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Spoilers TOS: The Captain's Oath by Christopher L. Bennett Review Thread

Rate TOS: The Captain's Oath

  • Outstanding

    Votes: 27 45.0%
  • Above Average

    Votes: 25 41.7%
  • Average

    Votes: 2 3.3%
  • Below Average

    Votes: 2 3.3%
  • Poor

    Votes: 4 6.7%

  • Total voters
    60
Should Kirk admire Archer as he does Garth?

Hmm. I'd probably say not only because we all admire different people, well, differently.

There are probably different things Kirk would admire about Captain Garth than Captain Archer. For instance Captain Garth could be admired for his strategic genius. Where he might admire Captain Archer as a pioneer in space exploration.

Speaking of Captains I'm past Kirk's encounter with Captain Tracey of the Exeter (of "The Omega Glory" fame). I liked that Christopher planted some seeds in the character of what would drive him to betray Federation values in "The Omega Man". Not much, just a seed of doubt about what makes the man tick.
 
Speaking of Captains I'm past Kirk's encounter with Captain Tracey of the Exeter (of "The Omega Glory" fame). I liked that Christopher planted some seeds in the character of what would drive him to betray Federation values in "The Omega Man". Not much, just a seed of doubt about what makes the man tick.

Yeah, I had to balance knowing what a jerk he was with not cluing Kirk in too soon. Also, I initially just expressed Kirk's doubts as an internal monologue, and then I realized, "Hey, in the show, this would've been a 'personal log' soliloquy for the audience," so I adjusted the scene appropriately.
 
But I'm pretty sure Giedi Prime came first, and this Straight Dope thread agrees. So the trend probably started as later writers emulated Herbert's usage, and then other writers emulated them, and so forth.
As I recall, from reading The Mote in God's Eye once, decades ago (and not being terribly thrilled with it; then again, I read the Dune franchise, all the way up to God Emperor, and liked it even less, probably because of the inside-out, neo-medieval notions of morality), Pournelle and Niven had Mote Prime. And I think ADF had at least one planet called <whatever> Prime, in some Humanx Commonwealth novel.
 
Yeah, I had to balance knowing what a jerk he was with not cluing Kirk in too soon. Also, I initially just expressed Kirk's doubts as an internal monologue, and then I realized, "Hey, in the show, this would've been a 'personal log' soliloquy for the audience," so I adjusted the scene appropriately.

At first I thought it was inconsistent because I was thinking "yeah, but Captain Tracey was influenced by......" then when I thought about it I realized he wasn't influenced at all. He allied himself with the Cohm's of his own free will pretty much.

But I found another contrast with Enterprise: The First Adventure (I love doing that in case no one's noticed ;) ). In the novel Sherev is talking to Spock about Kirk and she says one problem may be he and Kirk may be too much alike.

Whereas in E: TFA Captain Kirk encouraged Spock to stay on board and eventually agreed that Admiral Noguchi was right to assign Spock as his first officer (instead of Mitchell) because they were basically opposites. That Kirk was too much like Mitchell and Spock would give him the counterbalance needed to be a good captain of the Enterprise.

But in a way that also leads to one similarity. Sherev thought it was good Kirk had some people like Mitchell around him to give him sort of an opposite view. As did Kirk's realization in E: TFA.

So in an odd sort of way Christopher and Vonda McIntyre came to a similar idea that Kirk needed a bit of counterbalance, but from an opposite end. And of course Christopher gives a bit of foreshadowing that Spock's need to play it straight may eventually lead Kirk to relax a bit (which he does by season 2)
 
As I recall, from reading The Mote in God's Eye once, decades ago (and not being terribly thrilled with it; then again, I read the Dune franchise, all the way up to God Emperor, and liked it even less, probably because of the inside-out, neo-medieval notions of morality), Pournelle and Niven had Mote Prime. And I think ADF had at least one planet called <whatever> Prime, in some Humanx Commonwealth novel.

Dune was 1965, Mote was '74, and Humanx started in the early '70s. So those would likely fall into the category of later writers being influenced by Herbert's precedent.
 
This book contradicts the first Adventure a lot which is fine with me since I didn’t really enjoy that book.
 
My goal wasn't to specifically contradict a single book, just to tell a version of the story that's compatible with modern canon and novel continuity, which has long since diverged considerably from Enterprise: TFA's version of things. (For that matter, a couple of things about E:TFA were hard to reconcile with previous canon, like Rand's age.)
 
i'm 120 or so pages in, and i'd already like to vote an "outstanding" on this novel. I love all the characters created for this novel. When it was first announced, I wasn't too keen on an early Kirk adventure without the rest of the TOS crew. At that time i hadn't realized that the Enterprise with Spock, etc actually would appear in this. But putting that aside, I love the new characters in here. Especially Rhenas Sherev. At first, the timeline jumping kinda threw me off. But now its really gotten into a nice flow.
 
My goal wasn't to specifically contradict a single book, just to tell a version of the story that's compatible with modern canon and novel continuity, which has long since diverged considerably from Enterprise: TFA's version of things. (For that matter, a couple of things about E:TFA were hard to reconcile with previous canon, like Rand's age.)
Sulu’s character seems to be a complete 180 in this as well. He actually wants to be in Kirk’s Crew here.
 
Yeah, I could never reconcile McIntyre's perpetually gloomy and insecure Sulu with the cheerful, confident extrovert we saw onscreen. I could buy it in The Entropy Effect because he was going through a personal crisis and dealing with some really bad stuff happening, but when he was just as somber in E:TFA, I realized that McIntyre's fundamental concept of Sulu's personality just didn't agree with mine. I'll admit that the contrast with E:TFA's Sulu was in the back of my mind when I was writing Sulu here.
 
Dune was 1965, Mote was '74, and Humanx started in the early '70s. So those would likely fall into the category of later writers being influenced by Herbert's precedent.
I never said otherwise. And ADF started the HC in 1972, with The Tar-Aiym Krang. It was his first published novel.

And I find your contradictions of prior works to be far less objectionable than I found those of Goodman's "autobiographies," probably because they make more sense.

Sort of the same way I've always regarded the 1939 MGM movie of The Wizard of Oz as a total hatchet-job, whereas I regard Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to be an improvement on Gary Wolf's Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, and Disney's Aladdin (at least, the 1992 animated version) to be an improvement over at least the version I recently finished reading in my late mother's Arabian Nights.

The worst kind of revisionism is stupid, pointless revisionism.
 
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And I find your contradictions of prior works to be far less objectionable than I found those of Goodman's "autobiographies," probably because they made more sense.

I still resist calling them my contradictions. Trek canon already contradicted most of the older books long ago. I simply wrote a book that fits current canon and novel continuity.
 
^I don't understand the question. The current novel continuity is about two decades old, yes, but that's not "usually," it's pretty much unique, since I can't think of any other single Star Trek tie-in continuity that's lasted that long.
 
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Yeah, you know what, I thought it was Xindi Prime for some reason myself. But it's Xindus.

Perhaps we were confusing it with Azati Prime, a Xindi planet.

A truly intelligent aggressor would have used Amazon Prime so their superweapon could have been sent to Earth with free two-day shipping.
 
A truly intelligent aggressor would have used Amazon Prime so their superweapon could have been sent to Earth with free two-day shipping.

True. Then they could get Christopher's book in just 2 days. But I'm not sure that applies to extraterrestrials
 
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