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Spoilers VOY: The Eternal Tide by Kirsten Beyer Review Thread

Rate The Eternal Tide.

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Britt,
It is ridiculous how much I love my Kindle, for that very reason. A couple of years back I started wondering why I couldn't see the text on my computer anymore when I was writing. My eye doctor laughed at me. "Because you're getting older, you idiot." But changing those font sizes has dramatically increased my reading pleasure time and again.

Enterpriserules,
You are most welcome and I have really appreciated all of the nice things you've had to say about the book.

BillJ,
It bears repeating...you will be missed. But you are also terribly kind to trouble yourself to explain further. All I can say right now is that I truly hope to prove you wrong in your beliefs of what is to come. It is certainly not my intention to return the characters or the series to what we already saw for seven years on TV. That doesn't interest me either. As to whether or not I will succeed...that remains to be seen. By others, obviously.

Scout,
I'm so sorry so many of the choices in the book didn't work for you. I really am. It might comfort you to know that many of the things you suggested were considered by me as I was working through the project. But I made the choices I did and there's no reason you have to like them.

Craig,
That's one damn cute baby in your avatar. Those early smiles are just the best, aren't they? Those toothless little wonders...I'm sorry, what were we talking about? Oh, right, no, I don't have a blog, I don't tweet, I'm not on facebook...really, between writing and stopping in here as often as I can, which isn't all that often these days, I've got more than I can say grace over. The many places one can interact with others on the internet and committing to them compeletely overwhelms me at the moment. I know my limits right now and for better or worse, this is it.

So if you have a question you don't feel comfortable asking here for all to see, just send me PM here and I'll respond as soon as I can.

Best,
Kirsten
 
Hey, am a big J/Cer and don't anticipate an appearance (maybe some talk, if that) of offspring for "my" couple in the hopefully next Voyager novel. IMHO they will have enough on their plates trying to manage the fleet in the DQ (if remain there, which w/be a good thing bookwise), and juggle a relationship where Janeway is the boss again (but of course Chakotay is the true head of his ship). Anyway (Spoiler) since is already a prominent Voyager couple expecting, probably enough babies for that one book, lol.
 
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It's always surprising how few babies there were on television Voyager: those people were facing 70 years of journey time ...
 
Kirsten:

I loved all the metaphors for the fan debates about dark plots, Janeway, etc. It felt like you were having a gentle go at the fans, and I thought it was hilarious.

Second, when I read your stuff I get a sense of quality. I like to think it's because you have a Bachelor of Fine Arts and know how to use it. ;)
 
Kirsten Beyer said:
Craig,
That's one damn cute baby in your avatar. Those early smiles are just the best, aren't they? Those toothless little wonders...I'm sorry, what were we talking about? Oh, right, no, I don't have a blog, I don't tweet, I'm not on facebook...really, between writing and stopping in here as often as I can, which isn't all that often these days, I've got more than I can say grace over. The many places one can interact with others on the internet and committing to them compeletely overwhelms me at the moment. I know my limits right now and for better or worse, this is it.

So if you have a question you don't feel comfortable asking here for all to see, just send me PM here and I'll respond as soon as I can.

Best,
Kirsten
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Thank you Kirsten i have sent it to you :) Apologies if you received it twice as my browser has decided to have a funny 5 mins. Its probably cus england are actually winning a football match ;)

Thank you the comments about the little one :) Shes actually my niece so i get the smiles and i get the give her back haha :) That picture is really out of date though should get a new one really
 
Hartzilla2007 said:
Square said:
Ronald Held said:
Only mildly surprised at how Janeway was resurrected. I think it was unnecessary to the limit if what I have read.
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So what's the "necessary" way to bring someone back from the dead?
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I'm going to go with not to.
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Technically, the entire existence of the ST franchise isn't "necessary," so you'll forgive me for not having an objective gauge of what's "necessary" in unnecessary fictional universes.
 
Jedi_Master said:
Two points that I have made seem to have stirred up an admittedly small hornets nest.

First that writing Janeway into a story is a better idea than writing in a new character.

Second that having myriads of secondary characters that have small back stories can be tiresome to some readers, and those secondary characters do not drive sales.

Seeing as this is a review thread I will try to make this post relevant.

First -- Janeway is deep, interesting character. There are still a LOT of stories that can be told about her. For Gorn's sake, they still write stories about SPOCK! And the stories are still awesome. Janeway is not my favorite character, but seeing as I can picture her in my mind, hear her speak, and there are hundreds of previous stories for an author to pull character cues from I would rather read about her than a newly created secondary character.

