Eighth Novel Fiver: The Devil's Heart

[Nate the Great]

Too long, and the "As a X, I hereby do Y" gag was a bit overused, but okay. Bear in mind it's been at least ten years since I've read this book.

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

"As a X, I hereby do Y" gag was a bit overused

Yeah, probably. At least I tried to mix it up a little.

[Zeke]

This is my favourite Trek novel ever, and a great fiver too. In fact, I've been lax about reading your novel fivers -- looking at them now, they're really good. Way to go!

[NAHTMMM]

Thanks, Zeke!

[PointyHairedJedi]

I must confess to having never ready any Trek novels, but that was quite amusing even so.

[Wowbagger]

When I was little, I wasn't allowed to read this one. Having read it now just recently, I can't figure out why not.

Not my favorite, but one I'm very fond of nonetheless. And well-fived. Favorite lines:

Standard dating techniques yield erratic results. The rock may have been created at any point from one Redshirt half-life ago to long before Strom Thurmond was born.

I declare this strange little rock to be the “Ko N'ya”, “Devil's Heart”, “Mithrandir”, “Catamount”, and all its other names.

And also, when Diat said:

Diat Manja: T'Sara found the Gem! I must see to it that everyone recognizes her achievement!

I fully expected it to be followed by the line:

XBox LIVE: *Achievement Unlocked - Ko N'ya Owner*

I really enjoy these. Keep 'em up!

[NAHTMMM]

Thanks, you two!

Wowbagger -- that would have been pretty funny, all right.

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

Too long

Actually, I've been running the numbers today, to get a sense of what length to consider acceptable in future novel fivers. And wouldja believe that, in terms of lines, this is the shortest one yet? (Outside of what I threw together for New Frontier, which doesn't count.) And it's the second-shortest in terms of words, after Incident at Arbuk, which is the one I completed just before this.

And this one's a giant novel, no less. So I may still be too long, but I am getting shorter. (It looks as though the trend will probably not continue with the next one I do, however. We'll see.)