The Peter David appreciation & discussion thread

[David cgc]

Indeed, I think he's a hell of a lot closer to televised Trek in theme and tone than the rape, torture and terrorism we are dished up in a lot of Trek fiction these days, and that's why his books are about the only Trek ones I buy these days.

I can think of examples of all three of those in PAD Trek novels. Indeed, I believe he was doing it first. Why, I remember a thread a few years back where someone complained that PAD's novels were too explicit and violent, citing the brutal assassination of the Planet of the Week's royal family in the prologue of "Cold Wars."

 

[darkwing_duck1]

PAD works best with a strong author to pull him back when he's playing in other peoples' sandboxes. They let him get away from them with latter NF books, and they (IMO) went to crap as a result.

The EARLY NF books, and his "X-Factor" rum (both under strong editorial control) are excellent reads, as is the NF graphic novel.

 

[Rabid Trekkie]

Count me in as another fan of Peter David. I started out reading NF and have gradually been able to get some of his TNG work as well. What I like about his work (Trek only as I've yet to read any of his original prose) is that it reminds me of the TOS. I can't say as to what Roddenbarry's original intention was toward the seriousness of the show, but from the first time I saw an episode of it the mixture of humor and drama as well as real science and far out completely impossible scifi just created something wonderful. And for me, that's what Peter David's work does. And in a universe where there are nigh omnipotent pranksters and little bugs trying to be witches and warlocks, I think it fits. Just have the last NF novel and I'll be caught up. And of course the next time I'm able to buy books I'm hoping to get Mack's Destiny trilogy and some of David's original work as well.

 

[William Leisner]

Peter David was the first coming of Keith DeCandido.

 

[KRAD]

Folks who like Peter's work should probably track down the Big Finish Doctor Who: Short Trips anthology The Quality of Leadership. It combines Who with the King Arthur legend (also done by Peter in his Knight Life trilogy), and serves as a sequel/prequel to the Who episode "Battlefield."

It's also Peter's first time writing Doctor Who. The anthology also has stories by Diane Duane, James Swallow, Steve Savile, Una McCormack, Terri Osborne, Allyn Gibson, Richard C. White, Robert T. Jeschonek, John S. Drew, Kathleen O. David, and Linnea Dodson.

 

[Defcon]

Folks who like Peter's work should probably track down the Big Finish Doctor Who: Short Trips anthology The Quality of Leadership. It combines Who with the King Arthur legend (also done by Peter in his Knight Life trilogy), and serves as a sequel/prequel to the Who episode "Battlefield."

It's also Peter's first time writing Doctor Who. The anthology also has stories by Diane Duane, James Swallow, Steve Savile, Una McCormack, Terri Osborne, Allyn Gibson, Richard C. White, Robert T. Jeschonek, John S. Drew, Kathleen O. David, and Linnea Dodson.

And if you're unsure about reading a Doctor Who book with only little exposure to it, you don't have to be afraid. In my opinion it's pretty accessible even to Who newbies.

(Hey, if KRAD is pimping the book (rightfully so since it is very good), I can pimp my article/review about it as well. )

 

[Therin of Andor]

I love the first "Sir Apropos of Nothing" novel. I understand Peter David and IDW are about to do a comic mini-series sequel to the novel trilogy.

 

[PaulSimpson]

I love the first "Sir Apropos of Nothing" novel. I understand Peter David and IDW are about to do a comic mini-series sequel to the novel trilogy.

The ads - and an interview with Peter about it which includes a dig at Pocket - are in the back of the current crop of IDW releases (Mirror Universe 4 etc).

P

 

[Therin of Andor]

The ads - and an interview with Peter about it which includes a dig at Pocket - are in the back of the current crop of IDW releases (Mirror Universe 4 etc).

I know.

 

[William Leisner]

The ads - and an interview with Peter about it which includes a dig at Pocket - are in the back of the current crop of IDW releases (Mirror Universe 4 etc).

I know.

And now so do the rest of us.

 

[Therin of Andor]

And now so do the rest of us.

Well, you shoulda been buying the IDW comics.

