Why Did the DS9 Technical Manual Sell So Poorly?

[Stevil2001]

Lance Parkin wrote an essay called "Canonicity matters: defining the Doctor Who canon" for Time And Relative Dissertations In Space, a collection of peer-reviewed critical academic essays on Doctor Who, but it is just as relevant to Star Trek and our conversation here:

"The key to understanding the importance of 'canon' to a Doctor Who fan is that it represents investment. Fans spend a great deal of time and money on Doctor Who. The average Briton buys three books a year. At their height, there were that many Doctor Who books being published every month. Doctor Who fans are not lost in a fantasy world -- they have as great an understanding of the circumstances of television production as any other group of viewers. Via the Internet and conventions, they have far more direct contact with the authors of the novels than any other group of readers. For this level of commitment to work, they have to know the stories matter. Fans want the writers to demonstrate at least some of the care and attention to detail that they possess. For the emotional, time and financial investment of being a Doctor Who fan to pay off, they have to contribute to and inform, in some way, the wider Doctor Who universe. They -- the stories and the fans -- have to matter."

I think this applies doubly to "nonfiction" sources like technical manuals. If you read a novel and it's not "canon", at least it's (hopefully) still an enjoyable book-- the reaction to the Crucible trilogy was along this line. But a technical manual doesn't provide that sort of engagement; you read it to learn about something, you read it to learn "facts" about your fictional world. And if those facts aren't consistent with what's gone before or adhered to by what comes after, then what's the point?

 

[KRAD]

The thing about what Lance is saying, though, is that the only person who can decide that it matters is the reader. The problems arise when people turn to corporations to define what matters to them, and that's just dumb.

Does it matter to you? That's the only relevant criterion. The rest of it is just wank.

 

[Stevil2001]

I don't think there's anyone out there, though, who doesn't like a bit of external validation for their opinion. And that might be fallacious, but it doesn't make it any less common.

 

[KRAD]

^ Many common things are fallacious. That don't make 'em any less fallacious.

 

[EmperorKalan]

Hmm, that's an interesting idea, but I would rather see that kind of stuff in the magazine.

I don't know - go away for a three day break in New York and come back and find the magazine contents sorted for me. Note to self: go away more often!

Straw poll then folks - and I emphasise that this is to gain an idea of interest, not saying that it would definitely happen (there being numerous hoops to jump through before such a thing could even get onto the drawing board let alone in print) - would there be a mass interest in this sort of tech stuff in the mag?

Paul Simpson
Editor, Star Trek Magazine

I can't speak for "mass interest", just mine, but right now there's very little in the magazine that interests me that I haven't found out previously through online sources, so I may flip through it in the store, but so far I've actually bought less than half the issues. If you stick in two or four pages of techie stuff, though, that'd shift it into my "definitely buy" category.

It seems to me the most obvious first subjects of tech pages would be things from the upcoming movie and items from the Remastered TOS (new ships, revamped locations, etc.).

 

[Misfit Toy]

It doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me what's canon and what's not.

It shouldn't matter to anyone who isn't actually writing for the source material. In fact, it doesn't matter to anyone who isn't actually writing for the source material.

But then, I genuinely do not comprehend why people get their knickers in a twist over what's "real" in a fictional construct....

I'll take that one step further and say that, in my experience, "canon" is something that only fans (and the ghost of Gene Roddenberry) worries about. When I was editing the FARSCAPE novels, I was on the phone to the Henson people nearly every day and, you know what, I don't think the word "canon" ever came up in a single conversation. Amidst the mountain of memos, faxes, contracts, and agreements generated by that project, the word "canon" never appears. Hell, I suspect I would've got baffled looks if I had brought the topic up at any of my meetings with the Henson people. It simply wasn't a matter anybody cared about. Trust, me were too busy haggling over deadlines and royalty rates to worry about whether the books were "canon" or not.

That's just the way things work in the real world.

I think the Henson people were preoccupied with having to deal with the Kermit/Piggy 'shippers.

 

[Dayton3]

Instead of starting a new thread about something similiar, I'll just add it to this one.

How well did the "Ships of the Line" book sell?

I wasn't impressed with it at first but now since the price has come down, I think I'll buy a copy.

 

[KRAD]

^ It sold out of its print run almost instantly, so it sold better than expected.

 

[Smiley]

How about Voyages of Imagination? Did it meet or exceed sales expectations?

 

[Therin of Andor]

How about Voyages of Imagination? Did it meet or exceed sales expectations?

Not sure, but I did see the first seemingly-remaindered copy (for $10) a few months ago, even though other stores have them at full price.

 

[BrotherBenny]

IMHO, all this discussion is irrelevant. Star Wars fans put up with the seemingly endless unoriginal stuff churned out by Lucas et al; whereas Star Trek fans are a lot pickier and prefer actual science in their science fiction to space fantasy.

