tl;dr on the Stargate books
Looking back through my tags, I realise that I've either not reviewed some of the Stargate novels, or I've not tagged them properly (dammit). The missing ones are Sacrifice Moon, A Matter of Honor, The Cost of Honor, Roswell, The Barque of Heaven, and Hydra. So, before the next four (whee!) come out, and because I am slightly obsessive-compulsive about completing things...
ETA: Links to more recent reviews are being added as and when written.
The list of books so far:
1: Trial By Fire - Sabine C. Bauer
2: Sacrifice Moon - Julie Fortune
3: A Matter of Honor - Sally Malcolm
4: City of the Gods - Sonny Whitelaw
5: The Cost of Honor - Sally Malcolm
6: Siren Song - Holly Scott and Jaimie Duncan
7: Survival of the Fittest - Sabine C. Bauer
8: Alliances - Karen Miller
9: Roswell - Sonny Whitelaw and Jennifer Fallon
10: Relativity - James Swallow
11: The Barque of Heaven - Suzanne Wood
12: Do No Harm - Karen Miller
13: Hydra - Holly Scott and Jaimie Duncan
14: Valhalla 1, and 2 - Tim Waggoner
15: Power Behind The Throne - Steven Savile (and more thoughts here and here)
16: Four Dragons - Diana Botsford
17: Sunrise - JF Crane
18: Transitions - Sabine C. Bauer
19: Oceans of Dust - Peter J. Evans
20: Heart's Desire - Amy Griswold
21: The Drift - Diana Dru Botsford (more in-depth thoughts here)
22: Moebius Squared - Jo Graham and Melissa Scott
23: Ouroboros - Melissa Scott
***SPOILERS FOR ALL THE BOOKS BELOW.***
I've tried not to completely ruin them for anyone who's planning on reading them, but consider yourself warned, there are plenty of spoilers. I've tried to separate them out, for people who've read some but not others.
Sacrifice Moon
I've said before, at any opportunity, that Sacrifice Moon is my favourite so far. The characters all get their turn in the limelight, get shaken up and looked at from a different angle, and get to show some unusual weaknesses and characteristic strengths. I loved the fact that Sam and Daniel joined the hunters, and Jack and Teal'c the hunted - and it worked, it wasn't just to be different. The story is excellent - gripping, true to the show, and also showing us the insides of the characters' heads in a way they can't on TV. All I ask of a book-of-the-show is no glaring spelling or grammar errors, but this was a step up from that - the imagery was very memorable, and the pacing was excellent, very tense and exciting. It's gen, but that's not to say the relationships are ignored; there's a moment for, I think, pretty much every relationship between the four of them, and some good team moments too.
So, yeah - I quite liked it, can you tell? *g*
---
A Matter of Honor / The Cost of Honor
These were the first Stargate novels I read, as I knew they were by a shipper fanfic author (Sally Reeve). I didn't know what to expect - I've read many books-of-the-show in my time, and they range between unreadable and genius (How Much For Just The Planet?, I'm looking at you). These were very plotty and adventurey, lots of action, an unexpected resolution to one of the past episodes, and some small hints of ship.
I was... not as engaged as I'd expected. I think perhaps I was subconsciously expecting ship ahoy, because her fanfics are really, seriously, squarely centred on our mutual OTP. But I re-read them again later, when I knew better what to expect, and enjoyed them a lot more. They were well-plotted, no excess fat, lots of good character moments, good world-building, and some definite 'hoorah, in a book we can do all these things they could never afford to do on TV!' attitude, which I think is the principle joy of books-of-the-show.
---
Roswell
Time travel. It's always problematic. And in this one, I think they didn't quite pull it off. This read like the author really wanted to write for the X-Files, rather than Stargate. There were also some frustrating missed opportunities - what happened to Cam and Vala? - and a lot of going around in circles, and... yeah, on the whole, I found it annoying. I wanted to draw diagrams and work out where they were going wrong with the time travel, and I wanted to read fanfic for the missing chunks, because it hinted at the sort of stuff they don't usually do in books-of-the-show, and really, fanfic is the best place for that.
---
The Barque of Heaven
I know a lot of people really like Barque, but I... didn't, I have to admit. I liked the plot idea, and I really liked the way most of it was written - but I had a problem with the gradual woobification of Daniel. IMO, it started out okay, but it built up and up to a point where it was completely ridiculous. I thought the ending was a bit peculiar and non-Stargatey, too, but that wouldn't have bothered me if I wasn't already irked (enough to write snarky fic) about what was going on with Daniel. So. Not to my taste.
