I really liked Kirsten Beyer's "Children of the Storm" and have read all three of the Voyager books. The return of Janeway, while it will get some readers back, will unravel all the progress that has been made with the characters. After the return of Spock, Kirk, Tasha Yar, Ben Sisko, I have to wonder what's the point of the story if everything goes back to the way it was? I thought the books moved beyond the status quo. It makes me cringe when I see the books only cater to the causual fan. If Pocket Books haven't noticed; the space for Star Trek books is getting smaller and smaller at book chains.
IMO, this might work better in the other thread already rolling about the subject. Then again, it has sort of turned into a back-and-forth quotefest. The term "Casual fan" gives me WoW forum flashbacks, but I suppose it is a good point.
I haven't read a Trek book in ages, but I see little point to trying to keep to some comic book nerd level of continuity between all the books. Why not allow authors to create their own stories choosing whatever, if anything from other books, that they wish to be canon?
While there are sure to be advantages to using an extended continuity, there are sure to be disadvantages as well. Beyond strait-jacketing writers into a frame work of prior events, I wonder whether it drives off more readers than it is worth. While an audience may be there for a continuous set of adventures, how many do the lose when an undesirable event is written- like Janeway dying. Further, what of those who might read Voyager stories or other series, but don't want to commit to 3, 4, 5, or more books in addition to one tale that catches their eye just so they can follow the tale of interest. Particularly with no existent series, now seems a time like the late sixties and seventies to embrace writer creativity, rather than editorial continuity.
I thought several of the writers have come in here and debunked the idea of "editorial continuity" and kept the books consistent because they wanted to.
The point isn't about the existence of an editorial continuity, rather that getting away from continuity would be to the benefit of the genre.
Wow! Reading this was like a breath of fresh air! I miss the days when the only "canon" we had to bother with was what was aired on TV and in the movies. I think the books have literally painted themselves into a corner by sticking to a "comic book nerd level of continuity." It does stifle creativity, and it deprives those of us who are greater fans of the televised Trek from being able to read about the characters we know and love. And I think it does intimidate new readers from picking up a Trek book at the bookstore. It's amazing how many times in the Literature forum that someone posts a question about "where I should start" in reading today. I'd love to see the novels return to more stand alone books.
I disagree with most of the board. I liked the fact that the storyline moved beyond the series. I liked the editors Ordover and Marco Palmeri who at least tried to make sure the books went into futher seasons without forgetting what went before. The stand alone novels for me are just repeats of what went before. I know in CBS/Paramount/Pocket books will cater to what the fans want, but it's sad to see that everything that was established by the above editors(in terms of a continuing story line) will put aside to sell stand alone novels that don't have any long term plan. I can see why David Mack is concluding his Vanguard saga. Why have other authors stretch out the story until it's so watered down that it becomes a pale imatation of what came before?
I have to wonder with David Mack concluding his series;if Peter David might do the same with his yearly New Frontier novels? I don't think I would buy New Frontier if it was written by anyone else but Peter David.
I am not saying there shouldn't be standalone novels. I prefer that there should be some type of logical (as Spock would say) continuing story through all books. The Typhon Pact series was epic story telling that made Trek books out of the ordinary. To go back to the numbered books would be a step back. That's all I have been seeing of late. The single story books were what I thought the editors were attempting to have only a few of.
