Vendetta

[Christopher]

Here is hoping someone does artwork for ships seen only in novels.

Do the names Titan, Aventine, and Sagittarius ring a bell? Those have all been officially designed and depicted in Pocket publications, though so far Aventine has only been seen in the Ships of the Line calendar.

Not to mention the various people doing fan art of Cleopatra's Needle from The Buried Age over in the Fan Art forum.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Something I appreciated was the unconebentional move of havbing the planmet at risk of destruction being Tholia. That was an interesting break from convention, having a relatively minor antagonistic world be under threat rather than taking the "Earthg in peril" route or something similiar.

Overall, despite sometimes being a little over the top, this was one of Peter David's really successful novels, I think.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

One of the things that strikes me about Vendetta is how it manages to be much more serious than most of Peter David's later works, but does so without falling into over-the-top melodrama the way Before Dishonor does.

Yes, I agree. This was a novel in which Peter David succeeded in achieving the balance between his trademark humourr and the seriousness of the situation within. It may be a rather old novel by my standards (which I'm sure mean nothing to many of you ) but I found it quite engaGING.

 

[BolianAuthor]

^

I wouldn't call the Tholians a "minor" race... yes, they may not be prominently displayed throughout the galaxy, but that's because of their xenophobic and isolationist nature. But if you really look at the Tholians... they're pretty much a superpower in the Milky Way, albeit a benign one. They have fast ships, their "standard" energy weapons are very powerful, and they have the web weapon as well, of which there is only one known comparable weapon... the Breen energy dissipation weapon. Add to that that the Tholians themselves seem to have some form of understanding of the fabric of spacetime, and other quantum realities. They're not a minor race in any regard.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

^

I wouldn't call the Tholians a "minor" race... yes, they may not be prominently displayed throughout the galaxy, but that's because of their xenophobic and isolationist nature. But if you really look at the Tholians... they're pretty much a superpower in the Milky Way, albeit a benign one. They have fast ships, their "standard" energy weapons are very powerful, and they have the web weapon as well, of which there is only one known comparable weapon... the Breen energy dissipation weapon. Add to that that the Tholians themselves seem to have some form of understanding of the fabric of spacetime, and other quantum realities. They're not a minor race in any regard.

Fair point But I think to the reader they were relatively minor, at least compared to the truly major races like Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, etcm, which is sort of what I meant. Minor to us, even if not minor within the fictional universe. I should have clarified, sorry. I foyund it interesting that Tholia as opposed to Vulcan, Earth, Romulus, etc, was the worl;d under threat.

 

[BolianAuthor]

^

Fair be it.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Well, I'm back. Thank you everyone for tolerating me last night! It was kind of you. Anyway, back to my normal activities...

 

[Solarbaby]

Vendetta was just a huge story, when pro-noveling was in its prime.

Attempting to be in its prime. Who knows what we would have got if Richard Arnold's memos hadn't thwarted the original plans of the authors of "Metamorphosis", "Vendetta", "A Flag Full of Stars", "The Eyes of the Beholders" and many others...

What does this mean? I don't know about Richard Arnold's memos

 

[Therin of Andor]

What does this mean? I don't know about Richard Arnold's memos

In 1989, Gene Roddenberry's ST Office at Paramount was able to increase their influence on the ST novels. In the hiatus after TNG's first season, all licensees (DC, Pocket, etc) had to renegotiate new contracts and FASA lost their license completely.

Richard Arnold had started vetting the licensed tie-in proposals and manuscripts some time after ST IV, when Paramount was rolling in ST IV profits and happily approving new positions. RA went from volunteer Paramount tour guide (and general dogsbody for GR) to the paid position of ST Archivist. Part of job was to relieve Susan Sackett of her regular task of vetting tie-ins on behalf of GR. In 1989, RA's influence seemed to increase.

In the pre-Internet days of UseNet and GEnie, numerous ST authors started a slanging match with RA over his handling of their manuscripts. Over on my "Andor Files" site, I have preserved a few old quotes from Jean Lorrah and AC Crispin and RA's memos to them, about revisions they had to make to "The Eyes of the Beholders and "Metamorphosis", in order to get their novels approved for publication.

The Andor Files:

Metamorphosis (Pocket, 1990) by Jean Lorrah. Lieutenant Thralen, a Theskian with blue skin, antennae and yellow fur-like hair is an Enterprise crewman. His race is "related" to Andorians, but is "more gregarious". Lorrah had intended that Thralen actually be an Andorian, but was requested by the then-Star Trek Office at Paramount to make the change, since there were "no Andorians among the Enterprise-D crew". Jean Lorrah was seemingly paying homage to some Andorian speculations from the old zine article, A Summary of the Physiological Roots of Andorian Culture (1976) by Leslie Fish, a friend from her fanfic days (eg. references to Thralen's "the Great Mother" deity).

