Star Trek Klingon Empire: A Burning House (Spoiler)
- Thread starter Baerbel Haddrell
- Start date
Cool!
I'm not actually a fan of The Wire, I find it too gritty for my liking.
I'm not actually a fan of The Wire, I find it too gritty for my liking.
RISE, CHICKEN!
Ahem. Forgive the act of thread necromancy, but I've finally gotten around to reading Burning House, and KRAD's on fire with this novel of consuming passion and incendiary action. And now that the bad puns are out of the way (although I appreciated that there was actually a burning house in the book; that scene reminded me of when we see the enemy mine in "Enemy Mine"), I daresay that this book basically does for Klingons what Articles of the Federation did for the Federation, in terms of the broad survey of the society, the multiplicity of viewpoints, the dovetailing of great political affairs and personal matters.
I've read through the thread and basically agree with a lot of the praise that's been heaped on, so I'll just say that I hope we get to see more of Klingon Empire in the future (although I didn't fail to notice that the book was written such that it could also make an apt conclusion to the storylines that had been weaving through the Gorkon series). The battles were fun, the politics even moreso however much Martok grumbles about it. A number of outstanding issues from the show (Carraya, Kurn/Rodek) have been resolved or at least forced forwards, as indeed there was story progression on essentially every front. But as always, it's the characters that really made this book shine, such that even story threads with little conflict in them never become boring because I'm vested in the fate of the characters, whether in matters of life or death or just how their general disposition changes over the course of the book. About which, another point particularly deserving of praise in the way KRAD can create such a variety of characters of different outlooks and backgrounds, with wildly divergeant ideas about Klingon culture, without ever degenerating into the kind of solipsism where 'our' conventional values are written into the nebulous notion of Klingon honour. All the characters remain distinctly Klingon even as they move across a spectrum of ideologies and behaviour.
I do have one question, however - how do you come up with all those Klingon names? I've never been good at naming characters, but this book has an absolutely bewildering cast in terms of size and similarity of naming patterns. Is there a random name generator out there for Klingons, or do you just toss together a bunch of guttural consonants and hope for the best? I thought some characters sounded like characters from other franchises (Til'k: Teal'c; Kriton: Kryten), but that might just be coincidence resulting from the limited pool of Klingon-sounding names available.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Ahem. Forgive the act of thread necromancy, but I've finally gotten around to reading Burning House, and KRAD's on fire with this novel of consuming passion and incendiary action. And now that the bad puns are out of the way (although I appreciated that there was actually a burning house in the book; that scene reminded me of when we see the enemy mine in "Enemy Mine"), I daresay that this book basically does for Klingons what Articles of the Federation did for the Federation, in terms of the broad survey of the society, the multiplicity of viewpoints, the dovetailing of great political affairs and personal matters.
I've read through the thread and basically agree with a lot of the praise that's been heaped on, so I'll just say that I hope we get to see more of Klingon Empire in the future (although I didn't fail to notice that the book was written such that it could also make an apt conclusion to the storylines that had been weaving through the Gorkon series). The battles were fun, the politics even moreso however much Martok grumbles about it. A number of outstanding issues from the show (Carraya, Kurn/Rodek) have been resolved or at least forced forwards, as indeed there was story progression on essentially every front. But as always, it's the characters that really made this book shine, such that even story threads with little conflict in them never become boring because I'm vested in the fate of the characters, whether in matters of life or death or just how their general disposition changes over the course of the book. About which, another point particularly deserving of praise in the way KRAD can create such a variety of characters of different outlooks and backgrounds, with wildly divergeant ideas about Klingon culture, without ever degenerating into the kind of solipsism where 'our' conventional values are written into the nebulous notion of Klingon honour. All the characters remain distinctly Klingon even as they move across a spectrum of ideologies and behaviour.
I do have one question, however - how do you come up with all those Klingon names? I've never been good at naming characters, but this book has an absolutely bewildering cast in terms of size and similarity of naming patterns. Is there a random name generator out there for Klingons, or do you just toss together a bunch of guttural consonants and hope for the best? I thought some characters sounded like characters from other franchises (Til'k: Teal'c; Kriton: Kryten), but that might just be coincidence resulting from the limited pool of Klingon-sounding names available.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Thanks so much for the kind words and the resurrected chicken. (Mmmm... chicken...)
To answer that last question, it's pretty much "all of the above."
Sometimes I really do throw guttural consonants together and hope for the best.
Also: a huge number of the Klingons in A Burning House got their names from the Klingon names of fans I've met and/or corresponded with over the years. For example, G'joth's old friend Klaad is named for Joe Manning, the man who ran the Camp Dover Peace Conference in Ohio, and a really great guy. (That's also where I got Qaolin from The Art of the Impossible.)
I also just like coming up with alien names.
I think the one I'm proudest of is Kravokh. I just like the way that one sounds.....
In any case, thanks very much for the kind words. It's much appreciated.
To answer that last question, it's pretty much "all of the above."
Sometimes I really do throw guttural consonants together and hope for the best.Also: a huge number of the Klingons in A Burning House got their names from the Klingon names of fans I've met and/or corresponded with over the years. For example, G'joth's old friend Klaad is named for Joe Manning, the man who ran the Camp Dover Peace Conference in Ohio, and a really great guy. (That's also where I got Qaolin from The Art of the Impossible.)
I also just like coming up with alien names.
I think the one I'm proudest of is Kravokh. I just like the way that one sounds.....In any case, thanks very much for the kind words. It's much appreciated.
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