The Soul Key

[flemm]

Star Trek has died of neglect. It's dead, Jim.

I think a more common argument would have been that it had been spoiled rotten by excessive fawning, but the point about alarmism is well taken

That said, I think there are some aspects of how the DS9 relaunch will move forward that are worth discussing.

Just because the series doesn't jump forward doesn't mean the characters and setting cease to exits (unless of couse the station is destroyed and the characters killed in the time between the stories)

Truncating the original relaunch storyline would certainly be disappointing, so I would rather see that continued as well. However, I do think the possibility of integrating some of the other DS9 characters into the post-Destiny/Typhoon Pact storyline is worth exploring, at least in the long run.

There are some pitfalls, clearly. It is hard to write a character convincingly without reflecting on recent past experiences, and that might mean spoiling events that had not yet been reached in the DS9 novels.

On the other hand, there would be benefits. For one thing, seeing these characters cross crew boundaries and deal with characters from other shows is entertaining in itself, since it breaks some of the artificial boundaries created by the television format.

 

[Marie1]

Star Trek has died of neglect. It's dead, Jim.

I think a more common argument would have been that it had been spoiled rotten by excessive fawning, but the point about alarmism is well taken

Umm...

That said, I think there are some aspects of how the DS9 relaunch will move forward that are worth discussing.

I think there must be few at this point guilty of that. Otherwise everything would do well all the time... kinda? Some people are pretty intense, but at least ST has to keep on its toes. I think the books are going to be okay, follow an interesting and logical progression... as they have but for one hiccup. ST fans like to worry.

Just because the series doesn't jump forward doesn't mean the characters and setting cease to exits (unless of couse the station is destroyed and the characters killed in the time between the stories)

Truncating the original relaunch storyline would certainly be disappointing, so I would rather see that continued as well. However, I do think the possibility of integrating some of the other DS9 characters into the post-Destiny/Typhoon Pact storyline is worth exploring, at least in the long run.

Well, there are two or three at least aren't there? There is a limit to how many you can have without making any danger the characters are in in the middle seem hollow.

 

[JD]

There are some pitfalls, clearly. It is hard to write a character convincingly without reflecting on recent past experiences, and that might mean spoiling events that had not yet been reached in the DS9 novels.

And as we saw with Dax in Destiny, you can do that without spoilers. The vague references can do alot to make people curious about happened/will happen in the earlier books.

 

[Technobuilder]

It's funny, but I'm going to miss the Star Trek locations for the listings of Pocket's Worldwide offices. That was a nice touch. It showed a sense of care yet whimsy.

Fear not; the whimsy continues...

Thanks for the notification!

I'm looking forward to both of these books as well.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Oh, please please please stop saying Typhoon.

It's Typhon, with one 'o'.

 

[flemm]

Oh, please please please stop saying Typhoon.

It's Typhon, with one 'o'.

I assure you I was saying "Typhon" from the beginning.

I merely spelled it "Typhoon."

Oh, and kiss my butt! (Which is how I spell "I love you!" )

 

[Allyn Gibson]

That said, I think there are some aspects of how the DS9 relaunch will move forward that are worth discussing.

Truncating the original relaunch storyline would certainly be disappointing, so I would rather see that continued as well. However, I do think the possibility of integrating some of the other DS9 characters into the post-Destiny/Typhon Pact storyline is worth exploring, at least in the long run.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that Deep Space Nine is essentially in the hands of a new executive producer. We'll be entering Margaret's vision of Deep Space Nine a book or two beyond Never-Ending Sacrifice, just as we've had Marco's vision since 2001, who picked up from Ira Steven Behr's vision before that. Margaret may not want to take Deep Space Nine fiction in places that Marco was planning on taking it, and she'll want to place her own stamp on the series, no doubt. Barring Marco writing a novel himself, what he had in mind for the series as a whole it's possible we won't ever entirely know; I tend to doubt at this point that we'll ever understand how Left Hand of Destiny was supposed to fit as anything more than a side-story, as an example.

