TNG: #25 Grounded Review Thread

[tomswift2002]

Post your thoughts and reviews of David Bischoff's March 1993 Trek novel Grounded.

 

[Mysterion]

Don't remember much abou this one to be hones. But it does stand out in my mind for the sub-plot about Riker being the lust-object of some young girl, which was very annoying.

 

[indianatrekker26]

This is one of my favorite of the numbered TNG books. I remember the beginning, finding it hilarious to see Worf play volleyball. I remember he screams "death to the enemy!" I always looked at it as a nod to the Blob movie. with the muck that takes over the Enterprise. I remember Picard fights the muck/blob in the climax.

 

[tomswift2002]

I just read the scene a few days ago where LaForge and his engineering team are out to inspect the external hull (something which we didn't see anyone do until Star Trek First Contact), and I really enjoyed how the author managed to convey, from the human perspective, the enormity of the Enterprise. It reminded me of that scene in True Q where the production team tried to get Q and Amanda standing on the hull of the ship, and tried to make them look in the correct perspective.

Plus the rippling of the hull was pretty fun to read.

 

[Reanok]

I just finished reading this book today.I really like how the TNG crew was written in this novel.That scene with Geordi and the engineers on the Enterprise was spooky .The alien creature did remind me of the blob creature from the scifi movie classic.I liked the scenes of the crew playing volleyball on the holodeck too.

 

[tomswift2002]

When I finish grounded I'm moving onto the Hardy Boys Casefiles #39 "Flesh And Blood", but then I think I might start reading Bischoff's seaQuest DSV novel "The Ancient" that was published exactly a year after "Grounded" (Grounded appeared in March 93, "The Ancient" appeared in March 94). I've seen a few reviews on his seaQuest novel online, but it seems to me that the reviewers were giving the books negative scores because they assumed that he had seen or had seen some of the show, when that would not have been the case (seaQuest debuted on TV in September 93), so I'm not going to go by those biased reviews.

 

[tomswift2002]

I just read Chapter 17 this morning. I had forgotten that Bischoff had taken the rare step of doing an all first person chapter. Chapter 17 is all personal logs from Picard, Riker, Troi, LaForge, Crusher and Worf.

 

[rfmcdpei]

I just re-read the book and I enjoyed it. It was a nice little story, with some interesting science, an entertaining conflict or two, and an interesting antagonist.

 

[bullethead]

I think I might start reading Bischoff's seaQuest DSV novel "The Ancient" that was published exactly a year after "Grounded" (Grounded appeared in March 93, "The Ancient" appeared in March 94). I've seen a few reviews on his seaQuest novel online, but it seems to me that the reviewers were giving the books negative scores because they assumed that he had seen or had seen some of the show, when that would not have been the case (seaQuest debuted on TV in September 93), so I'm not going to go by those biased reviews.

I've read it and it's a pretty bad story. It feels way more like something that would've come out of that show's horrible second season than a season 1 episode.

 

[tomswift2002]

Yeah, the mud creature is something that we don't see too much of in the novels, which is surprising. I think it was in Voyages of Imagination where John Ordover (or one of the Pocket editors) remembered how he always wanted this type of story where, from a special effects stand-point on a TV show, it was impossible, but in a book that type of creature was possible because the special effects budget in a book was unlimited! And I also remember Peter David mentioning in his DS9 novel, The Siege, in either his forward or afterward, about how a book was able to have incredible special effects that were not practical on a TV budget! And Grounded was one of those books, since, in a way, this sand/clay creature was a re-working of Artemis from Skin Of Evil, but handled in a much better environment where there were no restraints on what it could and could not do (and even now in the CGI age, I don't think, if TNG were still on, TNG could've produced a show with this creature on their budget).