VOY: Mosaic by Jeri Taylor Review Thread

[tomswift2002]

Mosaic
Written by: Jeri Taylor
Published: October 1996 (Hardcover)/June 1997 (Paperback)

Plot: (from the dust jacket)
From Captain Kirk in the original series, to Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Captain Sisko of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek has been the story of mankind stretched to the ultimate limits of strength, skill, and courage.

Now a new captain has joined the ranks of the Star Trek heroes. Mosaic tells the compelling life story of Captain Kathryn Janeway, commander of the Starship Voyager.

Mosaic finds Captain Janeway fighting a desperate battle on two fronts: while she duels the Kazon warship in the gaseous mists of a murky nebula, an Away Team led by Lt. Tuvok is trapped on the surface of a wilderness planet. Forced to choose between the lives of the Away Team and the safety of her ship, Captain Janeway reviews the most important moments of her life, and the pivotal choices that made her the woman she is today.

From her childhood to her time at Starfleet Academy, from her first love to her first command, she must once again face the challenges and conflicts that have brought her to the point where she must now risk everything to put one more piece in the mosaic that is Kathryn Janeway.

Review: The first of the two books that were once considered canon, and quite a few facts from “Mosaic” did make it into the TV show.

I first read the book about 20 years ago, and it was a good book. But I’m re-reading it now.

 

[Reanok]

I voted average it was okay but not my favorite book about Katherine Janeway.

 

[tomswift2002]

I was thinking that in a way, this was probably the first biography of a Trek character. Sure it wasn’t written in first person, but it’s still Janeway’s biography and it was before Kirk, Picard and Spock’s biographies. Before this I don’t recall any book that specifically focused on a character like “Mosaic”.

 

[Christopher]

I was thinking that in a way, this was probably the first biography of a Trek character. Sure it wasn’t written in first person, but it’s still Janeway’s biography and it was before Kirk, Picard and Spock’s biographies. Before this I don’t recall any book that specifically focused on a character like “Mosaic”.

I think Michael Jan Friedman's Kahless beat it by 3 months. A.C. Crispin's Sarek had a fair amount of biographical/flashback material too, and that was nearly 3 years before Mosaic.

 

[Kilana2]

It was better than Pathways. I liked Janeway's backstory. We hadn't much of it in the show.

 

[tomswift2002]

Well “Mosaic” is also interesting as Jeri Taylor has said that as she was writing it, she would work stuff into the scripts before the book was published , since she would think of an idea for the book and then try to drop it on TV and explore it in the book, and after publication it was still used as the source fore Janeway’s background. Like Owen Paris & Mark Johnson names were first revealed in “Mosaic” and then they were mentioned in the season 4 episode that had the crew get their letters.

 

[Christopher]

"Coda" is the episode that ties most closely into Janeway's Mosaic backstory.

 

[tomswift2002]

Well “Coda”’s final draft script was submitted on October 29, 1996, with the episode not airing till January 1997. So she would’ve been working on both at close to the same time.

The other episode is “Hunters” which had its final draft script submitted on October 16, 1997, and wasn’t aired till February 1998, but “Pathways” wasn’t published until August 1998.

 

[tomswift2002]

I totally forgot, but 9-year-Old Kathryn Janeway meets Cadet Data in Chapter 4.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

And goes on a date with Will Riker at the Academy.

 

[tomswift2002]

And goes on a date with Will Riker at the Academy.

Does she? I remember that scene in the Voyager Starfleet Academy books with Riker in the SA cafeteria, but I don’t recall her dating Riker.

 

[Seven of Five]

I used to enjoy it when I was younger, and also enjoyed Pathways.

 

[tomswift2002]

And goes on a date with Will Riker at the Academy.

On page 152 (paper back) Will Riker does make a cameo, but he’s with another girl.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

On page 152 (paper back) Will Riker does make a cameo, but he’s with another girl.

But about ten pages later, it's he and Kathryn (albeit a brief blinddate in a coffee shop).

 

[tomswift2002]

"Coda" is the episode that ties most closely into Janeway's Mosaic backstory.

When you were starting to write the “Rise Of The Federation” series, did you come up with the name ‘Caroline Paris’ by yourself, or did you remember reading the name in “Mosaic”, as I was just reading Chapters 13-15 today, and at one point Jeri Taylor wrote the one of Owen Paris’s ancestors was a Caroline Paris. There was no other details except that she had Bren a part of Starfleet.

 

[Christopher]

^Yes, I took the name from Mosaic.

 

[tomswift2002]

So I finished the book tonight. Aside from the “Icarus”, there was very little that conflicted with the TV show.