| Title | : | Imzadi |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0671026100 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780671026103 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 342 |
| Publication | : | First published August 1, 1992 |
During delicate negotiations with an aggressive race called the Sindareen, Deanna Troi mysteriously falls ill... and dies. But her death is only the beginning of the adventure for Commander Riker—an adventure that will take him across time, pit him against one of his closest friends, and force him to choose between Starfleet's strictest rule and the one he calls "Imzadi."
Imzadi Reviews
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My personal favorite Star Trek novel of all time!!!
And I believe that if I have to choose only one novel of all that I have read, this one has to be my favorite novel at all too.
SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY
This book has it all... drama, action, romance, mystery, science fiction, time travel, alternate realities, etc...
...well you couldn't ask for more!!!
When I read the synopsis in the back cover (back then, in 1993), while judging if I'd buy the book or not, I got amazed.
And when I read the book, I just love it!
I am quite glad that I was able to get the book in its first printing with the extra details on the cover with surface effects, since nowadays they only reprint the story as a combo book under the title of Imzadi Forever uniting the first novel with its sequel and honestly it's sad that Imzadi II wasn't nearly that good as the first novel (just to treat it kindly), even my best advice is don't read the sequel.
However, I honestly think that it wasn't the fault of Peter David, the author of both novels, but it was the fault of the writers of the TV show that they mess with a perfect couple like Riker and Troi and to put Worf in the formula. I have nothing against Worf but he is not the soulmate of Deanna.
Imzadi is perfection made into letters on paper. A wonderful example of an exciting sci-fi novel merging with a true romance book, creating an extraordinary story.
Without a doubt, in my humble opinion, I think that this novel is the most solid Star Trek: The Next Generation novel and also the best book of the Star Trek franchise.
MERGING GENERATIONS
It's incredible the way how Peter David could take a recognizable element from Star Trek: The Original Series like the Guardian of Forever, which is part of the best TV episode: The City at the Edge of Forever to make it again as a key factor in a The Next Generation novel.
This is not so rare in various of the best novels by Peter David, since he used too elements from classic episodes of The Original Series in other The Next Generation novels such as Vendetta and Q-Squared.
TALE AS OLD AS TIME
The story is set in three different time periods...
The Past: Telling how William T. Riker and Deanna Troi met for the first time, several years before of their re-encounter in the USS Enterprise-D, while Riker was still a young lieutenant and assigned to a post in the planet Betazed, the homeworld of Deanna.
Making a bond beyond friendship and love, a bond beyond time and space, a bond beyond reality and alternatives, a bond so strong and unique that only can be named with a Betazoid word...
...Imzadi.
The Present: Exposing how wrong what it was supposed to be an easy diplomatic mission causing the shocking death of...
...Counselor Deanna Troi.
The Future: Where William T. Riker is now an admiral but hardly his career is considered a success while commanding a distant space station without any strategic importance. He is now a embittered old man, still suffering due the death of the love of his life. In his heart he knows that Deanna's death was wrong, he knows in very soul that that death shouldn't happened.
And he will go to the Guardian of Forever to change the past and the Temporal Prime Directive can go to hell!
However, Commodore Data, now commanding officer of the USS Enterprise-F will begin a chase against his former comrade since his duty is to protect the integrity of the timeline even if that means that Deanna Troi should remain dead in the past!
"T." IS FOR...
A curious trivia in this novel was that it was supposed to explain the meaning of the "T." in William T. Riker, and back then could be considered a spoiler, but after the TV episode Second Chances now is not a spoiler anymore but a non-canon curiousity.
The "T." was supposed to be for "Thelonious" that you may think as something odd, but it wasn't a bad idea then since the concept was to make something similar to the "T." in James T. Kirk that it's for "Tiberius", in that way both characters of different generations would have a second name taken from ancient history.
However, due ignorance about the novel or just not wanting to use the ancient name, on the Second Chances episode was canonically established that the "T." in William T. Riker was for "Thomas".
