unfinished reading

[indianatrekker26]

Anyone ever had a star trek book you just couldn't finish reading?
I ask because in the past few years i've slowly been working through all the old numbered TOS novels. I'm currently on #20 "The Vulcan Academy Murders." Good book so far.
But there were some real stinkers like "Prometheus Design" and some others where I just couldn't get through the thing. Due to uninteresting characters and plots, or badly written out of characters like Kirk and Spock.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I couldn't get through the first of the Phoenix duology by Marshak and Culbreath, or Ship of the Line by Diane Carey.

 

[Kopernikus]

No, so far that never happened. Trek-Books are usually short enough, so that I can even tolerate a bad one. After all, the suffering lasts only 3 or 4 days usually.
But there were some, where I came close to that point, e.g. "Death of a Neutron" Star", "Windows on a Lost World" or "The Laertian Gamble" (A monumental waste of Paper, I still can't believe that this has been written by the same Robert Sheckley as those unbelievable fascinating short stories from the 50'....)

 

[bok2384]

Unfortunately, over the years I've given up on a number of titles. Despite how bad that sounds, more often than not it is because I'm not in a frame of mind to read that certain book and just give up halfway through. Either that, or while reading a novel, another comes out that I really want to read and so I switch.

The most recent unfinished novel was Paths of Disharmony. I gave up on that because I didn't feel altogether engaged and after hearing the major spoiler of that novel, I though "well, I know what's going to happen. What's the point in carrying on."

Another recent one was Over a Torrent Sea. Now I'm a big fan of Christopher's work, but I gave up halfway through this one. Don't get me wrong, the world-building was wonderful, but for me it just dragged too much.

Other titles include: Crucible: The Star to Every Wandering, so disappointing after the first two. Mission: Gamma - Twilight. Just too many to mention, and a few close calls.

Another poster mentioned that the suffering don't last long, and when you're reading for a novel in a few days that's fine, but typically it can be two or three weeks before I finish a novel. That's a looooong time to suffer.

 

[Ood Sigma]

Believe it or not, I had a very difficult time with "The Empty Chair". I moderately liked the first 4 Rihannsu books but getting through the first 30-50 pages of that one was like pulling teeth. Then the pace picked up and it was fine.

Never quit on a Trek novel, although I have stopped reading some other books. It takes a lot for me to give up - basically, it has to be completely unenjoyable. Otherwise, I at least give books a chance.

 

[Tirius]

Just the one for me, the recent Indistinguishable from Magic. Mostly because of the style of narrative, I couldn't keep my focus on the story with those short paragraphs. (Coupled with a bit too much Small Universe Syndrome, but so long as it serves the story I usually don't mind that.)

A couple of others came close - Before Dishonor and Ship of the Line are the only ones I can think of right now. The latter threw me a bit, because I generally liked Diane Carey's writing in her TOS and movie era books.

Generally, there are only two things that can throw me from a story: narrative style and severe out-of-character behavior for established characters. All the others I tend to finish within a few days at most.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Beneath the Raptor's Wing is the only Trek novel I started but never finished.

Before that, Traitor Winds (at least I think it was that. The Klingon schoolteacher in San Fransisco? That one) was left unfinished for many, many months. But I eventually reread and finished it.

There are a few I've read that I wish I'd given up on!

 

[Yevetha]

Some Janeway book.

 

[indianatrekker26]

The most recent unfinished novel was Paths of Disharmony. I gave up on that because I didn't feel altogether engaged and after hearing the major spoiler of that novel, I though "well, I know what's going to happen. What's the point in carrying on."

That's what is happening to me right now with The Vulcan Academy Murders. I mistakenly spoiled myself about the ending, with who the murderer is, when I was reading about the book on the trek wikipedia site, memory beta. Now that I know who did it, i'm sort of losing interest.

 

[Christopher]

Before that, Traitor Winds (at least I think it was that. The Klingon schoolteacher in San Fransisco? That one) was left unfinished for many, many months. But I eventually reread and finished it.

That was A Flag Full of Stars, the second of the books intermittently released under the Lost Years banner. Traitor Winds was the third.

 

[Therin of Andor]

"The Laertian Gamble" (A monumental waste of Paper, I still can't believe that this has been written by the same Robert Sheckley as those unbelievable fascinating short stories from the 50'....)

