(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on May 27, 2020.) Yesterday (in the wee morning hours, Monday morning), I finished reading “Drastic Measure(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on May 27, 2020.) Yesterday (in the wee morning hours, Monday morning), I finished reading “Drastic Measures” by Dayton Ward (2018), the second book in the series of “Star Trek: Discovery” tie-in novels.
I have to say that Dayton Ward is probably my favorite of the authors currently writing Star Trek novels (although, I have to admit that I’m only just now getting back into reading the Trek novels and am probably not familiar with many of the current writers’ work). In 2018, I read Ward’s “In History’s Shadow” (2013), a Star Trek original series (meaning Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc.) novel and I thought that was really good.
I think he surpassed it in “Drastic Measures”, though. Ward has a gift for both engaging plots while at the same time knowing the familiar characters from the Star Trek tv shows and movies so well that they always are perfectly in character.
The plot of “Drastic Measures”, like the previous novel in the series that I also just recently read, David Mack’s “Desperate Hours”, takes place mostly in a time period prior to the start of the “Star Trek: Discovery” CBS All Access tv series (which itself is a prequel to the classic 1960s “Star Trek” series). The choice to set many of the novels before the tv series was because they were being written prior to any of the tv episodes coming out (and the first novel before the tv series had even started filming). Also, media tie-in authors generally don’t know what directions an in production tv series are going to take over the course of a season, so it’s usually safer to set one’s novels sometime prior to the then currently airing tv season.
“Drastic Measures” takes place ten years prior to the start of “Star Trek: Discovery”, and features two “Discovery” characters who don’t actually ever meet each on the tv series, Philippa Georgiou (later captain of the U.S.S. Shenzhou) and Gabriel Lorca (later captain of the U.S.S. Discovery; well, sorta).
Here, they are Lt. Lorca and Commander Georgiou. Lorca is stationed at a remote Starfleet outpost on a Federation colony planet, Tarsus IV. A disease suddenly and rapidly spreads throughout all of the crops and other food on Tarsus IV, putting the thousands of colonists there in danger of starving. Georgiou is reassigned to a ship being sent there to bring much needed supplies, medicine, and other aid to the colonists.
However, before Georgiou and the ship she has been temporarily assigned to can arrive, the desperation of the colonists (who do not knew that aid is only days away rather than the weeks or months they were first told) leads to the removal of the governor overseeing them and her replacement with a man named General Kodos.
Now, fans of the original 1960s “Star Trek” series are as already familiar with Tarsus IV and Kodos from the episode “The Conscience of the King”, in which we first learn of Captain Kirk’s own history as a teenager on Tarsus IV and of this same food crisis that happened when he and his family lived their. And we learn of the “Tarsus IV Massacre”, and the role that “Kodos the Executioner”, as he came to be called, played in causing it.
So, this novel, “Drastic Measures”, takes that original series Captain Kirk back story event and ties into it younger versions of Georgiou and Lorca from “Discovery”. Lorca is driven by intense personal grief to hunt down Kodos and his followers, who have fled the major city center to hide out in a nearby mountain range that interferes with sensors and other detection devices. Georgiou, who outranks him and is leading the recovery efforts, can tell that Lorca is too emotionally involved but still allows him to lead the search to bring Kodos to justice.
That’s all I think I’ll say, other than this was one of those books that I never really wanted to put down and would read long into the night. That alone gets it the rating I’m giving it on GoodReads, four stars out of five. I highly recommend this one for fans of “Star Trek: Discovery”, and also fans of the original “Star Trek”. As it takes place prior to “Discovery”, I don’t think it’s necessary to have seen “Discovery” to enjoy “Drastic Measures” (although it will probably make it a more satisfying read to already be familiar with the characters of Philippa Georgiou and Gabriel Lorca)....more
**spoiler alert** (Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 4/22/20.) Last night (Monday), I finished reading “Desperate Hours” (2017) by David Ma**spoiler alert** (Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 4/22/20.) Last night (Monday), I finished reading “Desperate Hours” (2017) by David Mack, the first novel in the “Star Trek: Discovery” series tying into the television series.
I feel I should start out by pointing out that this novel was written while the first season of the show was still in production. The author (who I'll refer to here by his last name, "Mack") stated in an interview that when his novel was finally “locked” (finished), they still had half of the season one episodes left to write.
The reason I bring this up is that I didn’t read "Desperate Hours" until just now, long after season two of the tv series has been out, and in season two the creators of the show ended up going in some pretty different directions with certain characters than what was expected back when Mack was writing this.
Therefore, my reaction to the novel is colored by what has been since shown on the tv series (which isn’t really fair to Mack and his novel, but I think he would be one of the first to admit that those are the potential risks of writing tie-in novels to a currently in production property like “Discovery”).
Even with its seeming discrepancies with season two of the show, “Desperate Hours” is still an enjoyable read (more on that in a bit).
However, at times I still couldn't help myself from thinking to myself things like "Captain Pike doesn't sound very much like they do on the show", and, "That's not the relationship between Burnham and Spock that we see".
Why is that? Well, according to Mack, the idea of making the first Discovery novel a prequel to the first episode of the series, and one in which we get to see the crew of the Shenzhou cross paths with that of Captain Pike and the Enterprise came to him from "Discovery" series creator Bryan Fuller. So, that's what "Desperate Hours" is about.
