Peter David

[00:00:03] Discovery going. Throttle up. [00:00:10] 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. [00:00:26] Hello out there and welcome to the Star Trek Worktop 10 podcast. How is everyone doing today? Day, what is up? I am your host, Phil Rizzo, and I will be flying solo today. [00:00:38] No Bomber, unfortunately. No Luke, no Troy, just little old me. [00:00:43] As this is going to be a little personal podcast here for you. [00:00:46] This is going to be a little different than what you're used to. This is, this is going to kind of be all over the place. We got a top 10 for you. But, you know, this is, this is going to be about Peter David, you know, so a week ago, at least, as of this recording, a week ago, Star Trek and popular culture in general, I think lost a great. [00:01:10] If you're a Star Trek fan, you might know who Peter David is. If you're a comic book fan, you might know who Peter David is. If you're a fan of movies and television, you might know who Peter David is. [00:01:19] He kind of dabbled in a lot of different things. [00:01:23] It's not an exaggeration to say that my 90s pop culture mindset was definitely floating around Peter David or anything with his name on it. If you're unfamiliar with Peter David, as I'm sure a lot of people are, he was a comic book writer, television writer, he was a novelist, he wrote short stories, he wrote novels. He was very prolific and much, much more. Listen, you know, I'm not going to pretend that I know everything about Peter David's career. I'm not going to pretend that I know everything he's done. I know he had his hand in a lot of things, first and foremost for me, Star Trek and comics, but he definitely had a lot of things going on. He worked with a lot of great people, a lot of great creators, a lot of great talent, and he was one of those talented people and creators for sure. And yeah, you know, in the 90s, you know, when I started reading some of Peter David stuff, it kind of blew me away as a Star Trek fan, you know, and, and he was clearly, clearly a big Star Trek fan. Anyone who's ever read his stuff knows that he took such great care in not only taking the established canon that Star Trek had developed up to the point when he started writing it, but he was very careful to not disrupt that canon, even though his books and anything he wrote wasn't considered canon per se. And we'll get to that later. But you could tell that he had a great reverence and a great respect for what Star Trek had Established to that point. And that more than anything else, I think, is what really attracted me to his. [00:02:56] His writing. It wasn't just sort of this, you know, he took this established universe and then kind of did whatever he wanted with it. He carefully colored inside the lines, and it did not detract from his storytelling or any kind of his creativity, any of his world building. [00:03:13] It was just a pleasure to read his stuff. [00:03:16] And, you know, I know Luke, who isn't on this pod, he couldn't make it on. He really, really wanted to be on this pod to talk about Peter David as well. [00:03:24] Luke loved reading Peter David's run on the Hulk. He knew Peter David before I did. I believe. I believe he was reading some of Peter David's comics before we started discussing the Star Trek novels and the Star Trek kind of stuff that Peter David had his hand in. So Luke was a giant fan. And folks, he didn't just write Hulk. I used to enjoy his run on Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man. I was reading that for a while. I know he dabbled in a lot of different comics, but first and foremost to Luke and I, Hulk and Spider man did a great job on those. He also wrote for television. You know, he. He had his hand in a lot of different pies. But today we're going to talk about his contributions to Star Trek. So, you know, when my Star Trek love and fandom was really growing and blossoming, Peter David had a lot to do with that. Even though I'm very big on canon and I was quite aware that, you know, Peter David's creations and writings were not canonical. [00:04:20] As I was exploding with this Star Trek love in the 90s, Peter David was just a big part of that. It just added to my love of the franchise so much. [00:04:31] And we'll get to all that he contributed to Star Trek and talk about what a fantastic addition he made to this universe that we all kind of like talking about. But before that, listen, I'd really appreciate if you guys check us out like us, follow us on Instagram, threads, TikTok and. [00:04:49] And you could always email us and reach out and just let us know what's on your mind. Any questions you have, any comments you have, that's stwarp10mail.com we'd love to hear from you. And I'd certainly love to hear if you knew of the great Peter David and how he may have impacted your love of Star Trek or your love of anything else. [00:05:07] So, yeah. So today, listen, folks, it's not a completely structured top 10. I kind of just, you know, made a top 10 as a framework to kind of talk a little bit about Peter David and the impact he had on my love of Star Trek and my life and, you know, so I kind of structured the top 10 around that. So whereas my number one is certainly my number one, you know, the rest of them you can kind of take with a grain of salt. And I know I'm not usually like that, but this is more about just talking about just a great contributor to Star Trek and just sort of my own little personal tribute to the great Peter David. So let's, let's go ahead and talk about some of the things that he contributed to Star Trek. So I have a top 10, like I said, and my number 10. And I had to throw this in, just as this isn't a throwaway. This is something that I might have done on another pod if I didn't have a number 10. But I just kind of love this so much and I know a lot of Star Trek fans are going to love this too. So my number 10 is that Peter David allowed us to continue on Admiral Jellicoe. That's right. [00:06:12] If you're a fan of Next Gen, like, I know a lot of you are, like, certainly myself and Luke and all of our buddies are. You know, we watched, you know, season Next Gen and, you know, season six came around and Chain of Command parts one and two came around and that's when we were introduced to Admiral Jellicoe, played by the awesome Ronny Cox. [00:06:31] So Jellicoe comes on board the Enterprise to take over because Captain Picard, Worf and Crusher are going on a dangerous mission in Cardassian space. [00:06:39] And, you know, Jellicoe has to come on and take over. So he takes over. Of course he's an asshole. [00:06:45] Not according to him. He thought he was the greatest captain of all time, soon to be admiral. As I mentioned in the number 10, he is an admiral in the New Frontier series. I not. And here, folks, real quick, quick sidebar, before we get