Cartoons of World War 2 (Tony Husband)
I don't have much to say about this book; this is one of the ones you can judge from the cover. I liked it well enough, and I got my fill for the $8 I paid, but the book could stand to be a little bit bigger; it's more of a sampler than a thorough exploration of the material. Fun to flip through if someone leaves it out in the bathroom, but that's about as glowing as my recommendation gets.
Grade: B
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
"Star Trek: Destiny"
Star Trek: Destiny (David Mack)
Review by N. Web
As I said in my review of The Good that Men Do, one of my biggest
problems with the Star Trek literary universe is that its status as
canon is questionable at best. Perhaps this is either good or bad,
because having a bad, ridiculous story as part of official canon can
lead to serious problems. But, at the same time it can also lead to
authors not taking much of a risk for fear of disrupting established TV
and movie canon. Which, as "These are the Voyages..." shows, sometimes
probably deserves to be disrupted. Star Trek Destiny is a huge risk, as
far as I'm concerned. But one that ultimately succeeds.
Star Trek Destiny also tackles one of the biggest problems in the
established canon, that being the Borg. Much has been made over the
years of the "nerf"-ing of the Borg in Star Trek. It seems as though
the Borg were always meant to have been seen as indestructible, and
indeed in "The Best of Both Worlds", they were only defeated through a
fluke. Over the years in canon, the Borg seemed to lose their
unbeatable quality and in Star Trek Voyager pretty much became relegated
to Monster of the Week status. Even the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise
had a turn at the tee. So, how does an author manage to make the Borg
seem threatening again? This radical of a solution doesn't seem like it
could possibly work, but in the end I was ultimately left more satisfied
than I have been with any Borg story since at least "Endgame" (the
against-all-odds inexplicably good series finale to Voyager), and maybe
even since "The Best of Both Worlds." Massive spoilers to follow,
perhaps you don't want to read before finishing the book.
Verdict: Highly recommended.
*** spoiler space ***
For David Mack, it seems the solution to the problem of the Borg was to
ultimately get rid of them. But, it does make sense. In order to
prevent the perpetual nerfing of the Borg or the perpetual power creep
that the Federation would have to go through in order to constantly
defeat them; perhaps the best solution really is to just eliminate them
entirely to prevent not only over-use of the Borg, but further
degradation of the "canon." David Mack takes a gamble, and ultimately
wins, as far as I'm concerned. The send-off they get is equal parts
relieving and moving.
Mack manages to tie together all four post TOS Star Trek series and a
large amount of established literary universe into three novels that not
only give the Borg an origin story, but an end story that manages to be
quite thought-provoking and moving. Of course, the main stars are the
TNG cast, with almost everyone other than Ezri Dax relegated to small
parts and cameos, and the Enterprise crew is entirely off camera even
during the parts that take place during the 22nd century. Captain
Hernandez ultimately becomes quite interesting, and ended up once again
making me wish that Enterprise had continued past Season 4.
I found myself less interested in the characters that were created in
the literary universe, but as the story went on I grew more familiar
with them. The story is very evocative, and I found Mack manages to use
the prose to generate genuine dread, fear, creepiness and ultimately
relief throughout the tale. It's to his credit that when I was done I
immediately began looking into more Star Trek literary universe ebooks
on Amazon. David Mack's new series seems to be a three parter about
Geordi attempting to rebuild Data, and I'm already thinking of
purchasing it.
Stray observations:
This seems to be sticking with the "Bashir and Dax broke up post DS9"
book canon. Also very weird that Bashir, O'Brien, and Nog are not
appearing in this film at all. At least Garak shows up.
Speaking of, it would have been nice to see more of the Federation's
allies involved other than the brief cameos Garak and Martok and a lot
of generic ambassadors have.
Geordi doesn't have a lot to do, though a short romance is shoehorned in
for him, which I feel like he deserves at this point.
I like the idea of Worf as Picard's first officer, but isn't he supposed
to be the Ambassador to the Klingon Empire? Worf also gets a short
romance shoehorned in.