At that time, it was not known that the series would be featuring Captain Pike, Spock, and the crew of the Enterprise in season two. At that point, it was assumed that those characters would not be seen on the show, just referred to. (And, adding to the sense of a disconnect, Fuller left "Discovery" while it was still relatively easily in preproduction for season one.)
So, "Desperate Hours" takes place one year before the start of the tv series, and Captain Georgiou of the Federation starship Shinzhou has just promoted Michael Burnham (the female Starfleet officer you see on the cover of the novel, in case you are not a "Discovery" watcher) to acting first officer and Saru to acting second officer (to Saru's displeasure, having been passed over for first officer by Burnham).
The novel opens on a colony world where a deep sea rig act accidentally discovers a large and dangerous vessel of some kind (soon termed the Juggernaut) that sinks the rig and sends a smaller drone to attack the colony.
Both the Shenzhou and the Enterprise are sent to destroy the Juggernaut before it can possibly leave the planet to attack other more populated worlds, even if it means killing everyone in the colony and destroying this planet's ecology to do so.
Georgiou and Pike butt heads over what to do, Georgiou absolutely refusing to attack the Juggernaut with photon torpedoes (which is what would wreck the planet if fired at the Juggernaut while it is still on the surface) while Pike insists that they must attack sooner than later because the probes the Juggernaut keeps sending to attack the two starships keep getting more powerful with each succeeding launch.
Michael Burnham (of the Shenzhou) and Spock (from the Enterprise) work together to infiltrate the Juggernaut in hopes of finding a way to stop it from within. Once inside, they face a series of deadly tests designed to be solved only if the two work together as a team. Each test becomes harder as they go, and eventually they find they must perform a Vulcan mind meld in order to solve the final test. Burnham at first refuses this due to the trauma of the previous time she had to undergo a mind meld with Spock's father, Sarek. However, she realizes that the only way to save not only her life and Spock's but also the lives of their shipmates and thousands of colonists is to go through with the mind meld.
It is these scenes with Michael Burnham and Spock that, while well written and I'm sure were not seen in anyway to be "wrong" if read when the book first came out, are the ones most effected by season two's later depiction of Burnham and Spock's past history together. Here in "Desperate Hours", it is presented as if the two of them both had a history with Sarek and Amanda on Vulcan and very much knew of each other but that they had never actually met each other prior to this story. On the show, on the other hand, while they have not seen each other for many years, they very much knew each other as children, Burnham being taken into Sarek and Amanda's home while Spock was still a child living in the same house. The novel makes it seem like Spock is older and was already gone when his parents took Burnham in.
So, while it is interesting to see these versions of Burnham and Spock getting to know each other and to realize how they both resented the other all these years for different reasons, it can't help but be negated a bit by the knowledge that when they see each other next in season two of the show it will be with a very different history and relationship with each other.
Still, it is a good read, especially the scenes with Saru investigating the ancient civilization found to have existed on this planet in tunnels underneath the colony alongside the Enterprise's first officer, Number One (given an actual name in this novel, Commander Una).
There are also several nods to the original appearance of Captain Pike and the Enterprise on the pilot episode of the original "Star Trek" series ("The Cage"/"The Menagerie"). Characters like Lt. Tyler, the ship's navigator, and Dr. Phillip Boyce, the chief medical officer.
It's obvious that Mack was using Jeffrey Hunter's portrayal of Captain Christopher Pike from "The Cage" as his inspiration (after all, only he and Bruce Greenwood had really played the part at the time Mack was writing this, the latter in the J.J. Abrams reboot Star Trek movies). However, Anson Mount's portrayal in season two of "Discovery" is such a strong, charismatic one (and also the one most fresh in my mind) that it was impossible for me not to picture Mount as Pike in this story. This was a bit problematic, however, as there were times when Pike is quite adamant about destroying the colony if need be despite Georgiou's arguments to the contrary--even to the point of possibly firing on the Shenzhou when the two square off--in a way that doesn't really fit the personality of Mount's rendition of Pike. (And I'm sure that Mack would have written Pike at least a bit differently if he'd had the opportunity to see Anson Mount as Pike prior to writing his novel.)
All in all, I still recommend fans of "Star Trek: Discovery" to read "Desperate Hours". It serves as a very good lead up to where the tv series begins and it features the entire bridge crew of the Shenzhou, many of whom were only seen briefly in the series two-part premiere. And it's nice to get another story with Captain Philippa Georgiou (which we will also get in the second "Discovery" novel, "Drastic Measures", by Dayton Ward).
In the end (with everything I mention above), I give this three stars out of five. It's hard for me to speculate if I would have given it four stars if I read it back when it first came out (prior to season two of the show) but I think it's a strong possibility....more
**spoiler alert** (Copy of review posted to my Facebook page on 3/30/20.) I just finished reading the Neal Adams written and drawn "Deadman" trade pap**spoiler alert** (Copy of review posted to my Facebook page on 3/30/20.) I just finished reading the Neal Adams written and drawn "Deadman" trade paperback (2018), reprinting his six-issue limited series of the same name ("Deadman" #1-6, also from 2018).
I typically really like Neal Adams' stuff, even his newer stuff (although ever since he's decided to mostly write and draw his books I have to say that the stories have typically not been very good and his characters, who he can still draw wonderfully, tend to act way out of character with any earlier versions of those characters).
