Over the weekend I attended the Shore Leave convention in Baltimore, Maryland. I started going in 2000 and it has become something of an annual tradition. This year, however, was the first where I attended as a guest, due to the publication of Ring Around the Sky and a story in the No Limits anthology,Continue reading “Vacation and Shore Leave”
Category Archives: Star Trek
On Future Evolution
In Greg Benford’s Foundation’s Fear there’s mention of a planet in the days before the fall of the Galactic Empire where humans are green. I don’t know the hows or whys–Benford doesn’t explain. It seems to me that it would be an adaptation to their environment, and a green pigmentation provided a protection against unusualContinue reading “On Future Evolution”
On Energy Weapons and Kinetic Weapons in Star Trek
This has been playing on my mind for a few days. There’s a problem with Star Trek. It’s a little too high tech. It’s like how everything hovers, when wheels are perfectly good ways of getting around. It bothers me that energy weapons seem to be the rule of the day in the 24th-century. InContinue reading “On Energy Weapons and Kinetic Weapons in Star Trek”
Allyn's Crackpot Theory: Why Zak Kebron Wears a Gravity Belt
It’s stated in one of the earlier New Frontier books that Zak Kebron needs to wear a gravity belt to function in the lower-than-Brikar-normal gravity (i.e., Earth gravity) environment of the USS Excalibur. That doesn’t make a lot of sense; humans can function tolerably well in the zero-gee environment of low Earth orbit, and theContinue reading “Allyn's Crackpot Theory: Why Zak Kebron Wears a Gravity Belt”
On Star Trek Commodores
Commodore is, in naval history, a title rather than a rank, held by a captain who commands a fleet, essentially like an admiral, but without the promotion, and for a limited period of time. What we’ve seen in Star Trek is that Commodore is a rank. Bob Wesley, in “The Ulimate Computer,” was acting inContinue reading “On Star Trek Commodores”
On Worf's Return to Starfleet
Some Star Trek fans have a major problem with Star Trek: Nemesis–Worf is back in his Starfleet uniform, and his role as Ambassador to the Klingon Empire, established in Deep Space Nine‘s final episode, “What You Leave Behind,” is wholly ignored. This quote is typical “perhaps my biggest complaint about Nemesis was that without evenContinue reading “On Worf's Return to Starfleet”
On the Picard who fought at Trafalgar
What I’m wanting to do is write a story about the Picard who fought at Trafalgar, mentioned in Star Trek: Generations, and I am trying to settle on a name for the historical Picard’s ship, though perhaps giving the French frigate the same (or a similar) name as the Starfleet vessel his descendant commanded fiveContinue reading “On the Picard who fought at Trafalgar”
On Deep Space Nine Novels
I received a question from John recently: I’m wondering if any pre-relaunch DS9 books are worth picking up. I’m particurally interested in “Invasion! #3: Time’s Enemy”. Is it worth reading and are there any others I should pick up that won’t interfere with the continuity of the series? Three of the best pre-finale DS9 novelsContinue reading “On Deep Space Nine Novels”
More on Deep Space Nine: Warped
I admit, my views on Jeter’s book fall outside the mainstream opinion. And I’m not writing this to throw stones in anyone’s direction, but it seems to me that a lot of the criticism of Warped boils down to “It’s just not Star Trek,” which I don’t think is necessarily true, but I do understandContinue reading “More on Deep Space Nine: Warped”
On The Case of the Colonist's Corpse
I have to give mad props to Pocket for the red dye on the edge of Colonist’s Corpse‘s pages. That really does evoke the memory of haunting used bookshops looking for vintage 1950s/60s paperbacks. Maybe it would have been asking too much for the book to be printed in microtype, in a taller-than-standard size, andContinue reading “On The Case of the Colonist's Corpse”