Good star trek books?

[KrangPrime]

I've about given up on new star wars books.

After 30 years with the EU, I don't have the heart to start over again with all new authors who think adding in earth phrases like 'it is what it is' equals a good star wars book.

I'm reading Federation....so far it's pretty interesting.

I read one of the Q books written by John D Lancie where Q created the earth solar system, that was pretty good.

What else is worth checking out?

 

[SmilingOtter]

Spock's World by Diane Duane is excellent. Odd chapters are about the Enterprise crew dealing with a movement in the Vulcan legislative body to secede from the Federation. Even chapters give you the history of the Vulcan people, from their origins, through Surak, to a young Vulcan ambassador to Earth who fell in love with his human assistant.

The Kobayashi Maru is another good one. Kirk, Scotty, Chekov and Sulu are in a stranded shuttlecraft and recount how each of them handled the test. (Scotty's is the best.)

 

[0neiros]

Yesterday's Son, and Time for Yesterday by A.C. Crispin. While studying the archaeological records of the now-destroyed planet Sarpeidon, a scholar aboard the USS Enterprise finds pictures of an ice-age cave painting that depicts a Vulcan face. Spock realizes that his involvement with Zarabeth in the episode "All Our Yesterdays" resulted in the birth of a child. Along with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy, he uses the Guardian of Forever (featured in the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever") to journey back into Sarpeidon's past and rescue his son.

Any of the books by Peter David, and I mean any of them.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

I'll start by asking if there's a particular era or character or ship you prefer. Or, by corollary, any you particularly dislike. Any further response depends on that...

 

[J.F. Sebastian]

I'll second that - 'Yesterdays Son' and 'Time for Yesterday' by A.C. Crispin are great reads! (although I forgot which one comes first... it's kinda important, since they build on each other)


Another movie-era novel I enjoyed was 'Deep Domain' by Howard Weinstein.


Admiral Kirk and the Enterprise visit the ocean-world of Akkalla for diplomatic reasons. Soon Spock and Chekov become lost. A civil war and secrets under the water threaten the entire planet and the Enterprise.

Background: Weinstein had met with Leonard Nimoy, director of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, while Nimoy was developing the story for the film. The two discussed, among other things, the idea of using whales, or creatures similar to whales, something later seen in both that film as well as Deep Domain. Weinstein has commented that, "To this day, I don’t know if whales ended up in ST:IV partly as a result of my suggestion, or whether they’d already decided that. But they were nice enough to give me that “Thank you” credit".

EDIT: Peter David's books are always entertaining. I especially like the 'New Frontier' series. Although I admit it took me some time to get used to the, hmm, graphic description of violence in the beginning...

 

[The Mad Professor]

The Rihannsu series is good as well.

My Enemy, My Ally
The Romulan Way
Swordhunt
Honor Blade
The Empty Chair

 

[KrangPrime]

i'll check some of them out.

what about the autobiography of captain kirk?

 

[edge10]

The Final Reflection by John M. Ford. The ultimate book about the Klingons, told from a Klingon protagonists point of view. Published before TNG.

 

[PotionMistress]

Aside from the novelization books, this DK (Dorling Kindersley) book on Star Trek is a great visualization book for prop and costume recreation reference.

https://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Visual-Dictionary-Hardcover/dp/B00NYI9N3A/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491866196&sr=1-3&keywords=dorling+kindersley+star+trek

 

[firesprite]

I like the Titan series. It picks up after Nemesis, but don't hold that against it. It follows Riker's first command aboard the Titan which boasts literally the most biologically diverse crew in Starfleet history.

Taking Wing

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

Well, @KrangPrime, since you didn't answer, I'm-a just go ahead. I have many Trek books, going back to the '70s, which was why I wanted to maybe narrow things down.

I like James Blish's prose adaptations of the TOS episodes. He went by the scripts, so there's often a detail or three that was cut from the finished episode for run-time. Similarly, I love Alan Dean Foster's adaptations of the animated episodes. He did a great job of teasing the good, Trek-ian sci-fi core of the stories out of the '70s Filmation production values. Similarly, the novelizations of the movies from TMP through Generations, with the occasional episode adaptation (primarily TNG's "All Good Things..."). All have snippets that add to the tapestry while not (for the most part) contradicting last-minute story changes.