This Deadman limited series, however, gets only a "meh" out of me, I'm afraid. At times his art is still very neat to look at, but his writing is much worse on this than even some of his other more recent stuff. (Prior to this I thought his "Batman: Odyssey" was "badly written but nice to look at". This one is a step down from that, into "badly written, part of the time nice to look at".)
Once again, existing characters (Deadman/Boston Brand, Batman, Commissioner Gordon, Alfred, the Spectre, Dr. Fate, the Demon Etrigan, Zatanna, etc.) all speak and act in ways different from any versions seen prior to this story. And the plot this time is very hard to follow unless you are *very* familiar with these characters and can therefore infer a lot of what's going on despite it not being very clearly depicted for you in the dialogue and artwork here. (For instance, why is Commissioner Gordon in Japan at the beginning as an "acting ambassador" inspecting nuclear sites? We never do find out.)
Adams doesn't do a good job of introducing any of these characters well enough for a new reader to understand who they are. And if that's because he's aiming it entirely at long time readers who are already familiar with these characters then they are the ones most likely to realize that few of these characters are behaving correctly.
I found myself reading it just to look at Adams' artwork more than anything else. But even in this regard, "Deadman" isn't as good as Adams' other recent stuff. Here, everyone's expressions are always at one extreme or another (shouting angrily, shocked, confused, etc.). And the action is at times hard to follow (requiring the reader to sometimes "read" a panel or page more than once to realize what's happening exactly.
Some of his characters still look very good. Batman/Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon, and Alfred Pennyworth all still have the classic Adams' look. And I especially like how he draws the Spectre and Zatanna (although it is funny to see her in a jacket and heavy books over her usual costume with the fishnet stockings in the freezing cold arctic setting near the end of the story). Adams' Deadman in this is drawn merely "okay", though, and his creatures that the heroes have to fight in the end (yeti, zombies, "robotoids", "deformers", etc.) don't look all that great. (When Adams goes for "ugly" or "grotesque", he doesn't tend to really pull that off very well.
Worst thing: When you get to the end, the story doesn't actually end. Instead, if has a supposedly big "reveal", followed by, "Stand by for Book 2! 'Batman: Demigods War'". (Which apparently got retitled as "Batman vs. Ra's Al Ghul", another six issue limited series that started coming out in late 2019.)
Maybe if I reread my 1970s "Deadman" stories I would appreciate this follow-up series a bit more as it involves a lot of characters that I barely remember from the original comics, like Deadman/Boston Brand's brother Cleveland. Somehow, I doubt it, though, as those 1970s comics were written by others and didn't suffer from a lot of the basic storytelling problems of this Adams written story. And, regardless, Adams shows here that he really needs someone helping with the dialogue as it's pretty darn painful to read in this one. I give this a two stars (out of five)....more
(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 5/1/20.) I just finished reading a very fun book, “The True Adventures of the World’s Greatest Stuntman”(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 5/1/20.) I just finished reading a very fun book, “The True Adventures of the World’s Greatest Stuntman” (Vic Armstrong, 2011).
Armstrong, who started out as a stunt double in 1967—attaining the distinction of most prolific stuntman ever according to the Guinness Book of World Records—went on to become a highly esteemed stunt coordinator and "second unit director" on a multitude of films including some of the most well remembered of the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s (and on into the 2010s).
The first part of this memoir of Armstrong’s which covers his early years growing up in the U.K. up through the start of his career as a stuntman is somewhat interesting.
However, once he starts discussing each of the films he worked on, *that’s* when the book gets really interesting as Armstrong jumps from one well known (and also lesser known) movie project after another.
He has a very nice, conversational writing style and he keeps his chapters very short, which adds to the whirlwind like nature of a successful motion picture stunt man, stunt coordinator, and second unit director. Most chapters are dedicated to one particular movie and the work Armstrong did on that picture, but in some cases he is getting a call to do one while still working on another, flying back and forth between projects.
As a child of the 1970s and 80s, many of the films Vic Armstrong worked on had a big impact on me and still do to this day. Doubling Christopher Reeve on the first two Superman movies and Harrison Ford on the original Indiana Jones trilogy--Armstrong strongly resembled Ford and not only doubled him in the stunt work on those films but also filled in for Ford for several weeks on “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” when Ford seriously injured his back and had to have back surgery in the middle of production--are probably the most significant for me, personally, but he also did so much more, and reading of his encounters with various actors (Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Will Smith, Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, etc.), directors (Steven Spielberg, Richard Attenborough, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Richard Donner, John Landis, David Lynch, Roman Polanski, Kenneth Branagh, Paul Verhoeven, James Cameron, Roland Emmerich, McG, David Goyer, J.J. Abrams, Bryan Singer, etc.), producers (George Lucas, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson of Eon Productions, the makers of the official James Bond films, etc.) really puts one back into the time frame Armstrong was making these movies in if they are old enough.
I highly recommend this book for fans of movies and/or movie making, and for those who just watched a lot of these movies (see below) that might get nostalgic feelings reading Armstrong's memories of working on. (I give it four stars out of five.)