This isn't an alarmist view, and I don't mean to raise concerns in anyone. Long-running series do see changes when new producers take the reins, because each producer has things they want to explore, unique stories they want to tell, and marks they want to leave on the property. Steven Moffat's Doctor Who will be different than Russell T. Davies' Doctor Who, which was different than Philip Segal's or Justin Richards' or Scott Grey's or Gary Russell's, which were all different than JNT's. Yet, they're all still recognizably Doctor Who. And the post-finale fiction we'll get will still be recognizably Deep Space Nine, even though it may differ in style, tone, character, and plot from anything that has come before, to say nothing of the possibility of entirely different voices (because Margaret may prefer to work with a different stable of authors than Marco) telling the tales.

Again, I'm not trying to be alarmist. I don't see anything to be alarmed about. Rather, I'm just being a realist. We have someone new at the helm, and what may have been in the cards before, with a different editor, might not even be on the table now. Time will tell.

 

[flemm]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that Deep Space Nine is essentially in the hands of a new executive producer. We'll be entering Margaret's vision of Deep Space Nine a book or two beyond Never-Ending Sacrifice, just as we've had Marco's vision since 2001, who picked up from Ira Steven Behr's vision before that. Margaret may not want to take Deep Space Nine fiction in places that Marco was planning on taking it, and she'll want to place her own stamp on the series, no doubt.

Very true. It will be interesting to see how that unfolds.

It wouldn't actually surprise me all that much if the decision were made to speed things up a bit, to bring DS9 into the same timeframe as the other 24th century crews. It strikes me that there might be quite a few advantages to doing this from an editorial point of view.

Personally I would be somewhat ambivalent about the concept, and would have to wait and see how it worked out to form a strong opinion.

 

[DS9forever]

Margaret Clark has edited DS9 novels before, most significantly A Stitch in Time. That should allay the "fears" some could have about her taking over.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Again, I'm not trying to be alarmist. I don't see anything to be alarmed about. Rather, I'm just being a realist. We have someone new at the helm, and what may have been in the cards before, with a different editor, might not even be on the table now. Time will tell.

One thing we do know is that Margaret Clark is not a Deanna Troi and won't crash the station.

One would hope that she would try to keep serialised arc storytelling that was a stamp of the series and that Marco continued. But the occasional standalone wouldn't go amiss either.

Here's to the future of DS9

 

[Reanok]

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Margaret has planned for the Ds9 relaunch. I'm looking forward to getting this book. A stitch in Time is one of the best books of the ds9 series.

 

[Marie1]

Out of curiosity, would MC have had a say in the books at all during Marco's tenure?

I liked ASIT... it wasn't my exact favourite, but it was good. I liked Marco's editing, but I'm not worried about DS9 PF, the authors have a great handle on it so far, which I doubt will be broken.

I hope MP has found other work... I can't find anything tho.

 

[Christopher]

Out of curiosity, would MC have had a say in the books at all during Marco's tenure?

Would Margaret have had a say in the DS9 books, you mean? No, those were Marco's projects. The only involvement she would've had would be if they needed to keep the continuity straight between Marco's DS9 books and something else that Margaret was editing.

 

[Marie1]

Out of curiosity, would MC have had a say in the books at all during Marco's tenure?

Would Margaret have had a say in the DS9 books, you mean? No, those were Marco's projects. The only involvement she would've had would be if they needed to keep the continuity straight between Marco's DS9 books and something else that Margaret was editing.

Okay, thanks for clearing that up for me, I wasn't sure. IIRC, the had the same job title, but I decided to ask.

I thought maybe they would have been more connected with each other's projects than that. I'm optimistic for the continuing DS9PF though.

 

[Christopher]

^No, the whole point of having multiple editors was so they could split the workload and handle different series.

 

[Marie1]

Also a good idea. With the workloads, I wonder how much time that had to read each other's stuff. That's a lot of books...

 

[MNM]

My copy came today, so my spoiler laden thoughts for the book are ahead...

