I posted in another thread about how some Trek books don't have a Trek feel. Just seeing what books some people think were friggin' awful. Yep, there is a wide range of folks on this board and you'll find someone who thinks (insert Trek Title here) is best thing since sliced bread. But with over 300 books printed, there has be to some clunkers (or at least you came across a book where you set your eyeballs for warp speed so you could get through it. For me.... Warped String Theory (all 3 sucked -- I couldn't get through the last one) I still can't believe Beyer who wrote part of the String Theory trilogy is the same Beyer who wrote the Voyager "relaunch" as the Relaunch was totally kick @$$!!!!!
I believe it is safe to say that there are extremely few people on this board who have even neutral opinions of Before Dishonor.
Sure, if you count 41,46 % as extremly few. (Counting everyone as at least neutral who voted average or better in the poll in this thread.)
I finally read "Spock Must Die" a couple of months back and it was probably the worst of the books I've read. It wasn't a total failure because there were Trek worthy themes, but I just couldn't believe that Kirk would allow Spock to be replicated. I was also surprised. After adapting so many Trek books, I felt Blish would have the characters down, but he doesn't.
At the time Spock Must Die! was written, though, Blish had only done the first three volumes of his adaptations (at least, going by publication dates).
What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
I reread Spock Must Die a couple of months ago. I found it a fun, brisk read, but not great, and I agree the characters didn't really seem in character. I liked the String Theory trilogy a lot.
My first Star Trek was The Price of the Phoenix of S. Marshak & M. Culbreath and almost the last. It seemed a bad slash fanfiction. I really don't how an editor in full possession of his/her mental faculties can publish something similar. This is the cover of the Italian edition
Well of Souls- To date, this is the only one I've never finished. Didn't care for the writing, plot, and all of the characters were unlikable.
The Phoenix books are bad. There's an early TNG book The Children of Hamlin that isn't very good . I forget who wrote the novel.
I've said this one before, but DS9's The Laeretian Gambit. Plus Last Full Measure (added nothing to the overall Season 3 arc and was utterly pointless) the first Phoenix book (was that Price of The Phoenix or Fate Of the Phoenix). I own both books, but I still have not read the sequel. But the first one I just found like I was trying to move through molasses on a cold January day with that one. The Mystery Of The Missing Crew and The Secret Of the Lizard People: even as a kid I never really enjoyed these entries in the TNG:SA series, even though they featured my favorite TNG character, Data. Deceptions was a little better, but unfortunately, in the TNG:SA series Data never had a really great story (unlike LaForge who had probably the greatest story of the entire series with Capture The Flag).
I kinda like The Children of Hamlin. It's one of those books I sold off back when I was broke but had a strong enough memory of that I decided to reacquire it years later, and I felt it held up rather well, with one of the more intriguingly exotic alien cultures we've seen in Trek Lit. True, it was written before the series came out and doesn't really fit the TNG universe and characters we ended up with; in particular, its Starfleet is somewhat more edgy and aggressive than the one we got onscreen. But it kind of works as an alternate universe where the historical tragedy underlying the events of the story made the Federation more bitter, wary, and defensive, sort of like 9/11 did for the US.
The first one was The Price. Please, don't read the sequel: it can cause long term damage. I read somewhere that at the time the only condition for the Star Trek novels writers was: "Just don't kill any of the main characters". It seems that Kirk and Spock lusting for each other wasn't off limits too...
Actually I find The Fate of the Phoenix more readable than Price. Price is basically just a romance novel, a turgidly written exercise in dominance play and melodrama. But Fate tells a more ambitious story that attempts to explore some philosophical questions and is thus interesting on some levels, even though it never really follows through on the questions it dabbles with. For instance, as far as I know, it's the first work of Trek fiction, canonical or otherwise, that raises questions about the ethics of the Prime Directive.
I enjoyed Fate, but not as much as Price. I freely admit that the romance element appeals to me, even if it does feel more like fan fic than proper Trek. At the very least I consider it good fan fic. It's worth pointing out that Marshak and Culbreath also wrote a Trek novel where Spock goes into his second Pon Farr and enters into a love triangle with Kirk and a Mary Sue. They come really close to coming terms to the idea of being a threesome before fate separates them from their Mary Sue. Culbreath and Marshak also wrote a short story where all the Enterprise crew swap genders, except for Spock who becomes an enhanced alpha male. Predictable Spock/Kirk attraction ensues. They are entertaining at least. It does surprise me how much they got away with and how largely forgotten these books are. Killing Time, also a fun slashtastic read is better remembered for it's homoerotic content, but I think KT is a lot less bold and daring in the man-love than Marshak and Culbreath's work.