Vic Armstrong’s filmography includes (* stunts, ** stunt coordinator or "action coordinator", *** second unit director)
1960s: “Arabesque“ (1966)*, “You Only Live Twice” (1967)*, “The Assassination Bureau” (1968)*, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1968)*, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1968)*, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” (1969)*,
1970s: “Macbeth” (1971) (Roman Polanski version)*, “Live and Let Die” (1973)* (double for Roger Moore), “The Pink Panther Strikes Again” (1976)*, “Return of a Man Called Horse” (1976)*, “The Big Sleep” (1976)*, “A Bridge Too Far” (1977)* (assistant stunt arranger), “Superman” (1978) and “Superman II” (1980)*/** (double for Christopher Reeve),
1980s: “An American Werewolf in London" (1981)*, "Dragonslayer" (1981)*, "Omen 3: The Final Conflict" (1981)*, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981)* (double for Harrison Ford), "Blade Runner" (1982)* (double for Harrison Ford), "Krull" (1983)*, "Never Say Never Again" (1983)*/** (double for Sean Connery), "Return of the Jedi"* (double for Harrison Ford), "Conan the Destroyer" (1984)**, "Dune" (1984)*/***, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984)*/** (double for Harrison Ford), "Legend" (1985)*, "Red Sonja" (1985)**, "The Mission" (1986)**, "Empire of the Sun" (1987)*/**, "Rambo III" (1988)**, "Henry V" (1989) (Kenneth Branagh version)**/***, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989)*/** (double for Harrison Ford),
1990s: "Air America" (1990)**, "Total Recall" (1990)**/***, "Double Impact" (1991)**/***, "F/X 2" (1991)**/***, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" (1991)***, "Universal Soldier" (1992)**/***, "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" (1992, TV) (director, one episode), "Army of One" (1993) (director), "Last Action Hero" (1993)**/***, "Cutthroat Island" (1995)**, "Johnny Mnemonic" (1995)**/***, "Rob Roy" (1995)**/***, "The Phantom" (1996)***, "Starship Troopers" (1997)**/***, "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997)**/***, "Entrapment" (1999)**/***, "The World Is Not Enough" (1999)**/***,
2000s: "Charlie's Angels" (2000)**/***, "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (2001)***, "Die Another Day" (2002)**/***, "Gangs of New York" (2002)**/***, "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003)***, "Blade: Trinity" (2004)**/***, "Miracle" (2004)***, "The Great Raid" (2005)***, "War of the Worlds" (2005)**/***, "Mission: Impossible 3" (2006)**/***, "The Golden Compass" (2007)**/***, "I Am Legend" (2007)**/***, "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" (2008)**, "Valkyrie" (2008)**, "Salt" (2009)**/***,
2010s: "Shanghai" (2010)**/***, "The Green Hornet" (2011)**/***, "Thor" (2011)**/***, "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2011)**/***, and (after this book came out) "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" (2014)**/***, "Left Behind" (2014) (director), "Mechanic: Resurrection" (2016)***, "A Sunday Horse" (2016) (director), "American Assassin" (2017)***...more
(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 5/10/20.) I just finished reading another one today, "Bob Hope on TV: Thanks for the Video Memories" by (Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 5/10/20.) I just finished reading another one today, "Bob Hope on TV: Thanks for the Video Memories" by Wesley Hyatt (2018).
Let me preface this by saying that I *loved* Wesley Hyatt's "The Carol Burnett Show Companion" book (2016). That book is clearly the definitive book on that subject and demonstrates how Hyatt is one of the best authors at writing research books on classic tv shows. (I also loved his "Television's Top 100: The Most Watched American Broadcasts, 1960-2010" book.)
Any book would be a hard act to follow after the Carol Burnett Show book, and Hyatt chose in my opinion a very difficult subject in choosing to review the over forty-five years (and nearly 1,000 hours) of television programming of one of the true television legends, Bob Hope.
While Hyatt's Carol Burnett Show book has the advantage of being focused on one specific series, allowing for in depth reviews of each season plus chapters detailing the how the show got on the air and what the primary performs did after it went off, the sheer scope of Bob Hope's television output from 1950 to 1996 requires this to be a very different kind of book.
While Hyatt does give lengthy chapter intros summarizing events of the period and sharing interesting background information and quotes from people (writers, producers, directors, and fellow performers) who worked with Bob Hope on his television appearances, the bulk of this lengthy book is composed of short "bullet point" entries for each television special or program episode listing following a set format of pertinent data points (program title, air date and time, performers, director, producers) and a brief (generally one to three paragraphs) review of the special or program by Hyatt.
Instead of a single straight chronological approach mixing the various types of programs Bob Hope appeared in, Hyatt choses instead to break them down by program type. Following a lengthy introduction on Hope, including how Hope went from starring in movies to becoming a television fixture, and the behind the scenes history of the Bob Hope television specials, Hyatt then devotes the rest of the first half of the book (plus some) to Hope's tv specials (of which Bob Hope starred in 272 of on NBC from 1950 to 1996, and, amazingly enough, author Wesley Hyatt watched nearly all of them, all except the few that he was unable to find because they don't exist anymore or were not accessible). Hyatt breaks the specials down by dedicating a chapter to each decade ("Specials -- 1950s", "Specials -- 1960s", and so on). Hope's many on location "entertaining the troops" at military bases in both domestic locations and also in far off countries during war time/military conflict like Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East all are all part of this section of the book.
