Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Crown"

[FatherRob]

Okay, I really liked most of Janet Kagan's "Uhura's Song", which I recently finished. However, I am still left puzzled over Evan... what exactly was this 'Mary Sue' supposed to really be? Some mythological prankster? That's what I took away from the story; but it just doesn't make much sense when you try to fit it all together. Perhaps a Starfleet intelligence officer or something with medical training? I dunno... what did other readers take away from the ending the book?

In other old-skool Trek reading, I just read "The Covenant and the Crown" by Howard Weinstien for the first time (not sure why I had skipped it before). Other than the shuttle crash (overdone, though, at that time, not so much so), I found it to be a very engaging read.

Rob+

 

[Christopher]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

Okay, I really liked most of Janet Kagan's "Uhura's Song", which I recently finished. However, I am still left puzzled over Evan... what exactly was this 'Mary Sue' supposed to really be? Some mythological prankster? That's what I took away from the story; but it just doesn't make much sense when you try to fit it all together. Perhaps a Starfleet intelligence officer or something with medical training? I dunno... what did other readers take away from the ending the book?

A trickster figure, yes, but I didn't sense anything mythological about her. Just a mysterious and gifted woman wandering through life playing various roles and doing them brilliantly.

And yes, "Evan" was a Mary Sue, but she was a superbly rendered Mary Sue, proving that anything can be done well in the right hands. I for one regret that we never got to see her again.

In other old-skool Trek reading, I just read "The Covenant and the Crown" by Howard Weinstien for the first time (not sure why I had skipped it before). Other than the shuttle crash (overdone, though, at that time, not so much so), I found it to be a very engaging read.

Still my personal favorite of Howie's books, though that's as much for nostalgia as anything else, I guess. But the Spock-McCoy interaction is letter-perfect.

 

[FatherRob]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

Still my personal favorite of Howie's books, though that's as much for nostalgia as anything else, I guess. But the Spock-McCoy interaction is letter-perfect.

I really enjoy the old stuff a lot... even more than the episodes, it still gives me the feeling of being a new Trekkie back in the 80's. These days I watch the episodes and even the best of them have a somewhat glazed over feeling for me, but the books always seem fresh.

I recently re-read "My Enemy, My Ally" and my vision of Duane's Enterprise was still this odd hybrid between TOS and TMP eras, with the crew in TOS uniforms in this shiny new TMP era starship... almost a Phase II episode. In spite of the odd dating in "Uhura's Song" I kept seeing it as almost the same thing (odd dating refers to stardates in the 2XXX range at beginning and end, and the 1XXX range while on their mission to find the cure)... a Phase II episode (save for the salutes) on the TMP Enterprise.

Rob+

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

The Mary Sue character ruined Uhura's Song for me the one time I read it, and I don't understand why that book is so widely praised.

Covenant of the Crown, on the other hand, does indeed rock. One of the first Trek novels I read, and one I've always enjoyed. (Weinstein's The Better Man is also excellent if you haven't read it before.)

 

[FatherRob]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

Weinstein's The Better Man is also excellent if you haven't read it before.

I just pulled that out of a box of books a co-worker gave me. She was cleaning out her bookshelf and gave me all her Trek books. I gave the ones I had to a cancer patient (that amounted to about 100!) and hung onto about eight or nine that I hadn't already bought. The Better Man is one of them. I was a bit turned off initially at the idea of McCoy having another daughter out there besides Joanna, but decided to put it on my TBR shelf.

Of course, while I am on this reading binge (see post on said topic here in TrekLit), I want to get some more reading done in the Honor Harrington universe... and perhaps revisit The Songs of Distant Earth in both short story and novel form again (for at least the sixth time!).

Rob+

 

[MarianLH]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

The Mary Sue character ruined Uhura's Song for me the one time I read it, and I don't understand why that book is so widely praised.

Ditto from me for the first half of this sentence. She ruins the book and she's on every goddamn page. But every other aspect of the book was done well, sometimes very well, so I can understand people appreciating those aspects.

People actually liking Evan, though, that I don't get either. A well-written Mary Sue is, to me, an oxymoron. But to each their own, as always.


Marian

 

[Christopher]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

People actually liking Evan, though, that I don't get either. A well-written Mary Sue is, to me, an oxymoron. But to each their own, as always.

A Mary Sue isn't intrinsically a badly written character; it's a character who steals the spotlight from the series regulars. Usually that's done artificially, an exercise in wish fulfillment where the character doesn't deserve that dominant role or is too implausibly perfect. Evan isn't like that. She's interesting in her own right. She's not a superwoman or an object of lust, but a quirky, engaging, challenging trickster figure.

The question is, if you came upon her in an original novel, would you like the character? If the answer is yes, then that's a well-done Mary Sue. The only thing that makes the character a Mary Sue in that context is that she (or he) distracts from the characters who are supposed to be the focus of the series.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

I read Uhura's Song 2 or 3 times and never minded Evan too much. But I also found parts of the book funny, so maybe that's why.
The Covenant and the Crown was one of the earliest TOS books I read, which I got from the library. I remember liking it, but for me my favorite of Weinstein's is probably Deep Domain. What can I say, I like whales and dolphins and such.