I'll definitely echo the others who have said "anything by Peter David". I like his Q books particularly. He knows how to write the character better than almost anyone. And Imzadi is one of the better books I've ever read. Yeah, it follows a standard formula, but he does it so damn well...

I also like Diane Carey's books, despite her suffering a bit on the technical side of things. She does great work with characters (even though her debut duology featured about the biggest Star Trek Mary-Sue ever). I have read my way through two copies of Final Frontier (which is not the later movie of same name) and to this day consider it the only good and worthy George Kirk/Robert April story out there. I don't put that slash there to indicate, y'know... slash. Just that neither and both can be considered the main character. Her follow-on novel Best Destiny ain't bad, either.

I have also gone through a couple copies of Strangers From the Sky, for good reason.

Further agreement on The Kobayashi Maru and the Ann Crispin "Yesterday" duology.

Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens and Michael Jan Friedman also have a hard time doing a bad Trek story. Prime Directive is amazing. J.M. DIllard also deserves to be included in that list, though I think The Lost Years stands well above the others. And while someone else mentioned John Ford's The Final Reflection, you mustmustmust read his How Much for Just the Planet? for about the best "And now for something completely different" Trek story ever.

The Lost Era books are a little hit and miss, but I like them for filling in what happened between the end of the prologue of Generations (launch of the Enterprise-B in 2293) and the beginning of The Next Generation in 2364. The Gateways, Section 31, Day of Honor, Brave and the Bold, and Captain's Table crossover miniseries all deserve a look, as does the Mirror Universes/Myriad Universes anthology series.

Jeri Taylor's Mosaic and Pathways are good for getting a better sense of how she saw the characters she created for Voyager.

Then we get to the ones I like even more, in concept and execution -- the Relaunch series (that's series plural, not singular). The Deep Space Nine Relaunch really begins with the last numbered DS9 novel, A Stitch in Time, written by the actor who played Garak. Dude can seriously write, too. It's set after the series ended, with Garak back on Cardassia trying to help his people recover. And that led to something really cool. The editors said "well, whatdoes happen after the series ended?" With TOS and TNG, the films continue the characters' stories. With DS9 there was nothing. So they ditched the numbers and picked up six months after the show ended with the next books released, the Avatar duology. And each book that followed continued the story from where the last one left it. The setting and characters continued to evolve and develop over more than a dozen books. Voyager also had a darn good Relaunch, picking up immediately after the finale ended, with them heading toward Earth.

They had also done a semi-relaunch with the TNG books, too, also releasing them in an ongoing-story order. Then the Relaunch serieses and the Titan series (which is good, but my headcanon rejects everything after the Enterprise-D is destroyed, so things get somewhat Heisenbergian for me past Nemesis, where I can no longer fudge the -E as the -D in my head) all come together in The Typhon Pact and the serieses pretty much stay melded together into one macro-series as Things Get Bad(TM). I'll just warn you that, should you start on the Relaunch books, you'll likely develop the strong need to See What Happens Next(TM).

--Jonah

 

[mkstewartesq]

I like James Blish's prose adaptations of the TOS episodes. He went by the scripts, so there's often a detail or three that was cut from the finished episode for run-time.

In fact, more than once, he went by very early drafts of the scripts - so his take differed, in some cases, fairly greatly from the actual "as-filmed" story. A neat alternative take.

Similarly, I love Alan Dean Foster's adaptations of the animated episodes. He did a great job of teasing the good, Trek-ian sci-fi core of the stories out of the '70s Filmation production values.

Agreed on this. Now, I haven't reads these books in over 35 years (eeek!), but, in opposition to the Blish books (that distilled an hour long episode into 40-50 or so pages on average, ADF took what were fairly threadbare 30 minute animated episodes and expanded them to a length of (IIRC) 60-70 pages (there were usually only 3 or 4 episodes covered in each Logs book.)

