XI's influence on the literature

[Admiral Buzzkill]

3) Enterprise failed because it sucked. Period. Arguably, the only time the show had any artistic merit at all was when it was MOST fan-wank-y, in the fourth season; those were good stories!

Nah. Lots of stuff that fans think "sucks" succeeds, and stuff that they praise fails like clockwork. "It sucks therefore it fails" is an assertion which may provide superficial emotional satisfaction for armchair critics but for which precious little evidence can be drawn from the current media environment.

Star Trek: Enterprise lost audience from week to week on exactly the same attrition curve that Trek television had been suffering since the premiere of DS9 in 1992. The curve finally bottomed out at a few million viewers. The real nail in Enterprise's coffin was the success of America's Next Top Model, which finally provided UPN with a bona fide (if brief) hit which reliably outpaced their Trek show in both ratings and demographics.

Allyn is right - almost everyone other than the hardcore were just dead tired of and bored with the Star Trek machine. What's surprising is not that Star Trek failed on television but that anyone was capable of resurrecting it so wholly successfully so quickly.

The best argument in favor of maintaining the style of the so-called "Prime universe" in prose fiction is, IMAO, that many facets of oldTrek are better suited to that medium than to television - detail, subtlety, discursive dialogue and backstory, intricate plotting and stories which unfold over long periods of time in-story can be pluses in novels as distinct from blockbuster feature films.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I don't think the occasional in-joke as an Easter egg for those in the know constitutes the alienation of newcomers. On the contrary, those who aren't in on the joke wouldn't even notice.

On the other hand, there's also the perception that the novels haven't been entirely accessible to newcomers. Look at the way the "what do I need to read before...?" comes up time and again. If the line appears to be closed to newcomers, even if it's not, the alienation has already happened.

The ideal has always been to make the books part of a consistent shared universe while still being accessible on their own.

I'm no longer convinced that making Star Trek a consistent, shared universe is a worthwhile goal.

And if you're saying that the books were "poisoned" because they didn't keep all the different series strictly segregated from one another, then you're saying that things like New Frontier and Titan and Vanguard and IKS Gorkon and SCE/CoE are "stinking" and toxic.

Christopher, I can like the individual books (and frequently do), while also recognizing that the direction they served was ultimately toxic to the corpus of Star Trek.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I'm no longer convinced that making Star Trek a consistent, shared universe is a worthwhile goal.

Skepticism is healthy.

 

[Christopher]

The best argument in favor of maintaining the style of the so-called "Prime universe" in prose fiction is, IMAO, that many facets of oldTrek are better suited to that medium than to television - detail, subtlety, discursive dialogue and backstory, intricate plotting and stories which unfold over long periods of time in-story can be pluses in novels as distinct from blockbuster feature films.

And incorporating concepts like Robau and the Kelvin (and its overall class of ship, and its 2230s-era uniforms, and other general info about the universe like the existence of the Laurentian system) would be part of that backstory and intricate universe-building. It wouldn't have to involve any change of style.

As for Allyn's position, I can somewhat see his point; I do think there's something to be said for the idea that internovel continuity has perhaps been taken as far as it should go and that it might be time for the pendulum to start swinging back toward more self-contained stories. I think that trend has already begun, since most of the 2010 lineup except the four Typhon Pact books (including the four Abramsverse books that were supposed to come out this year) consists of standalone tales, and since the comics and ST Online are independent of the books' continuity (and the various comic miniseries are mostly self-contained and not necessarily consistent with one another). I think the interconnectedness of the past decade was mainly the result of Marco's influence and meticulousness, and with Marco now gone I think it's no surprise that things are changing.

Still, I think it's an exaggeration to say the interconnectedness has been "toxic" in any way, and I think it would be an overreaction to drop it altogether. The strength of the Trek novel line is in its appeal to a broad range of tastes and interests. Yes, it would be good to add more standalone books that would be accessible to those people who are scared off by the (false) perception of a tight, exclusionist continuity. But that doesn't mean it would be smart to abandon that continuity altogether and alienate that portion of the readership that enjoys it. The sensible approach is to find a balance that can satisfy both audiences and thereby maximize sales. And I think things are already heading that way.

