The Final Reflection- best Trek book ever

[Mistral]

I liked TFR (especially Krenn's line about the Starfleet transporter: "Of course. They'll want to know why it makes that horrible noise." )

I admit, though, that I still can't figure out what klin zha is supposed to be. I mean, I know it's a game of course, but I couldn't figure out what was going on (i.e. what the players were actually doing). Reading the game sequences in the book left me scratching my head.

Then again, my favorite TV shows are on Spike, so maybe I'm just not intellectually 'deep' enough for things like this.

I've read the book a couple of times and my impression of klin zha is a cross between Go and Chess, with a possible 3D variant as well. I'm not sure if Ford actually worked out rules to make it playable but I'd say he had a fairly clear idea of how it would look when being played.

As for Omaha's comment-I suppose you could look at it like you did or like KRAD suggested. As an amateur writer I think everything I write is good-at first. Then, after time passes, I take another look. Some is ok, some smells badly. Some had good ideas that I mishandled and others are well-written pieces around weak premises. You never know when the iron will strike. I guess any insult would be in the perception and I'm fairly certain the fan didn't mean it that way.

 

[trampledamage]

This reminds me of an incident a few nights ago at a book signing.

A woman approached the author and said (book title, the second book the author had written) was the best she'd ever done. The book signing was in honor of the author's thirtieth book published. I'm not sure the woman understood just how big an insult she hurled at the author, saying that none of the 28 books since then had been as good as the second book.

It's not like she was saying "Everything you've written since is rubbish". just that she thinks the second is the best. Not much of an insult there.

 

[bennyrex]

Personally, I suspect I'll never top Orion's Hounds.

I hope you do top it. (As I'm sure you hope as well, suspicions aside.) After reading Orion's Hounds, I thought 'Wow. I'm really looking forward to following this author, and reading his books as he matures and gets even better.'

Why do you think you won't top it?

 

[EmperorKalan]

I admit, though, that I still can't figure out what klin zha is supposed to be. I mean, I know it's a game of course, but I couldn't figure out what was going on (i.e. what the players were actually doing). Reading the game sequences in the book left me scratching my head.

Everyone has their own perspective. I thought it was pretty clear, and about as detailed as it could get without actually listing the game rules.

Unsurprisingly, others picked up on that and dragged it the extra distance. There's been a full set of rules for more than a decade now: http://www.tasigh.org/takzh/index.html

 

[Captain_Koloth]

I'm more in agreement with Cicero than Captain Koloth about The Final Reflection. I couldn't make it past the first of nine sections in the book when I tried to read it last year. I have liked Trek books with little or no presence from the regulars, but that is because the new characters made a strong first impression. The Klingons just came across as strange warriors with funky names. I didn't see much of a point to anything I read, so I dropped the book for something more to my taste.

I maintain that if you get past the initial 20 pages or so- i.e. that first section- that the rest is more than worth it. It is admittedly quite confusing at first.

That very much reminds me of this. One of the very first Pocket books published is the "best Trek book ever" ... So none of the hundreds of books published since then even approach that old book. Kind of insulting, I think.

Just because it's newer doesn't mean it has to be better, and just becuase it's not THE best doesn't mean that it's bad. Why do people still watch The Wizard of Oz or Gone With the Wind? A heck of a lot of movies have come out since then.

 

[Christopher]

Personally, I suspect I'll never top Orion's Hounds.

I hope you do top it. (As I'm sure you hope as well, suspicions aside.) After reading Orion's Hounds, I thought 'Wow. I'm really looking forward to following this author, and reading his books as he matures and gets even better.'

Why do you think you won't top it?

Because when I reread it recently (in preparation for writing TTN 5), it just felt more right than anything else I've written. I really nailed that one, and out of all my work it's the book I'm happiest with. Saying I suspect I'll never top it doesn't mean I doubt my competence; it means I think very highly of that book.

Not that I'm actively trying to compete with it, of course. Actually I kind of was trying to do "more of the same" with The Buried Age, but I didn't feel that one worked quite as well as OH. So I just try to do the best I can with each work, rather than trying to top myself.

 

[JD]

That sounds like a pretty good way to do it to me. It seems to me that as a general rule, the harder somone tries to outdo something they've already done, it actually ends up worse. I think it's probably just a matter of trying to hard sometimes. Just to reiterate, I'm talking about entertainment in general here not any specific example.

 

[Cicero]

The novel lacked grace, interesting characters, quality prose, directness, and (for lack of a better term) Trek sense. It was boring and weird, like the unfortunate majority of pre-Arnold novels.