The Eyes of the Beholders (Pocket, 1990) by AC Crispin. When the book's author attempted to create a religion for the Andorians, the response from the Star Trek Office was that "Paramount has developed no such culture or religion for the Andorians. Please delete all references to the Andorian culture or religion."

"Vendetta" hit problems with its female Borg and "A Flag Full of Stars" had to lose an earthquake and Number One, among other revisions.

 

[F. King Daniel]

In Voyages of Imagination, Jean Lorrah says, regarding Metamorphosis, (something to the effect of) "The thing most fans complain about wasn't added by me". I don't suppose Therin or anyone else can tell me what that was? It sounds far more ominous than renamed Andorians.

I've read the book twice and that quote's been bugging me. What kind of fan am I if I can't tell the "thing" added that annoyed fans?

 

[Therin of Andor]

I've read the book twice and that quote's been bugging me. What kind of fan am I if I can't tell the "thing" added that annoyed fans?

Okay, I do recall that Jean Lorrah was cranky about a number of things. Her dream cover was to have Data looking into a mirror and seeing Brent Spiner looking back at him. Of course, that wasn't ever going to happen because Spiner had decided he didn't want any pics of himself out of makeup being published (although "Starlog" had already printed his pre-TNG 8x10 in their casting announcements).

IIRC, she wanted something different for the transformation of Data into a human being. That it wasn't to be as easily brushed aside as the "it was all a dream" reset button used in "Metamorphosis".

Something else from that era: These were the early days of the first "submissions on floppy disk", and there were several cases discussed on UseNet and GEnie, IIRC, where editors were approving changes to paragraphs in manuscripts, instead of the old method of sending all such revisions back to the authors. So there was definitely some friction from the writers asking just who was rewriting them between drafts.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Thanks for the info, Therin

Whatever the changes made, Metamorphosis still turned out great.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I never got around to finishing Metamorphosis..so it was all a dream you say?

It was a good enough book, but I can't recall why I put it down without finishing it. I was young I guess!

 

[Therin of Andor]

I never got around to finishing Metamorphosis..so it was all a dream you say?

Not quite, but I think Jean Lorrah had an intended ending that was a little more original than a simple reset of the timeline.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel when it came out. Data was my favourite character and to have such a chunky novel about Data so early into TNG was very cool. However, a good friend of mine bought it on my hearty recommendation - and she loathed it!

I recall seeing mentions, at the time, of an intended Simon & Schuster Audioworks version of this book. I assume they wanted Brent Spiner to narrate and he refused, or maybe it was caught up in Jean Lorrah's frustrations in the revising of her final draft?

 

[RobertScorpio]

Vendetta was my first-ever Trek novel, and still a favorite!

In fact, I think I may have seen BOBW *after* reading Vendetta, and it didn't bother me one bit

I thought it was a pretty good book too! And its the one I most think of when the subject of TNG literature is talked about with friends of mine.

Rob

 

[garoo1980]

I never got around to finishing Metamorphosis..so it was all a dream you say?

Not quite, but I think Jean Lorrah had an intended ending that was a little more original than a simple reset of the timeline.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel when it came out. Data was my favourite character and to have such a chunky novel about Data so early into TNG was very cool. However, a good friend of mine bought it on my hearty recommendation - and she loathed it!

I recall seeing mentions, at the time, of an intended Simon & Schuster Audioworks version of this book. I assume they wanted Brent Spiner to narrate and he refused, or maybe it was caught up in Jean Lorrah's frustrations in the revising of her final draft?

I'm reading it now for the first time. I have to say its a tough read. Maybe its the writing style, or maybe its just that Data's character progressed from when this was written, I'm not sure. I'm still working on it but its a tough read.

 

[publiusr]

Here is hoping someone does artwork for ships seen only in novels.

Do the names Titan, Aventine, and Sagittarius ring a bell? Those have all been officially designed and depicted in Pocket publications, though so far Aventine has only been seen in the Ships of the Line calendar.

Not to mention the various people doing fan art of Cleopatra's Needle from The Buried Age over in the Fan Art forum.

I mean the ships for earlier novels Black Fire, the asteroid ship Erewhon, etc.

 

[F. King Daniel]

One ship we did get to see was the USS Star League on the cover of Diane Carey's Dreadnought.

I thought it looked great. Obviously

What I want to see is the mile-long Defender-class USS Inaieu.