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Spoilers TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic by McIntee Review Thread

Rate Indistinguishable From Magic

  • Outstanding

    Votes: 51 28.2%
  • Above Average

    Votes: 70 38.7%
  • Average

    Votes: 28 15.5%
  • Below Average

    Votes: 16 8.8%
  • Poor

    Votes: 16 8.8%

  • Total voters
    181
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

So are there some characters that require editorial permission to kill off, like Rees, Choudhury, or Chen? I know the death of Janeway was editorially directed but was Scotty (if her's dead)? Does there have to be some level of consent to kill characters off?
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

Does there have to be some level of consent to kill characters off?

Well, there has to be "some level of consent" to do anything in a tie-in novel. Regardless of whether the idea originates with the author or the editor, everything in a tie-in has to be approved by the licensor as well as the editor.

Other than that, though, it's not like there's some formal list somewhere of characters you can't kill off, not that I know of, anyway. If there were still a Trek series on the air, then obviously any books set during the run of that series would be forbidden to make any fundamental changes in its continuity, including cast fatalities. But since all current Trek Lit (aside from the young-adult Abramsverse Starfleet Academy novels) is based on productions whose onscreen runs are concluded, we basically have carte blanche. And there's certainly no reason why CBS would forbid killing off characters created specifically for the literature like Choudhury or Chen.
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

I know... I know... There's "official" and there's when it actually turns up. But it seemed like an appropriate moment to plug it again!
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

Hehe well I can't blame you for wanting to plug it! I can't remember if I've already said this but in case I haven't it is a fantastic book! Definitely one of my favourites! And definitely deserving of some plugging!
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

Other than the two book issue, I thought it deserved an 8/10 - and I grade unfairly.
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

I am really enjoying this book. Just getting started and I'm already drowning in old friends! Forgive me for this, but kick-ass job, Lonemagpie.

I LOLed at that, by the way. Literally. My wife came in to see what was up.
 
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Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

Finished the novel last night. Quite good, though some of the more advanced mathematical constructs took my head for a spin. The ending seemed a bit too abrupt, but it was still hard to put down! Hopefully we'll see more of Scotty and Rasmussen again...
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

I just finished reading the novel.
A pretty good read.
:-)
Though, one thing that I noticed (although I may have simply overlooked it) was that they never established exactly why was the NX-07's hull showing up signs of being 2 thousand years old.
To me it seemed as if that little tidbit was simply... dropped, or I somehow missed it.

Missed it - it gets a technobabble explanation on page 88-89. Glad you liked it!

So what pages are they in the ePub edition?
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

I just finished reading the novel.
A pretty good read.
:-)
Though, one thing that I noticed (although I may have simply overlooked it) was that they never established exactly why was the NX-07's hull showing up signs of being 2 thousand years old.
To me it seemed as if that little tidbit was simply... dropped, or I somehow missed it.

Missed it - it gets a technobabble explanation on page 88-89. Glad you liked it!

So what pages are they in the ePub edition?

Haven't a clue - I've never seen one. It's Chapter 6 though.
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

My copy arrived yesterday. I'm about 140 pages in and really enjoying it. I really appreciated the conversation about what the universe can absorb before triggering the creation of a new timeline.
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

I noticed what might be an error. On page 272 Ogawa mentions Scotty having spent 80 years in a transporter buffer. However, from what I remember, Scotty was stuck in the transporter buffer for 75 years. Or is Ogawa just estimating?

It's not an error, just an example of a person, as most people do, rounding to the nearest multiple of ten while talking.

Now, Tomalak being named as still being Proconsul, *that's* an error! (cos a global search and replace would have changed the name of the Romulan ship as well, and I missed a mention while editing by eye!)

So what change needs to be made to fix the error? Since I have the ePub edition, I can make the change fairly easily.
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

The part was meant to be replaced by just a Romulan Admiral
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

The part was meant to be replaced by just a Romulan Admiral

I did find one other error in chapter 19.

When Bok first woke, his head was filled with...including Rasmussen. The name Rasmussen as the end of that paragraph should be Ras-mew-son as it's Bok's thoughts.
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

^Yeah, it's in his thoughts, not his speech, so I don't think phonetic spelling would be called for there.
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

Finally finished the book properly last night. My overall impression is that it was a fun read and a page turner. However, there were quite a lot of little things in this book that pulls me out of the story every now and then that I can't rate it as 'outstanding'.

Some of these things are very minor mistakes, for example a missing/extra quotation mark. Some are just words that read a bit awkward to me, one that pops to mind is "opponent's ship's shields" which is a bit of a mouthful when I tried to read it, and it broke the flow of my reading. There were also conversations where I didn't know who was speaking, this is especially the case on p452-3 where the second section started with Geordi and Leah walking, 10 lines later we were told Vol was the only other person left on the ship, then we had a conversion which started with Geordi but it wasn't until the end of the conversation I realised that he was talking to Leah when she kissed him. One mistake was scientific: just because Challenger is accelerating at 0.1g towards somewhere, and the ship had a gravity of 0.5g, it doesn't mean the people in the ship will experience 0.6g, in fact the probability of that happening is very small. It's more likely that the characters experienced acceleration in some random direction, as 0.1g is roughly change of 0 to 100kph in 15 seconds, and they might experience a change (+ve or -ve) in gravity.

So I think this book showed the editorial turmoil behind the scenes in Pocket over the last year, as all of these things can be easily corrected.

OTOH, I didn't have too much problem with the two book in one thing other people in this thread had. Maybe because I knew about it going into the book. Same with Scotty's medical situation.

Anyway, this was a fun read, the story was engaging for me and I loved seeing all the old familiar faces and loved Geordi's journey through it. Oh yeah, I giggled at the Belgium reference. Looking forward to your next novel, David. :Bolian:
 
Re: Star Trek: TNG: Indistinguishable From Magic Review Thread

The part was meant to be replaced by just a Romulan Admiral

Can you give me the name you would have used please so I can make the correction?


^Yeah, it's in his thoughts, not his speech, so I don't think phonetic spelling would be called for there.

But the term hew-mon was used so I do think the phonetic way would be correct there.
 
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