I'll add a potentially controversial choice - the Strange New Worlds series. This was a series basically officially-sanctioned fan fic in the late 90s-early 200s that featured 4 or 5 short stories from each Trek era for a total of 20 or so stories per annual volume. Usually fun stuff.and, because each Trek era was represented, there was usually something that would grab your interest regardless of which era(s) of Trek was "yours" - and if you found something you didn't like so much, you just moved on to the next story.

M

 

[KrangPrime]

I'll start by asking if there's a particular era or character or ship you prefer. Or, by corollary, any you particularly dislike. Any further response depends on that...

Whoops, didn't see this one.


I mostly prefer TNG, since technically that's what i started out with. after that, i'd go in order of watching. TOS movies, DS9, Voyager and enterprise

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

I mostly prefer TNG, since technically that's what i started out with. after that, i'd go in order of watching. TOS movies, DS9, Voyager and enterprise

*cracks knuckles* Well, then... Bearing in mind I've about sixty or so books, plus various comics that all take place from pre-TOS up through the late TOS Film era -- all of which I consider worth reading at least once... I'll give you my recommended-reading list (and why) in chronological order within the Trek universe. *ahem*

- Day of the Vipers [first book in the Terok Nor trilogy] (2318-'28): chronicles the Cardassians first coming to, then conquering Bajor
- The Art of the Impossible (2328-'46): Colonel Worf from TUC and what he has going on during Cardassian expansion and domestic intrigue
- The Valiant (2333): Picard commanding the Stargazer
- The six "Stargazer" books [Gauntlet, Progenitor, Three, Oblivion, Enigma, Maker] (2333): More of...
- Well of Souls (2336): Lost Era book about Rachel Garrett on the Enterprise-C
- The four Data-focused Starfleet Academy books (2341): The whole series is for younger readers, and a couple get some important details massively wrong, but I'll mention the ones that I feel are worthwhile.
- Night of the Wolves [second book in the Terok Nor trilogy] (2345-57): Completion of Terok Nor and beginning of the Bajoran Resistance
- The three Janeway-centered Starfleet Academy books (late 2340s): Same caveat as above
- The Buried Age (2355-'64): What Picard was up to after the loss of the Stargazer, and how he got the clout to get the new Enterprise
- The three Worf-centric Starfleet Academy books (2357): Peter David did these, plus this is where we first meet some of the crew of the New Frontier books
- The three Geordie-centric Starfleet Academy novels (2357): I pointedly ignore the one that has him and Riker at the Academy at the same time
- Catalyst of Sorrows (2360): Starfleet Intelligence stuff with Romulans, Admiral Uhura, Lieutenant Sisko, etc.
- Day of the Eagles [third book in the Terok Nor trilogy] (2360-'69): The Bajoran Resistance is getting pushed bac and getting more desperate, and Odo is discovered
- Ghost Ship (2364): First numbered TNG novel. Ignore the headscratcher image on the cover. Often overlooked, but I find it a compelling story.
- The Peacekeepers (2364): TNG #2. Also a good solid story, which seems to get harder as time goes on (I had largely given up on the numbered novels by the time they got to ten, barring specific authors).
- The Children of Hamlin (2364): TNG #3. Always liked this one. When I purged the ones I didn't like, these first three TNG novels were about the only squentially-numbered books I kept.
- Strike Zone (2365): TNG #5. Peter David's first Star Trek novel, building on his successful run on DC's Star Trek comics.
- A Rock and a Hard Place (2366): TNG #10. Another Peter David outing. The character of Commander Stone is essentially a prototype for Mackenzie Calhoun of his later New Frontier books.
- Doomsday World (2366): TNG #12. An interesting exercise ith four autors collaborating on one book and because of who they were it really worked. I'm going to take a moment to relate one of my favorite moments in the book, toward the end, between Data, Geordie, and Worf, respectively...

"I believe I have learned that command is far more difficult than I thought it would be. And you, Geordi?"
"I learned that I need to try and keep cooler in high-pressure situations... and maybe find a way to keep my VISOR on tighter."
"I have learned that if I had been allowed to shoot things when I wanted to shoot them in the first place, we would have had significantly fewer problems."