Yeah, I finished it but it's definitely my worst ST reading experience.

I've finished every ST novel I started, but really disliked "TNG: Into the Nebula" (the author, Gene DeWeese, once agreed with me online that it was pretty forgettable; he couldn't remember anything about it) and the incredibly turgid and bizarre "DS9: Warped" hardcover. The "VOY: Dark Matters" trilogy didn't really need to be a trilogy and that probably also goes for "DS9: Rebels" trilogy and "TNG: The Q Continuum" trilogy.

There have been other some boring ones that had something within them that I've enjoyed. Marshak & Culbreath's four ST novels are a subset of their own, but I did enjoy them in the early days, although their "Triangle" was really stretching the friendship.

 

[JD]

The only one that I can remember stopping mid story is Before Dishonor, I tried twice and I just couldn't make it past the 3rd or 4th chapter. I do tend to only read one or two stories at a time in the anthologies though.

 

[tmclough]

I can think of three cases of not finishing a story. These three stories are New Frontier (the first four books, counted as one story), Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers, and, believe it or not, The Final Reflection. I have since gone back and finished the first two, and plan to some day for TFR, although DotV was still rather difficult.

One thing all three of these have in common: most of the characters are new and unfamiliar. After my first attempt at NF, I was able to create a document from Memory Beta info that listed all of the major characters with certain pertinent info about them--rank, position, species, sex, and possibly extra helpful info. (It's a lot easier to create such a document now than it was then, with MB's simplified character lists.) Since then, I have read, and finished, Martyr (NF #5).

That said, the same sort of info in DotV at the beginning and end of the book, wasn't enough--probably just too many characters in total.

I've recently started reading Taking Wing, with a similar document for TTN as my NF document. I'm only in chapter 4 so far, but things do seem to be going well for it. I also have similar documents for other lit-only series that I have yet to start, and may never get to all of them. (I'm a slow reader.)

 

[Warp Coil]

I think I've finished everything that I have started, even the ones that I suffered through and maybe wanted to put down, like The Lost Era: Well of Souls (possibly the worst Treklit I have read), Typhon Pact: Seize the Fire, and many of the older, numbered TNG and DS9 novels.

 

[Thrawn]

Well of Souls was great. I don't care what anyone says.

Seize the Fire was pretty crap, though.

 

[MagGu]

I've finished every Trek book I've read. But the one I had the most trouble with was Worlds Of DS9: Cardassia. I found it to be overly wordy. I thought, "Oh, maybe I just don't like Una McCormack's writing." But found that wasn't the case when I read The Never-Ending Sacrifice, because that turned out to be one of my favorites. Go figure.

 

[Paris]

There have been a few that I have walked away from in the last few years. Unspoken Truth and Catalyst of Sorrows come to mind. I just couldn't stick with them, which I find weird as I generally enjoy MWB's trek books. Recently I also gave up on both Seize the Fire and Paths of Disharmony. Seize the Fire was not for me, while Paths didn't hold my interest at all. It seems to me that Mike Martin's writing isn't as interesting as when he was working with Andy Mangels, and this was a rare miss for Dayton as I love his stuff on Vanguard...

 

[bok2384]

Some more that people have reminded me of, I'm sorry.

Unspoken Truth. Although a lose follow on from The Pandora Principle, the former kicked ass, the latter didn't.

The first Terok Nor book. I found it so uninteresting that I haven't read books two and three either.

Summon the Thunder. Three times I've tried to read it and always give up half-way through. Love the David Mack entries for Vanguard though, I've just started Open Secrets, so lets see how Mr. Ward does this time. It'll be nice to finish one of his books.

Synthesis. Couldn't get into it and I probably gave up far too soon. Destined for a retry.

As I stated earlier I sailed close to the wind with a few of them, Rough Beasts of Empire, A Time to Harvest, A Time to Hate.

 

[SPCTRE]

No, so far that never happened. Trek-Books are usually short enough, so that I can even tolerate a bad one.

Yeah, same here. I'm kind of OCD about finishing Star Trek books even when they are, well, sort of bad

Although to be fair, I can't really remember a Star Trek book that I considered to be really terrible and a chore to read through. I don't know, maybe I'm easy to please, or maybe I'm just lucky with my TrekLit choices.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I want to read First Frontier (with Kirk and Spock standing in front of some dinosaurs), but I've never gotten past the first few chapters.