Vixen tries to do Before Dishonor or: Motherf**king Borg!!!

[William Leisner]

I am not and never have been a Voyager fan, but what strikes me about the comments above is that, I remember the String Theory authors doing a panel at Shore Leave a couple years back. There was clearly a genuine love for the series and for the characters, and an excitement from them about being able to do this story and redeem so many others saw as fatal flaws in the show. To see them blasted with the same vehemence as directed against PAD the Janeway-killer is just a bit surprising to me.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ I enjoyed the first two books, and I've nothing against Heather Jarman, or her oeuvre,more broadly speaking. I liked This Grey Spirit and still think that The Officers' Club is a daring, stand-out story, handled with impressive nerve. But the third book of the trilogy just fell apart, overstretching itself fatally (IMO, as always). Had it been just that, I would have shrugged it off, blamed it on ambition not matched by execution, and stuck with best two out of three. But I thought the book takes on this snide tone towards the end, which personally was repellant. What was done to Janeway (and, by extension through the not-quite reset button of 'let us never speak of it again', to the trilogy as a whole) pissed me off, coming off as high-handed and presumptuous. I can assess Voyager's flaws for myself; I don't need to be talked down to, told this-or-that is a flaw, and one so severe that we should go to such extreme lengths to patch it up. And plot-wise, it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If one agrees with the statement that Janeway's characterization becomes erratic in the later seasons, it is simpler to just attribute the instability to the cumulative effect of the psychological pressures, the isolation and the guilt, heaped, fairly or unfairly, on her. I have no problem with that hypothesis; Janeway is only human, was relatively new to the top job, and under exceptional strain. This overwrought conspiracy, if it was intended to rescue the character, assumes a weakness that I don't agree was present. And I know how Janeway would respond to anybody who slighted her character and abilities by assuming she was incapable and in need of rescue.

The thing with Kes, though, just left me befuddled, asking myself just what had happened and why. Which was irritating.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[kimc]

And here's the real rub--despite vociferous and widespread complaint, we get absolutely no promise of improvement and no apology for perhaps having made a very stupid decision--or a series of very stupid decisions. It staggers the imagination.

Vociferous, yes, widespread, maybe. I certainly haven't seen anything like hundreds of people complaining about what happens in Before Dishonor.

Maybe Pocket has market research that disagrees with your assessment of the Voyager readership. Or maybe the people making the decisions aren't reading the boards and don't yet know that they should immediately respond to you. Or maybe they know something you don't but aren't ready to discuss it publicly yet.

Well I can't spead to the quality of the latest books because I haven't bought any in years. I used to buy all of them (TOS, TNG, Voyager) but nothing has appealed to me since "Endgame" aired.

Lucky for me there's tons of good fanfic out there.

 

[Steve Roby]

I used to buy all of them (TOS, TNG, Voyager) but nothing has appealed to me since "Endgame" aired.

I can understand "Endgame" souring someone on televised Star Trek, but I don't get why that would affect your enjoyment of the books.

 

[kimc]

I used to buy all of them (TOS, TNG, Voyager) but nothing has appealed to me since "Endgame" aired.

I can understand "Endgame" souring someone on televised Star Trek, but I don't get why that would affect your enjoyment of the books.

Before I buy a book I generally flip through it and see if the characterizations and writing style appeal to me. When doing the same with the Voyager books since "Endgame" I found they just didn't appeal to me. The exception to that is the fan-written stories. I bought one collection from Pocket (can't remember the title) but other than that have stuck to the online fan fiction.

 

[Smiley]

Have you similarly flipped through the TOS and TNG books, not to mention the prose-only series? You're free to enjoy fanfic, of course, but there has been a lot of quality material published since 2001.

 

[kimc]

Have you similarly flipped through the TOS and TNG books, not to mention the prose-only series? You're free to enjoy fanfic, of course, but there has been a lot of quality material published since 2001.

I'm not as into TOS & TNG since Voyager came out. They used to be 1 & 2 for me but are now 2 & 3. With the exception of Voyager fanfic I've moved on.