---
Hydra
I feel like I'm dissing all the slashy ones. *g* Actually, I liked the almost-slash moments (pre-slash?) in this - there were some moving moments between robot!Daniel and real!Jack. The problem I had was that I was TOTALLY confused by the plot. I mean, seriously. I needed to go through it with a set of highlighters or something, so I could sort out who was who. Multiple robot SG-1s, you see - a concept that can be confusing enough visually, but in writing I found just impossible to follow. Also, I did find myself thinking, rather heartlessly, "Cheer up, emo robots!"
But generally, it was okay. A bit teh seriuz for me (you may notice a pattern emerging).
---
The rest of the novels, a brief overview
I was warned against it, but I did enjoy the ridiculous, badficcy City of the Gods. It had so many shipper clichés that it was like reading professionally-written badfic - and you know how much I love reading badfic. I was also warned about Trial By Fire, I think mainly because of the main OFC, but although I did find her extremely irksome at first (OMG so annoying), at some point I tipped over into enjoying her. The story bounds cheerfully along - there's a lot of interactive mythology, a lot of snark, and ties in to the show nicely with some post-Abyss issues for Jack and Daniel.
On the other hand, Alliances had one of my favourite badfic clichés (alien sex farm!), but my three main reactions were 1) where the hell is Teal'c?, 2) this could've been so much more fun if they'd dared to push the cliché a bit more, within the boundaries of canon, and 3) seriously, Teal'c - where the hell is he? I'd really rather read this kind of story done by fanficcers (and have).
My least favourite so far has been Relativity, which I felt was cookie-cutter fic written by someone who obviously didn't watch the show. He got some fundamental facts wrong, and used some scifi clichés so easily-guessable and inappropriate for the Stargate universe, that I lost interest - if the author isn't going to make the effort to write it properly, why should I waste time in reading it? He also, annoyingly, wrote future!AU fic. I could just about accept a hired pen writing something set within the series, but I can't accept one writing speculative fic about the characters' futures when he doesn't know them well enough to make that kind of projection.
I enjoyed Do No Harm, mainly for the Janet love and Dave Dixon backstory, even if Dixon's timeline is a bit improbable (between the novel - set just before the end of season 3 - and Heroes, he has four kids? Hmm). The characterisation of Teal'c was a bit off (second time I've noticed this author having Teal'c issues), and Jack and Daniel were a little too antagonistic. But on the whole, I really liked it.
I think Siren Song caught me in the wrong mood - I did like learning more about Aris Boch, and the story was good (if a little overwrought), but I didn't really enjoy it. Just too... serious. Whereas I really enjoyed Survival of the Fittest - I loved that Janet, Bra'tac and George were all given airtime, and Janet got some more to do beyond being a doctor - but looking back, it wasn't that memorable (I had to look at it again to remind myself of the story).
And Valhalla I've just reviewed in depth, but to repeat: I found it frustratingly slow-going and improbable, and the characters weren't quite right, but once it got going it was reasonably entertaining so long as my critical brain was switched off.
I've had some differences of opinion about the novels people have recc'd to me versus the ones I liked best, and looking over it, I think it's mainly because I don't tend to go for the serious ones - so, bear that in mind if you're looking for recommendations. It also depends on my mood, how much I'm able to concentrate, and whether the writer leans towards ship, gen, or slash. As a general rule, I'll enjoy books with Sam/Jack leanings so long as they're readable and don't trash the other characters, gen books if they're reasonably well-written and entertaining, and ones with Jack/Daniel leanings if they're well-written and entertaining, and I'm in the mood (in my defence, at least I admit I'm biased *g*). They're all supposed to fit within canon, but that of course depends on how they read the show - or, in the case of the hired pen, what the character summaries said.
So, there - my thorts, you have had them.
ETA: Brief overview of books 16-21, for completism:
Power Behind The Throne made me ANGRY. I un-recommend it. I advise against reading it. I've only ever thrown two books at a wall once I was done reading them, and this was one of them.
Four Dragons and its sequel The Drift were dull, and the author seemed overly invested in her own character creations while at the same time failing to convey why we ought to be. Both books dawdled along at a snail's pace. SG-1 were often OOC, and ridiculously passive. The best thing I can say about these two was that they bracketed a four-book run of ones I really enjoyed.
I got back into the Stargate novels with Sunrise, where the characters were in character, there was a lot of peril and a lot of action, and some grand scope that they wouldn't have been able to do in the series.
Transitions was an Atlantis crossover, and I enjoyed both parts of it despite not really being an Atlantis fan. Everyone got stuff to do, including Cassie. There were good action scenes. I still love the car vs helicopter sequence.
Oceans of Dust had some scary peril and lots for each member of SG-1 to do - it wasn't heavily focused on any one character. It had good original characters, too, that I enjoyed reading about.