to the rest of number 10, I this, my new Frontier memories may blend in with my actual Star Trek canon memories. So I'll tell you the truth, right now, I'm not even 100% sure if Jellicoe did become an admiral on Next Gen. I know he's an admiral in New Frontier and we'll get to that as well. But just so you know, shitting on Admiral Jellicoe is because he became an admiral under Peter David's pen. So, so he comes on board, he's in this is in the real, you know, season six of Next Gen comes on board, he's a total asshole. Changes up everything. Yeah, this is the greatest ship in the fucking fleet and everything runs smoothly. So let's go in and change fucking everything. So, yeah, he's an asshole. So the fans, man, did they hate him. Now, I don't know if they hated him because they loved to hate him or they just hated him because they hated him, you know, but, you know, I didn't hate him per se, maybe because I had an affinity for Ronny Cox, you know, Deliverance, RoboCop, Beverly Hills Cop, first and foremost, 1 and 2. So yeah, he was the great. He was Bogumill on Beverly Hills Cop and I love those movies. So I didn't hate him per se. The actor had a little cred coming in, but certainly watching him, you know, tear Riker down and fuck with the crew was not fun to watch. So when Peter David wrote the New Frontier novels, which again, we'll talk about, he included among other Next gen recurring characters, Admiral Jellicoe. So it was fun to watch him come into the New Frontier series. It's fun to watch the characters continue to shit on. To shit on him. And it was just, it was just a fun aspect of the New Frontier novels. Part of what drove me to Peter David's writings was that he just loved, loved just, just familiarizing the reader with the universe in which they're familiar with. That sounds weird, but. So, you know, he would always give you like a touchstone, a home base to grab onto, you know, no matter what kind of world he's interested in introducing you to, he made sure that, you know, he would mention, and this is just off the top my head, he would mention Spock or Riker or Q, or he'd make some reference that allowed your brain as a Star Trek fan to kind of lock in and just know exactly universe that you were talking about was one of the, one of the seamless things he did as a writer that seems easy to do, but it certainly is not. So, yeah. So making Jellicoe a part of the first novel of the New Frontier series was very smart. Among other Next Gen alum. So yeah, so number 10 was just so much fun. I couldn't resist talking about making fun of Admiral Jellicoe. So number nine. So number nine, I had to mention this. It is not the first novel I read by Peter David, but. But I should have because I believe it came out before some of the other novels. So this novel is called Vendetta So number nine is Peter David's novel, Vendetta. This was a novel and I've read this 30 something years ago. [00:09:40] And this is one of the novels I never reread, not for lack of interest and not because it didn't grip me. And it wasn't a great novel because it was. [00:09:52] I've reread a lot of his other stuff and this one I just haven't gotten back to yet, but I certainly will at some point. So Vendetta is a novel that he wrote in the 90s, and it, it was about this woman from this species who was pretty much taking revenge on the Borg for. For ravaging her planet. And folks, if I'm getting a couple of these details wrong, like I said, this one just coming off the top of my head, I haven't reread this since the mid-90s. I just remember it being, you know, involving the Borg and Guinan and Picard and the Doomsday Machine from the original series, which I was not familiar with when I read this novel. But having seen that episode a couple times now and thinking about this novel, I'm definitely going to read that again. It was a lot of fun. And it was not quite as good as his other novels, obviously, because I have it at number nine. But it is an immersive experience if you're a Star Trek fan, if you're an original series and Next Gen fan, which by the way, is pretty much all that was established at the time he started writing some of these novels. So, yeah, Deep Space Nine came out in 93, Voyager came out in 95. But really, I have to imagine that the spark of creativity for these novels that I'm going to discuss were really just based on TOS and Next Gen. That being said, there are references, vague references to D Space 9 and some of the D Space 9 characters in some of these novels, especially some of the ones further down on my list. So that being said, Vendetta was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. It was fun revisiting the Borg certainly before they've been revisited a hundred times. Now keep in mind, when this novel came out, the Borg were still relatively fresh. [00:11:20] We had seen them a few times in Next Gen, obviously, but we hadn't gotten bombarded with it on Voyager yet. And if I'm not mistaken, we hadn't had First Contact yet. So Star Trek First Contact, that came out in 96. I believe vendetta was written before that. I'll double check that, folks, I promise. But you know, for now, understand that the Borg weren't overused yet. And I know because there are a lot of people had a problem with Picard season three, maybe the only problem with Picard season three. And by the way, spoilers for anybody who doesn't want to talk about any of the newer series, but I know that the Borg having been overused on, maybe not overused, but having been used a lot on Voyager and Star Trek First Contact, but I know that a lot of people, by the time Picard season three rolled around, a lot of people were kind of like, okay, enough with the Borg, you know, and season two, for that matter. Right? So Picard. So. So seasons two and three both involve the Borg. And I get it, it's Picard's, you know, legendary nemesis, right? It's always going to be the Borg. And I completely get that. And I didn't necessarily roll my eyes when I realized the Borg were the main antagonists in season three. But that being said, and all that being said, Vendetta came out before the Borg were overused. So it was a fascinating novel to read at the time because you just craved more Borg at the time. So Vendetta, if you get a chance, check it out. It's really a good novel. It's a lot of fun. And that was my number nine. So talking about Peter David, you have to talk about the New Frontier series. So my number eight is. And again, folks, like I said, this is not a fully structured list. This is just a reason for me to talk about these things. [00:12:47] The New Frontier series that Peter David created in the 90s was just so much fun to read. This was a big part of my 90s, especially my mid to late 90s, I loved reading these novels. I read the first four novels, which was kind of four short stories that made up one