- Q-in-Law (2366): TNG#18. This is by Peter David. In it, Lwaxana Troi meets Q... I'll let that sink in.
- Vendetta (2367): Peter David tackles some nice, era-spanning notions... even though he gets a few details wrong (we saw the Repulse in TNG as an Excelsior-class ship, and its Captain, Taggert, was a man -- in this, the Repulse is referred to as Nebula-class and Taggert is a woman. One for-instance. Oops).
- Requiem (2369): TNG#32. Another era-spaning story, this time involving Picard and the Gorn
- Engines of Destiny (2369): A retrieved Scotty tries to go back and rescue Kirk from getting taken by the Nexus, but that screws everything up -- I tent to hate time-travel stories, but this is a good one
- Fallen Heroes (2370): DS9#5. This is one of only very few pre-Relaunch DS9 novels I have, and made sure I got any other offerings from the same author. Sadly, he only had one other Trek outing, a few entries further down. When we met at a signing, I was really hoping one of his story ideas would get made. Alas, it never did -- a disciplinary hearing for Picard for his role in making the Borg look more closely at us. He pissed off Q, he ignored Guinan twice, he didn't finish off that Borg ship after it had proven hostile...
- Q-Squared (2370): Another Peter David Q outing
- Balance of Power (2370): TNG#33. The other book by the author of Fallen Heroes I mentioned
- All Good Things... (2370): Novelization of the TNG finale. Makes a bit more sense than the episode, plus a couple added details.
- Do Comets Dream? (2371): A nice solid classically Trek-ian sci-fi story
- Crossover (2371): I don't know why it's called this, but it's a solid story of Scotty and McCoy trying to rescue Spock after he's arrested teaching Romulan Unificationists.
- Kahless (2371): Bouncing bac and forth between when the artifact is discovered and the days of the first Klingon Emperor that it purports to be the true account of -- which conflicts somewhat with the legend.
- Day of Honor miniseries (the TNG installment is in 2371): This crosses all the eras at the time, and the DS9 and VOY installments take place the following year, but if you get the omnibus volume that has them all in one...
- Generations (2293 & 2371): Novelization of the film. Includes the orbital-skydiving opening, and a bit more on the Nexus
- This is where the Invasion! crossover miniseries takes place. Having read the whole thing, the only one I consider worth keeping and re-reading is: Time's Enemy (2371): DS9#16
- Wrath of the Prophets (2372): DS9 #20. This one brings Ensign Ro back into things.
- Mosaic (2372): Jeri Taylor's backstory of Captain Janeway
- Ship of the Line (2372-'73): What Picard & Co. were up to after Generations and before First Contact. Captain Bateson commanding the shakedown of the Enterprise-E. Some more of Diane Carey's sometimes-frustrating combo of good story and characters with factual/technical shortcomings.
- Slings and Arrows (2372-'73): This one is still only e-books, as far as I know, but the six installments cover the first year of the Enterprise-E prior to First Contact
- Section 31: Rogue (2373): This is the TNG installment of the Section 31 crossover series. There was an earlier-set TOS book, too. This one is set right after First Contact, but, since it is about Lt. Hawk, much of it takes place about six months prior.
- This is where New Frontier starts (2373): You can read the first four in one go
- Tales of the Dominion War (2373-'75): One of a lot of good anthologies that started coming out around here.
- New Frontier: Martyr & Fire on High (2374)
- Immortal Coil (2374): TNG novel focuing on Data and how Soong got the science to build him
- Hollow Men (2374): DS9 novel that follows on to the events of the episode "In the Pale Moonlight"
- Pathways (2374): Takes place less than a year after Seven joins the crew, so mid-to-late-fourth-season. Where Mosaic told Janeways story, this is Jeri Taylor's foray into other principals.
- Triangle: Imzadi II (2374): Epilogue to "Tears of the Prophets". Much of the novel chronicles the obstacles Worf and Deanna overcame in their relationship after Generations, but the bookends -- and context -- are after Jadzia's death, and Worf being all introspective and melencholy.
-The Battle of Betazed (2374): A couple months after "Tears of the Prophets", so very late 2374 or early 2375
- Double or Nothing (2375): There's an entirely-TNG miniseries called Double Helix that covers a span of time all the way back to the first year of the Enterprise-D's mission. The only one I've bothered keeping is this fifth book, which crosses over with New Frontier.
- I, Q (2375): Co-written by John de Lancie and Peter David
- Section 31: Shadow (2375): This is the Voyager installment in the Section 31 crossover series, involving Seven of Nine and a Section 31 mole who's been on the ship the whole time
- Diplomatic Implausibility (2376): Post-Dominion War, Worf finding his new way as Ambassador to the Klingon Empire
- The Left Hand of Destiny (2376): Post Dominion War, Martok returns to the Klingon homeworld to try to put things back together
- New Frontier: The Quiet Place, Dark Allies, Excalibur triptych (Requiem, Renaissance, Restoration) (2376)
- A Stitch in Time (2376): DS9#27. This is the one I alluded to in my last post, written by Andrew Roinson about Garak's life and attempts to help Cardassia rebuild

