Favorite Star Trek Books?

Cafe Society
1

Many years ago I purchased a bunch of ST books at a yard sale for ten cents each. This set contained almost all of the ST:TNG books that were available at that time as well as a smattering of the other books. I’m not sure of the year but it was before Imzadi II: Triangle was released. I read all of those books that summer and enjoyed most of them. Over the years I’ve read maybe a quarter of the newer TNG book as they were released but generally I lost interest.

While cleaning out a closet I found my old collection and started rereading them. There’s some pretty good fiction there. In particular, I’ve really liked the Peter David’s works Strike Zone, Vendetta and Imzadi, Dark Mirror by Diane Duane and the DS9 book Fallen Heroes by Dafydd ab Hugh.

Any book you want to suggest?

2

I’ve found that they vary widely in quality. Some are deep and convoluted and very well written; others are pulpy and superficial and almost juvenile.

The DS-9 ones I’ve read have been the best, but that may be because I like DS-9 the best of the Treks. My favorites so far have been:

  • The two “Dark Passion” books about the duplicitous and sensual ladies in the Mirror Universe
  • “The 34th Rule” by Armin Shimerman and some other dudes.
  • “Klingon” and “Kahless” by I Don’t Remember
3

How Much For Just the Planet? - John M. Ford

4

This is the one I came in to mention.

5

The Final Reflection by John M. Ford
The Entropy Effect by Vonda N. McIntyre

6

The last few years the quality has degraded slightly but there is some good stuff out there. I would recommend:

Q-Squared by Peter David

The Millennium Trilogy by the Reeves-Stevens

Federation by the Reeves-Stevens

Serpents Among the Ruins by David R. George III

The Art of the Impossible by Keith R. A. DeCandido

The Sundered by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers by James Swallow

There are other really good ones but most of those are parts of series or very heavy with continuity. The ones listed above are more or less standalone.

7

I’ll third that.

I’ll also mention My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane

8

Prime Directive was the one I reread most. Spock’s World was also great.

9

I recently read all the Deep Space Nine Relaunch books (a series set after the show ended) as they vary somewhat in quality. But the best one was A Stitch In Time, which is kindof a biography of Garak, written as a series of journal entries included in a letter to Dr. Bashir. What’s most impressive is the whole thing was written by Andrew Robinson, the guy who played Garak, and not a professional writer.

Other good ones are The Lives of Dax, Avatar (two books), the Mission Gamma series, and the Worlds of Deep Space Nine series (except the boring shit about the Andorians. They introduced this Andorian character on DS9 and he’s an uninteresting whiny git and takes up way too much time in the series.) The Warpath, Fearful Symmetry and Soul Key arc is also pretty good.

Rising Son was terrible; probably because it is about DS9’s least interesting character (Jake) and an annoying sentient dog. I also found the Millennium trilogy to be execrable.

So after I finished all those, I started reading the numbered series in order. (#1 is just a novelization of Emissary, so I skipped that.) #2 was pretty awful, but I found it interesting to see how the author treated the characters since by the time it was written, DS9 had only been on the air a few weeks. It’s amazing how many of these things they manage to crank out.

#4, The Big Game, is my favorite so far, and it involves an amusing side plot in which Quark holds a poker tournament.

#5, Fallen Heroes, is surprisingly dark. I mean, even for DS9. This book has more sadistic violence and brutal death in it than I’ve ever seen in any Star Trek media. Of course you know from the first page that it’s all going to hit the reset switch because time travel is involved.

I’m currently in the middle of #7, Warchild, which has some interesting stuff involving Bajoran prophecies. IIRC this one takes place in between seasons 1 and 2.

10

A Rock and a Hard Place, Dark Mirror, Spock’s World.

11

Have you heard it in audiobook form when performed by De Lancie? It’s really good that way, too.

I found out because I accidentally deleted the eBook, and wound up actually purchasing the audiobook on iTunes. In fact, it’s the only thing I ever bought on iTunes.

12

Well, now you’ve raised the issue of Star Trek audiobooks. I know there are a lot of them out there—some of them read by Star Trek actors, some of them with sound effects and music and stuff like that, but some of them severely abridged. I’d be interested in hearing if people have anything good or bad to say about any of them in particular.

13

I’d agree with most of the recommendations above (some of them I haven’t read myself). In general, if you like one of the books you’ll want to seek out others by the same author.

14

I actually liked this one. My favorite part was that it brought back a lot of those early Gamma Quadrant races that showed up in DS9’s first couple of seasons that were forgotten by the show. Admittedly, most find it their least favorite of the DS9 reboot but I found it a good read. Didn’t include it (or any of the others) in my list as I was trying to avoid books that were part of a series.

15

Don’t really buy audio books but I have heard good things about that one.

16

Only read The Final Reflection because I like John (PBUH) Ford’s stuff. Liked it pretty well.

17

My all-time favorite ST novel is Diane Duane’s Dark Mirror, which has it all: the Mirror Universe (well, one of them, at least), intrigue, Klingon opera, a dolphin navigator and Shakespeare. Really a great book - very readable.

My second-favorite would be Imzadi by Peter David, which has good backstory on Riker and Troi, some very funny scenes with Data, and a nifty time-travel subplot involving the Guardian of Forever (I wouldn’t recommend the sequel, though, which was a big letdown).

The rest of my faves are a few rungs down the quality ladder, I’d say, but Federation, Spock’s World and Q-in-Law are all worth a read for anyone who loves ST. Haven’t read it in years and years, but I remember Gene Roddenberry’s (ghostwritten?) novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture as being pretty good, with a lot of interesting philosophical musings on Federation society, and from-the-horse’s-mouth info on what happened between the end of TOS and the beginning of the movie.

Star Trek: The New Voyages, a collection of fan-written stories from before ST:TMP came out, is uneven but has some standouts. “The Enchanted Pool” by Marcia Ericson is a charming little romance, “The Face on the Barroom Floor” by Eleanor Arnason and Ruth Berman is about a humorously disastrous shore leave for Kirk, and “Mind-Sifter” by Shirley S. Maiewski is a chilling time-travel story with a hard-won but well-deserved happy ending.

I read How Much for Just the Planet? not long after it came out and was… underwhelmed. Not nearly as funny as I’d been told.

18

I have a particular fondness for *Ishmael *by Barbara Hambly and *Spock’s World *by Diane Duane.

The recent *Destiny *trilogy was pretty good.

19

I’m a big fan of Best Destiny by Diane Carey. It basically describes how Kirk became THE Captain Kirk.

It’s largely what I wish the 2009 reboot had been. Alas.

20

I think I might be the only person on the planet (other than the authors) who absolutely loved The Price of the Phoenix and The Fate of the Phoenix.

Yeah, they were offbeat. Yeah, they were Star Trek torture porn (well, as much as a novel commercially published in the 70s could be). But since I adore the “test the hero to the point of destruction” school of writing, I lapped these up like kittens go for milk. I still reread them every few years. Oh, and Omne worked perfectly as a villain for me. I won’t necessarily call him “great,” but he did the trick for me.

I also enjoyed Star Trek: The New Voyages and New Voyages 2. Most of my Star Trek books are fairly old–I gave up reading them around the early 80s, so most of mine are from the 70s.