SW is the lowest common denominator and therefore more popular.

 

[FalTorPan]

IMHO, all this discussion is irrelevant. Star Wars fans put up with the seemingly endless unoriginal stuff churned out by Lucas et al; whereas Star Trek fans are a lot pickier and prefer actual science in their science fiction to space fantasy.

SW is the lowest common denominator and therefore more popular.

Do you really believe that?

 

[Corran Horn]

IMHO, all this discussion is irrelevant. Star Wars fans put up with the seemingly endless unoriginal stuff churned out by Lucas et al; whereas Star Trek fans are a lot pickier and prefer actual science in their science fiction to space fantasy.

SW is the lowest common denominator and therefore more popular.

Sorry, no.

 

[Garrovick]

Instead of starting a new thread about something similiar, I'll just add it to this one.

How well did the "Ships of the Line" book sell?

I wasn't impressed with it at first but now since the price has come down, I think I'll buy a copy.

I bought my copy right off the cart the person was going to use to stock shelves. In fact, they were still in the box and she opened it for me.

I found the pictures lacking, but, I already had them on my computer, but I found the text portion to be very interesting.

 

[Trent Roman]

IMHO, all this discussion is irrelevant. Star Wars fans put up with the seemingly endless unoriginal stuff churned out by Lucas et al; whereas Star Trek fans are a lot pickier and prefer actual science in their science fiction to space fantasy. SW is the lowest common denominator and therefore more popular.

Meh. I've always thought people who place an emphasis on hard science as the principle qualifier of the genre miss the point. It's all about speculation. If we could get even the hardest sci-fi plot device working in reality, we wouldn't be writing stories about it but trying to actually build it. Most of these things aren't plausible; but they are internally justified, rendered believable in the world of the narrative, by science rather than magic, which is what makes them science-fiction. Star Wars swings both ways; it's mostly science-fiction with fantasy blended in. That doesn't make it better or worse than Star Trek (at least, not on the criteria of genre).

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

Meh. I've always thought people who place an emphasis on hard science as the principle qualifier of the genre miss the point. It's all about speculation. If we could get even the hardest sci-fi plot device working in reality, we wouldn't be writing stories about it but trying to actually build it. Most of these things aren't plausible; but they are internally justified, rendered believable in the world of the narrative, by science rather than magic, which is what makes them science-fiction.

Actually most of the major technological breakthroughs of the past century or so, from submarines and airships to nanotechnology and genetic engineering, were proposed in science fiction before they became reality. There has always, always been a two-way dialogue between hard SF and real science/technology, with each inspiring the other. Generations of physicists and engineers have read of things in science fiction and then discovered ways to make them real, just as generations of SF authors have striven to ground their fiction in the most credible science possible. Yes, SF is about speculation, but speculation is the first step of invention. It's misguided to speak of them as two unrelated things.

There are many degrees of plausibility in SF, because SF is very, very far from being one monolithic thing. Some SF speculations are implausible because they violate fundamental laws of nature (like human-Vulcan hybrids or genetic diseases that change your gross anatomy), but many are only implausible because the technology doesn't yet exist to create them; thirty or fifty years from now, they may turn out to be conservative. (Past SF writers correctly predicted the creation of a global computer repository of knowledge, but they mistakenly assumed it would be a single central mainframe rather than millions of privately owned, networked machines.)

So no, hard science alone is not the only "principal qualifier of the genre," but it's every bit as shortsighted to assume the genre has nothing to do with hard science. There are many, many flavors of speculative fiction, and science-driven SF is just as legitimate, just as culturally and historically important a facet of the genre, as the "softer" kinds of SF that are driven more by sociology, philosophy, action-adventure, character drama, etc. (And personally I've never seen the need to separate them; I always try to incorporate both solid science and solid character drama in my fiction.)

 

[BrotherBenny]

IMHO, all this discussion is irrelevant. Star Wars fans put up with the seemingly endless unoriginal stuff churned out by Lucas et al; whereas Star Trek fans are a lot pickier and prefer actual science in their science fiction to space fantasy.

SW is the lowest common denominator and therefore more popular.

Do you really believe that?

Yes, I do as it happens. SW fans tend to accept mediocre literature churned out. ST fans clearly have better taste. The SW books I've read (or tried to read) have been terrible, whereas even the worst ST book I've read is several times better.

 

[Sci]

Meh. I've always thought people who place an emphasis on hard science as the principle qualifier of the genre miss the point. It's all about speculation. If we could get even the hardest sci-fi plot device working in reality, we wouldn't be writing stories about it but trying to actually build it. Most of these things aren't plausible; but they are internally justified, rendered believable in the world of the narrative, by science rather than magic, which is what makes them science-fiction.

