Woo Hoo! I just got Shards and Shadows!
- Thread starter foravalon
- Start date
I got it yesterday (had ordered it off Amazon.) Anyone else done yet?
Overall, it's pretty good. There's nothing in here that approaches "The Sorrows of Empire," but I enjoyed it.
The good:
Given that I'm not into TOS and that I've never read Vanguard, I enjoyed "The Greater Good," "Ill Winds," and "The Black Flag," with "The Greater Good" being my favorite of these three, since I'm at least familiar with all the characters. I have a feeling I'd enjoy the other two stories more if I had a better idea of who their real counterparts are, and I've just ordered the first three Vanguard books.
The DS9 story. This might be my favorite of the bunch; at least, it's increasing my anticipation for The Soul Key. A note: with all the rest of the crew - Bowers, Sloan, Eddington, Shar, Leeta - getting mentions, I had to stop and think for a second before I realized that MU Ezri is still alive (cf. her appearance in Fearful Symmetry, which I think, per Andrew's timeline, takes place after this.)
I liked the epistolary-style Captain Klag story. On the other hand, I like Klingons, I like Cardassians, I like the MU; really, what wasn't there to love about it?
The NF story was enjoyable. I remember thinking that McHenry sounds like Westley from the Princess Bride at one point. Am I correct in supposing that the alternate universe the crew comes into contact with in the last comic book are not the one from the MU (or, specifically, this MU)?
The Titan story was okay, but it didn't have my favorite Titan characters in it. I want to know what MU Ranul and Torvig are doing, darn it! It's not like we don't already see enough of MU Tuvok anyway.
The last story was also okay. Ah, the MU irony of, "in the RU, you kill me; in the MU, you save my life." I do kind of wonder why K'Ehleyr's mother would choose to give her a Klingon name, and the selection of Nechayev as the traitor felt kind of random, but I can't really gripe about anything (aside from the fact that it's not as good as Destiny, but the comparison of a short story to a three-novel epic isn't valid or fair, I know.)
The stuff I didn't like so much:
The Enterprise story didn't really interest me. I read it, there's nothing I can point out as being especially awful, but it just wasn't a page-turner.
When I got to the end of the Stargazer story, it kind of made me feel like the rest of the story was pointless. Unless there's going to be some payoff with these shapeshifters in the future, it really felt like there was no reason for this story to exist.
I would write more, and I'm probably leaving something out, but I unfortunately I have to go to class and learn things.
The good:
Given that I'm not into TOS and that I've never read Vanguard, I enjoyed "The Greater Good," "Ill Winds," and "The Black Flag," with "The Greater Good" being my favorite of these three, since I'm at least familiar with all the characters. I have a feeling I'd enjoy the other two stories more if I had a better idea of who their real counterparts are, and I've just ordered the first three Vanguard books.
The DS9 story. This might be my favorite of the bunch; at least, it's increasing my anticipation for The Soul Key. A note: with all the rest of the crew - Bowers, Sloan, Eddington, Shar, Leeta - getting mentions, I had to stop and think for a second before I realized that MU Ezri is still alive (cf. her appearance in Fearful Symmetry, which I think, per Andrew's timeline, takes place after this.)
I liked the epistolary-style Captain Klag story. On the other hand, I like Klingons, I like Cardassians, I like the MU; really, what wasn't there to love about it?
The NF story was enjoyable. I remember thinking that McHenry sounds like Westley from the Princess Bride at one point. Am I correct in supposing that the alternate universe the crew comes into contact with in the last comic book are not the one from the MU (or, specifically, this MU)?
The Titan story was okay, but it didn't have my favorite Titan characters in it. I want to know what MU Ranul and Torvig are doing, darn it! It's not like we don't already see enough of MU Tuvok anyway.
The last story was also okay. Ah, the MU irony of, "in the RU, you kill me; in the MU, you save my life." I do kind of wonder why K'Ehleyr's mother would choose to give her a Klingon name, and the selection of Nechayev as the traitor felt kind of random, but I can't really gripe about anything (aside from the fact that it's not as good as Destiny, but the comparison of a short story to a three-novel epic isn't valid or fair, I know.)
The stuff I didn't like so much:
The Enterprise story didn't really interest me. I read it, there's nothing I can point out as being especially awful, but it just wasn't a page-turner.
