What happened to David R George III

[ryan123450]

Awhile back I wondered what David R George III had to comment regarding the Coda trilogy and the end of the DS9 storyline he had been so important in shaping, and asked for his thoughts here. Never heard from him.

I was reminded of this today and after doing some looking, he hasn’t been on the forums since last December. He hasn’t be on social media in a solid year. And as far as I can tell, he hasn’t published a novel (Star Trek or otherwise) since Original Sin four years ago.

Anyone know any backstory as to why he fell away from writing, and an online presence? I assume he’s ok?

 

[Therin of Andor]

Anyone know any backstory as to why he fell away from writing, and an online presence? I assume he’s ok?

Definitely still okay. I chat to David and his wife, Karen, every so often. He moved away from the TrekLit social pages quite a while ago.

 

[Damian]

Good to know he's still okay. We've lost a number of authors over the last year or two and it's good to know he's still among us.

Just like Christopher had become the go to Enterprise novel writer and Kirsten Beyer the Voyager writer, DRGIII seemed to have become the go to DS9 writer (except for David Mack and the Section 31 novels--which I loosely affiliated with DS9).

I believe it was ryan that was curious if the Coda authors had chatted with DRGIII about the DS9 elements of the upcoming trilogy or not and for the time being they seemed to have demurred. I can see where it might be helpful to see where he thought of going with future DS9 novels to see if that might be incorporated or helpful to their own story in some fashion.

The novel blackout of 2018 really screwed things up though. Everything except for a couple Discovery novels just stopped and who knows if there would have been more DS9 novels after Original Sin.

And I still wish we had one more standalone DS9 novel before Coda. A chance to tie up DS9 specific story lines that probably would have little to do with Coda, and perhaps like To Lose the Earth, perhaps even set up a few additional storylines to lead into Coda.

Kind of a shame we won't get any more Mission: Gamma stories either. It seemed Sisko had settled in on the Robinson by the end of Original Sin and had finally developed a health relationship with Kasidy and with his fellow officers by the end of that novel and we were maybe in for a couple exploration stories, which are some of my favorites in Star Trek. It would have been nice to see an occasional book in that series.

 

[David Weller]

IIRC, there was a vocal minority who didn’t like David’s work - which is fine - and launched personal attacks on him - which isn’t. As a result he withdrew from social media.

If that’s the reason he stepped aside from Trek fiction, I don’t know.

 

[ryan123450]

Definitely still okay. I chat to David and his wife, Karen, every so often. He moved away from the TrekLit social pages quite a while ago.

Thanks, that’s good to know. The slowdown in 2018 really did a number on Treklit. Sad that DRGIII seems to have been a casualty of that process. I really enjoyed Original Sin and most of his other novels. Despite the criticisms that people had of the post-Destiny DS9 storyline, I could always see that he was really trying within the editorial parameters given to him, and that he had the desire to have an overarching plan.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

I have to admit i found most DRGIII books a real struggle. But its a real shame he stepped away from trek totally. Star trek fans can be real shit heads sometimes l.

 

[Divine]

DRGIII is in my top 3 trek authors.

 

[David Weller]

I have to admit i found most DRGIII books a real struggle. But its a real shame he stepped away from trek totally. Star trek fans can be real shit heads sometimes l.

There are shit heads in all fandoms.

 

[Mage]

IIRC, there was a vocal minority who didn’t like David’s work - which is fine - and launched personal attacks on him - which isn’t. As a result he withdrew from social media.

If that’s the reason he stepped aside from Trek fiction, I don’t know.

I recall the same. It's ok to not like a certain author's style or plots. But some people became intensely hateful in the way they voiced it. David made some interesting choices with regards to the development of some characters, and not everyone dealt with that in a mature way.

DRGIII is in my top 3 trek authors.

Mine as well. Original Sin wasn't my cup of tea, but all his other Treklit novels I devoured. I loved his style and his take on the characters I love so much.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

There are shit heads in all fandoms.

I'm fully aware. But considering we're talking about a trek lit author who was harrassed by trek fans, naturally those are the fans I'm going to be referring to.

 

[Damian]

Yeah, not cool when "fans" abuse or harass an author (or anyone else for that matter).

It's ok not to like a novel, and it's ok even to criticize the work itself. Our authors are all big boys and girls after all. But it's not ok to attack them personally or to harass them to the point they feel they need to disengage.

It's important to remember this isn't life or death. Nobody is going to die because they didn't like a novel, nobody's going to lose their job or their home over it (well, at least the reader). It's just fiction at the end of the day so keep things in perspective.

I appear to be one of the few that liked what DRGIII did with making Kira a Vedek. And I also was curious to see her relationship with her long ago boyfriend would go, where it appears others think that is a dead end, or at least not worth exploring further. But, still, those are fair criticisms if people disagree. And at least recently when I've seen posts here it appears most people are keeping their criticisms civil and about the story, not about DRGIII personally. But there's a line not to cross, and that's when it becomes personal.

