Spoilers TP: The Struggle Within (ebook) review thread
- Thread starter Thrawn
- Start date
A 100 page e-story? I didn't know they were following up the 4 novels. Congrats Chris.
RAMA
You need to rendezvous with us a little more often.
By the way, I appreciate the positive reviews. I admit I had my doubts about whether I'd been able to make the story work.
Preliminary discussion is available at my website now. I haven't done annotations yet.
Preliminary discussion is available at my website now. I haven't done annotations yet.
As I don't do E-Books, where does this stand re a paper copy ? Is there any more shorter Trek fiction coming that it could be compiled with ?
^Don't hold your breath. It'll probably be years before there's a hardcopy edition.
And, you know, you could always try an e-book...
And, you know, you could always try an e-book...
I've been warned about authors like you - 'just try one, and when you want some more, you know where to come...'
Going to download the Kindle app to my droid so I can read this. Been waiting to read it since I first heard about it and really want to after all of the positive reviews so far.
I feel like it was a really great Christopher novel sadly compressed down to an outline + moral lectures. A story that could really have demonstrated all the stuff it wanted to, but was prevented from doing so by rushed pacing.
Doesn't help that such a short story was priced at $6. I'd have really enjoyed paying $6 to read this story done well. Paying for this feels like...paying for a work in progress. Bleh.
It did, on the other hand, manage to do what I'd been hoping for from the whole Typhon Pact but got very little of, which was show how involvement in the Pact was changing the members of the Pact. So nice job there. And I liked that it referenced all the earlier Pact books, and I love the Tzenkethi sooooo much (they were the highlight of Rough Beasts for me, and kicked ass here again), and Jasminder's character arc was awesome (though Christopher does rely a bit much on having characters decide that their earlier characterizations by other authors were wrong and they need to get better, but I digress), and it was certainly thematically appropriate to recent events.
But MAN I really wanted a novel. And this should've been one. I felt the same way about Places of Exile, but this was like 12x as bad. It would seem Christopher just thinks too big for this kind of story size.
Doesn't help that such a short story was priced at $6. I'd have really enjoyed paying $6 to read this story done well. Paying for this feels like...paying for a work in progress. Bleh.
It did, on the other hand, manage to do what I'd been hoping for from the whole Typhon Pact but got very little of, which was show how involvement in the Pact was changing the members of the Pact. So nice job there. And I liked that it referenced all the earlier Pact books, and I love the Tzenkethi sooooo much (they were the highlight of Rough Beasts for me, and kicked ass here again), and Jasminder's character arc was awesome (though Christopher does rely a bit much on having characters decide that their earlier characterizations by other authors were wrong and they need to get better, but I digress), and it was certainly thematically appropriate to recent events.
But MAN I really wanted a novel. And this should've been one. I felt the same way about Places of Exile, but this was like 12x as bad. It would seem Christopher just thinks too big for this kind of story size.
If you felt the pacing was rushed, the blame should lie with me rather than with the format. I was very slow getting into the swing of things on this one, and I had a lot of other stuff distracting me during the writing process -- the Forgotten History outline, revisions on Only Superhuman, and my first-ever trip to Seattle for my sister's wedding (I actually e-mailed the manuscript from a hot spot in Seattle Center because the hotel's Internet service was overloaded by a convention or something). So I didn't manage my time very well and didn't get to refine the pacing of things as much as I ideally should have. So it's not the format that's at fault.
^ I get where you're coming from, but I really disagree. There was just so much going on in this... cultural explorations of two races we haven't really seen before, major soul-searching character arcs, discussions of principle, etc... that I don't think it was ever going to fit in a story that short.
Which is mostly a compliment, really: there were so many good ideas here, I wanted twice as much exploration of them
Which is mostly a compliment, really: there were so many good ideas here, I wanted twice as much exploration of them
^Hmm, maybe. My problem with short fiction has always been a tendency to cram in too much worldbuilding.
Personally I would've been happy to focus the whole thing on the Kinshaya story, but an e-book focusing solely on characters and species created for the literature wouldn't have sold too well, so I had to give Picard and the Enterprise something to do.
Personally I would've been happy to focus the whole thing on the Kinshaya story, but an e-book focusing solely on characters and species created for the literature wouldn't have sold too well, so I had to give Picard and the Enterprise something to do.
Not sure about the S but on the SII you can download a Kindle App for free from the marketplace and get it from there. If you already have an Amazon account it's very easy to purchase the book.
Overall I enjoyed it though I don't think the format did it any favours.
We have had a few Trek books of late with big political issues, dissident movements etc that have taken a novel to solve. As there was relatively so little space to explore these issues here then they did feel a bit inconsequential in comparison. That applied to both storylines really but the Talarian one in particular - everyone having a nice chat in a room seemed a bit too easy.
As always in CLB's work the character work was spot on with lots to enjoy and it was nice to see Crusher given stuff to do - it's easy to overlook her when we go into diplomatic territory. With Riker & Troi gone she and Worf really should be Picard's main advisors/sounding boards and that worked well here. Nice to see the new crew get some more attention, I've always liked T'Ryssa but this really made me more appreciative of Jasminder who has felt a bit bland to me up till now.
Oh and not the authors fault but I would really love to see Picard in a different type of story soon. He seems to spend his life negociating problems at the moment and doing the right thing while the Federation forget their values. I know Titan & Voyager have plently of exploration but it would be nice to see these characters get something a bit different next time round.
We have had a few Trek books of late with big political issues, dissident movements etc that have taken a novel to solve. As there was relatively so little space to explore these issues here then they did feel a bit inconsequential in comparison. That applied to both storylines really but the Talarian one in particular - everyone having a nice chat in a room seemed a bit too easy.
As always in CLB's work the character work was spot on with lots to enjoy and it was nice to see Crusher given stuff to do - it's easy to overlook her when we go into diplomatic territory. With Riker & Troi gone she and Worf really should be Picard's main advisors/sounding boards and that worked well here. Nice to see the new crew get some more attention, I've always liked T'Ryssa but this really made me more appreciative of Jasminder who has felt a bit bland to me up till now.
Oh and not the authors fault but I would really love to see Picard in a different type of story soon. He seems to spend his life negociating problems at the moment and doing the right thing while the Federation forget their values. I know Titan & Voyager have plently of exploration but it would be nice to see these characters get something a bit different next time round.
Well, that was kind of the idea -- that certain outside factions were trying to make the conflict more extreme than it needed to be, when all that was really needed was for both sides to listen to each other.
Just ok I enjoyed the Kinshya story but not the other. The two stories were too similar.
I enjoyed it. The cost was a little too high for how brief it was though.
I don't think that's really Christopher's fault. The alternative would be far worse.
Remember that one of the books he wrote was following up some badly PADded out characters :P
^ And what's your point? GttS, the novel where Christopher "fixed" the characters, ended up with the worst characterizations of the whole series in my opinion. They fit neither PAD's nor KRAD's characterizations and ended up the most uninteresting for all of them. I for one would have happily read another Peter David novel instead of the utter failure that was Greater than the Sum if I had to choose between those two.
But FWIW I have downloaded TSW, and will read it once I've finished What Judgments Come.
But FWIW I have downloaded TSW, and will read it once I've finished What Judgments Come.
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