That is not to say I don't pick up the new Voyager titles in the bookstore in the hopes that one of them would be worth my while. So far no joy.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I know I speak for literally hundreds of Voyager fans who have bought their last book, thanks to this kind of abuse (is that the best term for it?). Luckily, we don't need Pocket books.

I'm fascinated that you can speak for "literally hundreds" of VOY fans, and know their buying habits intimately enough to know that they've all given up on licensed VOY fiction. Maybe they choose to read fanfic because it's free, and not because Pocket VOY stuff is "bad"?

I ran a club of 1000 Aussie ST fans up till the early 90s. An impressive number, but... Very, very few of them communicated with the committee and the editors in ways that we could make confident statements about their opinions on ST tie-in novels. Of the 80-100 or so who came to meetings, only about ten claimed to read all the ST tie-in novels regularly, and had strong or articulated opinions on them. So at very rough estimates, perhaps 10% of the membership read all ST novels, and a larger percentage would have picked up only the ones that interested them. At the most, 100 or so of the total membership would have read ST novels, and that was at the peak of Australian ST fandom.

I know a number of our membership indulged in reading, writing, publishing and buying fanfic - it was an expensive endeavour pre-Internet. Most fanzines contained less story than a licensed ST novel, and was about four times the cost, plus postage. Slash was even more. Perhaps there's been a rise in fanfic reading since it became virtually free to distribute it online, ie. no paper, printing, storage or postage costs!

For you to know the buying habits and preferences of "hundreds" of VOY fans, you must be in personal contact with many more than my quoted numbers. Yes?

 

[AuntKate]

Do I have a list of 200 fans I can send you? No. This is one of the few places I visit on the net that isn't focused on Voyager, however, and I can tell you that the posters on most Voyager boards gave up on finding good Voyager fiction in the published novels years ago--and Before Dishonor just sealed the deal.

If the writers and publishers of Star Trek books believe that they have access to a healthy cross-section of fans across the five series on TrekBBS, they are mistaken. Relatively few Voyager fans post here, and for a reason. When Voyager was on the air, this was one of the most hostile locations for fans to visit. It was impossible to have a positive discussion of the show or of the characters here. If you were bold enough to like Janeway or admire Seven of Nine, you were likely to have your head handed to you on a platter. Because of that, most Voyager fans have long since moved on to friendlier sites.

I can't say for sure, as I am Voyager-centric, but in my surfing of the net, I find that Voyager is the Star Trek series that continues to be very active and to continue to be attracting new fans, in spite of being off the air for seven years. It is by far the series that gets the most activity on FFN, for example, and I would think that that fact alone would encourage the editors at Pocket to cater to that crowd.

However, you have to write what they want to read, the published books don't give this fan base what they want--novels that are primarily relationship-driven. Unfortunately, I can't blame the scifi writers for this, because it has never been a strength of science fiction writing in general IMHO. The most recent exception was the "Distant Shores" anthology, which did focus as much on the characters' relationships as on the action and plot of the story. I'm guessing, but I bet that book sold well to Voyager fans and in greater numbers than others.

So, no, I can't send you a list, but I think I know the Voyager fanbase pretty well, at least well enough to say that they don't bother to look for published books at all any more.

Sorry.

 

[BrotherBenny]

However, you have to write what they want to read, the published books don't give this fan base what they want--novels that are primarily relationship-driven.

Can I ask exactly what you mean by that? Are you saying that you/the fans want the post-series Voyager books to be orgiastic with everyone coupling up rather than exploring the galaxy, because that is what appears to be implied.

I was not happy with Voyager as a series, or the post-finale novels because I'm not a fan of the the plots used (I only read Homecoming and part of The Farther Shore) and I'm not a fan of Golden's writing either. If you feel you can do better than her, write a proposal and submit it.

But please don't speak for all fans when you cannot possibly know them.

 

[Smiley]

It seems odd to ask Pocket Books to make relationship-driven VOY stories when the series rarely ventured into such territory and even more rarely did it well. If you really mean stories that treat the characters as real, complex people instead of pawns of the plot, though, then I can get behind that.

