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Star Trek Website: Interview with Kristen Beyer

I recently read a Babylon 5 trilogy (the psi-corp one) and it was SO MUCH BETTER than 95% of Treklit I started seriously questioning my commitment to reading Treklit. I'm trying to wade through the Typhon Pact right now. You know what pages upon pages of it are taken up with? Meetings. Round table discussions between Riker and his crew about "what could the blahblah anomaly be" and "this technobabble might work because of these reasons but it also might cause this technobabble cascade so maybe we could try this technobabble instead and lets hear from everyone in this meeting about what they think is the best technobabble for the situation." It is so freaking boring I am now skipping page after page.

There are some interesting parts but the meetings happen with alarming regularity.
 
Really? I heard the B5 novels are mediocre-to-terrible. I asked about them when I finished Crusade (last year) 'coz I wanted to know how they saved the Earth.
 
The only ones I've read are the Psi Corp Trilogy which is blew me away. If you thought Bester was an interesting character you need to read them. I could not put them down. I have the other two trilogies coming in the mail. I keep getting told the Peter David one is great, this will be my third attempt at that author who I've always found unfathomably awful.

I wouldn't compare them to the Terok Nor trilogy as they are not so much filling a world and history as telling a very specific story, the rise of the Psi-Corp. They are more fast paced. Very believable, they are canon and they work as canon very well.
 
I do like Bester. I've seen them on ebay once or twice, I'll pick them up next time I see them cheap.

I don't care if they're supposed to be canon or not, though - the Star Wars books were meant to be canon until Lucas decided he could make more money from the cartoon show. In Trek, Kirk's parents, elements of Vulcan lore, Uhura and Sulu's first names and loads more bits and bobs came from the "non canon" novels. That they're enjoyable is what matters to me.
 
I thought SW had a grading system for canon with stuff being at different levels of canon?

The Bab 5 books were overseen by JMS, they are his ideas, so that is something anyway. Of the three trilogies the Bester one is the cheapest and most readily available.
 
BTW, Bring Back Kathryn Janeway! (I just add to add in my usual 2 cents, ha, and yes, I will be ignoring "Voy" and Trek lit books from now on, have no interest in supporting those that chose to ignore KJ's fans (and common sense), who we know are many, well, we do know she's alive, too bad for them, cheers!)
 
I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but Kirsten Beyer discusses a load of subjects, including Janeway's death and her upcoming Children of the Storm, in her podcast.
 
Start at 41:40 to hear the discussion of Janeway's Death.

Folks, she certainly is not going to be in Children of the Storm and no hint of her ever being in Treklit again.

"People may agree or disagree about whether or not Kathryn's death served the story well but I think that in many ways it has in the sense that it has given all our other characters a chance to grow in very unexpected ways and to come into their own in a way that they couldn't while they were sort of in her shadow and/or while most of the stories were centered around her." Kirsten Beyer 46:00

I must ask.. "most of the stories centered around her"??? What? Homecoming, Farthest Shore, Spirit Walk 1 and 2.. she was in the background of all of these. B'Elanna is far more prominent.

*sigh*

I'm actually quite depressed after listening to that whole hour of podcast.
 
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Start at 41:40 to hear the discussion of Janeway's Death.

Folks, she certainly is not going to be in Children of the Storm and no hint of her ever being in Treklit again.

"People may agree or disagree about whether or not Kathryn's death served the story well but I think that in many ways it has in the sense that it has given all our other characters a chance to grow in very unexpected ways and to come into their own in a way that they couldn't while they were sort of in her shadow and/or while most of the stories were centered around her." Kirsten Beyer 46:00

I must ask.. "most of the stories centered around her"??? What? Homecoming, Farthest Shore, Spirit Walk 1 and 2.. she was in the background of all of these. B'Elanna is far more prominent.

*sigh*

I'm actually quite depressed after listening to that whole hour of podcast.

http://www.dreamwidth.org/userpic/323800/59042

:p

One wonders, with this logic, why they didn't kill off Picard YEARS ago?

One wonders, with this logic... why they let Shatner BRING BACK Kirk years ago?

Oh well.

Its like TV... if it doesn't interest me, I just don't watch it... or the commercials attached.

At least I know now not to bother with Voyager books anymore.

I can use that money to buy 1 1/2 gallons of gas! :vulcan:
 
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Riker was always a sub character to Picard, I guess they should have killed off Picard to let Riker really shine.. oh wait, they gave Riker his own SHIP and his own SERIES where he got to be the captain with Titan!

Couldn't they develop Chakotay by doing the same? Did they have to kill Janeway to suck any development out of Chak??

It really depressed me because the whole interview I was hoping, almost expecting, the host to ask if Janeway would be coming back and Kristen to say, "well I probably shouldn't tell you this as the book isn't out for a few days but let's just say Janeway fans will not be unsatisfied".

Yeah, I guess that was dumb of me.
 
On the plus side, she really knows her Voyager episodes.

And a few people here virtually got shout-outs when she discussed the fans' reaction to Janeway's demise:rommie:.
 
On the plus side, she really knows her Voyager episodes..

Well.. so? That's nice, but so do all of us.

But it's not a necessary qualification for a Trek writer. I've read some novels that were pretty ignorant of Trek's world (most recently, Starfleet Academy: The Delta Anomaly, before that The Fearful Summons) and a couple of Voyager episodes were seemingly written without having seen any prior episodes of Voyager, let alone Star Trek.
 
Voyager PB novels have sucked for years--on the rare occasion that they bothered to publish one. They continue to fail to meet the expectations of the majority of the fans. Maybe Beyer has seen all the episodes--big deal. All of the writers should have done so. If they had, the novels would have been better from day one. To continue to ignore the Janeway fans is stupid and short-sighted.

I used to say I'd buy the novels as soon as Janeway is back, but I'm changing my mind. I'm done with Beyer and Pocket Books.
 
No offence but it gets irritating when posts keep saying "but what about me? What about me? They're doing this just to offend me!" If posters who posted posts like posts like that listened to the podcast then they'd have heard how Beyer said "We didn't do it to annoy the fans, we did it because we wanted to tell this story.

I'm glad that post will be the last i hear complaining about Janeway's death, because I'm fed up with those posts.

I kept it about the post.
 
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