Top Ten Things You'll Never See In Trek Novels
- Thread starter Mr. Laser Beam
- Start date
Too bad we'll never see a published work set during the Post-Atomic Recovery. (2054-2130)
What an interesting Lost Era that would be...
What an interesting Lost Era that would be...
I wonder if that's just because no-one's pitched the right story yet?
Paul
^ Forget SNW, I want a real Trek novel - or, more likely, a miniseries - exploring Trek's version of WW III in detail. What it was about. Who started it. Who exactly the Eastern Coalition are. (Actually we know who they are - China. All references to China in ST:FC were changed to the ECON at the last minute) How it ended. How the cleanup was done (did the Vulcans help in the recovery?).
And don't even try to tell me I shouldn't have said this because it was a "story idea". It's an OBVIOUS story idea. Nobody can sue them for using it, since it would have been inevitable anyway.
And don't even try to tell me I shouldn't have said this because it was a "story idea". It's an OBVIOUS story idea. Nobody can sue them for using it, since it would have been inevitable anyway.
^^You're right, it isn't a story idea. A story idea would be proposing answers to those questions.
1. Star Trek, Star Trek 2-12, and Mudd's Angels novels "remastered"
2. Bantam TOS novels "remastered"
(Although those would be noble projects...)
3. Use of real elements with atomic number 103 or greater, such as darmstadtium or roentgenium. Or even proper use of rare elements. Or chemistry. Or physics.
4. A fart. Or, a farting fert, preferably Reg Barclay's pet ferret, "Stinky". Or the interaction between a major character while in the bathroom, either using the comm system, or talking to someone just outside the WC.
5. Footnotes indicating proper pronunciation of character names, planet names, and the word "anathema", etc. Footnotes referring to other novels, especially with "recurring characters" that might lead us to read another novel featuring that character where it's not so obvious. Like Ingrid what's-her-name, the security officer in some of the TOS novels.
6. "Details left to the reader." Or chapters that serve no purpose in advancing the story, just because in the real world, life's like that. Example, a couple extraneous chapters in a TNG novel that feature a poker game.
7. A TOS Mary Sue story, where she ends up in a relationship with Uhura, Rand, or Chapel. Or a TNG one where she ends up with Spot, Vreenak, or Dr. Selar.
8. A definitive Vulcan Language guide. Or creative use of diacritics, and non-English alphabet characters such as €ƒšœž¢âäàåçæàë and so on. Too many alien names sound too Terran. Take some linguistic inspiration from Okrand's efforts with tlhIngan Hol or Duane's Rihannsu, and dare to be different. (I do have linguistic training, if anyone needs some cheap consultancy services. Heh.)
9. Another novel featuring Seussian rhyme, or song lyrics, haikus or nonsense riddles (in other words, something good to read like How Much For Just The Planet.) Or something else, such as a Gabriel Garcia Marquez-like story that turns to gibberish as you read it, and then suddenly all makes sense.
10. The untold story of Kirk's love affair with Commodore Robert Wesley. After all, we have it as gospel that Kirk said "I *knew* Bob Wesley."
2. Bantam TOS novels "remastered"
(Although those would be noble projects...)
3. Use of real elements with atomic number 103 or greater, such as darmstadtium or roentgenium. Or even proper use of rare elements. Or chemistry. Or physics.
4. A fart. Or, a farting fert, preferably Reg Barclay's pet ferret, "Stinky". Or the interaction between a major character while in the bathroom, either using the comm system, or talking to someone just outside the WC.
5. Footnotes indicating proper pronunciation of character names, planet names, and the word "anathema", etc. Footnotes referring to other novels, especially with "recurring characters" that might lead us to read another novel featuring that character where it's not so obvious. Like Ingrid what's-her-name, the security officer in some of the TOS novels.
6. "Details left to the reader." Or chapters that serve no purpose in advancing the story, just because in the real world, life's like that. Example, a couple extraneous chapters in a TNG novel that feature a poker game.
7. A TOS Mary Sue story, where she ends up in a relationship with Uhura, Rand, or Chapel. Or a TNG one where she ends up with Spot, Vreenak, or Dr. Selar.
8. A definitive Vulcan Language guide. Or creative use of diacritics, and non-English alphabet characters such as €ƒšœž¢âäàåçæàë and so on. Too many alien names sound too Terran. Take some linguistic inspiration from Okrand's efforts with tlhIngan Hol or Duane's Rihannsu, and dare to be different. (I do have linguistic training, if anyone needs some cheap consultancy services. Heh.)
9. Another novel featuring Seussian rhyme, or song lyrics, haikus or nonsense riddles (in other words, something good to read like How Much For Just The Planet.) Or something else, such as a Gabriel Garcia Marquez-like story that turns to gibberish as you read it, and then suddenly all makes sense.
10. The untold story of Kirk's love affair with Commodore Robert Wesley. After all, we have it as gospel that Kirk said "I *knew* Bob Wesley."
For the nth time: "Remastering" does not mean "changing the content of the work." It means going back to the original master print and making a new copy directly from it, rather than from a copy of it, for maximum image and/or sound quality. The new FX shots in TOS-R are the only parts that are not remastered, because they are newly created rather than taken from the original film masters. So using the term "remastering" to mean "replacing old material with new" is getting it totally backwards. The closest publishing analogy to actual remastering is reprinting, and the Bantam novels and novelizations have been reprinted multiple times.