I have nothing against the name "Thomas", I only think that it could be cooler that the novel Imzadi would be respected and keep the name used there.
Just like "Tiberius" was never explained on the original TV series but in the following animated series that its canonicity was always a polemic issue, but finally in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country was honored the animated series mentioning that the "T." in James T. Kirk was indeed for "Tiberius".
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING RIKER
I always have been fan of William T. Riker's character, obviously I like Picard too and many other The Next Generation's characters for not saying of the rest of the franchise, but people use to underestimate the character of Riker and if you ever watched key TV episodes of The Next Generation like 11001001, Peak Performance, A Matter of Honor, The Best of Both Worlds (Parts 1 & 2), Future Imperfect, Chain of Command (Parts 1 & 2), Second Chances and The Pegasus, just to name a few, you will realize how richful and valuable is the character of William Riker to the reason of The Next Generation success.
And certainly there isn't a best option in novels as this one to get to learn in depth the psyche of the character of William T. Riker. -
I've tried to review this book a couple of times now, and each time, I've had trouble. I'm caught between my nostalgic self and my analytical self - or, if you prefer, childhood and adulthood. Ultimately, I think I have to break down what has changed about me as a person - and what hasn't - to really define what it is about Imzadi that troubled me.
I became a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan sometime in 1991, when my Dad turned on the TV and I watched part of the summer repeat of "Data's Day." My memory - and I have no reason why I'd be wrong about this - is that the first scene I saw was the one where Dr. Crusher taught Data how to dance. For the next two years, I lived, ate, and breathed Next Gen, to the point my mother put her foot down and banned it from our home. And although I never made a full return to those heady, early days, I've been a fan of the various Star Trek series ever since.
Recently, I've been going through what I can only describe as Extreme Stress, which has nothing to do with this review except that it forms the foundation of why I read Imzadi in the first place. In the last few months, I've found myself retreating into a nostalgic place, wanting mostly to engage with the books, films and television that charmed me when I was nine or ten years old. Comfort food as mental defense, you might call it. To that end, I decided to revisit The Next Generation, realizing that I probably hadn't watched a full episode in close to fifteen years. What I found is that the series has dated quite hard - there's no moralizing quite like late '80s moralizing - but at the same time, it retains an appealing optimism and warm, familial quality that made me want to keep watching. And so I did.
Eventually, I came to a place where I wouldn't be able to access my new HD Blu-Rays for at least a couple of weeks (and ultimately became three months), so I decided to try a Next Generation novel instead. I read several dozen of these when I was about ten years old, although I remember very few specifics. The one thing that came to the fore of my memory was that Peter David's books were always the best: Q-Squared I recalled as a definite favorite, along with Vendetta. I searched for those at the local library but emerged, instead, with Imzadi - a book I definitely remember seeing, but which I have no actual recollection of ever reading (not as if that means anything almost 25 years later). I checked the book out, I read it, and I've been conflicted ever since.
I know this is one of the most lauded Star Trek novels of all time. I know I have friends who adore it.
I really, really, really couldn't wait for this book to end.
Let's be clear: the initial section, set in an alternate future where Admiral William Riker has gone grey as a desk jockey, is pretty appealing stuff. David sets a mystery in motion pretty quickly, and there's at least one nice piece of total misdirection when Riker is summoned back to a Betazoid deathbed. Despite a little frustration with the plot device of the Guardian of Forever - seriously, fandom has run that thing into the ground - I got a pretty good momentum with that initial quarter or so of the book, and I was looking forward to what came next.
Unfortunately, things took a significant turn.