Christopher, if you're wondering, this does mean OaTS is near the top of my favorites list, but it would have been even without Ailli and the squales.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

The Mary Sue character ruined Uhura's Song for me the one time I read it, and I don't understand why that book is so widely praised.

I guess it depends on your previous exposure to Mary Sues. Guest characters that seem to be a glamorised version of the author is a fairly common occurence in fiction. Badly written Mary Sue ST fanfic is excruciating, but I've also read some good stuff.

I loved the Evan character and, while reading the novel, was convinced that this character was based on Bjo Trimble! The physical description and the mischievous, bouncy personality fitted Bjo to a tee, and I assumed that Janet might have been one of Bjo's pals from convention days of yore.

However, when I had a correspondence going with Janet Kagan, she revealed that Evan was based on Janet's own mother.

I know many people react adversely to Cadet Piper, Diane Carey's Mary Sue character (who even has the author's face!) in "Dreadnought!" and "Battlestations!", but I liked her too. And I've assumed that Jean Czerny, in Majliss Larsen's "Pawns and Symbols" was a Mary Sue, but also likeable.

 

[shanejayell]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

I always figured Evan aka "Tailkinker" might have been a immortal, like Morgan Primus. Might explain why she's so GOOD at stuff, as well as the identity shifts.

Loved the book, it made me lol.

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

I know many people react adversely to Cadet Piper, Diane Carey's Mary Sue character (who even has the author's face!) in "Dreadnought!" and "Battlestations!", but I liked her too. And I've assumed that Jean Czerny, in Majliss Larsen's "Pawns and Symbols" was a Mary Sue, but also likeable.

See, I never had such a reaction to Piper, since she was such a screw-up. And Czerny is way too well-developed a character to be counted as a Mary Sue.

 

[karenjeane]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

You can contrast Evan with Sola Thane in Triangle by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath. Both Kirk and Spock are not only in love with her, but connected through a psionic link!

As with many tropes, the best guide is TV Tropes. Be sure to read the Mary Sue article.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

See, I never had such a reaction to Piper, since she was such a screw-up. And Czerny is way too well-developed a character to be counted as a Mary Sue.

I agree about Piper. She subverts the Mary Sue trope because she's not two steps ahead of the heroes; Kirk and Spock remain way ahead of her at every turn, and she and her friends are just the junior team that have the undeveloped potential to become the next generation's Kirk, Spock, and McCoy if they get enough guidance from the genuine articles. She's not a Mary Sue, she's an apprentice to the master. (Although she does get a bit more Mary Sue-ish in the sequel, where she's rapidly promoted to Lieutenant Commander and included in Kirk's inner circle of friends from the start of the book.)

Been a long time since I read Pawns and Symbols, but I never saw Jean Czerny as a Mary Sue, just a featured guest character. Then again, at the time I read these books with these prominent female guest characters, I wasn't really aware of the term "Mary Sue" yet. So I wasn't looking at these characters and seeing them as examples of a discredited trope. I was just judging them as characters, based on whether they worked well or not, rather than whether they fell under some predefined label. Characters like Evan, Piper, Jean Czerny, and Cleante and T'Shael from Dwellers in the Crucible worked well for me. Characters like Sola Thane in Triangle or Elizabeth Shaeffer in Death's Angel didn't work so well. And I now know it's because those particular characters are quintessential examples of the Mary Sue trope taken to excess.

 

[Stevil2001]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

Then again, at the time I read these books with these prominent female guest characters, I wasn't really aware of the term "Mary Sue" yet. So I wasn't looking at these characters and seeing them as examples of a discredited trope. I was just judging them as characters, based on whether they worked well or not, rather than whether they fell under some predefined label.

Exactly. I don't know that I'd heard of the term "Mary Sue" when I read these early original series novels for the first time, either, but even then Evan annoyed me and Czerny did not.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

Whereas I really enjoyed Evan Wilson and had a lukewarm response to Jean Czerny. To each one's own.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

I know many people react adversely to Cadet Piper, Diane Carey's Mary Sue character (who even has the author's face!) in "Dreadnought!" and "Battlestations!", but I liked her too. And I've assumed that Jean Czerny, in Majliss Larsen's "Pawns and Symbols" was a Mary Sue, but also likeable.

I also liked Piper and Jean Czerny, but then I first read the books before I even knew what Mary Sues were. I have since come across some that were annoying and boring, but I still like Piper, Jean and Evan.

 

[diankra]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

Like Christopher, I'd not heard the phrase Mary Sue before reading the early 1980s books (which pretty much got me into Trek). It just seemed obvious that, with an established regular cast of six men and one woman, any author would tend to make their major guest character a woman (both for variety and to better live up to that equality ideal).

 

[Christopher]

Re: Some Help with "Uhura' Song" / Praise for "The Covenant of the Cro

^Interesting thought.