quote:First of all, because if it becomes an accepted practice to just plain contradict in novels whatever is seen on screen, all pretense of these adventures taking place in the same fictional universe falls apart. And without that pretense, there isn't much to the stories themselves.
And second of all, because Last Full Measure is worse than "These Are the Voyages" by far. And yes, that's saying something.
As a distant third, I might mention that the retcon in the novel is embarrassingly clumsy. It would have been far more believable to say that a wizard did it.
Actually, are you referring to "The Good That Men Do?" "Last Full Measure" is about the Xindi attack, and ***SPOILER ALERT*** Trip's 23rd century bits are just in the background.
I just got a copy of "The Good That Men Do" at my local library and will start reading it soon. I'll let you know what I think.
As for the "retconning," I believe that this is the only time that a novel's authors deliberately tried to change what happened in an episode, and I believe that they had Pocket Books's (and presumably Paramount's) thumbs-up to do so. And, contrary to Timo's point, I think we all know why.
Registered: Jun 2000
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There are other Enterprise novels that deal with the crew of the NX-01 encountering an alternate universe where Earth's first successful warp 5 ship is not the NX class but a different type of ship called the Daedalus-class.
Registered: Feb 2005
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Uh, not exactly. The two-part novels that you're referring to, the "Daedalus" series, has nothing to do with either the Daedalus class starship or an alternate universe Daedalus class (although there is an alternate universe, but the crew of the true universe's Daedalus got sucked into it.)
The Daedalus ship in the novel was a pre-NX prototype utilizing a different type of engine than a warp engine. IIRC, it was this engine that caused the ship to explode and carry the crew to an alternate universe.
quote: Many an episode of Trek has sucked, but as a general rule the novels suck even more. Leave them alone.
No, the novels do not suck. Most of them are very enjoyable, especially now that there's more cohesiveness between individual authors than when Richard Arnold reared his ugly head years ago. Sure, there's the occasional lousy novel (which is the way with all multi-authored series), but on the whole they're still interesting. And don't forget, Masao's a celebrity now
Registered: Jun 2000
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I know it's not the Daedalus class we know off, but I find interesting that it was still called Daedalus. Also, I thought it was the Daedalus of the alternate universe that survived the explosion. The professor character on board that Daedalus had a book which had a note written by Trip that was different from the message our universe's Trip wrote. In any case, it was good series. I mean I enjoyed it more that the entire second season of Enterprise.
Registered: Feb 2005
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I think the author's intention was that the ship's fate was similar to the mythological Daedalus, whose son Icarus flew too high with wax wings and fell to earth. I think the metaphor was that the Professor who designed the Daedalus was "Daedalus" himself, and that "Icarus" represented the crew. Or something like that.
I'm sure the author probably didn't even know what a Daedalus-class Federation starship was.
Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Actually, are you referring to "The Good That Men Do?"
Uuuuuh. Yes, I am.
I truly regret buying that one, but I have no problem with either Last Full Measure or Burning Dreams, both of which feature this as such acceptable piece of necromancy. Trip could definitely be a-kicking despite "TAtV", but the why and how given by Mangels and Martin are less than satisfactory IMNSHO.
quote:I'm sure the author probably didn't even know what a Daedalus-class Federation starship was.
Ditto. But I'm happy it turned out that way. It fits perfectly my perverse view of the history of the Daedalus class!
That is, the class as such precedes ENT by that much. The prototype, a competitor to the NX program, shuns dilithium and instead uses polaric ion cascades � la VOY "Time and Again" for liberating the power of antimatter, much like Daedalus/D's Children says. But she is a failure, blowing up and giving a bad rep to all polaric ion experimentation, and the class already under construction is named after the second ship Horizon instead (as in Spaceflight Chronology). The four or so surviving ships (as suggested by Last Full Measure) serve with indistinction, propelled by an inferior conventional warp drive.
After the Romulan war, the honor of the class is restored, as the vessels are turned into survey ships for the exploration arm of the new Federation Starfleet (their onboard equipment modified as per Starfleet: Year One). More keels are laid, too, allowing some to persist until 2196. The original class name is readopted, leaving Horizon free for the later Ships of the Star Fleet class of that name.
And yeah, I like all the books mentioned above, plus a bunch of other Trek novels of similar or better writing. It's just this particular Mangels&Martin retcon that I majorly dislike.
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SPOILERS FOR "THE GOOD THAT MEN DO" $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
Timo,
Well, I finally finished reading "The Good That Men Do," and I didn't find it anywhere near as bad as you made it out to be. It was certainly better then Braga's hastily written crap that was called a series finale.
Basically, IMHO, the most implausible thing about the book was it's premise: That the events in "These are the Voyages..." were a cover-up for Trip's recruitment as a surgically altered Romulan spy employed by Section 31. And I don't mean that the cover-up was implausible, but rather the idea that the character of Trip Tucker could be in any way good at espionage. Nowhere in the show did Trip ever show any kind of talent for the spy business, other than his engineering knowledge. Of course, without this premise, there'd be no book, so obviously once our belief is suspended, it allows us to enjoy the actual book.
And on that note, I felt the book was very well-written, interesting, and, at the end, satisfied that there may be more to the story in the future. Hell, it even gave a very plausible reason why the whole "no one has ever seen a Romulan" thing actually makes sense (i.e. there were indeed many people who knew what the Romulans looked like, but if the secret were to be known to the general public, there would be distrust against the Vulcans to the point that the Coalition would never be able to form).
Registered: Jun 2000
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'Mighty Monkey of Mim' - you're right, this design came first. The conceptual art(although not necessarily the model shot) was created by Matt Jefferies(?) as one of the possible starship Enterprises - before he came up with the disk. No wonder it seems more 'TOS' than the NX-01.
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