And rendered non-canon by subsequent movies. It stands as proof that Lucas is lying when he says he had it all mapped out from the beginning.
Very Early is right – it came out within a year of the film’s release. It predates the original plots in the Marvel Star Wars comics.
And bolsters the argument that ADF, not Lucas, really wrote the novel “Star Wars”
Just think of it as an alternate alternate universe.
Of the ones mentioned, I’ll second the recommendations for the Thrawn books, ** Q-Squared, Uhura’s Song, The Final Reflection; Vendetta; Imzadi; My Enemy, My All; The Wounded Sky; ** ( and Peter David and Diane Duane in general ); Yesterday’s Son; Metamorphosis; Spartacus; The Romulan Way.
Q-in-Law : Q gives the power of the Q to Troi’s mother like he did for Riker. Things don’t go quite like he planned . . .
Chain of Attack and The Final Nexus : In the first, Kirk’s Enterprise is catapulted into another galaxy, where the majority of planets have been rendered lifeless by a wide variety of weapons over tens of thousands of years; they have to find their way back. The second is the sequel.
Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry; set beween The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The crime lord Xizor plots against Darth Vader and tries to seduce Leia, among other things.
Windows on a Lost World : Kirk and company discover the remnants of an ancient, dead civilization, and poke about where they shouldn’t have.
Debtor’s Planet : Picard is sent with the new Ambassador Offenhouse ( the modern businessman raised from cryogenic sleep in one of the TV episodes ) to discover why a planet has suddenly gone from preinductrial times to warp level technology, and why the Ferengi blew up the probe that found this.
Doctor’s Orders : Irritated at Dr McCoy, Kirk puts him in charge of the ship as acting commander to teach him a lesson. Then Kirk vanishes, and the doctor can’t be relieved. Then Klingons show up . . .
Oooh, yes, Doctor’s Orders is excellent. Wonderful interplay between McCoy and Spock when the good doctor is left in command. One of the more intriguing portrayals of a genuinely alien race, too.
I’d also like to recommend Star Trek: The New Voyages, ed. by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath (Bantam 1976), now unfortunately out of print, IIRC. It has some outstanding fan-written TOS short stories, esp. “The Enchanted Pool,” “The Face on the Barroom Floor,” and “Mind-Sifter.” Good, good stuff.
But I’ll bet you’re gonna like Imzadi, my dear SHAKES.
“enterprise: the first adventure” was very amusing. the enterprise crew gets together for the first time and has a shake down cruise of the enterprise. all sorts of things ensue.
Oh, and I’ll third “Q-squared”. Great adventure in alternate timeline universes, with a really fun mash-up of them at the end, and I really love the climax.
Another strong vote For Dark Mirror, Vendetta and the Heir To The Empire trilogy.
I’m surprised it hasn’t been mentioned already, but the ST:TOS nove Memory Prime stands out as one of the few trek novels that’s just good science fiction, trek or not- it deals admirably with the quirks of Synthetic Consciousnesses.
The ST:TNG novel Strike Zone has an unremarkable plot, but it’s very funny, making general fun of the Star Trek Universe and Popular Science Fiction in general.
If you like space battles for space battles’ sake, I also recommend the TOS novel Dreadnought!
On the other hand, there are some Trek novels that you MUST NOT READ unless you want BLEEDING EYES.
Oh, God, my eyes. Why can I not stop remembering?
Chief among these, in my opinion, is the TNG novel Immortal Coil- please, for the love of all that is good, do not even consider reading this book. If you find it in your hand, scream, throw it to the ground, and run away as if your life depends upon it.
Also, I wish I hadn’t read the TNG novel Doomsday World. The VOY novel Cyber Song’s only saving grace is that the writer seems to realize how stupid Voyager was; he/she includes a number of subtle, hopefully intentional meta-jokes- it reads like a bad parody.
Star Wars-the X-Wing Series. Especially the books by Aaron Allston.
Best. SW. Books. EVAR.
Some of the authors who have written Star Trek/Star Wars novels have also published other SF novels which weren’t movie/TV tie-ins (Kevin Anderson, James Blish, Octavia Butler, Peter David, Joe Haldeman, Alan Dean Foster, Timothy Zahn, etc). I find that the writing in these books is usually better than the writing in books by authors who only produce tie-ins.
I haven’t read a large number of such books, but I’ve enjoyed a few.
The Romulan Way was mentioned. Does a good job telling how the culture on Romulus leads to the kind of Romulans encountered by Enterprise. I like the half-hearted sort-of-religion described, which is based on the notion that “Things–notice.” It’s got the first Horta to join Star Fleet (naturally, he’s used in covert ops, since he can survive being dropped in from high orbit and is able to masquerade as a rock). It has Dr. McCoy drafted into the role of a spy, as well.
Romulans also get a great treatment in Enterprise–The First Adventure. The Romulan in that is quite as good as the commander from the original series episode “Balance of Terror.” Though the book really twists canon to fit Kirk’s backstory into something that happened when he was a kid in Iowa, which bothered me some.
A Horta - possibly the same one - is also seen in My Enemy, My Ally, along with various other characters. He eats through a neutronium door and gets indigestion ( "It’s just so . . rich. " )
Heh, heh, heh.
“Incredibly stupid weapon. Do not use”
I didn’t know Octavia Butler wrote any Trek novels. What are their titles?
What she said. Also, avoid the New Jedi Order books; they’re set a good many years after the films and you’ll miss a lot of backstory, plus (IMHO) they suck mightily.
Any Trek book by Diane Duane is worth reading.
If you like history and back-story over plot, “The Romulan Way” and “Vulcan” are for you. Her others are entertaining, too, with lots of continuity from one book to the next and tons of character development that makes the whole Trek world more believable.
EXCEPT for the “Enemy Lines” books, since Allston wrote them, and the Wraiths come back!
Yub Yub Commander!
Yep. She even manages to carry over some references from her wizard books into ‘Dark mirror’, like ocean mammals singing ‘the song of the twelve’, and maybe a bit of her fascination with string theory too.
They do? Well, I have more books on my pull list, then. Thanks!
Sorry, I said “Vulcan” when I meant to say “Spock’s World.”
Seconded vehemently!
(Shockingly, I, too, prefer the Allston books to the Stackpole ones. Wraith Squad ftw!)