novel. [00:13:05] The first four chapters, if you will, of the New Frontier Saga. And I've read them so many times, and I'm reading, reading them now, they're just so much damn fun. I mean, the characters are so well thought out. The connections to Next Gen and TOS are just amazing. [00:13:22] They make your heart swell. They really do. He's got such a love for this subject matter and it just comes across in every word on every page. It's genuinely a pleasure to read. So the New Frontier series was great, and we'll talk about some aspects of that further down on the list. But just in general, the idea of creating an entire sort of new aspect of the Alpha Quadrant is intriguing. Right? So with his previous novel Vendetta. He's talking about. He's talking about the Elorians and he's talking about the Borg and he's talking about Earth and he's talking about Next Gen and the original series, which is great and phenomenal, but it's all, in a good way, familiar territory. So the idea of creating a sort of entirely new and prominent species and part of the galaxy and empire must have been daunting. [00:14:13] But certainly it was a great way to introduce a brand new, you know, series to the lore of Trek. So Star Trek New Frontier, you know, like I said, came out in the 90s and it was just this great idea. Again, we'll talk more about the specifics of the series, but just in general, the idea of coming up with a brand new just entity to work with and, you know, still make it feel like it was new and fresh. I mean, I should say still making you feel like it was familiar. Like, we know we're in the Alpha Quadrant for sure, or Alpha Beta, wherever it is. We know, we know we're in our friendly sandbox, but. But we're encountering new things and new species and new ways to look at the galaxy. It's a remarkable thing and it's very fun to read. And you know, we'll get to the crew that encompasses the New Frontier series because obviously it's a big part of my list. But. [00:15:05] But you'll hear some familiar names and some names that you are not familiar with, and I'll talk a little bit about those characters, the ones, at least the ones that I think are intriguing, because they very much are. And again, folks, interestingly enough, I don't really remember what's made me want to read Peter David for the first time. [00:15:21] And to that matter, I don't remember what made me pick up the first New Frontier book. Was it recommended? I really don't remember. But once I did start reading it, I said, okay, this might be fun, but it's not going to be the same, Right? It's not gonna be the same as watching Next generates. It's not gonna be the same as loving Star Trek the way I am. And once you start reading, I know you get 20 pages in and you're like, oh man, this is. This is cool. This is. This is so much fun. Because you knew right away. You knew right away, not only was he a good writer, not was he entertaining. I mean, it's like a. It's like a popcorn read these things. [00:15:54] You know, it moves along at a great pace. It's got Enough humor. It's got enough, you know, adventure. It's got enough Star Trek to keep you engrossed, trust me. [00:16:05] But until I started reading it, I didn't think it would live up to what it might have in my head. I said, all right, this would be a little distraction. You know, I'm just reading an offshoot of a franchise. I'm reading Han Solo's Revenge, right? It's not going to be Return of the Jedi, but hey, you know what? It might be fun to, you know, see what Han Solo is doing, quote unquote in the author's mind. But when you read New Frontier or any of Peter Davis books, you're like, wow, okay, I get it. This is. This is a fans fan writing these books. And, and it's so much fun. So we're going to talk specifically about the New Frontier series for sure, further down this list. But for now, I think it's remarkable, just the idea of having this whole new sort of universe within a universe. And, and it's just so much fun to read. And I really, really encourage everyone to check it out. I know they have the, the first four short stories on. I know it's on audible. You can check it out there. [00:16:59] But you could just order them on, on ebay or Amazon. They're probably cheap as hell and you'll love them, trust me. So, yeah, so that was number eight. So number seven. So we are going to talk about specifically the crew of the Excalibur because, you know, it's worth looking at and examining the crew that Peter David, as a fan of Trek and as a prolific writer, but put together to launch us on this adventure. And by the way, folks, there is at least 17 or 18 books in the New Frontier series, spanning from the 90s all the way up until, I want to say, 2015. I have only read the first 13, I want to say, because to be honest, I didn't know there were more than that. [00:17:44] I read up to and including, I want to say Gods from Above, but don't quote me on that. But Certainly the first 10 I've read so many times and then, you know, I definitely read up to and including, I want to say 13. So there's five novels out there that I haven't even read yet that I can't wait to get to. I'm rereading this whole series now, of course, you know, like, like I've done a couple times. But whereas I've been trying to get back to the New Frontier series for the last. I don't know, maybe three or four years. Ever since I sort of re established my man cave down here and got all my books out, I never got around to doing it. But with the passing of Mr. Peter David, I really decided that was the time and I'm just enjoying it again. It's just so much fun to dive back into. So let's talk about the crew. So number seven is the eccentric and eclectic Excalibur crew. [00:18:31] So there's no spoilers here as far as the crew that Peter David sort of assembled for this for the USS Excalibur in the New Frontier series. [00:18:40] Now, some of these characters we're going to talk about a little more specifically down the road on the list. So I might gloss over them now, but I'll get back to him, don't worry. So. [00:18:49] So you got the Captain Mackenzie Calhoun. Awesome character. We'll talk about him later. First Officer Elizabeth Shelby. Shelby, that's right. If you are not familiar with this series. So Shelby from Next Gen, Best of Both Worlds, parts one and two, played by actress Elizabeth Dennehy. Oh, did I say Elizabeth Shelby? That might not be your name. Yes, it is. Elizabeth Paul Shelby. Right. So played by. I think it's Elizabeth Dennehy threw me off that her first name was the same in both, but I could be wrong about that. Double check that. Anyway, Shelby's the first officer. Yes. She's the one who gave Riker all that shit in the Best of Both Worlds episodes. She may be another character that the fans do not like, but she's fun in these novels and she's necessary in these novels. And one of