So yeah, do not click if you havent read the book.

Spoiler: The Soul Key spoilers

Overall I think I was....underwhelmed is probably the word. I suppose I had built up quite an anticipation about this book and in the end, it didnt meet it. That is not to say it was a bad book, because it wasnt, it was perfectly fine, and in parts even good, just didnt hit all the highs I had thought it might.

The insights to the mirror universe and how the Klingon/Cardassian alliance was run (ie the two powers allied, but not actually joined, competeing for dominance within the alliance, it was said/implied that each power has times when they are in the ascendancy and times when they are on the back foot compared to the other, with usually Bajor being the swing vote. Dukat running Cardassia, Lang head of the Obsidian Order, Martok the Klingons - maybe all that was mentioned previously, I dont recall) were interesting enough, though how anyone trusts the mirror Kira when she kills her "allies" left and right is something I have never understood.

I was surprised, I thought Vaughan might become the Emmisary in the mirror universe, it never occured to me that the Ghemor of the mirror universe would become it, I had thought Vaughan had been sent there by Sisko for such a high purpose, but all he really does is meet his opposite, and kill him (he was dying anyway, a very old man in a universe where terrans just dont live that long), and it was the only way to get his mirror daughter to evacuate with the others.

This does lead me to a gripe I have about the mirror universe as a whole though. How, despite completely different events have shaped the universe over time, to be something entirely different from the normal one, people who exist in the normal one, also exist in the mirror one, near enough exactly the same just slightly tweaked from their circumstances, so their parents and grandparents and great grandparents etc... still managed to find each other and have kids and raised them to be roughly the same people at their core etc etc.. Yes I realise it is a conceit to have the series regulars on tv play their characters in different ways, and that is fine enough for the tv series, but I dont think it works as well in the written word.

Dax (one of my favourite characters) wasnt in it too much, but she did rock as always when commanding the Defiant near the end. Pretty cool to read her early command years as it were and see her say she is debating leaving the station for another posting at some point, when you know in a few years she will be a captain of high standing and whooping ass.

Taran'atar leaving at the end was shame, I liked him being on the station.

The epilogue showing the gathering of the Ascendant forces and the Ghemor/Kira person from the nomal universe becoming their leader/emmisary whatever it was, was cool. I am looking forward to this arc.

Decent book, though as I said, something about it underwhelmed me, and I still cant put my finger on it.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

My copy came today, so my spoiler laden thoughts for the book are ahead...

So yeah, do not click if you havent read the book.

Spoiler: The Soul Key spoilers

Overall I think I was....underwhelmed is probably the word. I suppose I had built up quite an anticipation about this book and in the end, it didnt meet it. That is not to say it was a bad book, because it wasnt, it was perfectly fine, and in parts even good, just didnt hit all the highs I had thought it might.

The insights to the mirror universe and how the Klingon/Cardassian alliance was run (ie the two powers allied, but not actually joined, competeing for dominance within the alliance, it was said/implied that each power has times when they are in the ascendancy and times when they are on the back foot compared to the other, with usually Bajor being the swing vote. Dukat running Cardassia, Lang head of the Obsidian Order, Martok the Klingons - maybe all that was mentioned previously, I dont recall) were interesting enough, though how anyone trusts the mirror Kira when she kills her "allies" left and right is something I have never understood.

I was surprised, I thought Vaughan might become the Emmisary in the mirror universe, it never occured to me that the Ghemor of the mirror universe would become it, I had thought Vaughan had been sent there by Sisko for such a high purpose, but all he really does is meet his opposite, and kill him (he was dying anyway, a very old man in a universe where terrans just dont live that long), and it was the only way to get his mirror daughter to evacuate with the others.

This does lead me to a gripe I have about the mirror universe as a whole though. How, despite completely different events have shaped the universe over time, to be something entirely different from the normal one, people who exist in the normal one, also exist in the mirror one, near enough exactly the same just slightly tweaked from their circumstances, so their parents and grandparents and great grandparents etc... still managed to find each other and have kids and raised them to be roughly the same people at their core etc etc.. Yes I realise it is a conceit to have the series regulars on tv play their characters in different ways, and that is fine enough for the tv series, but I dont think it works as well in the written word.