This is where the Relaunch happened. The end of numbered books -- in the old way of doing it, anyway. Some o the books I've listed above came out after this pont, and so aren't numbered, per se. But I care more about the in-universe narrative, hence listing things in this order. But from here, apart from the odd volume addressing an earlier time, or an earlier offering set in the far future, The stuff coming out all was published as an ongoing, and increasingly interwoven, metastory. It started with...

- Avatar, Books One and Two (2376): Kicking things off some months after the DS9 series finale
- Section 31: Abyss (2376): The DS9 installment of the Section 31 crossover series, involving Julian Bashir
- This is where all the "contemporary" installments of the Gateways crossover miniseries take place. There's a TOS and Challenger one, too. The TNG one is Doors Into Chaos, the DS9 one is Demons of Air and Darkness, the VOY one is No Man's Land, the New Frontier one is Cold Wars, they all culminate in the anthology What Lay Beyond, and there's a Starfleet Corps of Engineers (S.C.E.) epilogue called Here There Be Monsters. Note: The whole S.C.E. series takes place in the 2370s, but tend to not be nailed down more concretely than that...
- New Frontier: Being Human & Gods Above take place roughly around here
- Mission: Gamma (2376): The next proper installment in the DS9 Relaunch, a series of four books where the Defiant resumes exploration in the Gamma Quadrant (while other things continue happening on the station)
- Rising Son (2376)
- Unity (2376)
- New Frontier: Stone and Anvil (2376)
- The three Worlds of Deep Space Nine books (2376) -- Cardassia and Andor, Trill and Bajor, and Dominion and Ferenginar
- Warpath (2377)
- Fearful Symmetry (2377)
- The Soul Key (2377)
- A Hard Rain (2377): A fun Picard/Dixon Hill adventure
- The Never-Ending Sacrifice (2370-'78): This covers the experiences of that Cardassian boy introduced in the episode "Cardassians" -- living on Bajor and hated, repatriated to Cardassia, witnessing the invasion of the Klingons and the alliance with the Dominion...
- Homecoming (2378): First of the Voyager Relaunch books, picking up right after the fade-out at the end of "Endgame"
- Farther Shore (2378): Immediate sequel to the above
- Spirit Walk, books one and two [Old Wounds & Enemy of My Enemy] (2378): Immediate continuation to the above
- A Time to... [...Be Born, ...Die, ...Sow, ...Harvest, ...Love, ...Hate, ...Kill, ...Heal, and A Time for War, A Time for Peace] (2378-'79): Nine-book series (annoyingly abbreviated from twelve) leading up to Nemesis

*sigh* Then Nemesis, the nadir of the TNG films. I was already grouchy with all of them feeling like fancy episodes and not films, furious for the destruction of the Enterprise-D, especially to have it replaced by that tremendous step backwards. So I'm already well into "well, since that's the direction they're going..." territory... A lot of these overlap or run concurrently, so I'm just going to lay them out and let you sort through the stories. *heh*