 

[captcalhoun]

what's the dig at pocket?

 

[Therin of Andor]

what's the dig at pocket?

"I would have been perfectly happy to continue 'Apropos' in prose, to be honest, but Pocket Books has paradoxically said they're not interested in producing more novels while - at the same time - they keep going back to press with the earlier books in the series (the first novel is up to its sixth printing)." - PAD interview in IDW comics this month.

 

[donners22]

The first two Sir Apropos books were terrific. The third was just depressing, IMO, aside from one absolutely brilliant D & D spoof.

Is there a sequel on the way to Darkness and Light? That was the first of a trilogy IIRC, and it was quite an interesting world.

 

[Red Ranger]

I enjoy Peter David's work. I met him briefly at a comic convention almost two years ago in NY. Gracious fellow! I really enjoyed his run on The Incredible Hulk back in the 1990s, esp. reviving the gray Hulk.

I believe I've only read two of his ST novels, and I enjoyed them immensely: Vendetta and A Rock & A Hard Place. In the latter, the insane character Commander Quentin Stone was interesting -- a lunatic Starfleet officer who even frazzled Captain Picard.

Red Ranger

 

[donners22]

^ Stone is pretty much a trial run for Captain Calhoun in New Frontier, so you'd probably find those an interesting read as well.

 

[Bonzo the Fifth]

To me, it's funny that more than a few people have mentioned the TOS flavor of David's work, yet I can only think of one TOS novel that he's written (The Rift, I think)... and even that contained a lot of TNG style elements to it...

Just found that interesting...

I'm definitely a fan of David's past work. Vendetta in particular was an amazing piece of work at the time it came out, as was Q-Squared. Like many others, I'm not a fan of Before Dishonor, but not because it's necessarily a 'bad' novel. Taken out of context of the EU continuity as an isolated novel, it's actually quite interesting and fun, for me at least. The things that ground my gears about it were obvious problems with integration into the modern paradigm of Trek novel writing, which is far more collaborative and character driven than it was back in David's heyday. While he's obviously quite astute and detail-oriented with the trivia and nuances with the onscreen materials, one gets a feeling from reading BD that he just didn't care about what other writers had been doing in the meantime, especially with any of the original characters that had been created in the Post-Nemesis novels.

This might not have necessarily been a bad thing, given that he's considered by many to be a good writer. The problem, though, is that, currently, he's far from the only good writer in the stable, so his excesses and shortcomings as a novelist are suddenly thrown into sharp relief, given that we currently have several examples of novelists doing the job right, as it were...

This isn't to knock on the guy. It's not a stretch to say that he was probably easily the most popular and well known Trek novelist for many years. Just that nowadays, he's got a lot of good competition in a changed landscape...

 

[KRAD]

^ Actually, Peter has written three (well, two-and-a-quarter) TOS novels -- besides The Rift, there's The Captain's Daughter and The Disinherited (that last with Robert Greenberger and Michael Jan Friedman) -- but he also wrote the TOS comic book for DC for many many years.

 

[donners22]

This might not have necessarily been a bad thing, given that he's considered by many to be a good writer. The problem, though, is that, currently, he's far from the only good writer in the stable, so his excesses and shortcomings as a novelist are suddenly thrown into sharp relief, given that we currently have several examples of novelists doing the job right, as it were...

This isn't to knock on the guy. It's not a stretch to say that he was probably easily the most popular and well known Trek novelist for many years. Just that nowadays, he's got a lot of good competition in a changed landscape...

The implication being that the quality of authors was substantially lower than it is now? I would have to disagree strongly with that.

I think there were many quality Trek books produced at a time PAD built his reputation, and I cannot think of many which have been written recently to match that standard.

There are a handful of authors for whose books I would have high expectations these days, and certainly no more than I did in the mid-90s.

Indeed, given the constraints authors had to operate in prior to the last few years, I think those who did write novels which stood out did an exceptional job.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

The way I read that statement was the other way around...that now PAD has a lot more very tough competition from high-quality writings. Not that there wasn't great writing around before, but there's one heck of a concentration of it now.