 

[Christopher]

If the writers and publishers of Star Trek books believe that they have access to a healthy cross-section of fans across the five series on TrekBBS, they are mistaken.

Well, they certainly do not believe that. Only a small percentage of the population, and therefore only a small percentage of the audience for the books, participates actively on Internet bulletin boards. Therefore, publishers would never assume that the participants in a single bulletin board, or even a wide sampling of boards, are remotely representative of the audience as a whole. The very notion is laughable. Publishers base their conclusions on information that actually means something, namely sales figures.

As KRAD has repeatedly said, "Don't mistake a few fans bitching on the Internet for any kind of trend." He knows that, and every other writer, editor, and publisher knows that.

Relatively few Voyager fans post here, and for a reason. When Voyager was on the air, this was one of the most hostile locations for fans to visit. It was impossible to have a positive discussion of the show or of the characters here. If you were bold enough to like Janeway or admire Seven of Nine, you were likely to have your head handed to you on a platter.

I find that's true of most discussion boards I've visited. Hell, it's nigh-impossible to find a BBS that doesn't have people loudly expressing contempt for various things and attacking those who don't share their contempt. So this is not specific to the TrekBBS or to Voyager.

I can't say for sure, as I am Voyager-centric, but in my surfing of the net, I find that Voyager is the Star Trek series that continues to be very active and to continue to be attracting new fans, in spite of being off the air for seven years. It is by far the series that gets the most activity on FFN, for example, and I would think that that fact alone would encourage the editors at Pocket to cater to that crowd.

It's not surprising that VGR would generate a lot of fan-fiction, because it's a series that had a lot of wasted potential, a lot of possibilities for stories and characters that could've been fascinating but never really got fulfilled. That's why my Myriad Universes installment, Places of Exile, is a Voyager novel. I had so many ideas for how I would've liked the series and the characters to develop, and an alternate-timeline series gave me the opportunity to explore those possibilities.

So, no, I can't send you a list, but I think I know the Voyager fanbase pretty well, at least well enough to say that they don't bother to look for published books at all any more.

Rather, you know the segment of the VGR fanbase that posts on that small percentage of BBSes that you and they find amenable to your interests. Any such self-selecting group is not even remotely going to be a statistically representative cross-section, so it would be inappropriate to extrapolate any general tendencies from it.

 

[AuntKate]

However, you have to write what they want to read, the published books don't give this fan base what they want--novels that are primarily relationship-driven.

Can I ask exactly what you mean by that? Are you saying that you/the fans want the post-series Voyager books to be orgiastic with everyone coupling up rather than exploring the galaxy, because that is what appears to be implied.

I was not happy with Voyager as a series, or the post-finale novels because I'm not a fan of the the plots used (I only read Homecoming and part of The Farther Shore) and I'm not a fan of Golden's writing either. If you feel you can do better than her, write a proposal and submit it.

But please don't speak for all fans when you cannot possibly know them.

I'm not speaking for all Voyager fans, just the many I've talked to over the last ten years or so. It is rare to talk to a Voyager fan who is happy about the way Voyager has been handled by Pocket books--so much so that I'm fairly comfortable in generalizing about it. I'm sure there are some who disagree with my assessment--more power to them--but I believe they are in the minority.

And, no, I don't mean "orgiastic," and the very fact that you say that illustrates my point. To too many people, relationships mean "sex," period, and that is not at all what I'm talking about here. Voyager was a ship of contradictions, a mixed crew with conflicting views of whether they should go home or settle on a planet, follow Starfleet protocols or not, etc. The writers on the show copped out IMHO rather than deal with that ongoing controversy, and that is what many Voyager fans like to explore. That's what the good fanfic does, but we see very little of it in the published novels.

In fact, the good Star Trek episodes and books do just that--explore relationships between the crew and with other species, without resorting to sex (IMHO). At least, the ones I like best do that.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ The novels have to cleave to what has been established onscreen. While one could speculate about simmering tensions beneath the surface, the fact is that Voyager--cop out or no--presented a crew that integrated fairly rapidly and without much conflict despite their very different backgrounds. It wouldn't be accurate for the novel line to suddenly explode hostility aboard ship when it obviously didn't happen.