A bold young iconoclast shows us the shocking truth! Still, I wonder what it is that everyone who likes the book sees in it. Fans like it. Trek novelists like it. People who don't often read Star Trek but like John M. Ford's other books like it (he was very well respected in the lit SF community). People who wrote for Star Trek on TV like it. 24 years after it was published, people are still talking about it. Not bad for such an utterly worthless book.

I'm curious, why did you attack my opinions rather than simply disagreeing with them (as I simply disagree with those who like the book)? Too, why resort to ad verecundiam and ad hominem arguments rather than addressing me on the merits of the book. I didn't like it, didn't think well of it, and didn't think much of it. Is that so terrible?

 

[Steve Roby]

I'm curious, why did you attack my opinions rather than simply disagreeing with them (as I simply disagree with those who like the book)? Too, why resort to ad verecundiam and ad hominem arguments rather than addressing me on the merits of the book. I didn't like it, didn't think well of it, and didn't think much of it. Is that so terrible?

There's a fine distinction to be drawn here. Of course it was implicit that what you said first time around was your opinion, but let's look at how you phrased it:

The novel lacked grace, interesting characters, quality prose, directness, and (for lack of a better term) Trek sense. It was boring and weird, like the unfortunate majority of pre-Arnold novels.

In short, you didn't say "I didn't like it," you said "It's crap." There's a difference, even if you'd said "In my opinion, it's crap." You didn't say you disliked Ford's prose style, you said it lacked quality, and you said it in a way that suggests it's a fact that should be evident to any reader. Do you see what I'm getting at? And then the second sentence makes a sweeping generalization that comes out of nowhere and lacks substantiation. It says more about you than about the books.

 

[Cicero]

^ You ignore my first, more concilatory sentence: 'Perhaps because I only first came across it in omnibus a few years ago (and wasn't old enough to read a novel in the pre-Arnold days), I really didn't care for it.'

Too, it should be taken as written that a subjective statement is opinion. To say, 'in my opinion, it was bad' conveys no more information than to say 'it was bad.' The difference is in tone, which had already been established by my first remark.

And I don't think I need to substantiate my expressed opinion of the majority of the pre-Arnold novels I've read. This isn't the forum to discuss in detail which early stories I liked and which I did not. I will say, though, that there seemed a tendency toward fannish extrapolation into areas and types of stories which were somewhat at odds with the tone and elements of the original series. I did find most of them boring.

Notwithstanding all of this, or the points raised in your previous post (and addressed above), I am still (quite honestly) curious why you chose to make ad verecundiam and ad hominem arguments the first time you responded to my thoughts.

 

[Trent Roman]

The novel lacked grace, interesting characters, quality prose, directness, and (for lack of a better term) Trek sense. It was boring and weird, like the unfortunate majority of pre-Arnold novels.

In short, you didn't say "I didn't like it," you said "It's crap." There's a difference, even if you'd said "In my opinion, it's crap." You didn't say you disliked Ford's prose style, you said it lacked quality, and you said it in a way that suggests it's a fact that should be evident to any reader. Do you see what I'm getting at? And then the second sentence makes a sweeping generalization that comes out of nowhere and lacks substantiation. It says more about you than about the books.

Let's not be oversensitive about criticism, here. Cicero didn't say "it's crap" (I agree that such kind of drive-by comments aren't constructive); he detailed the aspects of the book he found wanting. He is perfectly free to say that he found the book lacking in quality on this or that point. Not every piece of criticism needs be an essay to be defensible, and I thought (from the perspective of someone who's not read the book) that it was perfectly cogent opinion, from a poster I know to be thoughtful. Passing insults are not his style.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[EmperorKalan]

...and wasn't old enough to read a novel in the pre-Arnold days...

Forgive me if I'm being excessively dense. Which Arnold is referred to here?

 

[Defcon]

...and wasn't old enough to read a novel in the pre-Arnold days...

Forgive me if I'm being excessively dense. Which Arnold is referred to here?

I think he is referring to Richard Arnold. He basically had Paula M. Block's job in the late 80s to early 90s (?), only that he was far less willing to let the the authors expand the universe with original stuff. Under his regime the authors were forced to only use things pre-established onscreen: For example some authors had to remove andorian crew members from their manuscripts, because "we have never seen an Andorian serving on the Enterprise", and he was responsible for other similar small-minded restriction as well.

ETA:

Spoiler: Before Dishonor

Peter David has a nice little jab at him in Before Dishonor. Arnold had forced PB to put a disclaimer in front of Vendetta that it is in conflict with Roddenberry's trek or something to that effect (I only have the German version), because according to him their aren't any female borg. In BD which is a semi- sequel to Vendetta Peter David has a scene where Geordi and Seven are disussing the fact that people had that opinion.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I think he is referring to Richard Arnold. He basically had Paula M. Block's job in the late 80s to early 90s (?), only that he was far less willing to let the the authors expand the universe with original stuff.