Aside from that, TOS-R doesn't actually alter the content or structure of the story, so I don't see how an analogy to TOS-R would apply to the books. Unless you mean things like changing "Kirk looked at the bright red planet on the viewscreen" to "Kirk looked at the brown-and-blue planet on the viewscreen."
There were footnotes in a number of early Trek novels, particularly The Prometheus Design. But footnotes are more the sort of thing you find in nonfiction or scholarly works, and are perceived as something of a distraction from the flow of a story. Besides, with the Web and Memory Alpha, there's not as much need for them anymore.
Oh, a poker game can be a great way of exploring character dynamics. Just read Q&A or A Time for War, A Time for Peace for examples. There are indeed scenes of that sort which don't advance the plot per se, but serve primarily as character exploration.
So... non-English alphabet characters are not Terran? Aaaaahhh!!! So when they say "illegal aliens," they're not kidding?!
What was that?
Sorry, I was too engrossed in some Terry Pratchett
George Bush. Either One.
You mean the Enterprise has toilets?
You mean the Enterprise has toilets?
The Giggling Elf said:
What was that?
Sorry, I was too engrossed in some Terry Pratchett
i was about to bring him up too!
While it seems to be my day to mess up references, I do believe one of the stories in Glass Empires made mention of an Emperor George the Second who ruled around this time. (Biggest disadvantage of paper books: they're not searchable!)
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
^ Yes, we included that reference, being the left-wing mouthpieces that we are, or whatever it was we were called by somebody who didn't even bother reading the book because they liked their Trek books politics free, or they didn't read tie-ins, or whatever frikkin' excuse he finally ended up with. I gave up trying to keep track after a while.
Quoth the title: Top Ten Things You'll Never See In Trek Novels
But since you took it seriously (although I thought the fart line would trigger the opposite...), a few comments. "Remastered" is in quotes, indicating it's not the proper term. Perhaps "re-imagined" would be better, since it's en vogue. (Only a few minutes away from this "Re-imagined" Wizard of Oz on SciFi, then time to heat up some "Re-Imagined" dinner from last night, and read yesterday's "Re-Imagined" newspaper!
)Well, now that you mention that. But seriously, Blish worked from scripts that weren't the final shooting scripts, and the order of presentation has no connection to the episodes in either aired or production order. It would be an interesting project to "re-imagine" adaptations of the actual shooting scripts, adding in (a la Alan Dean Foster with the Log series) Klingons in every episode they didn't feature in? (kidding, but there could be a lot of useful work done.)
Again, was hoping an "anathema" clue would trigger the correct response.
Yes, but I meant some actual sections of prose that editors would insist on being removed for being irrelevant.
A total diversion, no character explanation. Just a bunch of maguffins and egg mcmuffins. Imagine a poker game featuring characters that don't appear anywhere else in the book. Maybe Mr. Mott's 7 Card Stud game with Dr. Selar, Nurse Ogawa, and Security Dude Who We Thought Died Two Episodes Ago... and those are the only pages they're on.
So... non-English alphabet characters are not Terran? Aaaaahhh!!! So when they say "illegal aliens," they're not kidding?!
Come on now. You're telling me that all alien languages can be expressed using only English orthography? This was the fun Marc Okrand had with using an alphabet that consisted of letters like >tlh< >I< (not i) >D< (not d) and >q< and >Q< as separate letters. Diane Duane and Peter did the same by using unusual or bizarre digraphs and trigraphs. There's no reason we couldn't have aliens from a planet called !!ejf, Maaaaß, Θo'q, Ωüllargn, Zæz, or Æiulululq. And I'd mention you could certainly create some orthographics that don't occur on Terra anytime you'd like. I'd mention Spinal Tap, but unfortunately umlauted n isn't encoded in Unicode yet! Or then again, maybe it has been!
Picard: Number One you have the bridge.Lorraine Anderson said:
George Bush. Either One.
You mean the Enterprise has toilets?
Riker: But sir, we are int he middle of a pitched battled. Now is not the time to leave the bridge.
Picard: I said you have the bridge Number One.
Riker: Sir?
Picard: If you must know, I have to go to the bathroom.
But a lot of people won't get that. There are many people these days who seem to think that quotation marks are used for emphasis rather than distancing. Just using the term at all in that way perpetuates an egregiously stupid and annoying error that I feel obliged to denounce at every opportunity simply as a public service.
No, I'm saying that your statement that using non-English orthography would make alien languages look less "Terran" overlooks the fact that non-English alphabets are also Terran. Indeed, the majority of Terrans speak languages written in entirely different scripts, like Chinese characters and Devanagari. What you mean is that you want them to look less English, not less Terran.
Sure there is. The books are written for humans who read English, not for aliens who use a lot of diacritics and rare characters from typefaces associated with certain human languages. Xenolinguists in the Trek universe will have their own ways of dealing with alien languages and alphabets, but ordinary people are going to say, if it sounds more or less like Fred, spell it Fred, not Ph'h're\d]d.
JWolf said:
Picard: Number One you have the bridge.Lorraine Anderson said:
George Bush. Either One.
You mean the Enterprise has toilets?
Riker: But sir, we are int he middle of a pitched battled. Now is not the time to leave the bridge.
Picard: I said you have the bridge Number One.
Riker: Sir?
Picard: If you must know, I have to go to the bathroom.
There wasn't a conversation from the bathroom, but whatshername - the main character in Battlestations - had to go to the toilet while on the bridge - she has to ask Spock's permission.