And Heart's Desire was a fun bit of fluff, going for the steampunk market. It petered out a little at the end, but on the whole it was an enjoyable adventure on a scenic planet.
This entry is also posted at http://pepper.dreamwidth.org/188118.html
ETA: Links to more recent reviews are being added as and when written.
The list of books so far:
1: Trial By Fire - Sabine C. Bauer
2: Sacrifice Moon - Julie Fortune
3: A Matter of Honor - Sally Malcolm
4: City of the Gods - Sonny Whitelaw
5: The Cost of Honor - Sally Malcolm
6: Siren Song - Holly Scott and Jaimie Duncan
7: Survival of the Fittest - Sabine C. Bauer
8: Alliances - Karen Miller
9: Roswell - Sonny Whitelaw and Jennifer Fallon
10: Relativity - James Swallow
11: The Barque of Heaven - Suzanne Wood
12: Do No Harm - Karen Miller
13: Hydra - Holly Scott and Jaimie Duncan
14: Valhalla 1, and 2 - Tim Waggoner
15: Power Behind The Throne - Steven Savile (and more thoughts here and here)
16: Four Dragons - Diana Botsford
17: Sunrise - JF Crane
18: Transitions - Sabine C. Bauer
19: Oceans of Dust - Peter J. Evans
20: Heart's Desire - Amy Griswold
21: The Drift - Diana Dru Botsford (more in-depth thoughts here)
22: Moebius Squared - Jo Graham and Melissa Scott
23: Ouroboros - Melissa Scott
***SPOILERS FOR ALL THE BOOKS BELOW.***
I've tried not to completely ruin them for anyone who's planning on reading them, but consider yourself warned, there are plenty of spoilers. I've tried to separate them out, for people who've read some but not others.
Sacrifice Moon
I've said before, at any opportunity, that Sacrifice Moon is my favourite so far. The characters all get their turn in the limelight, get shaken up and looked at from a different angle, and get to show some unusual weaknesses and characteristic strengths. I loved the fact that Sam and Daniel joined the hunters, and Jack and Teal'c the hunted - and it worked, it wasn't just to be different. The story is excellent - gripping, true to the show, and also showing us the insides of the characters' heads in a way they can't on TV. All I ask of a book-of-the-show is no glaring spelling or grammar errors, but this was a step up from that - the imagery was very memorable, and the pacing was excellent, very tense and exciting. It's gen, but that's not to say the relationships are ignored; there's a moment for, I think, pretty much every relationship between the four of them, and some good team moments too.
So, yeah - I quite liked it, can you tell? *g*
---
A Matter of Honor / The Cost of Honor
These were the first Stargate novels I read, as I knew they were by a shipper fanfic author (Sally Reeve). I didn't know what to expect - I've read many books-of-the-show in my time, and they range between unreadable and genius (How Much For Just The Planet?, I'm looking at you). These were very plotty and adventurey, lots of action, an unexpected resolution to one of the past episodes, and some small hints of ship.
I was... not as engaged as I'd expected. I think perhaps I was subconsciously expecting ship ahoy, because her fanfics are really, seriously, squarely centred on our mutual OTP. But I re-read them again later, when I knew better what to expect, and enjoyed them a lot more. They were well-plotted, no excess fat, lots of good character moments, good world-building, and some definite 'hoorah, in a book we can do all these things they could never afford to do on TV!' attitude, which I think is the principle joy of books-of-the-show.
---
Roswell
Time travel. It's always problematic. And in this one, I think they didn't quite pull it off. This read like the author really wanted to write for the X-Files, rather than Stargate. There were also some frustrating missed opportunities - what happened to Cam and Vala? - and a lot of going around in circles, and... yeah, on the whole, I found it annoying. I wanted to draw diagrams and work out where they were going wrong with the time travel, and I wanted to read fanfic for the missing chunks, because it hinted at the sort of stuff they don't usually do in books-of-the-show, and really, fanfic is the best place for that.
---
The Barque of Heaven
I know a lot of people really like Barque, but I... didn't, I have to admit. I liked the plot idea, and I really liked the way most of it was written - but I had a problem with the gradual woobification of Daniel. IMO, it started out okay, but it built up and up to a point where it was completely ridiculous. I thought the ending was a bit peculiar and non-Stargatey, too, but that wouldn't have bothered me if I wasn't already irked (enough to write snarky fic) about what was going on with Daniel. So. Not to my taste.
---
Hydra
I feel like I'm dissing all the slashy ones. *g* Actually, I liked the almost-slash moments (pre-slash?) in this - there were some moving moments between robot!Daniel and real!Jack. The problem I had was that I was TOTALLY confused by the plot. I mean, seriously. I needed to go through it with a set of highlighters or something, so I could sort out who was who. Multiple robot SG-1s, you see - a concept that can be confusing enough visually, but in writing I found just impossible to follow. Also, I did find myself thinking, rather heartlessly, "Cheer up, emo robots!"