There are really three problems with Imzadi for me. The first, which I've already hinted at, is my complete exhaustion with fanservice. Admittedly, this is the kind of stuff I would have found really cool at ten years old: "Wow, it's the Guardian of Forever!" "Wow, they mentioned Kirk!" "Wow, they replayed a scene from 'Encounter at Farpoint' from a different perspective!" As an adult, I find it tiring in the extreme. You can pull this sort of thing off every once in a blue moon, usually for some sort of "special anniversary" episode or story, but otherwise, the insistence of fan writers on tying every last little piece of their universe together in a connect-the-dots picture only makes it feel smaller and less realistic. A book like Imzadi only exists to tell a backstory we would never see on television, but that only highlights the obvious issue: I want to read something new, not a series of cutesy little touchstone references.
My second problem with Imzadi is more technical, and that's simply that David doesn't write good prose. He writes extremely casual prose, chalk full of little, choppy sentences beginning "And.." and "But...". His similes feel like the sort of thing you get from adolescent poetry; I no longer have the book in front of me, but I'm fairly sure at one point he compares Riker's anger to "the rage of a fiery volcano" (or something very similar). This one's more of a personal problem for me because I have a degree in English and I teach English; it's just impossible for me not to notice this stuff now. I'm all for stylistic breaking-of-rules, certainly, but David's prose never comes across that way. I have the suspicion it's the writing of someone who's simply better skilled at the short, stabby dialogue of a comic book panel than the long form of the novel paragraph, at least at this particular point in his career.
So far, it could easily be argued that the real problem is with me, not the material: I grew up, the cardinal sin of anyone looking to suspend their disbelief and enjoy the ride. If these were the only issues I had with Imzadi, though, I'd probably chalk it up to taste and feel a little more generous. Unfortunately, there's another problem I have with the book, and it's a blinder; in fact, it takes me out of the territory of "irritated" and straight into "repulsed."
Simply put, the sexual politics of Imzadi are awful. Obviously, if I read this book when I was ten - or frankly, if I'd even read it at twenty - that concern would have passed right over my head. In my thirties, though, it's hard to pat something like this on the metaphorical cheek and let it pass with a gentle "That's okay" - because it's not. Star Trek, particularly in its earlier iterations, has never exactly been a bastion of sexual equality - yeah, I can already hear a bunch of male fans mooing their offended disagreement. In the original series, though, it's a sign of the times; you can't really find an American TV show that doesn't play to the idea of women as soft-focus conquests or exotic hippy children. By Next Gen, it's a little more distressing; it seems obvious, now, that Gene Roddenberry based both James Kirk and William Riker on his idealized, ladykiller image of himself, and as nice a guy as Jonathan Frakes seems to be, that sometimes comes over...unpleasantly...in The Next Generation. All Frakes has to do is cock an eyebrow and leer smarmily to get a girl in his arms, and although the writers find ways to send that up on occasion, it can still make for uncomfortable viewing in 2016. Imzadi plays straight into that weakness.
If Peter David were here to defend his novel, he would probably say that he tries to depict Riker as a sexually confident young man who has to be taught a "better kind of love" by the woman destined to be his beloved. Indeed, much of the center section of the story is taken up with a young Deanna Troi trying to teach Riker to get outside of his own head (or, well, his own pants). Unfortunately, David - perhaps in the expectation that the reader will agree - seems to glorify in the idea of Riker as a headstrong young lech even as he pays lip service to the idea that it's wrong. This is a book where men make bets on whether they can get women into the sack, and Riker lies and allows himself to lose because he's become a Sensitive New Age Guy. This is a book where the woman is a literal virgin (of course) and the man only feels like a virgin. This is a book where the male lead is made to strip in public in a Comedy Trombone ("wah-waaaah") moment, but we are invited to dwell longingly over the female lead's body again, and again, and again. We are subject to multiple moments of "'no' means 'yes'" - including the big romantic breakthrough moment - a particularly pernicious trope that probably dates this book harder than anything else. By the time Deanna has been abducted by an alien terrorist who promises to kill her, not rape her, and she expresses her relief, I've just about had it with Imzadi. I know that Troi was never given much of a character on television, and I completely understand that in many ways, Imzadi functions as a romance novel, where you expect Meet Cutes, moments of big swelling music, and totally unrealistic power dynamics. That doesn't mean I have to like it, though, and it certainly doesn't make it right.
