Trek Lit has its stable core of popular, reliable writers, but there are the occasional authors who only do a book or two and then disapppear from Trek, never to be heard from again. My question is, what are your favorite Trek novels by authors who didn't become regulars - perhaps ones you'd like to see come back?
I've worked on Janet Kagan a few times. She thoroughly enjoyed writing "Uhura's Song", but has no urge to try to top her lone ST effort. John M Ford has sadly passed away. A group of us worked on him, too (to follow up "The Final Reflection" and "How Much for Just the Planet?), although he did do a YA under the pseudonym Michael J Dodge.
I'd like to see another Dafydd ab Hugh (DS9: Fallen Heroes, DS9: Rebels, VOY: Invasion! Final Fury, and more) novel and/or Steven Piziks (VOY: Nanotech War)
I'd rather not see the drive by authors get a permanent parking space. I love those books though, because they usually break from the routine, and offer a new and fresh outlook at the ST universe, the same with the occasional actor penned novel. If they became permanent fixtures, then that fresh outlook or skewed view would vanish. There hasn't been a 'guest' author, or outsider playing in a Trek sandpit for quite a while now...
What about Sarah Shaw (Saturn's Children) and Olivia Wood (Fearful Symmetry)? They are both new authors to the Trek fold, and I'm sure there are other recent debuts that I am forgetting, such as S.D. Perry's coauthor for the Terok Nor books.
Dafydd ab Hugh? He started out strong with Fallen Heroes, had two or three decent if not terribly memorable books, and then perpetrated the Rebels trilogy. With the right editor he might possibly tirn out something readable again, but there are other writers with better track records. IMHO, of course. Anyway, ab Hugh doesn't seem to be an active SF writer these days; he hasn't published anything, Trek or otherwise, since the 1990s, and he seems to be focusing his energies on right-wing political blogging.
I'd love to see David Gerrold take another stab at ST, especially now that he has developed a distinctive writing style in his non-ST work. I'd like to see Diane Duane's take on a DS9 novel, too.
Gladly, the most talented authors who have written Trek books are all still writing, at least on occasion. The only one, I would love to read again would be J. Noah Kym, the author of Worlds of DS9: Bajor, imo the best novel of the entire DS9-Relaunch.
^^Well, only two of her Trek novels were original, although the novelizations had a good deal of original material added.
^ How the heck does MJF -- who has written or cowritten more than 35 novels, the most recent of which was published in 2005 -- qualify for this topic?????
And while we're at it can we bring back Keith De Candido, Peter David and David Mack? I miss those guys...
I'd say it's a safe bet that every prolific ST author was originally a "drive by". The ones who keep coming back are the ones who sell lots of units for Pocket - and who either enjoyed the experience enough to do it again, don't have urgent non ST deadlines looming, who get along very professionally with the editors, who are good at meeting deadlines, and/or whose unique take on the ST universe is popular with fans. I'm not sure that any ST authors were approached and signed to multi-book deals before they did their first ST novel or short story. i guess it's possible, but a "drive by" effort is going to have to meet with many approvals before they become a sure thing. I also recall during the Richard Arnold era that several novelists posted to places like GEnie and hardcopy newszines that they'd never return, although several of these authors did come back when the coast was clear.