Joy’s Comments (group member since Apr 12, 2008)

Joy’s comments from the Star Trek group.

I left my public library job so no more picking up holds every day for me anymore! I have an hour train commute which is shaping up to be language learning time in the morning and reading time in the evening. Somebody showed me this massive chart of all the Trek spinoff books (http://www.thetrekcollective.com/p/tr...), so maybe now I can go back and fill in the gaps in my reading history.

My local library has nice book sales too--I didn't find any Trek books I wanted when I went a couple months ago, but I did scoop up a stack of Babylon 5 paperbacks!

I haven't read either of those, but I do generally like Greg Cox. The last one of this I read was the first of the Legacies trilogy (the 50th anniversary TOS series that came out last year). It was pretty good, not his best and not quite as good as book two.

Very interesting link there. Inception, The Children of Kings, Unspoken Truth, and Seven Deadly Sins (Greg Cox doing a Pakled story? I'm there.) all look especially interesting, though I'll be disappointed if those alt. universe books are indeed postponed. I'll need something to hold me over until the next movie.

I rather liked Collision Course. I read it a while after I saw the new movie, and I thought it was an interesting alternative to the scenario in the movie (though with that being an alternate universe, it could have still happened the Collision Course way, but still). There were some things I preferred in the movie and some in the book.

I read the first two Voyager relaunch books when they first came out, but I wasn't too impressed by them.

I've been meaning to get to Vanguard. I've heard a little bit about them, but I haven't read any yet.

And I'm interested to hear of those comics, Travis. I love Number One and I've been on a Trek comics kick lately. I'll have to check that out.

TOS: "And the Children Shall Lead"
TNG: "Genesis"
DS9: "Let He Who Is Without Sin..."
VOY: "Threshold"
Movies: Nemesis

TNG and Voyager are easy. I'll join the chorus of those who dislike the two episodes that, more than any others, seemed to delight in taking Science out back and giving it a good thrashing. Brannon Braga wrote "Threshold", and even he wants to forget about it. "Genesis" was also his fault, I might add. I think we better just take pity on him.

TOS and DS9 are more difficult. I didn't mind "Spock's Brain" so much (it was more "WTF?" than "oh god make it stop") and I too rather liked "Spectre of the Gun". I might be the only person who even liked "The Way to Eden." "The Man Trap" was pretty bad, but "And the Children Shall Lead" was just awful.

On the movies: I cannot watch Nemesis. I haven't seen the full thing in about six years. I watch the beginning, because that's pretty cool, but that's as far as I can go. To me The Final Frontier was underrated. Yeah, parts of the premise were lame, but I think they did the best with what they had. Some parts were even good. At the very least, I can make it through the whole movie, albeit with several eye rolls and sarcastic remarks along the way.

As for DS9, one more confession: I kinda like the Ferengi episodes. Truly. Anyway, "Move Along Home" had an interesting premise, but didn't quite work. "If Wishes Were Horses" was weird and "Profit and Lace" was never sure whether it was a serious story or a farce. "Let He Who Is Without Sin..." has a nugget of an interesting idea at its heart, but surrounds that with layers of pure annoyance. From the beginning, it pretty much throws all the compelling aspects of Worf into a woodchipper.

I haven't seen much of Enterprise, but I've disliked most of what I've seen, so I won't even go there.

I'm not reading any at the moment (though I have a couple on my shelf waiting for their turn: Star Trek: Troublesome Minds and Vulcan's Glory). I recently finished two I really enjoyed, though: Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno and Excelsior: Forged in Fire by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels.

I'd give both a solid four, four and a half stars. Burning Dreams covers Pike's backstory and is a fitting ode to a great, but often neglected character (now we just need more April). Forged in Fire, as the title suggests, is a movie-era story set mostly on the Excelsior, but also featured were Curzon Dax and everyone's favorite Klingons, Kor, Kang, and Koloth in the backstory to "Blood Oath" (so, in other words, the perfect book for a TOS movie/DS9 fan like me). It was satisfyingly geeky in its many, many references and I especially liked it as a fan of the Lost Era Sulu/Excelsior book The Sundered by the same authors, which was set a little later with Sulu and Chekov as CO and XO on the Excelsior (Forged in Fire covers Sulu's early days as XO). I recommend any of the books in that series, too.

And I am all in favor of more Uhura and Chekov, so I'd like to read those books you both mention.

Oh, and welcome to the group, Leslie!