the great things, one of the many great things that Peter David does is that he is true to the characters that he borrows from the established canon. So if he is writing for Admiral Jellicoe or Elizabeth Shelby, you feel like that's them from the show. You feel like, yes, this is. This is exactly what. Exactly what Shelby would say in that instance. That's exactly what Admiral Jellicoe or Captain Jellicoe would say in that moment. And dare I say he adds a little more to these characters that may have been better fleshed out if they were in more episodes. But most of these characters are only in a couple episodes, as you'll see. But he does that really well. He does that so well. [00:20:09] So, yeah, we got a chief engineer, I want to say Burgoyne 182, a hermat species, which I don't think was in the established canon when he made it up, but it's sort of an androgynous species. They have both male and female organs and pheromones and hormones. The navigator, Mark McHenry, a really cool character, a human from Earth. [00:20:34] We find out a lot about him down the road. There's a big bomb that's dropped about McHenry later in the. In the New Frontier series, which kind of gives us a validation as to how he was able to do the things he's able to do now earlier in the series. But anyway, really intriguing character. [00:20:50] We have Zach Cabron, and we will talk about Zac Kabron later. [00:20:55] Robin Leffler. You may remember Robin Lefler, that name from Next Gen. She was the officer played by Ashley Judd on Next Generation. She was in two episodes, at least two episodes. She wasn't just in the game episode where Wesley comes back and they all get hooked on the, you know, the sexual face game device, but she very nicely was woven in the episode before that, at least one episode before that. [00:21:23] So it wasn't just this, you know, this officer of the week, you know, sort of person just put in there. It reminds me of what they did with on D Space 9 when they worked Chief O' Brien's Bajoran assistant into the, like, two episodes, two or three episodes before the finale in which he turned out to be working with, I want to say Kai Win. [00:21:43] But it's great. It's great when network shows, I should say network or syndicated shows from back then did lay in that groundwork just to make it a little more familiar, a little more realistic. You know, shows nowadays, we're spoiled folks. You know, you watch the first episode of, you know, Sopranos or Breaking Bad or Severance, and it's going to. [00:22:03] There may be things dropped in there that are going to play out in season two. You know, they had the luxury of having this bible and thinking ahead, you know, sort of seeding the early episodes with things to come. But, you know, in network and syndicated shows back then, they didn't have that luxury. The pace was so breakneck that all they could, you know, they had to keep up with, you know, just start writing the next episode, start writing the next step, start filming, get the actors in. You know, so it was sort of a breakneck schedule. So they kind of didn't always have the luxury of doing that and paying attention to detail. So when they do, I appreciate it all the more, especially from shows back then. So, yeah, so Robin Leffler was in a couple episodes, played by Ashley Judge, who was a fun character. She had the very Ferengi, like, rules of her, of her life. She was that character. And that continues in the New Frontier series. Really, really well done. We got a couple Vulcans on the Excalibur, couple Vulcans on the USS Excalibur. We have Suletta, who I want to say is half Romulan and half Vulcan, which is interesting because of the Next Gen episode, the Drumhead, which, you know, involved someone lying on their Star Trek application about their paternal grandfather being Romulan. And that kind of got him into trouble. Mr. Simon Tarsus. [00:23:20] So I'm going to double check my memory on that one. I'm pretty sure Suletta, half Romulan, half Vulcan, maybe she didn't lie on her application and that's why they let her in. But either way, she's a Vulcan and a Starfleet officer and she's a pretty cool character. She's the Science officer. As you would imagine, a lot of Vulcans are following in the. The wake of Mr. Spock. I mean, I shouldn't say that. Tuvok was a security officer and Vorick was in Engineering and, you know, so I shouldn't say that. But, you know, it just seems. Seems right to have a Vulcan science officer. [00:23:49] Another nice little homage to the original series, or at least the original intention of Gene Roddenberry and what he did with the Vulcan species. And, you know, she's a lot of fun. She's. She does have a little bit of, you know, emotion because she is just only half Vulcan and. And that kind of plays into the character. She is early on, not a completely developed character, although she is present at a lot of important events early on in the series, but they flesh her out later, as well as the other characters. So fun to watch her. And then we have another Next Gen alum, Dr. Selar, played by Susie Plaxton, who also played K' Ehleyr and the female Q in On Voyager. So you're probably familiar with her. So, you know, if you had asked me how many episodes of Next Gen she was in, I would have said, you know, eight, nine. [00:24:39] She was in like, three, maybe even two. [00:24:42] So she was not in a lot of episodes. But she clearly made an impact on me because I remembered her. Perhaps because she did also play Kylaar or perhaps because she's just a good actress and I took note of her performance. I did like the idea of a Vulcan doctor. It's kind of interesting. The whole bedside manner thing there is kind of interesting to think about. [00:25:02] So she is another Next Gen alum who was it was the Chief Medical Officer came highly recommended from Beverly Crusher, of course. So I like that little continuation there. [00:25:12] And the last member of the crew, if you want to call him a member of the queue, is Ambassador Siquan. [00:25:17] A member of the newly invented Thelonian race that Peter David created for these novels. The Thelonian Empire, which we'll talk about more in depth, is a full creation of his. But Siquan was a deposed sort of royalty. [00:25:33] He becomes an ambassador on the Excalibur as they are venturing out into uncharted territories. And I'm sorry I'm saying this all the time, but we are going to talk about more about that as well, down the list. Again, folks, I apologize for this not being a very structured list. I just kind of wanted to throw it all out there and kind of make sure I don't miss any aspect of what I loved about Peter David's writing. So I'm kind of saying this for the hope they're the last time. We'll talk more about the area in which they're going to be policing and exploring later on in the novel. But for now, I