They say you can never go home again, and no, I will never be ten years old again in this lifetime. I can never look at these characterizations as innocently as I once did; I can no longer fail to have expectations of professional writers. The truth is, though, I still like Star Trek as much as I ever did. I like its optimism. I like its ability to tell incredibly human stories through the veil of science fiction and fantasy. I still like Picard's totally upright morality, I like Data's deadpan humor, and I like the way Riker straddles a chair backward like a little kid. I still find a lot of comfort in that universe, so it troubles me, a bit, that I've come to a place where I can't just turn my brain off and "relax." I can't, though - I can't. In a universe that's supposed to be a utopia, where all people are equal, it's impossible to get around the fact this novel seems to have been written for a small, single-track, and dare I say it, adolescent audience.
I'm just not part of that club anymore. -
4.0 stars. Nobody does Star Trek better than Peter David and this is another superb example. It is what you get when you take a richly defined universe (star trek) and pair it with a writer with true chops.
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Peter David is a master. His treatments of other franchises, such as Marvel's cinematic universe, were amazing, and he blew me away with this Star Trek novel that spans great lengths of time and space. The only thing preventing me from giving this a perfect score is the content, specifically the sex and excessive profanity.
EDIT: Not only was the amount of sexual content higher than I remembered, but the edition I read this time had such tiny print, it was rather hard to read. -
I had two reasons to look forward to this book: the author had been recommended to me, and I yearned to learn more about the origins of the Riker/Troi romance. The author's nonlinear storytelling and the time travel elements of the book were creative enough to keep me reading until the last page. He has skill at crafting plot and action. The relationship as written here, however, fell completely flat for me. Their story was filled from start to finish with bad cliches, current gender stereotypes masquerading as insights, and just plain uninteresting characterization. It's unfortunate that the author's creativity didn't extend into this very important TNG bond.
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This was an (abridged) audiobook experience for me.
Listening to Jonathan Frakes' narration, augmented with cheesy sound effects and some proper '90s softcore porno music cues during the loooooove scenes had me grinning non-stop, though I honestly don't know how someone who didn't grow up loving the Star Trek: TNG series would find it, but I imagine the word to describe it would start with "cr" and rhyme with "hinge"...
Because '90s. -
This was supposedly a huge bestseller back in the day (1992). I gotta say, I don’t really get it. I think I missed the boat here.
A while back I went looking for people’s favorite Star Trek novels and then found some of them in my local used bookstores. This was one of the three I ended up picking up, and as my first Star Trek tie-in novel, I could probably have done better. Or, maybe I’m just missing the cultural context. It’s thirty-years old at this point, and it was published during the middle of TNG‘s run. (For more context, I probably wouldn’t have picked this up for a long time except I pulled it out of my TBR Jar.) (For even more context, this is going back to the bookshop from whence it came.)
I mean, it’s not like it was terrible or anything, but it was such a dude book, and turned what could have been a cool concept into a melodramatic feelings fest. How you mess up time travel like that, bro? Deanna is the supposed center of this book, and yet she has almost no actual character presence, and while the plot centers on saving her life (thus preventing old Riker from being Very Sad in another timeline) she herself has little to do with it. It’s the Riker and Data show. Which, to be fair, was kind of the case on the show as well, but it was somehow worse reading it over hours instead of seeing it over the course of one forty-five minute episode.
I will not be reading the sequel. Hopefully the other books I picked up (both written by Michael Jan Friedman, not Peter David) go over better than this one did when I eventually get to them. -
2.5
Despite having seen, I think, every episide of TNG when it was on, I never got into reading the various novels. Thgouh I don't really do a lot of expanded universe stuff as a general rule. But this was picked for a group BotM, so I decided to give it a go.