But generally, it was okay. A bit teh seriuz for me (you may notice a pattern emerging).
---
The rest of the novels, a brief overview
I was warned against it, but I did enjoy the ridiculous, badficcy City of the Gods. It had so many shipper clichés that it was like reading professionally-written badfic - and you know how much I love reading badfic. I was also warned about Trial By Fire, I think mainly because of the main OFC, but although I did find her extremely irksome at first (OMG so annoying), at some point I tipped over into enjoying her. The story bounds cheerfully along - there's a lot of interactive mythology, a lot of snark, and ties in to the show nicely with some post-Abyss issues for Jack and Daniel.
On the other hand, Alliances had one of my favourite badfic clichés (alien sex farm!), but my three main reactions were 1) where the hell is Teal'c?, 2) this could've been so much more fun if they'd dared to push the cliché a bit more, within the boundaries of canon, and 3) seriously, Teal'c - where the hell is he? I'd really rather read this kind of story done by fanficcers (and have).
My least favourite so far has been Relativity, which I felt was cookie-cutter fic written by someone who obviously didn't watch the show. He got some fundamental facts wrong, and used some scifi clichés so easily-guessable and inappropriate for the Stargate universe, that I lost interest - if the author isn't going to make the effort to write it properly, why should I waste time in reading it? He also, annoyingly, wrote future!AU fic. I could just about accept a hired pen writing something set within the series, but I can't accept one writing speculative fic about the characters' futures when he doesn't know them well enough to make that kind of projection.
I enjoyed Do No Harm, mainly for the Janet love and Dave Dixon backstory, even if Dixon's timeline is a bit improbable (between the novel - set just before the end of season 3 - and Heroes, he has four kids? Hmm). The characterisation of Teal'c was a bit off (second time I've noticed this author having Teal'c issues), and Jack and Daniel were a little too antagonistic. But on the whole, I really liked it.
I think Siren Song caught me in the wrong mood - I did like learning more about Aris Boch, and the story was good (if a little overwrought), but I didn't really enjoy it. Just too... serious. Whereas I really enjoyed Survival of the Fittest - I loved that Janet, Bra'tac and George were all given airtime, and Janet got some more to do beyond being a doctor - but looking back, it wasn't that memorable (I had to look at it again to remind myself of the story).
And Valhalla I've just reviewed in depth, but to repeat: I found it frustratingly slow-going and improbable, and the characters weren't quite right, but once it got going it was reasonably entertaining so long as my critical brain was switched off.
I've had some differences of opinion about the novels people have recc'd to me versus the ones I liked best, and looking over it, I think it's mainly because I don't tend to go for the serious ones - so, bear that in mind if you're looking for recommendations. It also depends on my mood, how much I'm able to concentrate, and whether the writer leans towards ship, gen, or slash. As a general rule, I'll enjoy books with Sam/Jack leanings so long as they're readable and don't trash the other characters, gen books if they're reasonably well-written and entertaining, and ones with Jack/Daniel leanings if they're well-written and entertaining, and I'm in the mood (in my defence, at least I admit I'm biased *g*). They're all supposed to fit within canon, but that of course depends on how they read the show - or, in the case of the hired pen, what the character summaries said.
So, there - my thorts, you have had them.
ETA: Brief overview of books 16-21, for completism:
Power Behind The Throne made me ANGRY. I un-recommend it. I advise against reading it. I've only ever thrown two books at a wall once I was done reading them, and this was one of them.
Four Dragons and its sequel The Drift were dull, and the author seemed overly invested in her own character creations while at the same time failing to convey why we ought to be. Both books dawdled along at a snail's pace. SG-1 were often OOC, and ridiculously passive. The best thing I can say about these two was that they bracketed a four-book run of ones I really enjoyed.
I got back into the Stargate novels with Sunrise, where the characters were in character, there was a lot of peril and a lot of action, and some grand scope that they wouldn't have been able to do in the series.
Transitions was an Atlantis crossover, and I enjoyed both parts of it despite not really being an Atlantis fan. Everyone got stuff to do, including Cassie. There were good action scenes. I still love the car vs helicopter sequence.
Oceans of Dust had some scary peril and lots for each member of SG-1 to do - it wasn't heavily focused on any one character. It had good original characters, too, that I enjoyed reading about.
And Heart's Desire was a fun bit of fluff, going for the steampunk market. It petered out a little at the end, but on the whole it was an enjoyable adventure on a scenic planet.
This entry is also posted at http://pepper.dreamwidth.org/188118.html