just love this crew. I love that they. [00:26:05] They all kind of fit together. Some of them have worked together in the past, some of them haven't. You know, they're all meeting the Captain for the first time, except for Elizabeth Shelby, the First Officer. You'll learn more about that if hopefully you one day read these novels. And it's just a fun. It's a fun, sort of eclectic, dare I say ragtag. [00:26:23] I won't say that. [00:26:24] Group of Starfleet officers who come together and just make for great, entertaining reading. It's a lot of fun. [00:26:32] So that was Number Seven. All right, so let's talk about a little bit. [00:26:37] Following right in the footsteps of Number Seven. Number Six. I want to talk about a little bit more. The great use of these existing ancillary characters from Next Gen. [00:26:45] So I mentioned Robin Leffler, Ashley Judd. So I think that's a great addition. [00:26:49] You know, she is Ops officer. I know she was in Engineering, but she's an Ops Officer on the Excalibur. [00:26:57] And, you know, she has the aforementioned rules of living that she sort of talked about in Next Gen. She's still a little wet behind the ears. I get that. You know, I feel like early on in the novels, and she is very familiar with some of the crew. So, you know, in addition to us being familiar with the character of Robin Leffler, she is familiar with some of the crew. So another one of our gateways into this universe. Robin Leffler is certainly one of those. And Dr. Solar I just got done talking about. So she's another familiar face that allows us to acclimate to this new adventure. And it's a lot of fun. We talked about Commander Shelby and Admiral Jellicoe. So taking these four characters who all kind of on average appear just in two episodes of Next Gen, but taking these characters and sort of using them as a foundational force with this new novel series is really smart. I mean, certainly for me, it allowed me, like I said, to kind of have a touchstone, have a home base to grab onto. And look, I don't know if you're one of the readers who enjoys not having an established sort of picture in their mind of some characters in the novels. You know, you watch the movie Misery and then you read the book. It's a much different experience than if you read the book and then watch the movie Misery. Now I know I'm just, I'm just saying obvious things. I mean, it's pretty obvious. And most people will agree in most instances that the book is better than the movie. And that's because there's more detail, blah, blah, blah. We all know that. But I do not mind having a pre conceived picture of what some of these characters look like in their mind. [00:28:31] Call it less mental, you know, calisthenics. And I can focus more on the sort of the subject matter and the meat of the book, if you will, if I'm not constantly like, okay, how do I picture Robin Leutthor? She had red hair, black hair, blonde hair. No, she's actually Judd. So I know what she looks like and I could see her in a uniform and I could see her very clearly. Same with, you know, Ronny Cox playing Admiral Jellicoe or Elizabeth Dennehy playing Commander Shelby, or Susie Plaxton playing Dr. Solar. I have a very clear image of all of them in my mind because I'm a big fan of Next Gen and you will too. So it's nice with all these new characters. Some of them I don't have to picture and some, some I kind of do. And I kind of like that mix. Now obviously there's pictures of some of the people on the front cover of the books too, so you get an idea. [00:29:19] But for the most part I enjoy that. I enjoy when I have a little bit of, a little bit of a mental sort of pre knowledge to go on. So he does this in every novel. He gives you those characters that grab Onto. It's an easy way into the. Into the new world. So I really appreciate that. [00:29:35] Good job there. So, Number Five, let's talk a little more about what the Excalibur is doing in these novels. So, at least at the onset, the USS Excalibur, commanded by Captain Calhoun MacKenzie Calhoun, is exploring and policing the fallen Thelonian Empire. So apparently, there's this big set of space, because space is big, in which this Thelonian Empire ruled over many worlds for many years, I think I want to say over 200 years, according to Sequan. And it's in a sector of the galaxy called sector 221G, which, you know, is the. The Starfleet terminology for it, but they call themselves the Thelonian Empire. And it's very much like the Roman Empire. You know, it's. It's this advanced civilization that sort of occupies slash overseas slash, you know, rules all of these other kingdoms and worlds. [00:30:33] You know, so you could just use the Roman Empire to kind of wrap your head around that or, you know, if whatever, you know, empire from history you feel like applies more, you know, go ahead. You can include the Persian Empire or some of the Chinese dynasties, I'm sure. But for me, sorry, folks, I'm Eurocentric right now with my history, and I latch right onto the Roman Empire. I think we all do, for better or worse, as the sort of one of our touchstones for referencing history. So it's very much like the Roman Empire, you know, after it had fallen. [00:31:04] You know, think about Alexander the Great after he dies, his generals sort of spreading out and taking over different aspects of what, you know, what. What was sort of conquered, you know, Alexander in the, you know, the 200-bc- I want to say, you know, Ptolemy is taking over Egypt and all these other gentlemen, you know, so it's not quite in disarray. You know, Alexander the Great sort of generals branching out and taking over certain areas that they had conquered after he died. This is a little more. The Filonian Empire is a little more just chaos in disarray, and Starfleet can't send a fleet of ships in there because it's, you know, the Prime Directive to consider. They're not going to go in and just kind of. They have no business being there, basically, but they kind of have to keep an eye on it. So, you know, and I won't spoil a lot of the details of the novels because hopefully, you know, you'll read them. [00:31:57] You know, Calhoun is sort of picked because he kind of fits that eccentric, chaotic sort of mindset, and he's from one of the planets that was overseen by the Thelonian Empire. He's from Xanax. So it just makes sense that he would be recommended by Captain Picard to command the Excalibur when they decide to send just one ship into this sector to sort of offer humanitarian aid and just kind of report back on the status of, of sector 221G. [00:32:27] So I mean, look, without knowing all the specifics, it's such a great premise. I mean, you know, you have this, this Captain with a history and we'll talk more about him later. I said it again. [00:32:36] And you know, there's this one ship, but it's very