I had one small gripe in that Picard seems to have dropped back into his
jerk mode he was in for most of Star Trek First Contact. Which, I
thought the point of the movie is he gives up on the White Whale. Maybe
I missed some kind of a relapse he had in the literary universe, but I
couldn't get over his inability to function for 2.9 books because of the
Borg.
Review by N. Web
As I said in my review of The Good that Men Do, one of my biggest
problems with the Star Trek literary universe is that its status as
canon is questionable at best. Perhaps this is either good or bad,
because having a bad, ridiculous story as part of official canon can
lead to serious problems. But, at the same time it can also lead to
authors not taking much of a risk for fear of disrupting established TV
and movie canon. Which, as "These are the Voyages..." shows, sometimes
probably deserves to be disrupted. Star Trek Destiny is a huge risk, as
far as I'm concerned. But one that ultimately succeeds.
Star Trek Destiny also tackles one of the biggest problems in the
established canon, that being the Borg. Much has been made over the
years of the "nerf"-ing of the Borg in Star Trek. It seems as though
the Borg were always meant to have been seen as indestructible, and
indeed in "The Best of Both Worlds", they were only defeated through a
fluke. Over the years in canon, the Borg seemed to lose their
unbeatable quality and in Star Trek Voyager pretty much became relegated
to Monster of the Week status. Even the crew of the NX-01 Enterprise
had a turn at the tee. So, how does an author manage to make the Borg
seem threatening again? This radical of a solution doesn't seem like it
could possibly work, but in the end I was ultimately left more satisfied
than I have been with any Borg story since at least "Endgame" (the
against-all-odds inexplicably good series finale to Voyager), and maybe
even since "The Best of Both Worlds." Massive spoilers to follow,
perhaps you don't want to read before finishing the book.
Verdict: Highly recommended.
*** spoiler space ***
For David Mack, it seems the solution to the problem of the Borg was to
ultimately get rid of them. But, it does make sense. In order to
prevent the perpetual nerfing of the Borg or the perpetual power creep
that the Federation would have to go through in order to constantly
defeat them; perhaps the best solution really is to just eliminate them
entirely to prevent not only over-use of the Borg, but further
degradation of the "canon." David Mack takes a gamble, and ultimately
wins, as far as I'm concerned. The send-off they get is equal parts
relieving and moving.
Mack manages to tie together all four post TOS Star Trek series and a
large amount of established literary universe into three novels that not
only give the Borg an origin story, but an end story that manages to be
quite thought-provoking and moving. Of course, the main stars are the
TNG cast, with almost everyone other than Ezri Dax relegated to small
parts and cameos, and the Enterprise crew is entirely off camera even
during the parts that take place during the 22nd century. Captain
Hernandez ultimately becomes quite interesting, and ended up once again
making me wish that Enterprise had continued past Season 4.
I found myself less interested in the characters that were created in
the literary universe, but as the story went on I grew more familiar
with them. The story is very evocative, and I found Mack manages to use
the prose to generate genuine dread, fear, creepiness and ultimately
relief throughout the tale. It's to his credit that when I was done I
immediately began looking into more Star Trek literary universe ebooks
on Amazon. David Mack's new series seems to be a three parter about
Geordi attempting to rebuild Data, and I'm already thinking of
purchasing it.
Stray observations:
This seems to be sticking with the "Bashir and Dax broke up post DS9"
book canon. Also very weird that Bashir, O'Brien, and Nog are not
appearing in this film at all. At least Garak shows up.
Speaking of, it would have been nice to see more of the Federation's
allies involved other than the brief cameos Garak and Martok and a lot
of generic ambassadors have.
Geordi doesn't have a lot to do, though a short romance is shoehorned in
for him, which I feel like he deserves at this point.
I like the idea of Worf as Picard's first officer, but isn't he supposed
to be the Ambassador to the Klingon Empire? Worf also gets a short
romance shoehorned in.
I had one small gripe in that Picard seems to have dropped back into his
jerk mode he was in for most of Star Trek First Contact. Which, I
thought the point of the movie is he gives up on the White Whale. Maybe
I missed some kind of a relapse he had in the literary universe, but I
couldn't get over his inability to function for 2.9 books because of the
Borg.
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