I will say that it started well enough, despite the fact that I sort of cottoned on to the probably plot in the first few pages. But I liked seeing some of the alternate future, with Captain Crusher doing the Picard tug at his jacket, and Commodore (I think) Data, and an embittered Riker, never able to get over a Troi who died in the halcyon days of a beardless face. (Ick.)
But once we started down memory lane into the budding Troi/Riker pairing, I was less interested. Actually, I sort of hated this part.
For one, Riker was a womanizing douchebag. I mean, I know he was sort of the Kirk of TNG and all but, in this, it's "pre-enlightenment", and he's just a cocksure, arrogant, smarmy jerk.
Troi, on the other hand, is a dutiful mama's girl (and, ye gods, since when was Lwaxana such a harpy for tradition and shit?) who is all cerebral and emotional and stuf.
She first spurns Riker's purely animalistic attention but, really, she was flattered and just needed to let her guard down and be taken by the big, hairy man.
*barf*
A friend called this book a "starlequin" and, yeah, it's got so many bad romance novel cliches I don't even know where to begin.
But finally - blessedly - we get past that shit and into some time travelling shenanigans, and things kinda pick up at that point... though I did sort of start thinking, towards the end, that if they threw in one more random plot I might hafta scream.
For all its faults - of which characters that seemed off isn't even the half of it - I did find parts of it pretty compelling read, especially when shit was going down.
If we had foregone the whole horrible "starlequin" bit in the middle, I probably would've liked it a shit-ton more, though. -
I remember watching Star Trek with my dad when I was a kid. It would come on after school, and I loved it. The adventures, the crazy escapes, the close calls... It was good stuff.
I had SUCH a crush on Will Riker when I was younger. Not baby-faced Riker, but more mature, bearded Riker. Man I loved him. (And to this day, I love a man with facial hair. But that's beside the point. LOL)
As much as I loved the show, I'm not much of a tie-in fiction reader. I love Star Wars too (yeah, I swing both ways) and but struggled through the tie-in story collection I read. And I read a Firefly tie-in and thought it was OK. I haven't really tried any others though... Maybe I will someday, but it's generally not a "genre" that calls my name.
So a friend chose this book for a group of us to read, and I enjoyed it. I didn't love it, and I think that there were times when things felt a little much, especially the romance, but overall, I did like it. I think that the characters were true to the characters that I've loved from the show, and I enjoyed seeing them here.
The story was a little more complex than I expected, in all honesty, and jumped around quite a bit. It was a bit hard to follow, considering that the ebook formatting was atrocious and there weren't line or chapter or section breaks where they should have been.
The last 50 pages of the book were by far my favorite. I liked the humor here, and the way that things came together. It was a little too perfect, but... enjoyable. I'd recommend it... -
Back in 1996 this was No.3 of year out of 145 books but was my Top book of the year.Set around the most important thing in Star Trek History The Guardian of Forever (the Joan Collins Star Trek Emie award )
An Imzardi is beloved in Beltazod Diana Troy & Riker lovers across time even wrong time -
My favorite Trek novel ever (and of course made me a die-hard Imzadi shipper). I have it in paperback...and hardcover...and audiobook...
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I'm almost embarrassed to give this, a Star Trek novel, five stars, but I am compelled to go back every few years and read it, so I guess it must be pretty good. It might be because I am something of a romantic and whenever I start to feel the need for a good love story, this is the one I pick up! I loved The Next Generation, it was my favorite Trek, but I've never read any other novels in this genre. Every time I've tried, I have found that the author's ideas about extrapolating the characters' personalities does not fit with my own ideas and I just get annoyed. For some reason this one didn't bother me, perhaps because the story line was so good that I didn't care. One little flaw in this book is the obvious reference here and there to the show. It's almost like someone (an editor) said to the author, "yeah, the story's great, but you need to go back and make it clear that you actually watched the show." There's an idiotic passage in which the grown Wesley Crusher admits to having an adolescent crush on Deanna Troi because of the gray jumpsuit she wore in the early seasons of the show. Please. We all know that poor Marina Sirtis looked like a cow in that horror.
