the Trekverse is not perfect! :facepalm:
random: i really need to invest in a Trek WTF icon but until then an irate Quark will do. :P
can ya believe i went from posting @ PSS (PSP forum) in the thread i started about "what are you reading right now?" to this entry??
basically i went to that thread to add that i had finished Twilight (not bad! had me nailed to chair @ end), Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Sister of My Heart (powerful!) and Trek's new Myriad Universe books (awesome and often HOLY SHIT!! inducing), borrowed from George, in the last couple weeks.
well i made the mistake of taking a peek at the reviews....and came across this one on the page for Myriad Uni book two, Echoes and Refractions.
now for those on limited time, allow me to point out that this is the first half of the back cover description:
It's been said that for any event, there are an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow, and therefore all possibilities that could happen do happen across countless alternate realities. In these divergent realms, known history is bent, like white light through a prism -- broken into a boundless spectrum of what-might-have-beens. But in those myriad universes, what might have been...is what actually happened.
and now for the WTFery.
Trek Isn't Supposed to be Depressing!, August 12, 2008
By C.K.
But this is! The book has 3 short stories set in the Star Trek universe, but from different perspectives of time. What would have happened if this person died or this person lived, or this person accepts a transfer to another ship or makes a scientific breakthrough, what have you. Well I don't want to give anything away, but the answer is pain, and unyielding horror and suffering apparently. The Trek as it played out on tv and the movies is apparently the only one worth living in as it is the only one with a potentially hopeful future.
Both of the first two stories made me so sad I really didn't want to read the third. Nothing good happened. Usually with Trek even when they face terrible circumstances there is a sense of hopefullness, the possibility of coming through victorious. There was nothing of that here. Something bad happened and then something even worse happened after it and there was no end in sight. Kirk's doomed son, David Marcus is a main character in the first story "The Chimes At Midnight" and I can't think of another more tragic character with the possible exception of Othello or King Lear maybe. I haven't read a Shakesperian tragedy in 15 years, what does that tell you, that I should think of such a thing while reading this?
It makes me sadder than I can say to give a Star Trek book only 2 stars. Really I'd give it 2 1/2 just cause its Trek but they don't do that here, more's the pity. Still the third story Brave New World was good. It had hope. It has nearly isurmountable odds that our intrepid heroes overcome with cunning and and intelligence and good old fashioned sticktoittiveness. Get the book for that story alone.
I'll say this: if you like never ending drama, like the new BattleStar Galactica series, then you should be alright with the first two stories. I wasn't able to watch BSG after Season 1 but I know it still has a lot of raging fans so it must appeal to somebody. But if you like your scifi with relatively happy endings, I don't think that 2/3 of this book is for you.
now don't get me wrong--everyone has rights to their opinions. but even IF this is the impression that Trek has given some random people, do the words alternate realities not clue them in that it's not gonna be as perfect and pristine as canon Trek??
can ya believe i went from posting @ PSS (PSP forum) in the thread i started about "what are you reading right now?" to this entry??
basically i went to that thread to add that i had finished Twilight (not bad! had me nailed to chair @ end), Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Sister of My Heart (powerful!) and Trek's new Myriad Universe books (awesome and often HOLY SHIT!! inducing), borrowed from George, in the last couple weeks.
well i made the mistake of taking a peek at the reviews....and came across this one on the page for Myriad Uni book two, Echoes and Refractions.
now for those on limited time, allow me to point out that this is the first half of the back cover description:
It's been said that for any event, there are an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow, and therefore all possibilities that could happen do happen across countless alternate realities. In these divergent realms, known history is bent, like white light through a prism -- broken into a boundless spectrum of what-might-have-beens. But in those myriad universes, what might have been...is what actually happened.
and now for the WTFery.
Trek Isn't Supposed to be Depressing!, August 12, 2008
By C.K.
But this is! The book has 3 short stories set in the Star Trek universe, but from different perspectives of time. What would have happened if this person died or this person lived, or this person accepts a transfer to another ship or makes a scientific breakthrough, what have you. Well I don't want to give anything away, but the answer is pain, and unyielding horror and suffering apparently. The Trek as it played out on tv and the movies is apparently the only one worth living in as it is the only one with a potentially hopeful future.
Both of the first two stories made me so sad I really didn't want to read the third. Nothing good happened. Usually with Trek even when they face terrible circumstances there is a sense of hopefullness, the possibility of coming through victorious. There was nothing of that here. Something bad happened and then something even worse happened after it and there was no end in sight. Kirk's doomed son, David Marcus is a main character in the first story "The Chimes At Midnight" and I can't think of another more tragic character with the possible exception of Othello or King Lear maybe. I haven't read a Shakesperian tragedy in 15 years, what does that tell you, that I should think of such a thing while reading this?
It makes me sadder than I can say to give a Star Trek book only 2 stars. Really I'd give it 2 1/2 just cause its Trek but they don't do that here, more's the pity. Still the third story Brave New World was good. It had hope. It has nearly isurmountable odds that our intrepid heroes overcome with cunning and and intelligence and good old fashioned sticktoittiveness. Get the book for that story alone.
I'll say this: if you like never ending drama, like the new BattleStar Galactica series, then you should be alright with the first two stories. I wasn't able to watch BSG after Season 1 but I know it still has a lot of raging fans so it must appeal to somebody. But if you like your scifi with relatively happy endings, I don't think that 2/3 of this book is for you.
now don't get me wrong--everyone has rights to their opinions. but even IF this is the impression that Trek has given some random people, do the words alternate realities not clue them in that it's not gonna be as perfect and pristine as canon Trek??