 

[TerriO]

I'm no longer convinced that making Star Trek a consistent, shared universe is a worthwhile goal.

Skepticism is healthy.

I debated on getting into this, but I'm going to do it, anyway. Yes, I debated on wading in where I have a strong opinion. I'm tired, I'm cold, it's snowing to beat hell outside, deal with it.

There's a consistent, shared universe, and then there's what I've come to call "continuity whoring", IMNSHO. It's an indelicate phrase, but it's the only thing that conveys the idea properly for me.

Personally, it's the same universe. If, say, Captain Gold loses a hand in one S.C.E. story, then he shouldn't have that hand magically back in any other story that he's involved in in any other part of the line that takes place after that S.C.E. story. Do we need to know why he lost the hand? Not really. If it's crucial to the story, perhaps we're treading dangerously close to "continuity whoring".

I'm going to take him to task for this in the same way I used to when we were in the same writers' group. KRAD knows I respect him as a writer, but he does go overboard to the point of stretching credulity to its limits with the "continuity whoring". I've lost count of the amount of times I suggested he back off over the years. Examples? When most of the major Klingon warriors we've ever known are on the same ship? Continuity whoring. When everybody knows everybody else in an organization the size of Starfleet? Continuity whoring. There's a line of credulity that gets crossed. There's a line where it starts to look more like bad fanfic plotting. I suspect that's where a lot of this disagreement might be coming from, too. Tie-in books already have the "licensed fanfic" stigma attached to them. And for many in fandom, fanfic=bad writing. If we hand them concepts that just reek of someone's overdeveloped fantasies, then we're reinforcing that viewpoint.

I'm going to refer only to concepts here, and I really hope nobody takes it personally. I'm not slagging on anyone personally. I know how this business is. I fully acknowledge that sometimes, you don't have a choice in what you're asked to write. ("'Q'uandary" would be that for me.) That said, the book that made me stop and go, "You have GOT to be kidding me" had to be the X-Men crossover. Seriously. That's straight out of bad fanfic, guys, and it's the kind of editorial decision that made me seriously wonder if I even wanted to write tie-in for a while. Do I agree with everything that's been done? No. I freely admit I have serious philosophical differences with the direction Trek is going in. I also freely admit that the only things I have about the last couple of years are basically the plots as described at Shore Leave or online, and the movie last year. I could give you a dissertation on why I thought XI was one of the worst pieces of cinema I've seen in recent memory, and that would include A.I., but this isn't the time or place for a review of the movie. This is whether or not we need to acknowledge it.

Do we need to acknowledge Robau? IMO, up to the point where Nero's ship comes through and attacks? Yes. He's been stuck into the prime continuity, and to not acknowledge him up to the point where the continuity shifted to XI's continuity would make the line look out of touch with the current existence of the property. It's how this acknowledgment is done that needs to be examined extremely closely, IMO. And it's the base concepts that we need to worry about, because that's what people get first. If people are balking at the basic book descriptions? It's a pretty safe bet they're not going to read the book.

While I admit I've been too busy to keep up with the actual text of the books for the last couple of years, and I fully acknowledge my own potential culpability in this, I really do think we need to watch our feet as we stand on the line between being internally consistent and "continuity whoring". Just because we can doesn't mean we should. Story first, continuity second.

I'm not trying to piss off anyone. I'm just adding my viewpoint and argument where it feels appropriate. Back to work for me.

 

[William Leisner]

I don't think the occasional in-joke as an Easter egg for those in the know constitutes the alienation of newcomers. On the contrary, those who aren't in on the joke wouldn't even notice.

