Actually, the next story is my own A Singular Destiny, which looks at the ramifications of the trilogy on the galactic stage, and also sets up the Typhon Pact books. Then there are books in the individual series -- TNG, Voyager, Titan -- that show the aftereffects of Destiny for those three ships (in the case of Voyager also the setup for it). Then the Typhon Pact books.
I finished the Destiny trilogy and I loved it! I posted my thoughts on the thread about it. I've been watching the important Voyager episodes because of it (I'm watching Endgame right now)... I have the first two VOY relaunch books so I'm curious to try those now even though I don't like VOY.
Maybe you should skip those first four relaunch books and go right to Full Circle. It is much better and takes place in the lead up/ aftermath of Destiny.
I have to agree, the first four VOY relaunch books are disapointing. I'd recommend skipping them, or at least give Full Circle a chance if you don't care for the first four.
Yeah I was just kinda curious to start the first one and see where they were going with it... I already have them on my bookshelf anyway... I recall not being impressed with Christine Golden's entries in Star Wars Fate of the Jedi...
Well the first two are way better than the second two. So you may end up thinking they were worthwhile. I'm glad I read them all.
The difference between the first four Voyager relaunch books and the second four is pretty stunning. We're talking some of my least favorite Star Trek books for the first four and the second four books are among my favorites. You can easily skip the Golden books unless you're a Voyager completist. I can't remember anything story wise in the first four books that's even mentioned again later on.
As someone who's familiar with Christie Golden's Star Wars work, I wouldn't recommend anything written by her. But who knows, maybe she handles Star Trek better.
I actually thought Fate of the Jedi was a really solid Star Wars series (aside from the usual time wasting by stretching it out over too many novels). I did notice the Golden novels were not quite as good as the others, taking way too much time on the new villains. They had my favorite literary villains aside from Thrawn; an entire planet full of Sith and a cosmic level dark side entity. I really hated how pacifist and unsure Luke was in NJO and LOTF, but that's all gone here. When faced with enemy Sith, Luke is perfectly happy to slice and dice without hesitation. It's quite bad ass. The way things are going, it's quite like that Fate of the Jedi is going to end up being the final storyline of the old continuity before it gets wiped out by the new movies. And I think it's a pretty good ending to the story.
Actually the first half of Full Circle is spent wrapping up B'Elanna and Tom's story arc and other unresolved threads from the Golden novels, and it has ongoing ramifications for B'Elanna and Tom in subsequent books.
Man, I don't remember a B'Elanna/Tom arc in the Golden novels at all. I remember stuff like something with Spoiler: some Golden plot points Chakote's sister, the hologram revolt, the Borg nanite thing or what ever that was. I was thinking Full Circle picked up from that hint in A Singular Destiny with Full Circle being split with the first half of it taking place before ASD and the second half taking place after or something like that.
You may not remember it, but the whole thing with the Klingon prophecy about Miral and B'Elanna going to study on Boreth was a major ongoing thread in the Golden novels. The reason Full Circle has the 2-part structure it does is because Kirsten needed to wrap up Golden's arcs before beginning her own. Full Circle and A Singular Destiny were both parts of the same post-Destiny block of novels, but FC was in development for years before ASD came along. The first half of FC takes place in 2378, beginning about six weeks after Spirit Walk ends, and the second half then jumps forward, skimming over 2379-80 and the events of Destiny in a few chapters, with the back half focusing primarily on the period after Destiny, roughly simultaneous with ASD. In fact, by my estimate, FC ends two days before ASD ends, so none of the book takes place after ASD.
I believe you when you say it's there it's just that I don't remember it at all. All of this sounds vaguely familiar. These are books I read over 4 years ago and there have been a lot since then. Details like that sort of fade over time. I'm a HUGE DS9 fan and the relaunch was an exciting series of tie in books I've ever read but there's one thing I do remember is about the time Fearful Symmetry and Soul Key were coming out, the Kirsten Beyer Voyager books were coming out and they did something I didn't think was possible: They made me look forward more to a Voyager book instead of a DS9 book. That's how much I like the Kirsten Beyer Voyager books.
Continuing my excitement over the Destiny trilogy, I just finished reading TNG "Resistance" and "Before Dishonor", the Borg two parter that kinda sorta leads into Destiny. I thought they were pretty good, though the tonal shift to Peter David's goofiness was a little jarring, particularly since the book Spoiler: . involved killing Janeway and almost wiping out Earth . I also thought Picard cracking jokes throughout the entire story to be a little out of character. But I enjoyed it and I liked bringing back the Planet Killer. And it was great to see a crossover between the TNG cast, Janeway, Seven of Nine, and Spock. One question: I assumed these books would set up the ENT-E having the transphasic torpedoes from VOY "Endgame" that it has at the start of Destiny. Is that set up in another novel? Because if that's something they got from "Endgame", why didn't they use them against the Borg in these two stories?
^I believe that's addressed in Greater Than the Sum, which is the transitional work between Before Dishonor and Destiny.
I just finished David Mack's two parter "A Time to Kill" / "A Time to Heal". I almost skipped this one because the premise didn't sound terribly interesting as it was just about one planet of the week, but the fact that it was from the author of Destiny changed my mind. I'm glad I did because it was quite excellent! Mack really makes epic and cinematic Trek tales. And he manages to make the characters, and Starfleet in general, come off as total bad asses. These two books were just chocked full of amazing war sequences given a sense of gritty "realism" despite the often cartoonish technological levels of Star Trek. I also enjoyed the thinly veiled Iraq War metaphor about the entire affair. And I especially loved Section 31 working behind the scenes, completely invisible to everyone else, content to let events transpire without intervention but ready to step in and destroy most of the planet if necessary. The moral quagmire of the story was really well done; the characters are disgusted by what they're forced to cover up, but exposing it would create a disasterous war with the Klingons. Great stuff! I was surprised but pleased at the end when it's implied that Spoiler Section 31 is going to assassinate the Federation President the moment he leaves office
^ Glad you gave Kill/Heal a chance, and that you enjoyed them. I remain proud of those, all these years later, along with my Treklit solo prose debut, SCE: Wildfire.