Actually most of the major technological breakthroughs of the past century or so, from submarines and airships to nanotechnology and genetic engineering, were proposed in science fiction before they became reality. There has always, always been a two-way dialogue between hard SF and real science/technology, with each inspiring the other. Generations of physicists and engineers have read of things in science fiction and then discovered ways to make them real, just as generations of SF authors have striven to ground their fiction in the most credible science possible. Yes, SF is about speculation, but speculation is the first step of invention. It's misguided to speak of them as two unrelated things.

There are many degrees of plausibility in SF, because SF is very, very far from being one monolithic thing. Some SF speculations are implausible because they violate fundamental laws of nature (like human-Vulcan hybrids or genetic diseases that change your gross anatomy), but many are only implausible because the technology doesn't yet exist to create them; thirty or fifty years from now, they may turn out to be conservative. (Past SF writers correctly predicted the creation of a global computer repository of knowledge, but they mistakenly assumed it would be a single central mainframe rather than millions of privately owned, networked machines.)

So no, hard science alone is not the only "principal qualifier of the genre," but it's every bit as shortsighted to assume the genre has nothing to do with hard science. There are many, many flavors of speculative fiction, and science-driven SF is just as legitimate, just as culturally and historically important a facet of the genre, as the "softer" kinds of SF that are driven more by sociology, philosophy, action-adventure, character drama, etc. (And personally I've never seen the need to separate them; I always try to incorporate both solid science and solid character drama in my fiction.)

I think you and Trent are saying the same things. Trent's just coming at it from the question of whether or not science fiction, as an art form, has to be "hard" in order to qualify as "genuine" sci-fi (which, to me, is like saying that a play has to be either a tragedy or a comedy and can be nothing in between -- there's a reason Neoclassicism died out); you, on the other hand, are talking about the art's relationship with reality and about the diversity within sci-fi, which is something Trent touches upon, too.

 

[JD]

IMHO, all this discussion is irrelevant. Star Wars fans put up with the seemingly endless unoriginal stuff churned out by Lucas et al; whereas Star Trek fans are a lot pickier and prefer actual science in their science fiction to space fantasy.

SW is the lowest common denominator and therefore more popular.

Do you really believe that?

Yes, I do as it happens. SW fans tend to accept mediocre literature churned out. ST fans clearly have better taste. The SW books I've read (or tried to read) have been terrible, whereas even the worst ST book I've read is several times better.

Just out of curiosity, which ones have you tried to read?

 

[Trent Roman]

I think you and Trent are saying the same things. Trent's just coming at it from the question of whether or not science fiction, as an art form, has to be "hard" in order to qualify as "genuine" sci-fi (which, to me, is like saying that a play has to be either a tragedy or a comedy and can be nothing in between -- there's a reason Neoclassicism died out); you, on the other hand, are talking about the art's relationship with reality and about the diversity within sci-fi, which is something Trent touches upon, too.

Yes, quite. By no means would I wish to denigrate hard sci-fi and the contributions it has brought to both the overall literature and real-world applications, nor authors consciencious about the scientific underpinnings of their speculative elements. I'm just saying we shouldn't dismiss a work as being outside the genre because the science elements are iffy. The late, regretted "4400" is a good example of what I mean: despite occasional nods to physiological explanations, the series is essentially about people with magical powers; the futuristic elements of the series went largely unexplained. But within the world of the story, the abilities, and actions of future parties, are coded as having a scientific explanation; it only looks like magic because their technology is so far advanced by early 21st century standards. So it's not hard science-fiction, not particularly concerned with science; but it's still science-fiction (social sci-fi) and damned good at that, I always thought.

<-- Or, heck, the story in the anthology in my avatar. I looked at a few papers by futurists and biologists on possible future evolution, but ultimately the geography and ecology of Earth several billions years hence is entirely speculative, and whatever scientific basis I think I might have for the creatures and landscape shown could be completely upturned by even a modern-day assesment with proper scientific rigour, let alone the unpredictable nature of the future.

Yes, I do as it happens. SW fans tend to accept mediocre literature churned out. ST fans clearly have better taste. The SW books I've read (or tried to read) have been terrible, whereas even the worst ST book I've read is several times better.

Well, I read both, so what does that say about my taste? Seriously, though, just because you didn't like the Star Wars books you've read, doesn't mean everybody shares your tastes; you can't essentialize the fanbase of either literature as being superior or inferior, nor do your preferences translate into an absolute standard of quality. I readily admit there are a number of clunkers in the line (Jedi Trial is one of the few books I've never finished), and a lot of formula in the offerings from the late 90s, but there are also some very good pieces, like the NJO line and anything written by Matthew Stover.

EDIT: To respond to Xeris (and add some shameless self-promotion).

Fictitiously yous, Trent Roman