- Articles of Federation (2380): After the "A Time To..." books, and the events of the next batch down to Destiny pretty much all take place over the course of this book.
- Full Circle (2378-81): Voyager Relaunch novel following on from the Spirit Walk duology and spanning a good three years, including the events of the Destiny miniseries
- After the Fall, Missing in Action, & Treason (2379): New Frontier jumps forward a bit
- The Titan series [Taking Wing, The Red King, Orion's Hounds, Sword of Damocles, Over a Torrent Sea, Synthesis, Fallen Gods, Absent Enemies (ebook only), Sight Unseen, & Fortune of War] (2379-'81)
- Blind Man's Bluff (c.2380): New Frontier, sometime after Treason
- The Returned, Parts 1, 2, and 3 (c.2380): Most recent New Frontier, ebook only
- Resistance (c.2379/80): Second of the TNG Relaunch books, but chronologically first
- Before Dishonor (2380): Fourth TNG Relaunch book, but chronologically second
- Greater Than the Sum (2380): Fifth TNG Relaunch book, but follows on right after Before Dishonor
*problematic-but-good*
- Death in Winter (2380): First TNG Relaunch book, but details within conflict with the ones above -- mainly, Beverly leaving the ship, when she's present in the others
- Q&A (2380): Third TNG Relaunch book, less dependent on placement, but also after Resistance and, thanks to Q, can really take place just about anywhere in here
*back to your regularly-scheduled Relaunch*
- Destiny trilogy [Gods of Night, Mere Mortals, Lost Souls] (2381): It might sound melodramatic to say "everything's been leading to this", but... Everything's been leading to this. I won't give spoilers, though.
- Losing the Peace (2381): TNG Relaunch. Aftermath from Destiny
- Unworthy (2381): VOY Relaunch. Follows on from Full Circle, and influenced by Destiny
- Children of the Storm (2381): VOY Relaunch. Follows on from Unworthy
- The Eternal Tide (2381): VOY Relaunch. Follows on from the previous book
- Protectors (2381-'82): VOY Relaunch
- Indistinguishable from Magic (2382): TNG Relaunch
- Acts of Contrition, Atonement, & A Pocket Full of Lies (c.2382): VOY Relaunch (next one forthcoming this December)
- The Typhon Pact [Zero Sum Game, Seize the Fire, Rough Beasts of Empire, Paths o Disharmony, The Struggle WIthin, Plagues of Night, Raise the Dawn, Brinkmanship] (2382-'83): Big crossover event where several Alpha Quadrant powers band together against the Federation. This is... not good.
- The Cold Equations trilogy [The Persistence of Memory, Silent Weapons, The Body Electric] (2384): Three standalone stories that take place in the tense time following the Typhon Pact books
- The Stuff of Dreams (2384): TNG ebook
- The Light Fantastic (c.2384): The next stepping stone in the Immortal Coil/Cold Equations story
- The Fall [Revelation and Dust, The Crimson Shadow, A Ceremony of Losses, The Poisoned Chalice, Peaceable Kingdoms] (2385): Next big crossover event. Things get worse
- Takedown (c.2385): Immediate aftermath of The Fall
- Disavowed (2386): Section 31. Next installment is supposed to be out now -- I haven't checket yet
- Armageddon's Arrow & Headlong Flight (2386): TNG, new explorations. Next installment due out this year

I know that's a lot, but trust me -- I'm leaving out at least as much that I just consider "meh".

--Jonah

 

[The Mad Professor]

I started reading the TNG novels when Strike Zone came out, and I loved them. Strike Zone will always hold a special place in my heart as it was the first Trek novel I read, but the others that stuck out to me were:

1) Masks. Kind of hokey thinking back on it, but the concept of a society that determines station in life based on a mask you wear was intriguing.

2) Gulliver's Fugitives. A nice little tale about how imagination and fiction are as important to society as science and math.

3) Metamorphosis. Data becomes human. This is an interesting book from an apocryphal standpoint, as it was published in March 1990 and the episode "Deja Q" (which was a similarly themed story involving Q) aired in February 1990. Given the nature of the publication process for licensed novels and the typical time given to write and make an episode, I'm not unconvinced that the bigwigs may have decided to lift some basic ideas from the novel and create the episode while holding off on publication of the novel until after the episode aired.