Star Trek Novels

FlashGordon1969

Has anybody read any of these? I have read a few from time to time. The writing aint bad. Reading one TITAN-about Riker as Captain of the Starship Titan. He's married to Dianna Troi now who also serves on Board. Im not a huge reader of Sci-fi but like the novels as you know the score and doesnt take long to figure out what's happening.

helimachoptor

I bought a few, but honestly i find them really hard to get into pretty frustrating

qwertz

I find them easy to read. Some are good, some are OK.

chopperbyrne

The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh is pretty damn good, as are the DS9 continuation books.

FlashGordon1969

chopperbyrne wrote: »

The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh is pretty damn good, as are the DS9 continuation books.

Any word on Sisko in those? Think the torch movie wise has now moved back to 'original characters' so surely they can play around a bit with developing characters without worrying about a movie or further series.

Titan novels are good-Riker finally gets a pair of bxxxx and takes his own command. Though with Diana on board perhaps they should call it WINGS 2-get the joke?

CSaber

Own nearly 200 of these. They are very good. The DS9 novels set post series are very good, and Sisko does appear in some of them.
Check out this site:
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

FlashGordon1969

CSaber wrote: »

Own nearly 200 of these. They are very good. The DS9 novels set post series are very good, and Sisko does appear in some of them.
Check out this site:
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Had a look at the link but was a bit confusing. I presume it means the books are free of the series/film parameters? I dont read a huge amount of SCi-FI. Have always tended to be a philistine that way and tended to watch mainly Trek Series,though I also watch Flash forward and Highlander.

Have you ever read Stephen Baxter's work?? He has a superb short story collection-TRACES. Though he could be described as Hard sci -fi.

CSaber

Up to the mid-1990s all the books were stand alone tales and nothing could happen to the characters. They had to be the same at the end of the book as at the beginning. But then things changed slowly and the first book only series began Star Trek: New Frontier which allowed new non-TV characters and for events in one book to be referenced in another, something that had not happened before.

Since then continuity between the book series has grown and now predominates (events in a TNG book could be picked up in a VGR book) and changes have been allowed to the characters, including the death of one of the main TV characters. The books still have to conform to on-screen Trek but that is not much of a problem now as TNG/DS9/VGR/ENT are all off the air, but the destruction of Romulus in the new film will have to be picked up at some point.

I'm not a huge Sci-Fi reader. I mainly read Trek books along with Clive Cussler, Robert Harris, and Agatha Christie.

AdmiralRazor

The best Trek book in my opinion is A Stitch In Time by Andrew Robinson.

A book about Garak written by the man who PLAYED Garak. Perfection.

Oh, and Book II of Fearful Symmetry and The Never Ending Sacrifice, both by Una McCormack, are also great.

If Voyager is your thing avoid the majority of the novels, except for the latest two (Full Circle and Unworthy).

The Titan books aren't exactly gripping, and I dunno why but the Riker/Troi relationship always seemed insincere to me. I preferred her with Worf.

Cookie_Monster

just read the 3 Destiny novels, good stuff

Gothamite

The William Shatner ones are a load of fun too, even if some parts are hilarious for all the wrong reasons. Examples include "Kirk's iron-muscled fore-arm reached into the fiery abyss and pulled her to safety" as well as Captain Kirk getting laid by multiple different alien women throughout the books (even though he's pushing 70 in the stories).

Another great one I read was 'Valiant' by Michael Jan Friedman (who's written about 60 of the ST books). It's about Picard's emergency promotion to Captain while onboard the Stargazer. It's very good.

FlashGordon1969

Almost finished my Second Titan novel (where Riker is captain) . Was not a bad story but there are just too many characters being thrown in. Fair enough they are trying to get away from a fully human crew but the authors fail to give clear defining traits so you cant recall who is who. You might excuse that in the first novel but not a second one. Wont be reading any-more

A character list would not go astray!!

FlashGordon1969

AdmiralRazor wrote: »

The best Trek book in my opinion is A Stitch In Time by Andrew Robinson.

A book about Garak written by the man who PLAYED Garak. Perfection.

Oh, and Book II of Fearful Symmetry and The Never Ending Sacrifice, both by Una McCormack, are also great.

If Voyager is your thing avoid the majority of the novels, except for the latest two (Full Circle and Unworthy).

The Titan books aren't exactly gripping, and I dunno why but the Riker/Troi relationship always seemed insincere to me. I preferred her with Worf.

Could never accept the Troi/Worf relationship from a physical perspective!

CSaber

FlashGordon1969 wrote: »

Almost finished my Second Titan novel (where Riker is captain) . Was not a bad story but there are just too many characters being thrown in. Fair enough they are trying to get away from a fully human crew but the authors fail to give clear defining traits so you cant recall who is who. You might excuse that in the first novel but not a second one. Wont be reading any-more

A character list would not go astray!!

Here's a list but it does go up to most recent book:
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/USS_Titan_personnel

You should try the third book in the series as a lot of people regard that as the best.

Klingon Hamlet

3 x Peter David books:

• Imzadi: Explores Troi and Riker's past relationship on Betazed years before the launch of the Enterprise-D. Also some cool time-hopping which may have inspired the TNG finale All Good Things.

• Q-Squared: Trelane--the mischevious child-God from the Original Series--is reintroduced as a member of the Q Continuum...and has quite clearly grown into a sadistic god. There are three wildly different timelines running in parallel, along with some cool links to past events in the Trek canon. Picard is at his truest badass self in this book. And Q shows a fresh side to himself in the story.

• Once Burned: After years of merely hinting at New Frontier's Captain M'k'n'zy Calhoun's troubled past, Peter David finally shows the whole tragedy from Calhoun's perspective, told by Calhoun himself at The Captain's Table, a crossover event between many different Treks.

I also enjoyed...

• The Return: Shatner's sequel to his own overblown Ashes of Eden as well as sequel to the lacklustre Generations. Kirk's remains are beamed away from Veridian III while Romulans attack the Enterprise-D crash survivors. Picard and Beverly plunge deep into Borg territory whilst Kirk becomes a one man army. it's all a bit ridiculous but there's huge scope to the story, and every character has a fun arc--especially Spock.

• Final Frontier by Diane Carey was brilliant, showing Captain Robert April launch the Enterprise with Kirk's daddy, George. The Romulans are in it and there's fun interplay between the characters. I also dug the way Treknology was still only being formed, a plot device "borrowed" by Star Trek Enterprise.

Ones I'd recommend you avoid:

• Mirror, Mirror by Diane Duane: snorefest
• Invasion, Day of Honour, Double Helix...most of the old crossovers suck and have mixed tones due to different writers taking on each Trek.
• Any other Shanter books--egotistical drivel.

CSaber

Once Burned, possibly one of the best Trek books ever. The Return was very good, almost cinematic, but those books steadily went downhill afterwards. Great for continuity junkies though.

The Best and the Brightest is also very good.

norrie rugger

"A Stitch in Time" is out of print and costs a friggen fortune!!

CSaber

norrie rugger wrote: »

"A Stitch in Time" is out of print and costs a friggen fortune!!

I'm happy to say that I bought a copy when it came out just so I could get it signed by the author. Sadly I was working that day so had to send my brother who had no interest in Trek. But it was personally signed to me and is a cherished item in my collection.