The Power Behind A Decent Editor...

[magnavox_23]

Or, you know, bothering to research some of the most basic concepts on which the show you're writing about is based. I generally suck at writing reviews and I'm not big on bagging someone out for the sake of bagging someone out, but dayam The Power Behind The Throne just scribbled all over my favourite drawing in crayon.

I could sum this book up as

Comments

[dannysgirlsg1]

*twitches*

I read these spoilers because I wanted to know what I'd be getting into when I finally got to this one...

Now I'm scared....SCARED I tell you.

*whimpers in the corner*

They shouldn't be allowed to be so poorly written...not when they have such AMAZING novels in the series that get tarnished because of it.

[magnavox_23]

I was so surprised there were so many stuff ups! Most of them would have been so easily caught by anyone with basic knowledge of the show.

You're right, it is a shame that this book is going to discredit the other wondrous works by association and definitely doesn't make Fandemonium look good.

Don't be afraid to read it. History buffs might find some interest in the parallels with pre-war Germany. I don't know. I kind of felt unsettled by his use of their histories for a sci fi novel.

The canon stuff ups can be distracting, I'm not sure of any other way of putting it.

[cleothemuse]

"Kelnorim" is understandable, at least, as it's spelled that way in the GateWorld Wiki (and probably other places, too). I waffle on the spelling myself, sometimes.

Actually, Sam is Catholic, according to her dog tags, according to AT herself. I believe she also mentioned that Sam was still practicing... sort of. Like many American Catholics, rather "a la carte" about what she does and doesn't believe.

All the rest of it, however, is exactly the kind of FAIL that has led to me not buying any more of the Fandy crap.

[magnavox_23]

Mmm, Gateworld is just another fan site, so again, I take the spellings from the official site if anything. Not a biggie, just... you know? :P

Good point about Sam though, I had forgotten about her dog tags, and I don't know inconsistencies with props and dialogue? I can concede that confusion over this is probably not the writer's fault. And of course I cannot speculate on the whole American pick and choose Catholic thing, I'll leave that up to someone who knows what they're talking about.

I've quite enjoyed the Fandemonium books - the Goa'uld breeding farm one was a bit of a stretch, but the characterisations in most have been very well done - Barque and Roswell I have adored completely. This one doesn't seem to stand anywhere near the others in terms of writing, plot or understanding the characters.

(btw, love the icon!)

[cleothemuse]

Barque, I think, was the exception rather than the rule, and credit for that goes entirely to Suz. Roswell had some WTF-ish moments, canonical oversights, bad research, and just a really sucky way to split up the team so that it was actually a "classic team" adventure while only pretending to include Cam and Vala.

Can't say that I miss the "official" books, really... the last one I bought was "Relativity", and I hated the OOC behavior and TOTALLY SEKRIT PLOT TWIST... which is ironic given that the Big Finish audio-book by the same author was actually pretty good (Shell Game).

I prefer fanfic... cheaper and awesome-er.

(And I LURVE my Mean Sam :D)

[magnavox_23]

I can see your point about Roswell, but I guess for me the decent writing outweighed any minor mistakes (I can't even remember what they were anymore) and early on in the piece there was that Jack/Vala/Cam dynamic that I was so interested in reading. Mixing those characters up is a tough one too, because I thought the Cam and Vala off on their own stuff made those characters shine, but can they do that being around the entire team and Jack O'Neill? Or would we have just expected Jack to be the hero?

Relativity was an 'I am either going to love or hate this book' when I was reading it, but I kinda figured out the 'totally sekrit plot twist' fairly early on, and I liked the idea, so I ended up liking the book. :P

[campylobacter]

Its reviews on Amazon indicate that you're not the only one upset by the canon!fail of this book.

LOL @ Jaffa "breeding pouch in his stomach". Junior gettin hard core where Teal'c digests food! Gives a whole new meaning to MPREG morning sickness. :-p

Ya know, if fanfic authors can find a beta-reader, why can't a media tie-in author find an editor? There are fans who'd do canon editing for FREE if he'd asked us. This is why I prefer Stargate fanfic ten times more than Stargate pro-fic. I own "Hydra" and "Roswell", but have yet to finish them because fanfic distracts me so much more.

[magnavox_23]

I can understand a little slip here or there with canon, we're all human, but this book just smacked of not being read by anyone familiar with the series before publishing. Makes me wonder what they were doing for the 4 months they delayed it?

The breeding pouch, bleh! I just imagined Teal'c's pouch like the hot tub from Hathor, no... just, no!

The stuff I plucked out of that book any one of us could have done, and there's certainly more in there that I missed. Why on Earth wasn't this book fact checked properly? As if they didn't know how easily we'd find the bits and pieces that didn't fit in with our show. :P I usually get through the SG novels in a few days, but then again, I can't say I read *a lot* of fan fic, mostly what my flist posts and maybe Alpha Gate or somewhere if I feel like it.

[campylobacter]

One of the reviewers said this:

"The point of this publishing company was that it was started by fans, for fans and the books were originally written by SG fanfic authors. Sally Malcolm, owner and chief executive of Fandemonium explained in an interview that they have moved away from that model is because she believed there weren't publishing enough male authors. Because a majority of authors in SG fandom are women, they went searching elsewhere."

WTF? Does an author's name have to appear "male" in order for fans to buy the books? Or were they looking for equality in authorship demographics? Because if Fandemonium ever gets Kevin J. Anderson to write SG-1 books, I'm going to toss flaming bags of cat poop. He wrote some real turds for The X-Files media tie-ins.

[magnavox_23]

Oh Jesus! What the hell is that supposed to mean? I have bought all of the books (apart from the ones gifted to me) regardless of the author's gender. I bought them because of the "Stargate SG-1" across the cover.

There are male fic writers who would be just as good writing the novels.

Who knows, maybe this backlash against their employing people without true passion or understanding of the show will make them rethink that decision.

Why do they need male writers though? The show didn't seem to have a problem with an all male writing ensemble. Do they think more boys would buy the novels if they were written by men?

[strg8g33k]

There are no words... *goes to cry in the corner*

[magnavox_23]

*pets* :P

[a_blackpanther]

"Hammond checked his watch. The iris had been opened for a minute under three hours... There were protocols in place that prevented him from leaving the Stargate open indefinitely,..."
But um...the gate stays open only 38 minutes at a time. And unless it's made of waves/energy nothing is coming trough an wormhole opened from Earth.

[magnavox_23]

From what I could understand the author was referring to the iris being open as the 'gate being open'. The wormhole itself had already collapsed on page 88.