On the other hand, there's also the perception that the novels haven't been entirely accessible to newcomers. Look at the way the "what do I need to read before...?" comes up time and again. If the line appears to be closed to newcomers, even if it's not, the alienation has already happened.

Absolutely wrong.

The very fact that there's a fairly steady stream of newbies making the effort to find this site and say, "I want to check some of these stories out; please allay my concerns" is concrete evidence that the toxic destructive apocalyptic self-immolation of Trek is not as dire as you suggest.

Not to mention the point that the stock -- and correct -- answer to this oft-posed question is, "No, you don't need to read any prior books before reading the one that interests you." Because inaccessiblity is just a perception... and I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it's no greater a perception in Trek than it is for Sue Grafton's Alphabet series or Janet Evanovich's numbered Plum novels or any one of the bazillion other books series out there.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The very fact that there's a fairly steady stream of newbies making the effort to find this site and say, "I want to check some of these stories out; please allay my concerns" is concrete evidence that the toxic destructive apocalyptic self-immolation of Trek is not as dire as you suggest.

Whether it is or not pretty much depends on the size of that "stream."

 

[TerriO]

I don't think the occasional in-joke as an Easter egg for those in the know constitutes the alienation of newcomers. On the contrary, those who aren't in on the joke wouldn't even notice.

On the other hand, there's also the perception that the novels haven't been entirely accessible to newcomers. Look at the way the "what do I need to read before...?" comes up time and again. If the line appears to be closed to newcomers, even if it's not, the alienation has already happened.

Absolutely wrong.

Be careful with declaratives, Bill.

The very fact that there's a fairly steady stream of newbies making the effort to find this site and say, "I want to check some of these stories out; please allay my concerns" is concrete evidence that the toxic destructive apocalyptic self-immolation of Trek is not as dire as you suggest.

As we all know, every single person who ever thought to pick up a Trek novel, but was worried about jumping into a dense river midstream, found this place or one like it to have all of their questions answered.

And that's the problem. As long as one person who wants to know doesn't find a TrekLit forum, you've got one person possibly dissuaded from reading. We all know the Internet representation for fandoms is a ridiculously small percentage of overall fandom.

Not to mention the point that the stock -- and correct -- answer to this oft-posed question is, "No, you don't need to read any prior books before reading the one that interests you." Because inaccessiblity is just a perception... and I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it's no greater a perception in Trek than it is for Sue Grafton's Alphabet series or Janet Evanovich's numbered Plum novels or any one of the bazillion other books series out there.

And have you experienced this firsthand? Have you approached a series like that and tried to get into it without any form of assistance? You try to keep up with the line because it's part of your job, Bill. Yours is not the average person's viewpoint. I don't think any of the regulars here represent the "average" newcomers' viewpoint, and we really shouldn't think we do, because we're setting our arguments up for failure.

 

[DrCorby]

I don't think the occasional in-joke as an Easter egg for those in the know constitutes the alienation of newcomers. On the contrary, those who aren't in on the joke wouldn't even notice.

On the other hand, there's also the perception that the novels haven't been entirely accessible to newcomers. Look at the way the "what do I need to read before...?" comes up time and again. If the line appears to be closed to newcomers, even if it's not, the alienation has already happened.

Absolutely wrong.

The very fact that there's a fairly steady stream of newbies making the effort to find this site and say, "I want to check some of these stories out; please allay my concerns" is concrete evidence that the toxic destructive apocalyptic self-immolation of Trek is not as dire as you suggest.

Not to mention the point that the stock -- and correct -- answer to this oft-posed question is, "No, you don't need to read any prior books before reading the one that interests you." Because inaccessiblity is just a perception... and I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it's no greater a perception in Trek than it is for Sue Grafton's Alphabet series or Janet Evanovich's numbered Plum novels or any one of the bazillion other books series out there.

