollow Moon of Khorya, and now I've literally just launched into Star Trek: Vanguard: Open Secrets as well.
Since the beginning of May, I've read twelve new tie-in books in my effort to catch up on what I missed during the semester. Only four more to go, and I'll finally be caught up!
Since the beginning of May, I've read twelve new tie-in books in my effort to catch up on what I missed during the semester. Only four more to go, and I'll finally be caught up!
Although I'm not technically finished it yet, there's something about Open Secrets that's been bugging me for the last 330 pages. At the end of Reap The Whirlwind, when Gamma Tauri IV is getting glassed, the Endeavour receives a little help...from a Klingon battlecruiser. In this book the Klingons are apparently out for vengeance on Reyes for giving an order that killed so many of their own. I can understand the Klingons conveniently forgetting the presence of the Klingon ship in the face of growing antagonism with the Federation, but shouldn't someone on "our" side be bringing it up? I would think at least an expression of frustration at Klingon arrogance from one of the Starfleet characters would be merited, but even they seem to be acting as if it never happened.
ETA: Just finished the book. I believe "Wow..." should cover it nicely.
ETA: Just finished the book. I believe "Wow..." should cover it nicely.
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Just finished Academy: Collision Course. It was interesting, especially coming to it after seeing Star Trek XI (and thus with the new crew stuck in my head), and not nearly as bad as others indicated. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit (but then I’ve always loved the crazy Shatnerverse).
I’m not too sure about the Back to the Future-style flying cars, or Kirk getting arrested in almost EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER and I can’t see this troubled young anti-hero Kirk ever becoming the dramatic-pausing, shirt-ripping TOS Captain Kirk (a while ago I asked why no-one had rebooted Trek until STXI. Nobody mentioned this!), but this was only the first book in a series.
Will Academy: Trial Run ever materialize? Or has it gone the way of Admiral Archer’s prize beagle? Will we ever meet ‘The General’? Will Kirk ever find Sam again? I hope this isn’t all swept under the Space Rug not to “confuse” Star Trek XI viewers (incidentally, there’s loads of potential in books based on the new Kirk’s 3-year academy stint).
(If they ever do get round to the sequel, let’s hope they can find at least one building at Starfleet Academy not named after a member of the NX01 crew!)
Up next: Ship of the Line. Captain Frasier! Diane Carey has been responsible for some of my all-time favourite Trek novels (Final Frontier, Dreadnought!), some that bored me to death (The Great Starship Race) and a load in-between (Best Destiny, Invasion, Battlestations!). Where will this one fit in?
I’m not too sure about the Back to the Future-style flying cars, or Kirk getting arrested in almost EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER and I can’t see this troubled young anti-hero Kirk ever becoming the dramatic-pausing, shirt-ripping TOS Captain Kirk (a while ago I asked why no-one had rebooted Trek until STXI. Nobody mentioned this!), but this was only the first book in a series.
Will Academy: Trial Run ever materialize? Or has it gone the way of Admiral Archer’s prize beagle? Will we ever meet ‘The General’? Will Kirk ever find Sam again? I hope this isn’t all swept under the Space Rug not to “confuse” Star Trek XI viewers (incidentally, there’s loads of potential in books based on the new Kirk’s 3-year academy stint).
(If they ever do get round to the sequel, let’s hope they can find at least one building at Starfleet Academy not named after a member of the NX01 crew!)
Up next: Ship of the Line. Captain Frasier! Diane Carey has been responsible for some of my all-time favourite Trek novels (Final Frontier, Dreadnought!), some that bored me to death (The Great Starship Race) and a load in-between (Best Destiny, Invasion, Battlestations!). Where will this one fit in?
My condolences to you in advance.
I didn't even bother with the Shitnerverse book, and Ship of the Line is so far off what a Star Trek book should be, I wouldn't even use it as toilet paper.
I just finished Demons of Air and Darkness and it's finish in What Lay Beyond. It was a very good story, although I'm a bit disappointed with the Hirogen. I was expecting a Hirogen invasion of the Federation through these gates after seeing the cover. Talking about the cover: is that weird blue guy on the cover supposed to be Shar? He doesn't look like any Andorian I've ever seen.
Yeah, although there is a better image on one of the Mission Gamma books. They actually spread out a picture of the whole cast (including the new characters) over all four covers.
Here you go.
Here you go.
Yea, I thought he looked strange when I first saw a picture of him, but there's really no reason an Andorian can't have dreadlocks. And if you go by the image on Mission Gamma: This Gray Spirit, you can pretend that the bony parts on the forehead (seen in Enterprise) are hidden by his hair. The only problem I really have with his appearance is that he looks extremely young, especially on the cover of the Gateways novel.
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