The last six chapters are "Awards and Telethon Shows" (which includes individual entries for the many times that Bob Hope hosted the Academy Awards), "Talk Shows" (appearances of Bob Hope on television talk shows like his many appearances on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson"), "Game Shows and Sports", "Guest Shots -- Variety Series and Specials" (appearances of Bob Hope on someone else's variety show or special other than his own like "The Ed Sullivan Show", "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In", "The Carol Burnett Show", "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" specials, "Donny & Marie", and "Sonny & Cher"), "Guest Shots -- Sitcoms, Dramas, One TV-Movie and One Cartoon" (which includes Bob Hope's famous guest appearance on "I Love Lucy", his many guest shots on "The Jack Benny Show", and even some 1980s and 80s shows like "Highway to Heaven", "The Golden Girls", "Roseanne", and "The Simpsons"), and "News, Informational, Documentary, Retrospective and Archival Shows".
This is an excellent reference book on the subject, the kind one may wish to "jump around" from one section to another or to go directly to a specific section. Aside from the long introduction section I mentioned and the opening summaries of each chapter following that (which are more "reader friendly" and interesting to read), the majority of the book is names, dates, titles, etc., one entry after another. I read it from cover to cover, but even I found myself just quickly scanning a lot of the names. And I also took several breaks, reading this book for awhile and then another one until I felt ready to return to this one.
Hyatt deserves high praise for his detailed research, having watched thousands of hours of programming from various sources (some of which required him to travel to locations where the only surviving print has to be viewed on the premises like at the Paley Center for Media in New York City) and distilling it all down into a single comprehensive volume on the subject which had to have been a major organizational feat. I commend him for it and I look forward to his next project, which I believe is to be a book on the lengthy career of Betty White.
However, I feel that I must feel that I must point out in the case of the Bob Hope book some aspects that I found to be a bit bothersome, one of which is Hyatt's repeated need to point out things like when Hope would tell jokes that would today be considered politically incorrect and ethnically insensitive or chauvinistic (demeaning to women), "out of touch" (such as how Hope was not a fan of the Beetles or other current music as time went on), or strongly conservative leaning in the Watergate and Vietnam war eras. I understand that these subjects are important from a historical standpoint and should be touched upon to get a true idea as to what these programs are like, but the individual entry reviews format Hyatt follows means that they are mentioned over and over again and it becomes both repetitive and a bit irritating at times. And what makes it more irritating at times is that Hyatt brings a modern day sensibility to his comments regarding these instances, not really trying to balance his current day distaste for them with whether or not people would have found them benign or even funny at the time. (I'm sure that a lot of Hope's regular viewers were of a similar age to that of Hope's and shared his opinions of the Beetles when they were first gaining fame, for instance, and that a lot of his viewers were not fervently anti-Vietnam, although I know that a sizable percentage of the country was at the time.)
Another thing that got a bit irritating was how, while Hyatt would quote specific jokes that he liked, seemingly more often he would summarize a program with how unfunny he found it to be. Part of this is related to what I talk about above, jokes with a specific political slant, for instance. But in addition to this, Hyatt seems to be a rather harsh critic when it comes to a lot of television humor of the period he's covering as in entry after entry he describes how unfunny or weak the writing is (although oftentimes he does say that he thinks Hope does the best with the material he was working with). I think a lot of it comes down simply to personal preference, and how humor is one of the most subjective things of all. What makes one person laugh can have absolutely no effect on a second person and actually be found objectionable by a third person.
Hyatt also has a low tolerance for the highly "jingoistic" Independence Day specials of the 1970s and other similar patriotic specials which people like Bob Hope and John Wayne often hosted, specials that I am sure my family and many others probably watched and enjoyed at the time. Likewise, certain types of shows like "Donny & Marie" and "Sonny & Cher" which he finds to be "artificial", "insipid", "mediocre", etc. Yes, I grant you that shows like "Donny & Marie" don't hold up very well over time. However, the overall effect is that Hyatt comes across throughout a lot of the book in his role as a reviewer as one who more often doesn't like the things he's watching than he does and therefore comes across as a rather negative person (which I know that he is not from the many times I've heard him as a guest on classic tv podcasts like "Stu's Show" (Stu Shostak) and Ed Robertson's "TV Confidential" and also from those two previous books that I'd read from him, the "Carol Burnett Show Companion" and the "Television's Top 100").
One specific example that jumps out at me as to how different people can perceive the same thing different ways from "Bob Hope on TV: Thanks for the Video Memories". In regards to Bob Hope's appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" from May 21, 1974, Hyatt says, "Coping with a musicians strike in its third week along with an audience composed largely of executives from NBC affiliates seems to frazzle Johnny Carson introducing Bob, who calls him his next guest when Ed McMahon corrects him that Bob will be his first one. Ed is a little cranky, as after Johnny says Bob needs no introduction, he interjects, 'Just bring him out here if [he] needs no introduction!'" (I can't give page numbers as my Kindle edition I checked out from the library doesn't give page numbers but it's in the "Guest Shots -- Variety Shows and Specials" chapter).
I actually, somehow, remembered this exchange between Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon and as I read Wesley Hyatt's summary of it, I kept thinking to myself, I don't remember Johnny seeming "frazzled", or Ed "cranky". So, I went looking for it on YouTube and I found it. (You can watch it at https://youtu.be/AGOV1wHBeyo .) Sure enough, what Hyatt describes as Ed being "cranky", I see simply as humorous bantering with Johnny (who also doesn't seem a bit "frazzled" to me). Different perceptions, I suppose.