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Imzadi wasn't bad. It was a little bit cheesy, and it was written at a lower reading level than expected, but it contained a surprising amount of emotional punch for a book that is both pulpy and a cheesy romance. I'm sure that it's a crowd-pleaser for anyone who wants to know a little bit more about Riker and Troi's history/relationship previous to that portrayed in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Imzadi is entertaining, better-than-average Star Trek fan fiction, but I don't think that is has much to offer to non-fans or the many TNG fans who don't like Riker and/or Troi much.
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Several times while reading Imzadi, I was completely surprised by where Peter David took the story. Unpredictable and always interesting, Imzadi is arguably one of the best Star Trek novels out there. In a recent edition of his article "Ten For Ward" at StarTrek.com, author Dayton Ward included Imzadi on his list of Trek novels for the new Star Trek reader. Imzadi was the recommendation of his fellow author David Mack, who said that “its ending is also one of the best I've ever read in a Star Trek novel.” I find myself in complete agreement with this statement. Imzadi is a must-read for any Trek fan.
Full review:
https://www.treklit.com/2013/12/imzad... -
The best Trek fiction - TOS, TNG or other - that I've yet encountered. Very solid writing, tight plot, and excellent audio narration by Jonathan Frakes, i.e. Riker. The story provides some very interesting background on the much speculated about origins of Riker and Troi's relationship, going back quite a bit before their days on the Enterprise. The Guardian of Forever, which seems to come up as a favorite plot device in quite a bit of Trek fiction (and I mean, who can resist the allure of time travel), features as well. Looking at the cover, which shows the likeness of both young Riker, and an older, gray haired Riker, should have clued me into that.
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The opening and ending of Imzadi is a solid time travel story, but the great majority of this book concerns Riker and Troi's first meeting and the beginnings of their relationship and is very poor. Imzadi is filled with the worst romantic cliches and is unfortunately a very sexist and bad look for Riker who seems to take a "no actually means yes" approach to seduction and Troi who seems overly intellectual seemingly only to contrast stronger with the instinctual Riker in this book and lacks a lot of agency of her own. It's a shame this takes up such an enormous chunk of the book when the time travel story attached at the beginning and end are actually interesting and I liked seeing disillusioned grumbly future Riker. Imzadi was a disappointment to me but especially because of how praised this book was compared to how underwhelming it was to actually read.
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This is a personal favorite. It was one of the few books in the world I have read more than four times. If you are a Star Trek fan and a fan of romance, action, adventure, and time travel, this book is for you. If not, your loss. I hold this book close to my heart because I love the plot. Can't say much for the writing except it is supreme for popular fiction. I love it! It is truly my guiltiest pleasure.
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A long-time favorite. One day, I will probably have to replace my copy, and I will probably cry when that day comes. Even if it is a touch melodramatic at times, I love that it's a mostly complete history of their relationship -- and that it's one of the last ST novels sanctioned by Gene before his death.
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20 years ago, (approximately) Imzadi was probably the very first Star Trek novel I ever read. I think it has held up well to time.
I loved seeing the back story of Deanna and Riker. (Even though books are not technically canon). I also loved seeing a possible future from 40 years in the future. Great story and a nice romance to boot. -
I have loved Star Trek TNG since I was a kid. Counselor Troi is one of my favorite characters. This book would have made a really fun two-part episode. It draws on many of the themes that are so inherent to Star Trek, ethics, causality, and adds in a romance that persists across all of space and time.
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There is so much depth to this story. To the realization of the characters, the world of Betazed and what it's like being Betazoid, and to the relationship between Riker and Troi which is never really explored on the show. It also is a beautifully done romance which goes so well with a story that involves the Guardian of Forever (which is from the Original series episode "The City on the Edge of Forever.") And it's beautifully done because there are complications to the romance, and to Riker's actions, which made for some very interesting dilemmas that even Data wasn't able to see his way through clearly. The characterizations of the characters we are familiar with was spot on, although I was sometimes at some doubt to Data's decision-making in the story, since I think as a character he can be swayed from logic sometimes by loyalty.
