WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: A novel wherein Picard voulentarily becomes Locutous to "hear" the Borg's comminacations and Dr. Crusher just happened to save all the nanobots from when Picard was a Borg...but also the prostetic arm and black rubber suit too- amazing all the crap that survived the old ship's demise, no? And that Starfleet would allow such a collection no less...
Unbelievable. LITERALLY. After all the angst shown from Picard in first contact, there is NO WAY he would ever voluntarily allow himself to be assimilated no matter if it meant the end of the universe. It kind of reminds me of another novel where the Doomsday device was actually a prototype weapon meant to fight the Borg. I hate it when they try to MAKE a story by pulling some device/plot/person from the past and tie every Trek into one big overarching story. It almost always comes off as contrived or preposterous. OR WORSE.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Unbelievable. LITERALLY. After all the angst shown from Picard in first contact, there is NO WAY he would ever voluntarily allow himself to be assimilated no matter if it meant the end of the universe. It kind of reminds me of another novel where the Doomsday device was actually a prototype weapon meant to fight the Borg. I hate it when they try to MAKE a story by pulling some device/plot/person from the past and tie every Trek into one big overarching story. It almost always comes off as contrived or preposterous. OR WORSE.
Then you're really going to hate the fact that the sequel to "Resistance" deals with EXACTLY the same Doomsday device/prototype Borg killer. (Both the original novel that you mention and the one above was written by the same author (imagine that?), Peter David, whom I can't stand as a Trek novel author.
And I completely agree with you about the "big overarching story" some Trek novelists seem to be infatuated with (particularly the Reeves-Stevens). I am an avid Trek novel reader, and I will say that some authors are in fact very good, but others (David, the Reeves-Stevens, Michael Jan Friedman, to name just a few) really irk me.
Registered: Jun 2000
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And the ones that aren't really good seem to write more of the books than the others...
Registered: Feb 2004
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Of course. It's like Calvin and Hobbes said, to paraphrase, that originality is harder and more time-consuming than just churning out generic crap.
Registered: Jul 2005
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
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The best book the Reeves-Stevens ever did--& to this day, I fucking adore it--was Prime Directive.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Dukhat: [QB] [Then you're really going to hate the fact that the sequel to "Resistance" deals with EXACTLY the same Doomsday device/prototype Borg killer. (Both the original novel that you mention and the one above was written by the same author (imagine that?), Peter David, whom I can't stand as a Trek novel author.[/ob]
I've been saying that for years- Peter David's stuff is so much...crap in general with regards to Trek. He's a fine comic-book writer (with stories focusing on comedy and absurd situations- his old Spider-Man run was really well done) but his Star trek stuff reads as campy as the 60's Batman TV show. Almost every storyline has some TOS link too- as though there was just no history between series to draw original material from.
That being said, there is one great chapter in Vendetta (the aforementioned Borg/Planetkiller novel) which describes a Cube assimilating a planet- tearing it apart for raw materials to make another Cube even (this was written jsut after BOBW, I think, and it makes the Borg seem all but impossible to defeat).
The rest of the book is shit though- it features an old academy rival of Picard's being so jealous of Picard's fame that he has his ship fire torpedos at the Enterprise when Picard does not follow his order not to attack the Borg. Also, it features Guinan's long-lost sister as an old love-intrest of Picard's and now she's piloting the Planetkiller with the ghosts of the machine's race looking for revenge.
From a techincal POV, the new PK sounds cool (covered in spikes and ten times larger than the old one), but still travels between systems without warp somehow.
A root canal of a book.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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I own that book, and I never got to reading past that first part, and purly out of bordem I put it down. I think it is still on my shelf though.
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
Registered: Jul 2007
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Most of the newer Trek writers aren't that bad...check out Christopher L. Bennett, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Dayton Ward, and Michael Martin & Andy Mangels' stuff, and it's infinitely better than David's or Friedman's writing.
I just can't get over David's Calhoun character. There's just no way you can convince me that someone like that could ever be taken seriously as a Starfleet officer, let alone a captain of a ship. And David's whole obsession with the many roles of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry is annoying as hell. I hope this new Star Trek movie finally gives the name of Pike's Number One, and I sincerely hope it's not Morgan Primus.
-------------------- "A film made in 2008 isn't going to look like a TV series from 1966 if it wants to make any money. As long as the characters act the same way, and the spirit of the story remains the same then it's "real" Star Trek. Everything else is window dressing." -StCoop
Registered: Jun 2000
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Could anything be worse than "Imzadi"?
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Anyone ever read...what were they called..."Maximum Warp" or something? A two-book series. It wasn't terrible but the whole thing with Spock was really contrived. Oh, hey, so big universal apocalypse, and yeah, Spock's coming out of hiding on Romulus to help with it cuz an evil Romulan genius made him. *cough*
Registered: Jul 2005
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I rather like some of the Star Trek writers, while others need a firmer editor to filter out the crap. I know that it's tempting to make a highly "visual" novel given that their source is a television series, but endless physical descriptions of alien landscapes, nebulae, technology, etc. are generally trying to the readers' patience. The overly angst-ridden characters get old too.
They seemed to gather some of the best Star Trek writers to write the DS9 relaunch novels. The Starfleet Corps of Engineers short stories and novellas are also pretty well done.
-------------------- "Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by WizArtist II: Could anything be worse than "Imzadi"?
Imzadi 2
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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