Returning back to the book as a whole, however, I still very much enjoyed reading it. Wesley Hyatt is indeed a master "TV historian" and I've learned so much from the three books that I've read of his so far. (For instance, there are so many short lived television programs from the late 1940s through the 1980s that I still have never heard of, which is something I constantly find amazing since classic tv has been a hobby/interest of mine for a very long time now.)
While I give this particular book a three stars out of five rating on GoodReads, it is not meant to be a negative thing in any way. I simply found the more "reference book" format of much of this book plus, quite frankly, not quite as interesting subject matter being covered, to bring it down a bit in comparison to Hyatt's other two books I've read. In this case, there were sections and entries that I found very interesting, but in this case it wasn't from cover to cover, it was more a section here and an entry summary there, etc. Then, again, that's how "reference books" are generally designed to be read, so that's okay....more
(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 3/14/20.) I just finished reading “Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope” (2020), the first original nov(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 3/14/20.) I just finished reading “Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope” (2020), the first original novel tying into (and a prequel to) the now airing CBS All Access television series, “Star Trek: Picard”.
The story takes place in the Star Trek timeline in the years 2381-2385, starting two years after the events of the last of the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies, “Star Trek: Nemesis” (which took place in 2379) and deals with the discovery that the central star in Romulan space would soon be going supernova, threatening billions of lives living in planets within the blast range. (The Romulan star going supernova in 2387, two years after the events of “The Last Best Hope”, is from the 2009 J.J. Abrams “Star Trek” movie. “Star Trek: Picard”, the tv series, then picks up the story in 2399: twenty years after “Nemesis”, fourteen years after the end of “The Last Best Hope”, and twelve years after the Romulan star going supernova, destroying most of the Romulan empire.)
Ok, now that I’ve covered when this takes place, what did I think of the novel? Overall, I liked it. As of this time, I have not yet watched any episodes of “Star Trek: Picard” (although I plan to begin watching them over my now two week long—two weeks instead of the usual one thanks to the Coronavirus outbreak—Spring Break which just started). So, unlike for most people who will be reading this novel, I assume, it really was more of a preparation experience for “Star Trek: Picard” rather than that of a prequel story (which it also is).
I should also mention that despite my being a long-time Star Trek novel reader going all the way back to the mid 1980s (including the start of the Star Trek: The Next Generation novels), for the most part I would buy them with the plan to read them all “eventually” (something I am just now finding the time to finally get started on).
One reason why I mention this now is that Pocket Books released over the years (from 2003 onwards) a large number of “post ‘Nemesis’” Star Trek: The Next Generation novels establishing an entire timeline of events for Captain Picard and company that now do not line up with “Star Trek: Picard” (similar to the oodles of Star Wars tie-in novels and comic books that instantly got relegated to “Star Wars: Legends” status when Disney purchased Lucasfilm and started making new Star Wars movies starting with “The Force Awakens”).
Unlike the Star Trek readers who are not over twenty years behind in their Star Trek reading, though, this did not really effect my enjoyment of “The Last Best Hope” because I am not fully aware of just what happened in the previously released post “Nemesis” novels.
I thought the story here was interesting, Picard leaving the Enterprise to accept promotion to admiral so that he can take command of the fleet of relief ships being sent into Romulan space to transport refugees to planets outside the supernova’s anticipated blast range.
Much of the novel deals with the sheer size and scope of such a mission. How to massively increase and speed up the number of starships that can be produced to be used as transport ships. The creation of the workforce to build those ships. And political bounce back from both Federation member worlds who see it as a massive diversion of necessary resources from their own planets in order to help the Romulans, who have for generations been a nemesis, as well as from the scientists and engineers who must now put years of their own research and projects on hold in order to be part of the Romulan relief effort.
On top of all of this, the Romulans involved, both at the governmental level as well as those refugees that Picard is transporting to safety, continually make things difficult by hiding information and having their own agendas.
The only two Star Trek: The Next Generation “regulars” that are in “The Last Best Hope” are Jean-Luc Picard and Geordi La Forge, the latter being Picard’s man in charge back at the Utopia Planitia shipyards on (and in orbit around) Mars overseeing the shipbuilding and retrofitting phase of the relief mission. Although a few other TNG characters are referred to, every other character is an original one (although I know that at least a few of them are also on the “Star Trek: Picard” tv series).
Without going too much more into the plot details, I did find it to be an enjoyable enough story from both the perspective of a general Star Trek story as well as specifically as a lead up to the “Star Trek: Picard” series, bridging the gap between “Next Generation” and “Picard”.
Two things that kind of bugged me, though. First, the author, Una McCormack (for whom this is her ninth Star Trek novel writing), includes only the slimmest of connections with what was seen in “Star Trek”, the 2009 J.J. Abrams movie, regarding the Romulan supernova. In that movie, Ambassador Spock is shown to have been trying to stop the supernova from happening and failing to do so. Granted, that’s a couple years after “Last Best Hope”, but what we discover about what Spock is up to during the timeframe of this novel is disappointingly little. (I can only guess that they wanted to keep the references to the 2009 movie to a minimum.)
More distracting to me was the repeated use of common current day profanity in this novel. Now, I know that there are regular Star Trek fans who aren’t bothered by that, nor would I really be if I was reading a non Star Trek novel. However, it breaks me out of the entire Star Trek mindset to have characters frequently using the “f-word” and “sh*t” as not only does it break the illusion that the story is taking place hundreds of years in the future from now but also because it seems to break with established Star Trek precedent. Yes, in the previous Star Trek tv series and movies going all the way back to the original 1960s “Star Trek” tv series and on through the various other tv series and movies, you get quite a few “damns”, etc. You even get the rare, strategic harsher curse word (such as when Data, still struggling with having real human emotions for the first time, says “sh*t” upon realizing that they are going to crash into the planet’s atmosphere in “Star Trek Generations”).