When I got to the end of the Stargazer story, it kind of made me feel like the rest of the story was pointless. Unless there's going to be some payoff with these shapeshifters in the future, it really felt like there was no reason for this story to exist.
I would write more, and I'm probably leaving something out, but I unfortunately I have to go to class and learn things.
I got it from Amazon in late December and finished it a few days ago.
My favorites were probably "Nobunaga," "The Sacred Chalice," and "Bitter Fruit." Not at all the stories I would have expected to like based on the author names involved in the collection, but there it is.
The layers-of-illusion device "Nobunaga" uses is a bit well-worn, but I thought Stern's prose really brought the story to life, and it, unlike some stories, had a meaningful purpose beyond showing us MU versions of tertiary characters.
I didn't get much out of "Ill Winds." The Aprils are pretty generic MU types, the plot doesn't have much to offer, and the ending is so obvious that "the Quiet Tyrant" should have seen it coming a mile away. I wish the story had done more to establish why types as different as Robert and Sarah ended up married in the first place.
"The Greater Good" was pretty strong. MU Pike had a certain pathos and made a nice change of pace from the usual MU captain, and MU Kirk was made more plausible and intelligent, and more similar to "our" Kirk, than he had previously been. The story might have worked a bit better at greater length, but it works well enough as is.
"The Black Flag" ties in well with The Sorrows of Empire, and its events are meaningful within the MU, but it spends a lot of its time on setup so the actual plot is rushed, and the characters don't have much depth.
I also found the Stargazer story kind of pointless. It's an easy enough read, but "hey, random shapeshifters!" is a cheap way to have surprising things happen in your story.
"The Sacred Chalice" worked for me because it put MU Deanna in a situation that was both dramatically interesting and a logical extension of the MU, and told a consequential if slightly cliched story that was about her choices. The use of MU Picard was also clever. The prose is a bit awkward, but not so much that it represents a serious problem.
"Bitter Fruit" does a good job of extending the excellent work KRAD did in The Mirror-Scaled Serpent without feeling like an unnecessary sequel. It achieves both the luridness of the MU and some of its potential for real character darkness, in part by avoiding the "Alliance=bad, rebellion=good" trap.
Epistolary format was a nice choice for "Family Matters," as it enlivened a basic intrigue plot, though occasionally some of the exposition within dialogue/letters strained credibility. The use of various Trek families was a nice touch.
I thought the NF story was dull. PAD's humor is just stale by now, and the characterization is shallow. There's nothing exactly wrong with the story, though, and it does bring a major change to the MU.
"A Terrible Beauty" was too predictable for my taste, one of those Trek stories where we're invited to believe that a protagonist might be evil when she's so obviously not. Keiko's backstory is generic resistance to tyranny stuff. The ending is nice, though.
"Empathy" is even more thematically obvious than the average MU story, but MU Riker was kind of fun, and the skiffy worldbuilding was, as usual for Christopher, strong.
"For Want of a Nail" is a strong action story; it doesn't have much substance beyond that level, but I suppose it doesn't need to.
Overall there weren't any stories I thought were flat-out bad, but there were more forgettable entries than I'd hoped for.
The layers-of-illusion device "Nobunaga" uses is a bit well-worn, but I thought Stern's prose really brought the story to life, and it, unlike some stories, had a meaningful purpose beyond showing us MU versions of tertiary characters.
I didn't get much out of "Ill Winds." The Aprils are pretty generic MU types, the plot doesn't have much to offer, and the ending is so obvious that "the Quiet Tyrant" should have seen it coming a mile away. I wish the story had done more to establish why types as different as Robert and Sarah ended up married in the first place.
"The Greater Good" was pretty strong. MU Pike had a certain pathos and made a nice change of pace from the usual MU captain, and MU Kirk was made more plausible and intelligent, and more similar to "our" Kirk, than he had previously been. The story might have worked a bit better at greater length, but it works well enough as is.
"The Black Flag" ties in well with The Sorrows of Empire, and its events are meaningful within the MU, but it spends a lot of its time on setup so the actual plot is rushed, and the characters don't have much depth.
I also found the Stargazer story kind of pointless. It's an easy enough read, but "hey, random shapeshifters!" is a cheap way to have surprising things happen in your story.
"The Sacred Chalice" worked for me because it put MU Deanna in a situation that was both dramatically interesting and a logical extension of the MU, and told a consequential if slightly cliched story that was about her choices. The use of MU Picard was also clever. The prose is a bit awkward, but not so much that it represents a serious problem.