Voyager, like in this way, right? It's just this one ship sort of set out to just lend aid or police. Just this huge sector of space that Starfleet had previously just been hands off on, you know, so they're kind of setting out into the unknown, much like Voyager when they got lost in the Delta Quadrant and made their way home, encountering species they never really encountered before. They may have heard of them. [00:33:00] You know, Starfleet was familiar with the Filonian Empire and I'm sure they were familiar with Xanax. I mean, they were, but you know, they were hands off and they weren't in that sector of space or that area of space. So, you know, they, they knew of them, but they didn't know them, you know, and there's a difference there. [00:33:19] So, yeah. Whereas Voyager, I know, is encountering a different brand new species every, every week. I still think it's kind of similar and I think part of that, it's a little romantic, right? Like part of that is alluring in the same way Voyager was. So yeah, so I think that's a great premise with which to start a novel series. [00:33:38] And they just, they just continue to world build from then on out. It's just a lot of fun. So Thelonian Empire, Sector 221G is just a lot of fun to sort of hang out in and, you know, read about. [00:33:52] So yeah, so we're going to keep talking about New Frontier. We're going to talk about number four, Captain MacKenzie Calhoun. Let's talk about this guy. So this is a fun captain man. So, so here we have Mackenzie Calhoun, who at 19 led a rebellion against, I want to say the Dante, who were overseeing his, you know, who occupied his world. And they had been under the yoke of the Dante for years now. This is very much like, you know, imagine, imagine if Kira Nari oh, here you go. Lee Nalis. Right. So if you're familiar with D Space 9, you have Lee Nalis, who, according to legend, anyway, led the Bajoran uprising against the Cardassians when they were occupying Bajor. And he became the focal point and the hero for the Bajoran resistance and, you know, a fantastic three episode arc in D Space 9's second season. The first three episodes, The Homecoming, the Circle and the Siege. [00:34:53] Just fun to encounter this character and kind of get the backstory on him. [00:34:58] But yeah, so it's very much like that. So imagine a Lee Nalis type who isn't in a Kardashian prison. He's free and he's out there and he's working. Spoiler alert clandestinely for Admiral Nechaev. Yes, Another Next Gen aluminum in this series. Admiral Machayev, who has been on Next Gen and Deep Space. [00:35:21] I'm pretty sure she was on both. Recurring role on Next Gen and she definitely was on D Space, I believe. [00:35:28] Definitely. I believe. That makes no sense. I'm pretty sure she was on there. [00:35:32] So seeing her on there, I'm sorry. So reading about her and there was kind of fun again, you could latch on to that because you know what she's about and what she's like and what she looks like, for that matter. But so, Captain. So Mackenzie Calhoun was in Starfleet. He joined Starfleet at the urging of Jean Luc Picard very early on in the novels, and they kind of cut ahead after his Starfleet career was sort of over. [00:35:54] There was an incident on a ship. He was serving as the USS Grissom, and something happened, forced him to quit or he got budged out. So either way, him coming back was sort of a big deal. [00:36:07] So here's this rebellion leader at 19, you know, leads his people to freedom and then kind of doesn't know what to do with himself. You know, it's an interesting. It's an interesting again. And they do liken him to Alexander the Great in the novels now. They think about it, you know, very much like, okay, now that you conquered all the worlds, you know, I don't know the exact quote of the line, but, you know, Alexander, realizing he had no more worlds to conquer, rested or wept or whatever, you know what I mean? But either way, again, not a historian, folks. I just like history a lot. There's a big difference there. [00:36:39] So it's kind of like that. So he accomplished all this at such a young age and then, shit, what do I do from here? So he joined Starfleet At Picard's urging, you know, he had some success, but then he was drummed out of Starfleet. Whether I honestly forget if it was him or if it was Starfleet that kind of nudged him out. But he starts doing these sort of clandestine work for Abram machea, very section 31, like not 100% sure if that's exactly what they alluded to. I don't think it was. No they didn't because it wasn't invented yet. [00:37:07] Section 31 was not mentioned until Deep Space Nine's Season 6. So at the time of these novels there was no section 31, at least not in the established canon. But in my head he's working for Section 31, as is Admiral Nechaev. So he's doing this sort of clandestine spy stuff for her. Stuff that Starfleet can't get their hands dirty with but he's got no problem doing and it's particularly suited to. So that's some fun, some fun sort of stuff to play with there. And you get a glimpse of that in the novel. But they do allude to many different things that happened over the course of his clandestine career throughout the series. So that's a lot of fun to think about. So he's doing all this stuff for niche, but then he gets recruited back to Captain the USS Excalibur, which I think is just, it's so intriguing. So you know, because the character to me has endless possibilities. He's still in many ways a savage. He's still in many ways that 19 year old kid who led his people against the Danteri, you know, led a rebellion and then just kind of left. He left the world to kind of figure it out because he did his part and that's it. And he has no patience for the diplomacy of it. [00:38:11] Again, stuff they touch back on in the novels as well. But so here's this sort of captain, this wild card who's kind of out there just kind of winging it, but using those honed skills and those God given talents he had as a kid leading that rebellion in Starfleet. A pretty intriguing premise for a Captain. And he's just so much fun to read. I mean anyone who's read these novels knows that Calhoun's just so fun to read. I mean in my head, and again, I know it's not canon, but in my head he's a Star Trek captain. [00:38:42] In my head he's in the same boat with Picard, you know, Kirk, Janeway, all of them. You know what I mean? It's personally in my Heart, boom, he's there, you know. And I know I can separate canon and non canon in my head, but you know, in that nebulous area of my brain where I just love all things Star Trek, he holds a special place there, just like the rest of them do. A great character, a great captain. Peter David did a great job creating this character. So let's take a break from the New Frontier series for a little bit. Now obviously that dominated most