I think it's correct that preception exists about any series of books, but doesn't necessarily stop most or even many readers from picking them up. I started reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels (long before the TV series) because of a short story I read, set after the 3rd or 4th novel. It interested me enough to seek out and read the novels (yes, in order). I just finished reading Impact by Douglas Preston. Looking at his other books on Amazon & Wikipedia, I discovered one of the main characters appeared in other Preston novels. That didn't diminish my enjoyment of Impact, but does make me want to seek out some of the other novels.

My wife follows some supernatural romance series by Christine Feehan and Laurel K Hamilton. She didn't read them in order at first, just what she could find. She's since purchased and read them all. The key to these (anecdotal) examples is that if a book is enjoyable, a reader often will then seek out others in its series. Any book could potentially be an entry point.

 

[William Leisner]

As we all know, every single person who ever thought to pick up a Trek novel, but was worried about jumping into a dense river midstream, found this place or one like it to have all of their questions answered.

And that's the problem. As long as one person who wants to know doesn't find a TrekLit forum, you've got one person possibly dissuaded from reading.

And this is different from every other book ever published how? The potential reader has their eye drawn to a particular book, picks it up off the bookstore shelf, and asks themselves, "Is this something I'll enjoy reading?" Some will buy the book on impulse. Some will look at the blurbs and/or the first few pages first. Some will go home and check the reviews on Amazon before deciding.

And some will decide, "I don't want to buy this because ____," and put it back on the shelf. That's just the way things are. The fact is that many, many more than your hypothetical one person are going to be dissuaded from reading any Trek book, for many, many reasons. You can't please all the people all the time. But the current Trek line has been pleasing enough people for enough years, through the franchise's highs and lows, to be second only to the Star Wars juggernaut in copies sold. I'll take that over some hypothetical would-be fan any day.

And have you experienced this firsthand? Have you approached a series like that and tried to get into it without any form of assistance?

Yes. Yes I have. Seven Up was the first Stephanie Plum novel I read. Candyland was the first 87th Precinct novel I read. Curse the Dark was the first Retrievers novel I read. I could go on and on. And of course, most authors are aware that every book in a series is potentially a new reader's first, and potentially will draw new readers to their other books.

But these examples aren't quite on point, since we're talking about tie-in novels -- novels that by definition are tied into previous stories. Honestly, it boggles my mind that we're arguing about whether Star Trek should be referenced in Star Trek novels, because new Star Trek readers may be turned off by references to Star Trek in their Star Trek. I'm not sure why these new readers are being given so little credit, as if they won't be able to handle the news that Star Trek existed prior to last summer, and will run screaming into the night and back to the comfort and safety of their Transformers comic books.

 

[TheAlmanac]

But these examples aren't quite on point, since we're talking about tie-in novels -- novels that by definition are tied into previous stories. Honestly, it boggles my mind that we're arguing about whether Star Trek should be referenced in Star Trek novels, because new Star Trek readers may be turned off by references to Star Trek in their Star Trek. I'm not sure why these new readers are being given so little credit, as if they won't be able to handle the news that Star Trek existed prior to last summer, and will run screaming into the night and back to the comfort and safety of their Transformers comic books.

In my own anecdotal experience, the people I know who read tie-in fiction but won't read Star Trek novels are staying away because they feel the tie-ins aren't connected enough, i.e. they don't enjoy the same official status as (what's usually cited) the Star Wars novels.

I know, I've read all the arguments here about how the two lines aren't really that different, from a canonical standpoint, when you get right down to it. Since we're talking about the perception of readers and potential readers, though, I can only tell you what (some) other people have told me when I've tried to assure them that they'd enjoy the written Star Trek fiction that's out there.

 

[Therin of Andor]

In my own anecdotal experience, the people I know who read tie-in fiction but won't read Star Trek novels are staying away because they feel the tie-ins aren't connected enough, i.e. they don't enjoy the same official status as (what's usually cited) the Star Wars novels.