"Bitter Fruit" does a good job of extending the excellent work KRAD did in The Mirror-Scaled Serpent without feeling like an unnecessary sequel. It achieves both the luridness of the MU and some of its potential for real character darkness, in part by avoiding the "Alliance=bad, rebellion=good" trap.
Epistolary format was a nice choice for "Family Matters," as it enlivened a basic intrigue plot, though occasionally some of the exposition within dialogue/letters strained credibility. The use of various Trek families was a nice touch.
I thought the NF story was dull. PAD's humor is just stale by now, and the characterization is shallow. There's nothing exactly wrong with the story, though, and it does bring a major change to the MU.
"A Terrible Beauty" was too predictable for my taste, one of those Trek stories where we're invited to believe that a protagonist might be evil when she's so obviously not. Keiko's backstory is generic resistance to tyranny stuff. The ending is nice, though.
"Empathy" is even more thematically obvious than the average MU story, but MU Riker was kind of fun, and the skiffy worldbuilding was, as usual for Christopher, strong.
"For Want of a Nail" is a strong action story; it doesn't have much substance beyond that level, but I suppose it doesn't need to.
Overall there weren't any stories I thought were flat-out bad, but there were more forgettable entries than I'd hoped for.
I haven't gotten my comp copies yet, so I may have to see if I can find it in stores. I've been waiting ages to see it in final book form. 
None of my local bookstores have it yet, so I gave up and ordered it on Barnes and Noble.com. At least I got a good deal.
NF has been kind of stale lately, but I think that part of the problem with MU NF is that NF is already kind of MU to begin with (i.e. the MU likes be darker, more sex, more violence, but NF has already had a lot of sex and violence to begin with, at least compared to other incarnations of Star Trek.) So what is there to do? The first foray into MU NF started off with a cowardly Calhoun, but now he's pretty much like "our" Calhoun. I think that's my big complaint with the NF story: it feels too much like real-universe NF. The only difference is that there's some perfunctory MU Lesbian Goodness (tm) tossed in with the mention of Kally/Robin. But overall, it feels too much like regular NF.
Thinking about it, I do have to agree: if I'd guessed what my favorite stories were going to be based on authorship, I'd have been wrong. I didn't like Susan Wright's previous books all that much, but her Voyager story was pretty good, and it's one of the few where I do wonder "What'll happen next?"
Thinking about it, I do have to agree: if I'd guessed what my favorite stories were going to be based on authorship, I'd have been wrong. I didn't like Susan Wright's previous books all that much, but her Voyager story was pretty good, and it's one of the few where I do wonder "What'll happen next?"
Anyone have a short, spoiler-free opinion to share? Worth the buy? Up to the quality of Glass Empires/Obsidian Alliances? I haven't seen it in stores yet, but I've been debating whether or not to buy it when I do, especially as I've seen my bank account drain recently. Seeing as I plan on buying a book a month from at least February through June, I just want an opinion before I add January to that.
It's probably worth buying if you enjoy the MU. It isn't up to the level of Glass Empires, but I'd say it's about as good as Obsidian Alliances, and several of the stories offer interesting follow-ups to the novels in those collections.
Thanks for the reply! I'll probably end up buying it--I doubt I'll really regret it once I've read it.
One more question: Does any stories involve the events of Fearful Symmetry? I'm way behind on the post-finale DS9 novels (ok... barely started), and didn't get Fearful Symmetry because of that, so would rather be surprised by its story when I finally do get to it. (Yes, I'm sure it's not required, just asking.)
Nope, all the stories take place before Warpath and Fearful Symmetry.
Thanks! Think that pretty much convinces me to buy it.
I got mine as well. Had it shipped all the way to here in Israel.
I like the nice lineup the book has.
Good to see a Stargazer story again.
Hope we get another Stargazer novel again soon.
I like the nice lineup the book has.
Good to see a Stargazer story again.
Hope we get another Stargazer novel again soon.
Is the story consistant with the Stargazer novel that involves the MU? I ask because that story was written before the MU series started, while the S&S stories are all consistant with GE/OA. I actually haven't read any of the Stargazer books yet, so I don't know how much the book actually involved events in the MU.
In order for folks to talk about the book's contents without putting huge tracts of text behind the spoiler box, I started a spoiler thread for the anthology.
Similar threads