I agree, I just posted in the Treklit thread a bit about finding the latest books unwieldy because of all the story lines crammed in together but I didn't think about how the canon imperative is a part of that. I do think that it is possible to have a continuing canon and not end up like this however. Maybe not having all the books about the latest OVERPOWERING THREAT TO THE KNOWN GALAXY. Once that is your story obviously you can't write a nifty book about Picard's archaeological adventures in the middle of it because everyone has to be on the front line of the battle and all stories have to focus on that. Blech. Never liked the overwhelming threat to the galaxy storyline in anything. I would love to have smaller stories. I'm looking up at my Treklit shelves above my screen and I see the IKS Gorkon series.. that was great stuff. Terok Nor by James Swallow, my favorite Trek book ever, a trilogy telling the story of the beginning and middle of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, Gul Dukat's rise in power. There are so many stories like this in all the series that could be told! And you wouldn't have to cram the Aventine, the Titan, the UFP President, Picard's crew, Voyager, Vaughn, and everyone else and his dog into it. So, thinking as I go along, I think the canon thing could still be perfectly doable it's just the direction they have chosen to take with the kind of story they want to tell. And it's amazing how irritated some posters there get at that question. I lent my daughter Destiny to read and she was constantly calling me to ask who this was, why was Janeway dead, what was this about.. I had been reading treklit for so long I forgot how these books aren't completely stand alone. Sure you can catch up with the idea of everything but do you actually CARE about 20 new characters who were introduced in 20 other books and crammed into this one? By the way, this business about catering to the "casual fan".. you better believe these books have to cater to the casual fan. I've lent out a lot of my books to people who are familiar with only one series and maybe a smattering of another, people who may not have watched Trek in years but have an affection for it. I lend them the first in a relaunch. If you want these books only catering to the hardcore you better be ready to only buy them in e-books because you will never sell enough to make them viable. A huge proportion of hardcore trek fans don't even read the books.
Tie-in fiction is for the hardcore, no one else. I've heard where tie-in fiction sells less than 1% of a shows given viewership. So a show with ten million viewers would likely sell tie-in books in the range of a hundred-thousand copies. Tie-in fiction is for those who have an appetite for a property beyond it's weekly showings. IE, the hardcore.
There's an easy way to have Janeway return, and not screw up Treklit's canonical paper universe. Bring Janeway back to the screen. Small or large, it matters not to me. I just want to hear that VOICE say, "BATTLESTATIONS" one more time. See those BLUE eyes BURN into some poor slob's soul one more time. And watch that SMILE CROOK up the corner of her mouth, one more time.
Might as well bring back the whole crew. This way at least Garrett Wang will be saved from permanent unemployment.
They don't have to commit, because the individual stories all do a well enough job of introducing the relevant information on their own. Only completists (and comic book nerds) are compelled to read the entire library. ...Which is exactly what's happened. The new continuity is taking the characters in a direction they never could have while the series' and movies were still being made. Writers are free to do whatever they want without worrying whether the next season or the next movie will come along and contradict their stories. Um, yes it is. Your alternative was "embracing writer creativity". If the writers are keeping continuity because they want to, then we are embracing their creativity, which just happens to include continuity.
But the system leaves out those that aren't interested in a soap opera back story of information. It also does little to encourage a casual buyer to get any one book as they don't know whether they might need to get other books. It isn't a problem for completists, but it is one publishers should be concerned with if they don't want their market to shrink. There is room for more than just continuity works. If they were not doing that when the shows were on, then it is part of the problem, over-arching continuity choking off creativity. It doesn't matter what the writers want to do in this. This is a problem for the publishers. Grow the business or watch it die while folks go off to read the next thing on the book shelves. Twilight, perhaps. To bring this back to Janeway, there is no reason to not use the character. Nothing is rolled back or undone by ignoring a set of books that have her dead, that is only a problem for adhering to continuity which will slowly drive off readership. It's fiction people, embrace it or the books can go the way of the TV francise- a slow trip to cancellation.
The books don't leave anyone out if they're deliberately written in a way that you don't need the whole backstory to understand and enjoy the story at hand -- which they are. Yes, there is. And there are. You're saying they should move away from continuity to not confuse newcomers, right? So how would it have helped newcomers who just watched the latest episode to read a novel that was written before the episode aired which turned out to contradict it? If a writer really wanted to write something completely original, he wouldn't be doing tie-in fiction. ...Wait, so you've gone from "embrace writer creativity" to "it doesn't matter what writers want to do"?