During my dance class reading on Wednesday, I finished another Star Trek book. The Buried Age by Christopher L. Bennett, whose Orion's Hounds was the first Titan book I truly enjoyed, was another Lost Era novel; this one filling in the gap of Picard's life in between the so-called "Battle of Maxia" where the Stargazer was lost and his taking command of the Enterprise-D prior to "Encounter at Farpoint."
As with most of the "Lost Era" books, my interest in the actual plot of the book, in this case finding a member of a extremely ancient race and falling in love with her, paled in comparison to the geeky references found within. For instance, you know exactly why Picard gets so irritated with Phillipa Louvois in "Measure of a Man." Another small reference I enjoyed was that the Galaxy-class was supposed to launch on 2361, the bicentennial of the Federation but of course was delayed until 2363-4. Was that Bennett's doing or the Okudas' when they came up with the Federation birthdate of 2161? While I enjoyed how he met all the future members of his crew, especially the particularly well-written meeting of Picard and Data, Worf's joining seemed just thrown in to me. (I mean the nameless transporter chief from the first season was given a better backstory!) The reason for this may have been an inside joke on the part of the author as Worf was really just created by Gene as a background character to show "yesterday's enemies are today's friends" but it still seemed lame. I also must comment that the synopsis on the back seems to imply Troi has more to do in this book than she actually does but that's a very, very small nitpick...
Last night, was the official Christmas party at the seminary. I guess the plan was to go caroling around the neighborhood but that plan was nixed due to the snow so we had a service of Lessons and Carols instead. The photocopied sheets were of a translation very old in age. We of the UCC are very big on inclusive language and these carols were not so the grumbling made about this was kind of amusing. Afterwards we had dinner of either chicken pot pie or cheese lasagna and salad. For dessert, my boss conveniently had a birthday so we had cake. It was a good time despite trudging back and forth in the snow. 1 to 2 inches? Try 3.5 with more expected Sunday!
As with most of the "Lost Era" books, my interest in the actual plot of the book, in this case finding a member of a extremely ancient race and falling in love with her, paled in comparison to the geeky references found within. For instance, you know exactly why Picard gets so irritated with Phillipa Louvois in "Measure of a Man." Another small reference I enjoyed was that the Galaxy-class was supposed to launch on 2361, the bicentennial of the Federation but of course was delayed until 2363-4. Was that Bennett's doing or the Okudas' when they came up with the Federation birthdate of 2161? While I enjoyed how he met all the future members of his crew, especially the particularly well-written meeting of Picard and Data, Worf's joining seemed just thrown in to me. (I mean the nameless transporter chief from the first season was given a better backstory!) The reason for this may have been an inside joke on the part of the author as Worf was really just created by Gene as a background character to show "yesterday's enemies are today's friends" but it still seemed lame. I also must comment that the synopsis on the back seems to imply Troi has more to do in this book than she actually does but that's a very, very small nitpick...
Last night, was the official Christmas party at the seminary. I guess the plan was to go caroling around the neighborhood but that plan was nixed due to the snow so we had a service of Lessons and Carols instead. The photocopied sheets were of a translation very old in age. We of the UCC are very big on inclusive language and these carols were not so the grumbling made about this was kind of amusing. Afterwards we had dinner of either chicken pot pie or cheese lasagna and salad. For dessert, my boss conveniently had a birthday so we had cake. It was a good time despite trudging back and forth in the snow. 1 to 2 inches? Try 3.5 with more expected Sunday!
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