However, “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” addressees, and humorously so, that the use of profanity is mostly unknown to Kirk, Spock, and company in their own time frame in the 23rd century when they suddenly find themselves in the streets of 1986 San Francisco amongst twentieth century people who are using such terms all around them. (The unforgettable instance of Kirk trying to mimic that behavior by cursing back to an angry driver, “Well, double dumb ass on you!”)
It’s not that I want there to be absolutely zero profanity in a Star Trek story, but, at the same time, I feel like there should be a specific reason for it, and that it should be used sparingly. Instead, in “The Last Best Hope”, it comes across to me as a decision by someone (I don’t know if McCormack as the author of the novel or perhaps the producers of the tv series which it is tying into) to start to make the way people talk in Star Trek more like that ofhow people talk today “in real life” rather than how they have, often by necessity, talked in past Star Trek tv series and movies. (I should point out that Picard himself does not use the above mentioned curse words in the novel, but La Forge does a few times, something we’ve never seen from him prior to this, and several of the original “Picard” characters that we are introduced to in the novel, like Picard’s new first officer, Raffi Musiker, do most of the cursing.)
All of that said, I still enjoyed “The Last Best Hope” and I look forward to watching “Star Trek: Picard” (and to reading any future “Star Trek: Picard” tie-in novels). I rated “Last Best Hope” three stars out of five on GoodReads (although I would have given it a three and a half star rating if GoodReads asked for half stars.)
(Oh, and going back to my many decades now of reading Star Trek novels. As I said before, much of the time that I was buying the Star Trek novels in the 1980s through early 2000s, I was not actually reading them as they came out. I now have literally hundreds of Star Trek novels that I look forward to reading for the first time. “The Last Best Hope” has the distinction of actually being the first Star Trek novel that I’ve read “right away”—within the first month of its publication—in I don’t know how long (probably over fifteen years!))...more
(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 5/7/20.) I just finished "The Collected Jack Kirby Collector Volume Two" (1998) from TwoMorrows Publishi(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 5/7/20.) I just finished "The Collected Jack Kirby Collector Volume Two" (1998) from TwoMorrows Publishing (at that time still called TwoMorrows Advertising), reprinting and collecting issues #10-12 of "The Jack Kirby Collector" magazine.
By theme, these issues were #10 (April 1996), a "humor" themed issue, with articles on the more intentionally humorous comics projects Jack Kirby worked on, plus interviews with his wife Roz Kirby and "Destroyer Duck" creator Steve Gerber.
Issue #11 (July 1996), a "Jack Kirby in Hollywood" themed issue, with articles on projects of Kirby's done for the movies and tv, including some that were never actually made, and the Hollywood centered superhero Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created in the 1950s, Stuntman. Also, there is an article looking at the similarities between Star Wars and Kirby's "Fourth World"/"New Gods", and reviews of Kirby's work on the newspaper comic strip adaptation of the Disney "The Black Hole" movie, and work Kirby did on a comic book adaptation of "The Prisoner" tv series (which ended up not being published).
Issue #12 (October 1996), was an "International" themed issue, with reprints of interviews with Jack Kirby discussing a visit he made to Italy and the impact of his works overseas, articles written by Kirby fans from around the world describing how Kirby's comics have been published over the years in their native countries and translated into their home languages, an interview with John Byrne ("a controversial Canadian", as billed on the cover), regarding Jack Kirby and working on characters created by Kirby over the years), and the biggest highlight of the issue (and probably the entire collected edition, aside from the wonderful Roz Kirby interview already mentioned above), a transcript of the third annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel at the San Diego Comic-Con International on July 6, 1996, with Mark Evanier (moderator), Marv Wolfman, Roger Stern, and J. David Spurlock (and a few comments also from Roz Kirby, Robert Katz (Jack Kirby's nephew), and Scott Shaw, who were all in the audience).
The first thirty-four pages of the collected edition contains material original to the book, a long article titled "The House That Jack Built: A British Fan's Visit to the Kirby Home" by Glenn B. Fleming of Manchester, England", compete, as always, with loads of Jack Kirby artwork.
At the point when issues #10-12 were originally coming out, the magazine had come a long way from the "slickly produced fanzine" of its first few issues and had developed into a respectable, professionally produced commercial magazine sold in comic book stores as well as via subscription direct from the publisher.
However, at this point, the mix of retrospective/review and personal testimonial pieces versus interviews with comics professionals and people who knew Kirby (and archival interviews with Jack Kirby himself), and "behind the scenes" pieces going into the creation of Kirby's works is still a bit inconsistent. Some issues still rely quite a bit on pieces contributed by readers of the magazine on how they first came to discover the works of Kirby, what their favorites were, how Kirby was either what got them into reading comic books or became their favorite artist far above all others, etc, etc.
Which is fine, but my favorite pieces in all of the TwoMorrows magazines are almost always the one on one interviews, group discussions (including the comic book convention panel discussion transcripts), and behind the scenes/"making of" style articles.