Richard Arnold (and Susan Sackett before him), vetted proposals and final manuscripts of ST tie-ins for Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek Office". Paula Block does the same for Paramount/Viacom and now "CBS Consumer Products". So until Roddenberry's death in September 1991, when the ST Office closed, everything was vetted by both entities.

Richard worked as a volunteer studio tour guide throughout the 80s and became known for his photographic memory and extensive knowledge of ST trivia. He was employed as an official ST Archivist at Paramount about the time of ST IV, IIRC.

During the latter part of Richard's tenure, when all the tie-in licenses were re-signed in early 1989 (and "that memo" was released) and up until GR's death, yes, the authors and editors were discouraged from straying too far from the parent canonical works.

 

[flandry84]

KRAD,You say you have tried,in your books to dispel the "dumb down" klingon cliche ...fine and good.I'm not being snippy,but when reading reviews/previews on this or other threads,I tend to give the klingon-heavy books a miss.
Truth is the tv series have made little or no such effort.Boorish and violent seem to prevail when writing for the Klingons,and this medium rather than treklit is what I meant when I lamented the lack of Krenn-type figures in both TNG&DS9.
The comparison with the development of the Cardassian race is well made,though I've always thought of the Klingons as more imperialist than the threadbare soviet-like Cardassians.

 

[Steve Roby]

Notwithstanding all of this, or the points raised in your previous post (and addressed above), I am still (quite honestly) curious why you chose to make ad verecundiam and ad hominem arguments the first time you responded to my thoughts.

Ad hominem: if the worst anyone ever calls you is a bold young iconoclast, you have a happy life ahead of you.

Ad verecundiam: Harlan Ellison has said that everyone's entitled to an informed opinion. Not that I'd call him a perfect example of thoughtfulness in some contexts, but I think the point he's making is pretty much self-evident. I'm not a writer. If other writers point out a particular writer as worthy of respect, they're offering a more informed opinion than my own. They're offering an opinion on a matter in which their authority is relevant.

 

[foravalon]

KRAD,You say you have tried,in your books to dispel the "dumb down" klingon cliche ...fine and good.I'm not being snippy,but when reading reviews/previews on this or other threads,I tend to give the klingon-heavy books a miss.
Truth is the tv series have made little or no such effort.Boorish and violent seem to prevail when writing for the Klingons,and this medium rather than treklit is what I meant when I lamented the lack of Krenn-type figures in both TNG&DS9.
The comparison with the development of the Cardassian race is well made,though I've always thought of the Klingons as more imperialist than the threadbare soviet-like Cardassians.

Kang, Mara, Martok, Worf, Sirella, Kurn, the monks of Boreth, K'Ehleyr, Toq. What of Gorkon, Chang, & Azetbur, even Brigadier Kerla, admittedly not from the series, but hell, even Ambassador Kamarag, he may have been an ass but he was still well-spoken. True, the boorish and violent aspects may have seemed prevalent, but these are just a handful of Klingons I can think of off the top of my head that I don't believe fit that stereotype. I'm sure there are many more I'm not immediately recalling.

The culture, especially the military side which we were mostly exposed to, may be a warrior driven one, but the concepts of honor integral to the society were driven home almost from day one in TNG. Their appreciation for Shakespeare and opera has been readily present. The boorishness was played up for comic effect most of the time, but their faith and ritual were prominent as well. Grace was no stranger either, Mokabara, the arts and techniques of the Bat'leth and the Mek'leth, the Klingon tea ceremony. All of these things are hints into a much richer culture than that which is commonly perceived.

 

[Captain_Koloth]

Whoa! They like Shakespeare!

Don't take that wrong way- I just mean to say that just because someone knows Shakespeare doesn't make them cultures. Especially if it's, you know, an alien race.

 

[foravalon]

um.... okay... what?

 

[darkwing_duck1]

both[/B] entities.

Richard worked as a volunteer studio tour guide throughout the 80s and became known for his photographic memory and extensive knowledge of ST trivia. He was employed as an official ST Archivist at Paramount about the time of ST IV, IIRC.

During the latter part of Richard's tenure, when all the tie-in licenses were re-signed in early 1989 (and "that memo" was released) and up until GR's death, yes, the authors and editors were discouraged from straying too far from the parent canonical works.

"Too far"? Try "at all"...Arnold introduced the idea of the "reset button" long before Voyager, and his ham handed interferance with the licenses ensured they would be little more than the same sort of bland tapioca that Berman is accused of turning the LA shows into.