Spoilers Star Trek - Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack Review Thread

What difference does it make? They're both equally expressions of strong emotion; whether you find one more acceptable than the other is purely a matter of personal upbringing and perception. Like I said before, different cultures and generations have wildly different sensibilities about the relative intensity or shock factor of different expletives. It's all completely arbitrary, so it's meaningless to worry about the distinction between one curse word and another. Grammatically, emotionally, they serve interchangeable purposes.

I mean, really, "bastard" is a problematical insult if you think about it. It means an illegitimate child, and the idea that there's something intrinsically unworthy about a person born out of wedlock, that a child should be blamed or hated for a transgression committed by their parents, is an antiquated, ugly, and cruel notion. If anything, it's conceptually a much more disturbing word than the mere sex-act allusion you suggest as a substitute. Like I said, this is all arbitrary and it doesn't hold up if you really think about the meanings and contexts of the words rather than just your immediate kneejerk reaction to them.

 

"Frak" actually originated in the 1978 BSG series.

 

I stand corrected.

 

One thing stuck out to me as "timeline" odd in the books so far. He brings up Deanna Troi like he is still serving with her. I guess I'm misreading the intent there, but it immediately caught my attention.

 

I was always disappointed that the reboot series didn't adopt "felgercarb" as well.

 

Finished the book, definitely outstanding. I need to read the other McCormack books I haven't gotten to yet.

 

My book is going to be delivered tomorrow or Saturday. I'm very excited!

 

With apologies to Greg Cox as I had planned on starting his Voyager book "The Black Shore" from 1997, I just got The Last Best Hope last night and decided I couldn't wait the 2 or 3 weeks to start it until I finished TBS. But TBS will be next up (I'm looking forward to reading a Greg Cox penned Voyager novel).

But so far I noticed two things that ARE consistent with the litverse (apologies if this has already been brought up but I didn't get a chance to read all the previous comments).

1-Worf is still Picard's First Officer to start the novel as he is in the current litverse
2-Bajor was admitted into the Federation

But otherwise chapter 1 is considerably different from the litverse. There was no Borg invasion, first and foremost. Picard and Crusher are just friends and are not married. And the C&C is a totally different character (I don't recall what year Admiral Akaar took over as C&C and who exactly was between him and Admiral Ross--though maybe no one, maybe it went from Ross to Akaar).

I'm not sure if there will be any other nods to the current litverse--I don't expect anything significant--but I'm curious to see if there are any Easter eggs she throws in the novel. I mean, even my 1 and 2 make sense litverse or no, but it's a nice nod to the litverse nonetheless.

The only character that seems a bit off to me is Geordi, mainly in his assertiveness. I have no doubt he'd look forward to the challenge and would want to take it on with gusto. It's hard to explain but he seemed just a bit to forceful and familiar with Captain, er Admiral Picard to start. It's a minor nitpick, just something that I noticed.

I'm surprised there's no mention yet of Schinzon and the events of Nemesis other than a vague the Enterprise has been a thorn in their side bit---but it's early yet. And I'm a bit surprised it seems the Enterprise is dismissed in the story so early. I suppose they wanted to make this clearly a Picard story and not a TNG-lite story, but I thought it just seemed an abrupt break.

Well anyway, those are my thoughts after chapter 1 to start.

 

UrsbHeordi seems too assertive, but is it due to self confidence or fear of failure?
Should read more Friday.

 

I'd recommend DS9's "Hollow Men". Kind of a follow up to "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost" and "In the Pale Moonlight".

 

F--kface doesn't really fit Kirk IMO, but I could easily see motherf--ker or something closer to that.

I really don't see where there's anything controversial about it at this point, they've been saying it on the CBSAA shows since early in Discovery's first season, and it's not even the first time it's been used in the books.

 

Looking at MB, Jellico succeded Ross and left after Destiny, so 2381

 

Obviously someone has spied a Czech version.......

 

Thanks. I couldn't remember if Jellico was a C&C or not.

 

All words are made-up.

Bastard also had an alternate use (I'm sure Christopher will jump in with the etymological history) which somewhat normalized it and that's why we can type/say it more easily but we have to censor f*ck. Big deal.

 

I actually didn't know that. Do tell.

 

Which story specifically established this? I vaguely remember researching Starfleet leaders once and annoyingly found that canon and non-canon Trek did not consistently apply the title C-in-C to a single leader in Starfleet. It has been a while, but I thought I read in Articles of the Federation that William Ross was Starfleet liaison to the President, but later on Jellico and Akaar were Commander in Chief, the latter with only 90% consistency.

 

I’m up to chapter 5 and I’m really enjoying this.

 

None, I goofed up and misread a navigation box. He was Starfleet's liaison to the President, not CIC.

 

Leading me astray I see

I remember Ross, but then I recall he 'retired' after the Tezwa incident. I just don't recall if Akaar was his immediate successor or not. He was C&C I know during much of Bacco's term, and Ross was there at the very beginning. Maybe there was no one else.