The story combines action, adventure, time travel and romance to create a very moving tribute to the relationship of Riker and Troi, and I'm a little sad that the potential of exploring their romance and history more wasn't a real part of the show. But perhaps it was only through this novel that their complicated relationship could be explored and come off so believably. Because this book does fit in so well with the way the characters developed on the show.
This is a book that transcends the TV show and fully captures the world and the characters in an absorbing, suspenseful and touching read. It is apparent that this book came out before the end of the TV series as there are some changes from canon as it were, but this was ultimately such a satisfying and believable extension of the the characters' stories that I wish it was canon. -
This was such a surprise! I am not a huge trekkie. I've seen some of the episodes of the original Star Trek as well as the Next Generation and always enjoyed. I read this for a group read and it was the first time that I have read a book based on a series. I was so surprised with how much I liked it! It's a great story that gives the backstory of how Riker and Deanna meet. We know from the show that they previously been involved, but we never got too much information from the show. This book answers alot of those questions as well as gives us a hint to a possible future. Loved it, loved it! Highly recommended!
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I forgot that it was possible to love these characters any more than I did. In particular, Riker and Data.
And, yes, thank you, Harlan, for making up the most ridiculous time travel trope in all of sci-fidom. -
So, you have to be a Star Trek fan to even think about picking up this book, but if you think Troi and Riker were born for each other, then you have to read their full story.
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This one really gave you a lot of insight into Troi and Ryker's relationship. I love reading about what you didn't see on-screen.
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The horniest Star Trek novel I've ever read - and I've read Wesley Crusher: Teenage F#ck Machine.
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I have no idea what other reviewers say and I'm not going to check. I thoroughly enjoyed this, found it very well-written. Some little bits might have been a bit over-the-top, but don't we expect that, even enjoy that, from Star Trek?
"A traditional entrée into conversation has always been to discuss something utterly inconsequential; Something that no one can do anything about. The weather has always filled the bill... But look at that.... 'Looks like a vacuum today. And they produce more of the same for tomorrow.'" (Guinan, trying to open a conversation with someone looking out the windows of Ten-Forward.)
Guinan does get into it. Someone is feeling guilty for not being a perfect friend, and G. asks whether they did anything horrible, like rough her up, or beat up one of her friends. They say, no, she wouldn't put up with that at all. Well, G. says, why are you beating up yourself then?
The book also makes me want to read at least a summary of
Julius Caesar. Somehow I know virtually nothing. Apparently the assassins thought they were doing the right thing, for the sake of the country maybe?
Onward! -
In honor of the 25th anniversary, of what would be my all time favorite show if it were not for The X-Files, Star Trek the Next Generation is coming to Blu-Ray totally redone. Having read most of the novels over two decades ago, I thought that I would write my general feel for the serial STNG novels. I could never do a real review now, other than to say that I loved them.
Star Trek the Next Generation was both my favorite science fiction series in college, and also my favorite serial novel. I was a major Trekkie during the late 80's and early 90's. I used to read two books a weekend as I rode the bus home from college to see my wife, who then was my girlfriend. The television series made me love Jean Luc but with regards to the books, it was all about number One. Riker was portrayed in a much tougher fashion than on the tv series and he was much more of a star. This was always unfortunate to me, as I was and still am a huge Jonathan Frakes fan. He had many awesome novelized fights that I wish were shown on the tv show. Riker could go toe to toe with a Klingon. Worf was a bad ass in both formats, and he was so damn cool. Troi, was also another favorite of mine in both formats, as her relationship with Riker really gave us emotions to love. As for Jean Luc, he to me, is the epitome of a Starship Captain, where as James T. is the most charismatic and probably best leader for first contact. I had a blast reading these books and would love to go back for more.
This was one of the very best.