Dax (one of my favourite characters) wasnt in it too much, but she did rock as always when commanding the Defiant near the end. Pretty cool to read her early command years as it were and see her say she is debating leaving the station for another posting at some point, when you know in a few years she will be a captain of high standing and whooping ass.

Taran'atar leaving at the end was shame, I liked him being on the station.

The epilogue showing the gathering of the Ascendant forces and the Ghemor/Kira person from the nomal universe becoming their leader/emmisary whatever it was, was cool. I am looking forward to this arc.

Decent book, though as I said, something about it underwhelmed me, and I still cant put my finger on it.

Lucky you! I'm very much looking forward to this...

 

[DS9Continuing]

I was just reading the excerpt on the instore system at an Indigo bookstore in Toronto, and I spotted what appeared to be editing errors. At least twice the writer/editor referred to Grennokar when it seemed by context they should have been referring to Letau.

The scene in question is the flashback to Iliana plotting from the Grennokar base, and it refers to how Grennokar is connected to Harkoum via Dukat's Dominion-made subspace transporter. But Grennokar is on Harkoum, so the transporter is unnecessary - they meant to say Grennokar is connected to Letau via the transporter.

 

[JD]

My copy came today, so my spoiler laden thoughts for the book are ahead...

So yeah, do not click if you havent read the book.

Spoiler: The Soul Key spoilers

Overall I think I was....underwhelmed is probably the word. I suppose I had built up quite an anticipation about this book and in the end, it didnt meet it. That is not to say it was a bad book, because it wasnt, it was perfectly fine, and in parts even good, just didnt hit all the highs I had thought it might.

The insights to the mirror universe and how the Klingon/Cardassian alliance was run (ie the two powers allied, but not actually joined, competeing for dominance within the alliance, it was said/implied that each power has times when they are in the ascendancy and times when they are on the back foot compared to the other, with usually Bajor being the swing vote. Dukat running Cardassia, Lang head of the Obsidian Order, Martok the Klingons - maybe all that was mentioned previously, I dont recall) were interesting enough, though how anyone trusts the mirror Kira when she kills her "allies" left and right is something I have never understood.

I was surprised, I thought Vaughan might become the Emmisary in the mirror universe, it never occured to me that the Ghemor of the mirror universe would become it, I had thought Vaughan had been sent there by Sisko for such a high purpose, but all he really does is meet his opposite, and kill him (he was dying anyway, a very old man in a universe where terrans just dont live that long), and it was the only way to get his mirror daughter to evacuate with the others.

This does lead me to a gripe I have about the mirror universe as a whole though. How, despite completely different events have shaped the universe over time, to be something entirely different from the normal one, people who exist in the normal one, also exist in the mirror one, near enough exactly the same just slightly tweaked from their circumstances, so their parents and grandparents and great grandparents etc... still managed to find each other and have kids and raised them to be roughly the same people at their core etc etc.. Yes I realise it is a conceit to have the series regulars on tv play their characters in different ways, and that is fine enough for the tv series, but I dont think it works as well in the written word.

Dax (one of my favourite characters) wasnt in it too much, but she did rock as always when commanding the Defiant near the end. Pretty cool to read her early command years as it were and see her say she is debating leaving the station for another posting at some point, when you know in a few years she will be a captain of high standing and whooping ass.

Taran'atar leaving at the end was shame, I liked him being on the station.

The epilogue showing the gathering of the Ascendant forces and the Ghemor/Kira person from the nomal universe becoming their leader/emmisary whatever it was, was cool. I am looking forward to this arc.

Decent book, though as I said, something about it underwhelmed me, and I still cant put my finger on it.

I just read your review, and wow, sounds like there are some pretty interesting developments here. I can't wait to get my hands on it.