of my list and you'll hear it one more time again in my top three. But you know, the thing that attracted me to Peter David at first was the individual novels that he wrote. And this is one of them. So this one is an absolute blast. My number three is iq. [00:39:32] It's a novel that was written by Peter David and John de Lancie, the actor who played Q. [00:39:36] They co wrote it together. [00:39:39] It very much has the feel and this is what's great about it. It very much has that Peter David feel, like clearly he wrote the bulk of it. But Q, John de Lancie's insight into the character that he played at the time probably six or seven times. He would go on to play a couple more characters I think. [00:39:59] Unless I'm getting the years wrong, I feel like IQ came out in the late 90s and there was still some voyager to come. I feel like he was definitely in at least one more episode after this novel was written. Anyway, all the years he played Q sort of fed into this novel and folks, man, this novel is. This is fun as hell. This is so much fun. It's a quick read. [00:40:22] It moves along at such a crisp and awesome pace. [00:40:26] This novel is about, it's Picard, Data and Q on this sort of time traveling multi universal adventure. [00:40:36] So yeah, so this novel, man, it's so much fun. So basically this catastrophic universal, multi universal event is occurring. [00:40:45] This maelstrom is sort of sucking all of reality into it and even the Q and our Q have no idea what's going on. So he basically latches on to Picard and Data and sort of whisks them away and they are sort of unwittingly joining him in this, this attempt to just solve, to save the universe, save reality. [00:41:07] The coolest aspect of this is it's told in like a first person narrative through in Q's own words. It actually says that on the COVID Q's greatest adventure in his own words. [00:41:18] It's so much fun. It lives up to the. I've read this at least three times. [00:41:22] I mean you can read it in a day, you Know if you want to. Which isn't to say that it's overly short or overly simplistic. It's just so much fun. You don't want to put it down. It is infinitely hilarious. You know, you can hear Q saying these words. You can hear John de Lancie performing these lines. It's so much fun. I can't say enough fun stuff about IQ and I'm seeing now it came out in 2000, so there was probably one more episode. He probably did Q2, whatever the episode of Voyager was when he was with his kid Keegan de Lancie, the offspring of Q and the female Q, I think that came out after this novel. That was the only one that came out after the novel. But so it came out in 2000 and it was just so much fun. [00:42:09] And incidentally folks, Vendetta came out in 1995. So at the time Vendetta came out, D Space 9 was only in its second season. [00:42:19] So. Second season, is that right? 93 and then a 495. It could have been second or third season depending on when it came out in the year. But so D Space now was in between its second and third season when Vendetta came out. What I mentioned before, but IQ came out in 2000. Tons of fun. [00:42:34] Highly recommend you read it, even if you're not a die hard fan of Q or Peter David. It's just a great Star Trek novel and it's certainly worth checking out. Tons of fun. [00:42:46] So let's talk about number two. So number two, this is our last sort of journey into the New Frontier series and number two is the Brickar species. [00:42:59] And I'll tell you why this is so important. So the security officer on the Excalibur was Zach Cabron and he's a Brickar. [00:43:06] And this is super important and it's number two because Star Trek adopted this species and made it canon. So here's what's great about very, very precious few of these Star Trek writers, okay? They are so prolific and they become such a part of the Star Trek zeitgeist that it becomes a part of the canon. And I think that's absolutely remarkable. And I'm sure there are other instances of this in the Star Trek world, but I can't think of any other ones. So as far as I know me personally, and again folks, I've said this before, I'm a die hard Star Trek fan. I think I'm a pretty big fan. But I know a lot of you out there know more than me about it. So I would love for you to give me some examples that I'm missing out on. But for now, on Star Trek Prodigy, there is a character called Roktok and she's a brick car, you know, and I've watched the first season of Prodigy, guys. It's a lot of fun. I'm not going to tell you that you're going to love it because it is designed for kids, but not like four year old kids, you know what I mean? It's definitely worth watching in my opinion. I'm looking forward to watching season two. Anyway, so I'm watching this and this character comes on this big giant rock thing and in my head I'm like, and I swear to God, I said this in my head I said, wouldn't it be awesome if she was a brick car and she's a goddamn brick car. Like, how cool is that, right? So here's this Peter David, this amazing, amazing fan and creator of Star Trek content, who understands that he's not canon, but just loves writing this stuff. And then boom. To me, there can be no greater compliment to an ancillary Star Trek writer. That's not the right word to a Star Trek writer who's outside the canon circle being let in with one of his creations. So the Brickar becomes Star Trek canon. I think that's remarkable and I think it's a testament to how amazing and how dedicated Peter David was as a Star Trek fan and as a writer. So that to me just blew me away. So I love that, that moment when you know what I knew to be non canon, but I love so much crossed over into next to canon was, was just an amazing moment for me and I love it. All right, folks, so like I mentioned, all the other sort of things on this list were just a great reason and I understand that it was eclectic the way I was talking about the thing. I probably could have structured it a little better so I started with the novels that moved on to, you know, blah, blah, blah. I appreciate you bearing with me, but number one, there's no, there's no need to structure here. Number one is Q squared. [00:45:37] Luke and I have talked about this novel on this podcast before and there is no book in my mind that I would rather have with me if I was on a desert island. If you're on that desert island, which book would you bring with you? I would bring q squared 100 times over. [00:45:52] I've read this novel, I want to say, in its entirety four times. [00:45:57] And that isn't to say that I won't read it again. And that I would have read it more except it is very dense. I mean it's dense. [00:46:05] This is the ultimate Peter David novel. This is the ultimate love letter to fans of the original series and the Next Generation. [00:46:14] There are hints of D Space Nine, but folks, this