Second. Obviously I "speak for myself" that I buy books to keep up with the main characters introduced by the TV shows and movies. I find it very, very hard to believe that the majority of those who purchase Treklit would by a book that had not one canonical character. The most successful Treklit books are ones that feature and thoroughly integrate canonical characters. That is why they are called "tie - ins".
There have been some awesome secondary characters created by various Trek authors... but c'mon folks, we like the canon characters. We eagerly anticipate reading about their adventures. We get excited when an author "nails" the way a canon character acts and thinks and speaks.

That's why Janeway gets the cover, and Cambridge gets some pages.
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I agree.

If VOY had one big problem, IMHO, the characters were never fleshed-out as much as they could've been.

Beyer has already showed a remarkable ability to "fix" what was broken about the show, and I'm hoping she'll be able to greatly expand on Janeway's character.

P.S. Sorry for double-post.
 
Just finished reading this book yesterday and now have the opportunity to leave a review. Apologies for the wall of text below.

Firstly, I love this book. Absolutely love it. The reasons for this go beyond the return of Janeway, and I shall explain.

I was very pleased to see not just one, but several Q appear in this novel, with each of their distinct personalities shining through. Junior's maturity as a Q was a great thing to see, and his sacrifice, though saddening, is something that I feel represents how far he has come.

However, I will agree with others that Amanda Rogers' death did seem rather abrupt and lacking some sort of 'weight' to it. It was sad to see her go, but I feel like it was for a reason, I just wish that there was a more defined reason to it.

I felt that Q and Lady Q were written brilliantly. I absolutely love Q's line "You have made an enemy of me today, Kathryn Janeway" after Junior sacrifices himself. The absolute rage that I felt from Q in that line was chilling. I really liked at the end, how Q has this sort of raw anger while Lady Q is quieter. The loss of their son undoubtedly caused a dramatic change in them, and I thought that Ms. Beyer conveyed this extremely well.

In terms of Eden's storyline: I thought that it was done well. To me, it felt like the journey to discover and understand her origins brought her full circle, concluding with her return to Omega in order to prevent the destruction of the multiverse. I can see how others may see it as an abrupt end for her, but I disagree. I feel that this end is fitting for her, to find out who she is and embrace that.

I want to move away from Eden's origin a bit to address something else that I really loved about the novel: the planet where Eden, the Doctor and Cambridge find a portion of the "anamoly" in a construct far beneath the surface. I really love how this was played out, from the intriguing drawings to the use of the Golden Ratio, Fibonacci Sequence and Spiral; I really enjoyed that. The imagery of the Doctor and Cambridge walking down the corridor filled with the illuminated star maps was quite lovely.

Janeway's return, I thought, was excellent. The route chosen by Ms. Beyer was unique and well thought-out. I had never considered the inclusion of Kes in her return, and this made it a thoroughly enjoyable surprise for me. I found that the moment where Janeway and Kes embrace to be a particularly powerful moment in the novel.

Her return to Voyager caused reactions in the crew that I anticipated, all of which were powerful moments, particularly Chakotay's. His apparent death was quite heartbreaking, and I know that I got a little choked up while reading both that scene and the first time Janeway says "I love you" to Chakotay. I'm extremely pleased, however, that both he and Janeway are able to continue their relationship in the end. I really love the emotional weight all these scenes carry, and I feel like this is something that Ms. Beyer does extremely well.

The Omega Continuum and its relation to things was interesting, in both a scientific and philosophical sense. It presented the universe with a force of great potential. It was really interesting to read about some of the relations it had to our own existence and how it affected that as well as the space around the fleet and the people that interacted with it. In terms of philosophical ideas, what really stood out to me about this was that this force was the imagining of what could be out there, and how our universe could possibly end. There are an infinite number of possible ways that this could occur, and I think that looking at any one of them is a great thing to do, especially in a science fiction novel. It truly fascinated me.

One last thing, I love the sense of hope that I got from this novel. Even with the shocking loss of half (:eek:) the fleet, there are still signs of hope: Janeway's return, B'Elanna's pregnancy and the settlement of Riley's people on a planet that was once home to the Borg. Though there are consequences to their actions, the people in these novels continue to strive forward. It would seem that there are rays of light between the shadows.

The references to canon and the events in the novels throughout this one were a great sight, many of them brought smiles to my face or a grin at a clever connection. Truly wonderful.

In short, Ms. Beyer you have written what I think is an outstanding novel, and I shall return for the next one and any other Voyager novels that you may write in the future. :)
 
Speaking of children and other liberated Borg: Mezoti and the Borg twins may not have joined the Caeliar gestalt as well. The Wysanti homeworld would be worth paying a visit for this reason.
 
I thought the concept of the Omega Continuum was brilliant. If the universe is expanding at a continual rate when will it stop? Will it ever stop? Those are big questions that science cannot answer, and whatever happens will likely be trillions of our years in the future, anyway.

So the development of a fictional concept of a "natural" force designed to "reset" the universe was awesome.
 
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