Maybe he did. Robert Sheckley was well-known as an author of humorous, absurdist science fiction.
Worst Trek book?
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Maybe he did. Robert Sheckley was well-known as an author of humorous, absurdist science fiction.
As for the worst Trek books I've read, the Q trilogy ranks up there. I just got tired of all the tie-ins from different episodes. It turns out that everything that has happened ever had something to do with all the superbeings fighting each other. John Vornholt's A Time to Be Born/Die books were also pretty bad. You'd think that after a hundred-some-odd episodes and four movies, people would know what these characters would and wouldn't say.
"How can we stop this murderous entity?" Who talks like that?
"How can we stop this murderous entity?" Who talks like that?
Didn't even bother. The first two was a good duology in my opinion... After the third installment so completely failed, I didn't even bother continuing. I've got better things to spend my time and money on. And, from your description, it looks like I made the right choice.
"Tears of the Singers" by Melinda Snodgrass, which is odd, because I've enjoyed many of the TNG episodes that she had a hand in. But "Tears of the Singers" just feels like it was not originally intended as a Star Trek novel and was shoehorned into the Star Trek universe at the last minute. The whole environmentalist drum being banged (and I'm an environmentalist) had me rolling my eyes and saying, "Message coming in!" was very unsubtle. It was great to see Uhura as the central character of the novel, but she was handled in such a cardboard fashion that it didn't ring true.
I had a hard time getting through the beginning of the A Time To series. The first two novels were too heavily focused on Wesley Crusher, probably the least interesting character in TNG canon and nothing anyone can do will make him any more interesting. And Jon Vornholt was a little too repetitive wit his wording. Wesley "rasped" an awful lot and after a while, I began counting the amount of times he did so.
The penultimate book was also a little tough, The story was good, but it seemed padded. Like every second chapter dealt with a security team being killed in battle. But aside from it being kind of drawn out, the story was excellent, From book 3 on, the series really keeped me hooked.
Otherwise, I have to go way back to find really, truly bad Trek novels. Peter David's Strike Zone was kinda crappy. Too funny for its own good (he really thinks he the funniest guy ever, but I find him irritating), he renamed Ten Forward the "Ten-Four Room" (WTF) and decided that everyone referred to Wesley as the Brain Trust.
I dunno, I stopped reading Trek novels years ago and just started back up at the behest of fans who say they've improved. I agree.
So, where's David Arnold these days?
The penultimate book was also a little tough, The story was good, but it seemed padded. Like every second chapter dealt with a security team being killed in battle. But aside from it being kind of drawn out, the story was excellent, From book 3 on, the series really keeped me hooked.
Otherwise, I have to go way back to find really, truly bad Trek novels. Peter David's Strike Zone was kinda crappy. Too funny for its own good (he really thinks he the funniest guy ever, but I find him irritating), he renamed Ten Forward the "Ten-Four Room" (WTF) and decided that everyone referred to Wesley as the Brain Trust.
I dunno, I stopped reading Trek novels years ago and just started back up at the behest of fans who say they've improved. I agree.
So, where's David Arnold these days?
I don't think PAD coined that term. I think that came from the behind-the-scenes material of TNG itself, something that was proposed when the Ten Forward idea was created but never actually made it onto the screen.
Err, probably writing the music for the movie Amazing Grace or Casino Royale. Did you mean Richard Arnold?
HA! God. Yeah, I mean Richard Arnold. :-) Sorry, I'm a soundtrack buff, so that was the Arnold who popped into my head.
Der-de-der der.
RE: The Peter David stuff, I never heard of those alternate names being used even in the behind the scenes materials, but it's sure possible. It just struck me as rediculous to name something Ten-Forward, which is already a nickname for "deck ten, forward station one" and then nickname again as something with the same number of syllables as Ten Forward.
I saw Richard Arnold at the Star Trek Experiance in Vegas in December. He was at a table next to Suzie Plakson. She was selling autographed photos. I don't know what he was selling, I didn't talk to him.
I was going to buy a photo from Plakson and have her sign it for my girlfriend saying something like "I'm sorry you're not a Star Trek fan" but as I was about to go up to her my girlfriend called and asked when I was going to be done and that she had just lost $175. That could only mean one thing, she had found the three handed poker table. I figured we has splurged enough at that point so I passed.
(sorry if you've read this before as i've typed this before but hey, i'm bored at work and felt like repeating that story again)
oh but the point of all this, a few people talked to Suzie but no one talked to Arnold...
I was going to buy a photo from Plakson and have her sign it for my girlfriend saying something like "I'm sorry you're not a Star Trek fan" but as I was about to go up to her my girlfriend called and asked when I was going to be done and that she had just lost $175. That could only mean one thing, she had found the three handed poker table. I figured we has splurged enough at that point so I passed.
(sorry if you've read this before as i've typed this before but hey, i'm bored at work and felt like repeating that story again)
oh but the point of all this, a few people talked to Suzie but no one talked to Arnold...
