1. How do you feel the Trek book line has done in the last 12-15 months?
This thread is well-timed. I just picked up a Trek book (Strange New World X, languishing on my shelf for a while now) for the first time since, I believe, July. And given that I've not purchased or read a Trek book for the better part of a year, how else can I answer this question but to say that my impression of the Trek line now is a rather poor one. This is mainly due to the franchise's tailspin into nuBSG-style genocide-chic and its attendant consequences, such the abandonment of the line's diversity. And even outside that subjective viewpoint, it seems like the line has been troubled. Two editors gone supposedly due to the "bad economy" (though, silver lining, perhaps this offers up the hope of some bad decisions being rescinded), and this year's TOS-obsessed schedule backfiring with the sudden rescinding of permission to do books based on Abrams' Product (which actually works out for me since I have no interest in anything spawned by that third-rate hackjob of a film, but am interested in the S.C.E. reprints we'll be getting instead; although I'm sure the writers must be disappointed that after putting all that effort into a novel it won't reach its audience.) Pocket was obviously caught with its pants down if they have nothing better to fill the void than reprinting a book whose author subsequently became well-known in the hopes of cashing in on people who won't know any better and will except an Anita Blake-style Trek novel--which is just sad. From what I recall,
Nightshade was a pretty forgettable entry--anybody who makes
Nightshade their first Trek book is likely to make
Nightshade their last Trek book. Finally, I was checking Memory Beta a few days ago to see what I'd missed in terms of announcements, and it seems that there's next to nothing known about the future of the line which I didn't already know about way back in July--just that Vanguard and Voyager are getting new entries, and
Christopher is writting a book based on the "Trials and Tribble-ations" investigators. Suppose it's no surprise that losing two senior editors really screws with your workload.
2. What specifically have you liked in regards to the entire Trek book line in that time? Any favorite novels?
Hard to say. I suppose there are individual entries amidst the overall tailspin which I did enjoy on their own merits. The Mirror Universe books,
KRAD's Q novel,
Christopher's TNG-R entry; even
Gods of Night was a groovy read on first experience, though it obvious takes retroactive knocks for where the story ultimately ends up (or fails to end up, in the case of the 24th-century plotlines).
3. And what specifically have you disliked in regards to the Trek book line of the last year or so? Any bad or disappointing novels?
The obvious thing is
Destiny. I was so let down by that trilogy and its wallowing in death, destruction, despair, despondency, degeneracy and other words starting with "de". Such a great start, such a grand canvas, but what an ultimately perverse ending, sidelining if not making entirely irrelevant most of its cast, glorifying impotence and fetishizing failure, and leaving the setting a flaming ruin, a dystopian shadow of its former self. I was having some compatibility issues with the line prior to that, but
Destiny was really the point where I just said "Enough of this. There's no point in wasting my time on this spoiled setting or these ruined characters anymore." And the passing of time has, if anything, only made starker the bitterness of it. I realize I was doing something foolish: persisting through 'entertainment' that did not entertain out of the memory or hope that it would do so again, infinitely deferring satisfaction along a strings of "Didn't like that? Just wait until you read..." There just comes a point where one has to say "I've given this enough chances, and it doesn't look like things are going to get better any time soon."
Destiny was that point for me. Of course,
Destiny is not alone is this:
Before Dishonor indulged in the same kind of themes, and didn't even have the trilogy's redeeming feature of being well-written at the micro level. And outside the 24th-century,
Kobayashi Maru perpetuated the same problems as the prior instalment in the ENT-R--the absurd plots, the overweening focus on few characters (most notably Tucker) to the detriment of the rest of the cast, and the Manichean humans vs. aliens set-up--leaving me to drop that series as well.
4. Any new recurring trends or themes in the last 12 months have you noticed? Anything you've liked or disliked about them?
I'd say so, yes.
It's hard not to notice how the success of nuBSG--or nuBSG's earlier seasons, anyway--has infected other franchises with the belief that they needed to emulate that type of storytelling.
