I used to read Star Trek novels. Original series, mostly. I had a whole, whole lot of them, but I decided to downsize when I moved cross country, and I gave them away.
Today, I discovered the LA library has over 100 TOS books on Kindle. And… I may have squeed. I may still be squeeing, if you can squee silently.
I didn’t know I still loved them. I do! I DO!
Ahem.
squee
Do they have Uhura’s Song (Janet Hagan) or Ishmael (Barbara Hambly)? Those were my all-time favorites - I haven’t read them for years, but kept them when I downsized my own TOS paperback library.
They don’t have EITHER, the bastards. I almost mentioned Ishmael in the OP, I was looking forward to reading it so much.
They have 104 of them. Including the slashy Killing Time (which I secretly love, even though it’s so overwrought). And some of the truly terrible early ones like Black Fire (but not the ghastly Marshak-Culbreath monstrosities).
i downsized mine as well. the one i miss, that i didn’t keep, was the one with dinosaurs being the dominate species. can’t remember the name of that one, it was a time story.
I remember it taking me about five minutes to finish the pie-fight scene from How Much For Just The Planet? because I was laughing so hard. And doing a little squeeing of my own when I realized that the British soldier with the red disc in his beret (a one-scene throwaway character) was the Brigadier from Doctor Who.
It was Black Fire that got me away from ST novels. Simple child of nature I was at the time, I thought there was a controlling authority that only allowed competent authors to write good books, so as not to ruin the brand. That book disabused me of that notion.
And the Price/Fate of the Phoenix thought me that authors can have their own agenda that can bleed through. Though I don’t think that was the authors’ intent.
I didn’t know anyone else hated these as much as me.
I read a TOS book about a Dyson sphere that appeared to have simply changed the character names to Star Trek characters. As Robert E. Howard, urged to produce more Conan books, edited some of his pirate stories into Conan stories, I believe that the author’s story wouldn’t sell until he turned it into Star Trek SUP[/SUP]
First Frontier!
All I really remember about the M/C books is the super weird “Vulcan command mode” or whatever they dubbed it.
I can like the ones that really go far afield, like The Final Reflection, or Dwellers in the Crucible. Just not the ones that go far afield and are just terrible. 
I may have to check those out.
From the wikipedia on DitC: “… but by 1992 Paramount Pictures had introduced new standards for Star Trek tie-in novels, which outlawed extensive use of original characters.”
So belatedly they did get a “controlling authority”. I guess there goes my novel about Ensign Marty Stu, the greatest starfleet officer ever!
I was never a great reader of the Trek novels. The one I remember best, among the handful that I read, is The Vulcan Academy Murders. Featuring a “mystery” story that the average six-year old would have dismissed as insultingly obvious.
Oh, there were Mary Sues aplenty. Diane Carey’s Dreadnought!and Battlestations! were about the Mary Suest Mary Sue to have ever Mary Sued. More special than Kirk, with her own pet blond Vulcan who wuuves her.
And the author posed for the cover pic as her Mary Sue character.
actually… I kinda liked them in my less-discriminating, foolish younger days.
I really liked Spock’s World. We get a good backstory of Vulcan history, as well as the return of T’Pring.
Meet Dreadnought!
On preview: SONOFABITCH!
I thought books like that only got published as fan fiction. I didn’t know there were “real world” examples. Fascinating! I guess someone had to Mary Sue first so everyone else could use it as a bad example.
And to have Borris Vallejo paint her on the cover! It doesn’t get any better that that!
It’s that little extra effort that makes it special, isn’t it?
I had to pause to go look up whether Dreadnought! or Battlestations! was the first one, damn you. The question is why didn’t I just post both and win? shakes fist
It has been a very long time, but I recall liking The Final Reflection quite a bit.
I was also fond of Ishmael (so many references!), but never really got into the ST novels otherwise.
Ah, yes. For those who never read it, Ishmael was a Star Trek/Here Come the Brides (Mark Lenard’s other TV series) time-travel crossover, with cameo appearances by characters from various other SF and Western shows: Doctor Who (both Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker), Battlestar Galactica (TOS), Have Gun Will Travel, Bonanza, and more. One of my favorites, even though the author did get the details of HCtB wrong.
That’s Janet KAGEN, not Hagen. She’s dead now, sadly. Because that book is 20 pounds of awesome in a ten-pound bag.
Ishmael is okay, but not nearly as good.
But my favorites among the TOS novels are probably Diane Duane’s. And
:: dons flame-proof outfit ::
the Marshak-Culbreath series. Well, the ones with Omne, anyway.
You make no damned sense! Up is down!