That description coupled with the information that Robert Sheckley is the author constitutes enough reason for me to keep my eye out for this one. :thumbsup:
Ah, see, Sampo's Therom lives, even on the Trek BBS. Strike Zone is one of my favorite Trek novels. I thought it was very funny. It was my understanding (I recall this being mentioned on one of the Trek newsgroups, so it may not be true) that it was one of the first TNG novels written, actually before the show premiered and the name of 10-Forward hadn't been nailed down yet. I liked the way Wesley had the nickname Brain Trust - it added a little flesh to a character that was never really fleshed out that well on the series. I also like the way Data told Pulaski to stick it up her tucchus, albeit in an oblique, Data-style way.
You know, I just did some checking and I can't find a single reference to Ten Forward being Ten-Four, either online or in my library, so all I've got to go on is a half-remembered blurb from one of the rec.arts.television.startrek groups ten years ago. But I still liked the book and was willing to forgive its flaws.
No -- it was the fifth original novel, and the first one to be set during the second season (remember, Ten Forward and Guinan weren't introduced until the second season). The show had been on for about a year when it was written, but Ten Forward itself was new. (You're probably thinking of PAD's DS9 novel The Seige, written before the show premiered and based entirely on the first half-dozen scripts of the show.)
I probably read it in Starlog or something, some article where people were talking about the upcoming season. Or maybe I'm wrong and PAD really did coin it.
Yep. And, IIRC (in "But I Digress...", PAD's regular column for a comics newpaper?), he briefly described the frustration of having to update his proposal to exchange Dr Crusher for Dr Pulaski. (Similarly, PAD had to exchange Pulaski for Crusher in "A Rock and a Hard Place", as Paramount Licensing wanted each current novel to reflect the onscreen cast line-ups.) And yes, some cast and crew were definitely calling the new set "10/4" in interviews, etc.
Of course, SZ was also the first to finish up a ST comic story arc in a ST novel. The Cognoscenti of "Strike Zone" were also the unseen villains of a major storyline in the final post-ST IV comics PAD was writing for DC, and while the main Enterprise-A story was concluded before the title went on hiatus, some plot threads were unresolved. Under their newly renegotiated licence, DC Comics and PAD couldn't use Bryce, Bearclaw, or Klingons Konom and Bernie (aka Moron) again, so PAD sneaked Klingon Ambassador Kobry (a matured Bernie, now named for his adoptive parents, KOnom and BRYce) and the Cognoscenti into the proposal that became "Strike Zone", but in such a way that people who had not read the TOS movie comics had no idea they'd missed anything. Except maybe ssosmcin.
I loved Strike Zone. It's one of my all time favorites.
In fact yes, Peter was told that the "Ten-Four Room" was an alternate name for it. It falls into the same black hole as the EMH being named Doctor Zimmerman, Riker being nicknamed "Bill," and Data being created by unknown aliens as Things They Intended That Didn't Come To Pass.
^^Also Geordi was originally supposed to be a liaison with the ship's children as well as the helmsman. (And I think that was written even before they cast the host of Reading Rainbow in the role!)
I usually read the last book in a series. They usually do exposition to bring you up to speed anyway. I got the Q-Cont. book 3. it was pretty good.
Some new trek series I can't stand. They just stike me as lame. Case in point: A time to Die. wtf was that? that just sucked, imo.
Vanguard is another new series I'll be skipping. Way too disjointed, way too many new characters all at once. The only book where I had to keep looking back into previous chapters to remind myself who was who.
Many of the early DS9 books were pretty bad, but that's understandable.
The IDIC Epidemic- wow, can you say 'predictable'?
Mindshadow- paper thin plot and you have to wonder how lax security really is, since I knew who the rom. agent was way before the 'reveal'.
Books I saw on the list that I thought were good:
-The shat novels
-How much for Just the Planet? -It's bizzare, but i love it. It has singing in it, for f.s.! Singing!
-The Dyson Sphere- I'll admit that it wasn't that brilliant or imaginative, nor did it ever really get to the point, but I still like it.
Some new trek series I can't stand. They just stike me as lame. Case in point: A time to Die. wtf was that? that just sucked, imo.
Vanguard is another new series I'll be skipping. Way too disjointed, way too many new characters all at once. The only book where I had to keep looking back into previous chapters to remind myself who was who.
Many of the early DS9 books were pretty bad, but that's understandable.
The IDIC Epidemic- wow, can you say 'predictable'?
Mindshadow- paper thin plot and you have to wonder how lax security really is, since I knew who the rom. agent was way before the 'reveal'.
Books I saw on the list that I thought were good:
-The shat novels
-How much for Just the Planet? -It's bizzare, but i love it. It has singing in it, for f.s.! Singing!
-The Dyson Sphere- I'll admit that it wasn't that brilliant or imaginative, nor did it ever really get to the point, but I still like it.
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