I hit some very strange and strong opinions with ST tie-ins, esp. in my early days in ST fandom. I came out of ST:TMP, in December 1979, in a euphoria, having absolutely loved it - in part because I'd actually already read the novelization, and any bits I didn't understand from the presentation on the big screen were filled in very nicely by the book. As I started to meet longtime ST fans, most of whom had been very disappointed by the movie, very few were convinced to read the tie-ins. They were quite dismissive of the Bantam original novels.

By ST II, I did convince many friends to read McInytyre's novelization (and "The Entropy Effect" from Pocket Books before that) but then I started to hit the just-as-strong "but all the good bits weren't even in the movie" argument.

With ST III, our screenings of that movie were delayed by about four months - and even the sea-freighted copies of the novelization were on local bookshelves long before the movie premiered. Now I was hitting outright anger that "the most interesting bits" were not going to be up on the screen.

Comic-wise, fan friends would look at great comic stories like "The Origin of Saavik", "The Mirror Universe Saga", and other adventures of Kirk on the Excelsior and they'd question me on the validity of these stories. If they didn't really "happen", why should they read them. This was long before Richard Arnold started talking about "What is canon?" at ST conventions.

However, I came to the realisation that, since tie-ins are only ever bought by 1-2% of an audience, my friends were more likely making up excuses for themselves for why they weren't turning themselves into collectors. If they read books and comics I recommended, they usually liked them very much. Often, they'd ask to just "borrow" my copies. Very hard to do that when keeping one's stuff in near-mint condition. (You should see what my friends did to my poor original air-freighted copy of the ST III novelization. It resembled a damp rag by the time the movie came out.)

So, I reckon people finding excuses to complain about canonicity, or connectedness, or even lack of connectedness, are really looking for reasons to not start spending lots of regular cash on one of their hobbies.

 

[TheAlmanac]

So, I reckon people finding excuses to complain about canonicity, or connectedness, or even lack of connectedness, are really looking for reasons to not start spending lots of regular cash on one of their hobbies.

That's why I specifically mentioned people who are already reading tie-in fiction--I'm factoring out those who aren't going to read any tie-in material anyway.

 

[OverlordSpock]

In my own anecdotal experience, the people I know who read tie-in fiction but won't read Star Trek novels are staying away because they feel the tie-ins aren't connected enough, i.e. they don't enjoy the same official status as (what's usually cited) the Star Wars novels.

Although I won't go as far as saying that I would expect TrekLit to become canonical, I will say that I have greatly enjoyed how much more consistent things have been in the last decade than they were in the 80s and 90s. Don't get me wrong, there were some great stories back then, but I think the internal consistency in the TrekLit universe of late has added to the experience.

I also understand why there are those that might think that that consistency might make the line unapproachable to a new reader, but overall, there have been very few books that I thought you absolutely had to read those that came before to truly enjoy.

A return to the standalone, non-consistent days would greatly disappoint me.

 

[Defcon]

A return to the standalone, non-consistent days would greatly disappoint me.

It doesn't have to be an either/or thing. In my opinion the best way to go is to have a healthy mix between "continuity novels" and stand-alone novels, something the line hasn't really been able to provide yet. It almost felt as if they've gone from only stand alone novels in the Arnold-era to almost only continuity novels in the Palmieri/DeCandido/Clark era, with a "short" transitional Ordover-era inbetween with many event and gimmick novels.

So while I wouldn't go as far as calling it toxic, I can see where Allyn (and Terri) are coming from. While the continuity novels may or may not be designed to be accessible by everyone, I'm honestly not sure if I would be sucked into the TrekLitverse like I was back in the late nineties / early oughts, if I would start to read them today, simply because I would feel like I have already missed too much to really get into it.

 

[Christopher]

It doesn't have to be an either/or thing. In my opinion the best way to go is to have a healthy mix between "continuity novels" and stand-alone novels, something the line hasn't really been able to provide yet. It almost felt as if they've gone from only stand alone novels in the Arnold-era to almost only continuity novels in the Palmieri/DeCandido/Clark era, with a "short" transitional Ordover-era inbetween with many event and gimmick novels.