is a Next gen, largely a Next gen novel with some great contributions from the original series. [00:46:24] I shouldn't say that it's almost hand in hand. I'd say 60, 40 next gen original series. [00:46:30] The main antagonist is Trelane the squire, the erstwhile squire of Gothos. [00:46:36] Q and Picard are the protagonists and this novel more than anything other than the actual show Bonded. Luke and I, when we first started working together at Burger King way back in those early 90s, early to mid-90s, you know, I remember very distinctly not only talking about Next Gen but talking about Q Squared. [00:46:58] He may have recommended it to me. I don't quite remember. He will be mad as shit if he did in fact do that. And I don't remember but it doesn't matter because a friend told another friend about this novel and friends, I'm telling you about this now, okay? This novel is so special to me. This will always have a place in my heart. God damn it. I'm getting choked up talking about it, I really am because this was just, this was just an experience for me. [00:47:27] You know, not only did it have, you know, those ties to who would become one of my greatest friends, Luke, but you know, this, this was almost validation of what I thought Star Trek was or could be. [00:47:42] You know, this is, this is at the height of my loving Next gen, at the height of my experiencing this new world that I just poured myself into. [00:47:52] Here was this, just this, this bible, this, this epic novel that brought everything I loved about Star Trek together and more and things that I didn't know I loved about writing and novels and books. [00:48:07] You know, I was not well read when I was younger. You know, I would skip the, I'd skip the chapters in Frickin Kill a Mockingbird. I just go rent the movie. I was that kid. I didn't, I didn't read a lot of the books that I was given assigned in high school, you know, so I just didn't read coming out of high school. I just kind of watch movies and TV and listen to music and a lot of normal kids do, but I didn't read a lot. This novel was, it was a game changer for me and it was what made me fall in love with Peter David and truly appreciate what he brought to Star Trek and to me. And that's really what I'm talking about. [00:48:47] The reason he's got such an impact on my life is because these books were an escape for me. And I wasn't escaping from anything. I had a nice childhood and I had a lot of friends and stuff, and, you know, I wasn't escaping from anything. But, man, did I get lost in these novels. I got lost in this book like I'd never been lost in a book before. And there's something really special about that. You know, until this moment, it didn't occur to me that this was when I fell in love with reading books. [00:49:11] And it was largely due to the genius of Peter David, this seamless, effortless, seemingly effortless prose that he writes. [00:49:22] And again, folks, I'm not a literary expert. I'm not saying he's, you know, he's, you know, Ernest Hemingway or anything, but I mean, he's my. To me, he's, he's, you know, if I saw anything with his name on it after this novel, I bought it and I devoured it. Like it's, it's simple as that. You know, there's a novel that's not on this list called Mzadi that I read as well. And it's about, you know, Troy and Riker and next gen in general. And he's written way more than I've read. He's written a lot of novels that I haven't read and a lot of comics that I haven't read, and he's written a lot of TV episodes that I haven't seen. But when I'm walking through Walton Books or B. Dalton or a little later on Barnes and Noble, and I saw something with Peter David, it was just a no fucking brainer. And I was not doing anything that night because I was going home and reading it. And that's the truth. And the impact he had on my formidable pop culture years is immense. It's immense. [00:50:20] And I was more upset when I heard that he had passed than I thought I would be. [00:50:26] But looking back on it, I don't know why I thought that, because he was a huge part of what I loved about Star Trek and he's a huge part of what I love about just pop culture and talking to friends about what you like and sharing ideas and exploring new ones, and it's just a pleasure, it's just a pleasure to read when you find those things in your life and you can share them not just with yourself, but with friends and family. [00:50:55] And it's Important to you. It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if it's a comic book or a movie or a song or a play. It doesn't matter because it matters that much to you and it's important to you. [00:51:08] And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Peter David shaped my life in a lot of ways. And, you know, it may be an overstatement to say this, but at least in my, you know, formidable pop culture years, Peter David helped to shape my. [00:51:21] Well, my life, you know, because my life is largely about movies and television and books and comics. And for someone to have such an impact on that, that would forever change my tastes when it comes to those things. [00:51:36] It's immense. And it's important. And it's important to me anyway. [00:51:41] And this novel opened many, many doors for me, you know, metaphorical doors, of course, and just doors in my mind and in my enjoyment of, you know, just. Just culture and narratives and drama and it's just amazing. And I can't say enough good things about it. [00:52:04] Friends, please read this novel. If you like Next Gen, if you like the original series, if you like Star Trek in general, I think you'll appreciate it for what it is. And I think you'll appreciate Peter David. And if you're already familiar with the genius of Peter David and you're just agreeing or disagreeing with things I'm saying, good for you. And if you've never heard of Peter David, I urge you, check it out. [00:52:26] Order Q Squared or Vendetta or IQ or Amzadi, Amazon, and pick up those New Frontier books. You will not be disappointed. I promise you that. You know. Yeah, so we're gonna. We're gonna leave it there. [00:52:42] And, you know, I felt compelled to do this pod, like I said, and it's, you know, we've lost people involved with Star Trek before, you know, even while we were doing this pod, you know, Rene Aubergonoir comes to mind. [00:53:03] And nothing against that actor or Odo, but I didn't feel as compelled to immediately do an Odo top 10, or any other top 10, for that matter. But when I heard that Peter David died again, like I said, I didn't think it would affect me like it did, but it did. And I just wanted to talk about him for a little bit. And I'm glad you're listening and I really appreciate it. And if you get a chance, check out the genius of Peter David and rest in peace. [00:53:31] I really appreciate you listening. Thank you.