Legacy of the Force, Ultimatum, SG:U, probably other things I'm missing, all attempted to capture that particular sensibility to varying degrees of lack of success (Ultimatum was such a piece of shit). Of all of them, however, easily the least suited for such a transmutation was Star Trek, whose core precepts of a better future, populated by a better humanity, stand diametrically opposed to the nuBSG belief in the inherent corruption of people and the uncaring viciousness of the universe. In retrospect, it's easy to see how this trend has actually been running for a while now, probably originating with
Resistance and our first glimpse of the mad, ineffective Picard that would culminate in a figure who spends his time wallowing in self-pity on the holodeck, shooting down everybody's ideas while offering none of his own like a one-man Republican party, and finally prosterning himself before his Caeliar saviours on the bridge of his own ship in
Destiny. (Curious that the end of two editorial periods--Ordover and Marco/Margaret, seem to coincidence with efforts to tear down Picard [Ordover in the perceived madness and disgrace of Picard in the
A Time To... series, which becomes literalized in Picard's psychotic, disgraceful behaviour in the TNG-R]--trying to sabotage your lead character: a sign of exhausted creativity?) The TNG-R imitated nuBSG staples such as: introducing asshole characters for seemingly no other purpose than having asshole characters, or else turning established characters into assholes; pointless infighting with all the mutiny claptrap artificially shoehorned into an actual crisis; the callous, arbitrary death of main or recurring characters, most notably Janeway's empty, out-series butchering. The result is the loss of something that had been unique (and I know because I tried and failed to find something that could replace Trek as a believable, optimistic series): a positive outlook on the future, traded for one of hundreds of similarly dark, dystopian universes. Looking ahead, I can't generate any interest in these twisted versions of the setting or characters, can't care what happens to this crippled Federation, to this mewling, contemptible Picard, this indecisive, fretful Riker, this meek, deferrent Worf, this futile, self-righteous LaForge, or anybody else. It's so sad to see these once stalwart figures reduced to this point, brought low by an attitude that seems to say that dignity is a obstacle to storytelling. Heck, I'm surprised Tuvok made it out without turning into gibbering wreck, the way any character with gravitas seems to be being systematically stripped of it, brought down to a level even below contemporary people, shucking the social aspect of this science-fiction universe in an apparent refusal of the idea that people can improve.
5. What editorial decisions and changes from the last 12-15 months have you like or disliked?
Kind of similar to the last question, so here I'd like to talk about the impact on the broader line.
Destiny has eliminated what used to be one of the line's greatest strengths: it's diversity. Different series could be expected to yield different sorts of storytelling. If you didn't like one, you could read others. I didn't like Vanguard, but that didn't prevent me from reading anything else. The scale of destruction in
Destiny is such that there's essentially no escaping it by turning to another series; every aspect of the 24th-century line has become subservient to genocide-chic trendiness. Where can disenfranchised fans of the better future of the 24th century, of the storytelling that animated shows like TNG, turn to? Nowhere, it seems. The ENT era is mired in absurdities, I've never liked TOS (particularly now that Abrams has also brought those characters into the genocide-chic trend), and TNG/DS9/VOY and their literary spin-offs continue to wallow in pseudo-nuBSG darkness. Now we're heading for a Cold War analogy, which seems like a birazze throwback to something that was only topical back when TOS was onscreen; indeed, it sometimes seems like, between the ENT-R's attempts to look more like TOS, and the current trends in the 24th century of a Federation reduced in size and encircled by foes, that everything is becoming more like TOS--an effect that can't be ascribed to the film, since these trends predated the movie. Just more loss of diversity.
6. What changes would you like to see in the Trek book line? Be it production choices or story editorial decisions?
Get rid of the genocide-chic--literally, if at all possible. Apologies to those who wrote them, but I'd like nothing more than to see Destiny and its various progenitors and successors rayed from the continuity, the Federation and characters restored to their unsullied state. Otherwise, reverse the effects. Q, time travel--I don't care how. Bring Risa back. Bring Janeway back. Bring Data back. To hell with verisimilitude. What's the point, if it merely serves makes the setting dreary and uninteresting? I'd rather stretch my credibility and enjoy Trek again, than read something I take no pleasure in just so that I can call it realistic. Grant the various series their distinct type of storytelling and their relevant thematic interests, instead of making everybody do the same despondent thing. Let's see the old themes of optimism and humanism take the foreground. Let's see characters you can look up to, people who inspire--allow our heroes to be heroes again. Let's see stories about strange new worlds, about encounters that inspire not dread but awe, in a setting not about suffering and loss but about the potentiality of humanity to solve their own puzzles and create a peaceful, prosperous interstellar community.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
), I was very interested in seeing what happened next. Yes, there was destruction, tragedy and hardships, but the war had been won, and the Federation and its allies prevailed in the end. I see the rebuilding period as a stepping stone to a new, different period in UFP history (as represented in the Typhon Pact).