Also, sex gets a bad rap. Plenty of room for exploration there.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

I'm not speaking for all Voyager fans, just the many I've talked to over the last ten years or so. It is rare to talk to a Voyager fan who is happy about the way Voyager has been handled by Pocket books--so much so that I'm fairly comfortable in generalizing about it. I'm sure there are some who disagree with my assessment--more power to them--but I believe they are in the minority.

You're entitled to feel that the progress of Pocket VGR fiction has been disappointing. I think the editors feel the same way, and are working to do something about it. Your impatience for a resolution to that state of affairs is understandable, but I suspect you won't have to wait much longer for some good news. In the meantime, you'll have Places of Exile in July, and I hope that will bring some satisfaction to VGR's fans.

 

[BrotherBenny]

AuntKate, had you said character-driven then I would not have made the point I did. Relationships develop from characters but when you're speaking of devices that drive stories, you invariably invoke plot or character. The word relationship is not the correct term to use.

As I said before, if you don't like the Voyager stuff published by Pocket, write something and submit it. There is so much possibility there that you cannot possibly be short of ideas. As fans, we naturally fill in gaps in our heads and those of us that write fan fiction fill in the gaps with the stories we write.

I'm not happy with the way the TNG relaunch is heading, though I will continue to read it hoping that it picks up, and so I've started writing my own version in the fan fiction forum.

I was never all that happy with Voyager on TV or in the books because the characters never engaged me. I might attempt my own Voyager idea at some point in the future but reading what's out there, whether it be fan fiction or officially licensed books, and then writing in with complaints, is the only way that the editors are going to know what the fans are thinking. The fans might not change the way the post-Voyager are heading, but then again, they might, and that is enough to make me go and buy them. Some day soon I will be buying the four post-finale books and I will persevere through them, I might even enjoy them.

 

[trampledamage]

You're entitled to feel that the progress of Pocket VGR fiction has been disappointing. I think the editors feel the same way, and are working to do something about it. Your impatience for a resolution to that state of affairs is understandable, but I suspect you won't have to wait much longer for some good news. In the meantime, you'll have Places of Exile in July, and I hope that will bring some satisfaction to VGR's fans.

Now this does sound interesting!

 

[BrotherBenny]

Here here

 

[KRAD]

If the writers and publishers of Star Trek books believe that they have access to a healthy cross-section of fans across the five series on TrekBBS, they are mistaken.

As Christopher said, we don't. Not remotely. Nobody working at Pocket Books is tailoring how they do their job based on what a couple dozen people say on an Internet bulletin board. Not this one, and not the Voyager boards where you hang out. Both places are statistically insignificant samples of the overall readership.

Relatively few Voyager fans post here, and for a reason. When Voyager was on the air, this was one of the most hostile locations for fans to visit. It was impossible to have a positive discussion of the show or of the characters here. If you were bold enough to like Janeway or admire Seven of Nine, you were likely to have your head handed to you on a platter. Because of that, most Voyager fans have long since moved on to friendlier sites.

I'd like to see some statistical evidence to back this up. I'm not, however, going to hold my breath, because I'll turn blue and die. What you describe is true of every aspect of Trek. Everything gets trashed around here by somebody, including the entire novel line as a concept (to wit, every time something done in the novel line is brought up outside this forum, you get at least three or four people dismissing the novels as non-canon and/or irrelevant).

 

[kimc]

The most recent exception was the "Distant Shores" anthology, which did focus as much on the characters' relationships as on the action and plot of the story. I'm guessing, but I bet that book sold well to Voyager fans and in greater numbers than others.

That's what it was called - the one Pocket book I bought since "Endgame"...

Anyway, I'm one who is part of the hundreds AuntKate is talking about. I don't consider this to even by my primary Voyager website. Sure I came for Voyager but ended up staying for other reasons. Those fans who didn't find other reasons to stay like I did have moved on.

For proof of that you can check out the Voyager forum - not much going on in there. As a new mod there though I'd love to see that change so everyone feel free to post.