In 2010, the lineup consists of about 2/3 standalone novels and 1/3 continuity-based novels. So I'd say things are already starting to change, and maybe from now on we'll have that healthy mix.

 

[Stevil2001]

And this probably because of a changing Star Trek audience. In the post-TV show days (and even in the days when your only TV shows were Voyager and Enterprise), new Trek fans weren't regularly being created-- so you needed to get the diehards interested in the novels and hold them. But with the new film, you have new fans where that approach won't work. It's the same as has happened with Doctor Who, which had a number of high-continuity ongoing series from 1989 to 2005, and now has a line of standalones.

 

[TerriO]

And this is different from every other book ever published how?

The concern directly affects your personal bottom line? You have a bigger personal stake in the issue?

The potential reader has their eye drawn to a particular book, picks it up off the bookstore shelf, and asks themselves, "Is this something I'll enjoy reading?" Some will buy the book on impulse. Some will look at the blurbs and/or the first few pages first. Some will go home and check the reviews on Amazon before deciding.

And some will decide, "I don't want to buy this because ____," and put it back on the shelf. That's just the way things are. The fact is that many, many more than your hypothetical one person are going to be dissuaded from reading any Trek book, for many, many reasons. You can't please all the people all the time. But the current Trek line has been pleasing enough people for enough years, through the franchise's highs and lows, to be second only to the Star Wars juggernaut in copies sold. I'll take that over some hypothetical would-be fan any day.

And here's where that philosophical difference I was talking about comes in. See, I'd rather try to do what's possible to expand that base instead of just relying on it to always be there, as it sounds like you're suggesting. A product line cannot continue to exist if it is sales figures are allowed to stagnate. If we want to keep the books economically viable, we need to keep doing everything possible to make it an easy train to jump onto.

Or would you rather not see your sales figures increase?

And have you experienced this firsthand? Have you approached a series like that and tried to get into it without any form of assistance?

Yes. Yes I have. Seven Up was the first Stephanie Plum novel I read. Candyland was the first 87th Precinct novel I read. Curse the Dark was the first Retrievers novel I read. I could go on and on. And of course, most authors are aware that every book in a series is potentially a new reader's first, and potentially will draw new readers to their other books.

Perhaps I should have called you on that, but I missed it. It's a bad analogy, since we're talking about series that tend to have more direction from the editorial desk than the average original series.

But these examples aren't quite on point, since we're talking about tie-in novels -- novels that by definition are tied into previous stories. Honestly, it boggles my mind that we're arguing about whether Star Trek should be referenced in Star Trek novels, because new Star Trek readers may be turned off by references to Star Trek in their Star Trek. I'm not sure why these new readers are being given so little credit, as if they won't be able to handle the news that Star Trek existed prior to last summer, and will run screaming into the night and back to the comfort and safety of their Transformers comic books.

I never said Star Trek shouldn't be referenced in Star Trek novels, Bill. I'm saying it's a very fine line to tread over how much internal referencing and in-jokes are too much. If the line appears TOO insular (and none of the authors here are in any position to speak to that since it's the job of a Trek author to keep up with the line), then the line is shooting itself in the foot. It's just adding one more line item to the checklist of reasons for people to not pick up a book.

Insularity versus accessibility is the real crux of the matter.

 

[Christopher]

And this probably because of a changing Star Trek audience.

I think it's more because of the changing editors. Marco was a key driving force behind the continuity, and Margaret participated in that, but left to her own devices I think Margaret was more interested in doing standalone stories. For what it's worth, when she took over as editor on DC's Trek comics some years back, the TOS comic became less serialized and had more episodic stories (i.e. still multipart stories but with little to no connection between different stories), as well as more stories set in the TV era rather than the post-ST V era.

 

[Therin of Andor]

as well as more stories set in the TV era rather than the post-ST V era.

But that was also partly because Richard Arnold was getting harder and harder to please getting post-ST IV and V stories approved, IIRC.