Essential Star Trek Novels That Even Non-Trekkers Should Read

[BillJ]

I would add A Time to Kill/A Time to Heal to the list. I've been reading these for the first time this week and its absolutely brilliant work and and an incredible look at the dangers of being an occupying power.

These two actually passed the Destiny trilogy as my favorite David Mack books.

[tomswift2002]

Why was Voyager not represented on that list? Books like "Pathways" and "Mosaic" (both pre-2001 novels) or "Cybersong" and "Echoes"?

Or how about "Planet X"? Or even "Engines of Destiny"? Or the "Millennium" trilogy or "Collision Course"?

[Bishop76]

Because Voyager isn't well loved within Trek fandom and even less accepted outside of it.

[ronny]

Has anyone else posted their suggestions at the site as well as here? I thought it would be good to have the author and the other posters there seeing our suggestions as opposed to just our bubble here.

[JWolf]

King Daniel Into Darkness wrote:

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Ever since I read Enterprise: The First Adventure I've wanted to read a book where Stephen met Sybok.

(and somehow Spock goes through life thinking he's the misfit!)

Enterprise: The First Adventure should not be on the list. It just isn't a good story and it doesn't quite read right. There are things that make you go WTF. It's just awful (IMHO).

[JWolf]

Sci wrote:

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Articles is no worse than a typical episode of The West Wing in that regard; all of its continuity is stuff you don't have to have read to read AotF, and most of it is stuff you might not even realize is a reference to other books if you haven't read them.

This is supposed to be a list of books for non-trekkies to read. AoTF just doesn't work here. While it's a very good book, it's not for non-trekkies who have not read the books around it. Full Circle is again another book that doesn't work. It need the books before it to work.

When you pick books for the list, remember, this is for non-trekkies and you have to say to yourself, they may not have read any of the books. So don't pick books (like Wildfire) that need other books read first in order to work better.

[Sci]

JWolf wrote:

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This is supposed to be a list of books for non-trekkies to read. AoTF just doesn't work here. While it's a very good book, it's not for non-trekkies who have not read the books around it.

It is, again, a book that works just fine without other books. Most of the references to other books are ones you wouldn't even know refer to other books if you haven't read them.

Full Circle is again another book that doesn't work. It need the books before it to work.

Don't agree. It works fine on its own.

When you pick books for the list, remember, this is for non-trekkies and you have to say to yourself, they may not have read any of the books. So don't pick books (like Wildfire) that need other books read first in order to work better.

1. I'll pick whatever books I want, thank you very much; please don't issue orders.

2. So, when I read Wildfire, I had read, like, maybe one S.C.E. book before -- the first one. I was almost wholly unfamiliar with S.C.E., and I thought it was a beautiful, haunting book.

I would absolutely defend Wildfire's inclusion. In fact, I would defend it above several other novels in both my list and in the io9 article.

[tomswift2002]

Bishop76 wrote:

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Because Voyager isn't well loved within Trek fandom and even less accepted outside of it.

That's not exactly echoed in a recent poll at startrek.com:

http://www.startrek.com/article/the-...lu-ray-next-is

Of course that article is about which Trek series people want to see hit Blu-Ray next---and it looks like it is Voyager just edging out DS9, and with no contest from Enterprise.

[RaymondJames]

Spike730 wrote:

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"Uhura's Song" should definately be on that list.

Not sure if it work well for a non Trekkie but I quite enjoyed that book! though I hardly ever see it mentioned by anyone for anything good.

[Bishop76]

tomswift2002 wrote:

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That's not exactly echoed in a recent poll at startrek.com:

http://www.startrek.com/article/the-...lu-ray-next-is

Of course that article is about which Trek series people want to see hit Blu-Ray next---and it looks like it is Voyager just edging out DS9, and with no contest from Enterprise.

Naturally polls conducted on fan sites are the most accurate of all... I'm pretty sure even I got spammed by Voyager fans annoying other people to vote for Voyager. I don't really think they'll do the blu-ray treatment for Voyager or DS9 and they only reason they ARE doing it for Enterprise next year is because it's already in HD and will be a cheap, fast set to put out.

[JD]

Sci wrote:

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It is, again, a book that works just fine without other books. Most of the references to other books are ones you wouldn't even know refer to other books if you haven't read them.

Don't agree. It works fine on its own.

1. I'll pick whatever books I want, thank you very much; please don't issue orders.

I'm with Sci on these two. I don't see why you'd need to read the books around AotF. I haven't read it for a while but if I remember correctly most of the stuff in it is being addressed by Pres. Bacco for the first time, so most of it is pretty thoroughly recapped for bother her and the audience. I didn't read some of the books around it, and I had no problem following it.

Same goes for FC, it was the first time we'd seen that stuff addressed from that perspective, so we got a fairly detailed explanation for what was going on. Didn't we even see some whole scenes from Destiny rewritten from Chakotay and co.'s perspective?

[JWolf]

I strongly disagree that Full Circle, Articles of the Federation and Wildfire work for non-trekkies. Yes, they are good books and I've enjoyed reading them. But if I had not read any of the books around them, my enjoyment would not have been as good as it was. I would have been lost in a number of places in these books.

What we need is a list of books that work if you've not read any other Star Trek book. The above mentioned books work better with other books read first so they don't work in this list.

[Sho]

FWIW, I read Articles pretty cold without reading any of the books it overtly references (like the A Time to series) and loved the heck out of that tome. I think it works well standalone.

I agree that the emotional impact of Wildfire would be a lot diminished sans the serial context though.

[David Mack]

Sho wrote:

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I agree that the emotional impact of Wildfire would be a lot diminished sans the serial context though.

I'm not so sure about that. The manuscript for Wildfire moved both my wife and my agent to tears the first time each of them read it, and neither had read any of the previous material in the S.C.E. series, and neither had read much Treklit in general. I'd be willing to bet that except for a few truly obscure references, most of Wildfire would be accessible to a reader selected at random.

[Sho]

^ Fair enough, my post may be confirmation bias at work since I did read the series leading up to it.