StillPaisleyCat

As much as I like to see elements from the Relaunch novels brought to screen, in this case I pretty much knew where the chase was leading, based on the final Voyager Full Circle novel, and that took away some the wow factor of the contact with the 10C.

Startide Rising is the best of them all.

Sundiver is quite good too.

The later books were deeply marred by Brin’s giving into pressure from his editors to centre them on a group of adolescent males of diverse species because his publisher was of the view that the average scientific fiction reader was a 14 year old male. Brin has written about this and how difficult it was for him to write outside his natural quite adult style. His fantastic characters from Startide Rising are pushed into the background and only get to step forward and shine again at the very end.

Here’s the review from Cinemablend.

Not sure I agree that season 4 was the best. I’m in the camp that felt the pacing was off. But then I really liked seasons 1 & 3, and ran hot and cold on season 2, which pretty much makes me an outlier among Discovery fans.

He’s not only Canadian but Jewish from Montreal. He’s very much not what the commentator suggested.

Also excruciating.

Faith of the Heart will never not be grating for me. Too American, too 90s wannabe 70s soft-rock dreary & derivative, despite being a cover by a British singer of something originally written for and recorded by Rod Stewart.

This is exactly the kind of song that made me dread hearing soft rock music at dentist’s offices or physiotherapy.

This actively hurts.

This one was very, very well done.

If I have a quibble it’s that it reminded me that Asian women haven’t had as strong representation in the franchise as they might. But it also made me glad that Christina Chong is in a main role in SNW.

The Supreme Court of Canada took a very dim view of the heist and required restitution.(SCC decision on maple syrup heist)

Such a Canadian thing.

KEY FACTS (from the linked article)

The court unanimously ruled Richard Vallières must pay the multi-million dollar fine, reversing a lower court order that only fined him 1 million Canadian dollars ($800,000).

The fine, along with another 830,000 Canadian dollar ($665,000) penalty he's been ordered to pay under a separate court order, roughly total the 10 million Canadian dollars ($8 million) Vallières and his associates sold stolen maple syrup for in the early 2010s.

Vallières was found guilty in 2016 of stealing 9,500 barrels worth of syrup from a warehouse in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Quebec, that belonged to the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (FPAQ), which tightly regulates production and sales of the region's maple syrup.

The syrup had a market value of more than 18 million Canadian dollars ($14.4 million), but Vallières said at his trial it was sold at a lower price.

He is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence.

Never underestimate the exasperatingly sneaky power of of a Canadian wielding “Sorry (not sorry)”.

Fortunately, there is a maple syrup strategic stockpile.

Unfortunately, someone robbed it a while back.

Just a note that, while the listing on the Simon & Schuster website is for the US, the major ebook sellers in other countries usually offer the same or similar deals on TrekLit, updated monthly.

The best way to find out which deals are available in your country is to search ‘Star Trek’ and books/ebooks, then filter and sort by price.

In most countries, sorting lowest to highest will put all the ebook deals at the top. In some, like the UK, just set the filter to a low maxim price e.g., less than £2.99.

The Relaunch novelverse is great even if an alternate timeline. The screenwriters are aware of it, and have woven some of its elements into onscreen plot lines.

David Mack who wrote this and many other well received novels was a consultant for the early seasons of both Prodigy and Lower Decks.