These three still early issues of “The Jack Kirby Collector” have a few really good ones of those (again, the best being the interview with Roz Kirby from issue #10, the San Diego Kirby Tribute panel at discussion transcript in issue #12, and the older interviews with Kirby all three issues), spaced out with a lot of okay "fluff" pieces. (The letters columns are also fun to read, showing the reader response to the immediately preceding issues, and publisher John Morrow's responses to them.)
Over the years, “The Jack Kirby Collector” will add several regularly appearing columns which will give it a more consistent format and feel, issue to issue. That was still a ways away at the time these three issues came out (as were companion TwoMorrows magazines; the first, Jon Cooke's "Comic Book Artist", would not begin until Spring of 1998).
For those who love Jack Kirby comics, “The Jack Kirby Collector” is an obvious recommendation. However, ones not already familiar with the magazine should probably sample some current issues first before seeking out the early issues as today’s JKC is quite a bit different in tone and content from the early years. But for those like me who love just about all of the various TwoMorrows magazines and books on the subject of comic books over the decades, I think most would enjoy going back to the very beginning and making their way from “The Jack Kirby Collector” #1 onwards (at least the first twenty something issues available in these trades paperback book collections), as I am.
I give this particularly collection (based on the magazines reprinted within it), three stars out of five on GoodReads....more
(Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 7/17/19.) Just finished reading book three in the Star Trek: Crucible trilogy, "Kirk: The Star to Every (Copy of review posted on my Facebook page on 7/17/19.) Just finished reading book three in the Star Trek: Crucible trilogy, "Kirk: The Star to Every Wandering".
As I'd seen some others indicate in their own reviews of this book, it is indeed the weakest of the three books. It is not a bad story by any means, it just is a more straight forward "mission" adventure type of story and is no where near as deep and expansive an individual character study of James Kirk as the other books are of Leonard McCoy and Spock.
Also, the references back to the common tying element between all of the three books, the original series episode, "The City on the Edge of Tomorrow" and its doomed love story of Kirk and Edith Keeler, seem the least connected (and almost fell simply obligatory) in this novel in reference to everything else going on in it (although the Guardian of Forever from "City" plays a major role).
Perhaps the thing that separates "Kirk: The Star to Every Wandering" from "McCoy: Provenance of Shadows" and "Spock: The Fire and the Rose" is that for most of the Kirk book the story is focused on the "Star Trek Generations" age James Kirk, the one who has retired from Starfleet and left that all behind him and begun enjoying his retirement years only to agree to see off the brand new "Enterprise-B" (NCC 1701-B, that is) on a highly publicized launching ceremony and "quick trip" around the solar system which ends up going tragically wrong and ends up placing Kirk in a magically seeming wish fulfillment environment cashed "the Nexus" while everyone back in the real world believes that he has been killed. Kirk is eventually found seventy-something years later by Jean-Luc Picard, the captain of the USS Enterprise-D and the two work together to defeat a man named Soran from carrying out a plan that will kill hundreds of millions of people.
The other two books also show us McCoy and Spock during this post death of Captain Kirk aboard the Enterprise-B period and the impact the death of Kirk has on each of them. However, in the McCoy book it is only a relatively small part of the overall story, the book being a pretty much linear narrative of key events in McCoy's life from "City on the Edge of Forever" up to "Generations" and beyond. And in the case of the Spock book, while most of the "present" in that book is that of Spock struggling with his emotions after the death of Kirk and his quest to rid himself of those emotions, the Vulcan process he undergoes repeatedly takes the reader back into Spock's past as well.
In the Kirk book, however, a lot of time is spent reenacting scenes from "Generations" and filling in the unseen connecting scenes between them, including Picard's locating Kirk in the Nexus and bringing him back with him to defeat Soran. However, when we get to the inevitable moment of (Spoilers for the movie "Star Trek Generations") Kirk's actual "real" death after being crushed under the weight of a collapsing metal bridge, in "The Star to Every Wandering" something unexpected (not actually from "Generations") happens which keeps James T. Kirk alive and the only person capable of preventing an even larger "doomsday" level event from occurring, one tying back into a mysteriously high spike of the levels of "chronometric particles" discovered in Kirk's cells by McCoy (a story element in "McCoy: Provenace of Shadows") after every time Kirk had traveled through time.
From the point Kirk realizes what must be done, the plot itself feels more typical of an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation"--Kirk working to prevent some huge technobabble laden disaster from occuring--than that of the original series.
Which doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it. There were scenes that were actually quite interesting to read, such as the relationship alluded to in "Generations" between Kirk and a woman he almost married named Antonia during his first retirement from Starfleet and what drove him to end that relationship, and also Kirk's reluctant agreement to return to temporarily return to duty to see off the Enterprise-B at the request of an old friend and former crewmate from the original Enterprise days.
The plot itself becomes pretty convoluted when it comes to which version of Kirk we are following sometimes and his mission is based largely on time travel shenanigans that don't even entirely make sense if thought out (hmmm... kind of like "Avengers: Endgame").
Definitely worth reading if one has already read the first two books in the trilogy if for no other reason than to see certain plot threads from the first two books play out in the third. And one should also be sure to read them in the original release order: 1) "McCoy: Provenance of Shadows", 2) "Spock: The Fire and the Rose", 3) "Kirk: The Star to Every Wandering".
"Kirk: The Star to Every Wandering", three stars (out of five)....more
Loading...