 

[Stevil2001]

When was David abused or harassed? To quote myself:

I just tracked down the book's original discussion thread; page 12 is the point where DRG3 departs the TrekBBS. The criticism didn't seem particularly bad. I mean, most people weren't into the book obviously, but the reviews were pretty thoughtful and measured for the most part, presumably because George is a participant in the thread. But reading it is exhausting because George responds to every little point of every review, good and bad. He mostly seems upset when people assign motives to him (e.g., saying things like, "it seems like no one knows what to do with Sisko").

It's pretty mild criticism of what is, in my opinion, a pretty bad book.

Anyway, I doubt he chose to not come back to Treklit after the Great Hiatus; it seems that with the line curtailed even more since then, Deep Space Nine relaunch books aren't a priority, and that was basically all he wrote.

 

[Greg Cox]

The "assigning motives" thing can get on your nerves. The only reviews that ever stick in my craw are the ones that go beyond critiquing the words on the page to question my motives or fan cred.

"Cox obviously dashed this one out for the money."
"Cox obviously hates such-and-such character."
"Cox has obviously never watched the TV series."

The way I see it, the books themselves are fair game. Tear into them. But don't presume that you can read my mind as to why I wrote something the way I did.

 

[KRAD]

It's even funnier when those things are contradictory. Like the two straight reviews on Amazon of one of my Supernatural books, one of which said that I wrote Dean perfectly, but obviously don't get Sam at all, and the next one said I wrote Sam perfectly, but obviously don't get Dean at all.

In other news, posting on a BBS is completely voluntary, and something we do because we want to -- and often don't do because we don't want to. That's all there is to it. Nobody's obligated to be here.

 

[Damian]

When was David abused or harassed? To quote myself:

It's pretty mild criticism of what is, in my opinion, a pretty bad book.

Anyway, I doubt he chose to not come back to Treklit after the Great Hiatus; it seems that with the line curtailed even more since then, Deep Space Nine relaunch books aren't a priority, and that was basically all he wrote.

He made those comments back in 2011. He appears to have come back because it shows he was last on TrekBBS back in December. It sounds more like he was just getting frustrated at that point.

There's a fine line for every one, and it probably varies from person to person. Let's face it, some of us have a thicker skin that others. It seems that particular book got knocked around quite a bit and maybe he just got irritated by it. I don't recall much about that particular book as I read it when it came out, and some of the criticisms of that particular novel that I was reading had been resolved in subsequent books, most of which by DRGIII himself.

I do recall being a bit jarred by the time jump in DS9 myself. But I attributed that more to an editorial decision, not so much on the authors. It was noted they wanted to bring DS9 up to the same timeframe of the TNG basically because they wanted to do some crossovers, which they couldn't do if DS9 was still 3 years behind. But to DRGIII's credit, he eventually picked up on some of those hanging story threads after The Soul Key and I think most of that missing time period was filled in.

The "assigning motives" thing can get on your nerves. The only reviews that ever stick in my craw are the ones that go beyond critiquing the words on the page to question my motives or fan cred.

"Cox obviously dashed this one out for the money."
"Cox obviously hates such-and-such character."
"Cox has obviously never watched the TV series."

The way I see it, the books themselves are fair game. Tear into them. But don't presume that you can read my mind as to why I wrote something the way I did.

Cox obviously thinks he's as cool as Mr. Spock.

Seriously though, because of your picture whenever I think of an image of you I think of Spock from "The Cage." The same for David Mack, I think of Dr. Bashir.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I remember a LOT of grief over that DS9 time jump, and DRGIII explaining that some creative choices (I presume the time jump) weren't his. And then he was coming under fire for making Sisko a "deadbeat Dad" too, and there were counter-arguments that this was just the start of an arc and not to judge too harshy this early... then he left.

Imagine if Peter David were here after he killed off Janeway. Holy shit that was a crazy time.

 

[BillJ]

"Cox has obviously never watched the TV series."

I, for one, know that you have never seen a moment of the original Star Trek!

 

[ryan123450]

To clarify, I didn’t originally mean this to be about David’s absence from the TrekBBS. Definitely more about him not writing any novels the last four or five years. Though his recent complete disappearance online factored into my wondering.

Anyway, I doubt he chose to not come back to Treklit after the Great Hiatus; it seems that with the line curtailed even more since then, Deep Space Nine relaunch books aren't a priority, and that was basically all he wrote.

To be fair he did right quite a few TOS novels, though not for a while.

 

[David cgc]

To clarify, I didn’t originally mean this to be about David’s absence from the TrekBBS. Definitely more about him not writing any novels the last four or five years. Though his recent complete disappearance online factored into my wondering.

Mentioning that made me check his Facebook fan page (last posted to eleven months ago), and I immediately noticed some of his most recent photos were of the Atlanta Marriott, which you may recognize (give or take some set extensions) as the enormous TVA archives in Loki.

 

[Jarvisimo]

I did the same @David cgc and noticed that too