But the two characters had also returned, thanks to Len Wein, in the DC Comics' issues from ST IV and through till the end of Peter David's run on Series I (#37-55).
Are the novels accessible for people brand new to Star Trek?
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But the two characters had also returned, thanks to Len Wein, in the DC Comics' issues from ST IV and through till the end of Peter David's run on Series I (#37-55).
^That's right. It was Wein who added Arex and M'Ress to the Trek comic, and they continued as regulars through the remaining few issues of Wein's run and the entirety of Mike Carlin's brief run before PAD took over.
But that was back in the 80's early-90's, and only to those who read comics. In my area it was a lot easier to find a Star Trek prose novel than it was to find a Star Trek comic book back then; even the trade paperback reissues were hard to find. So in 2001 when David reintroduced the characters a lot more people were probably seeing them for the first time.
Books I write are accessible so long as you're familiar with the shows. Mainly so you know the characters and basic universe, not because of past plot points. I try to write my books like they were episodes you could watch, and the shows themselves tended not to be too self-referential for the most part.
They're not accessible at all. They assume not only that you're familiar with every episode and movie, but also with a fuck ton of other novels.
Best bet is to stick with the shows.
Umm... no. They mention other novels and episodes, but that's not the same as assuming the audience's familiarity. "The Cage" didn't assume the audience was familiar with the fight on Rigel VII. "Court-martial" didn't assume the audience was familiar with Kirk's romance with Areel Shaw or his history with Ben Finney. And so on.
Not sure where you getting that idea. The novels reference other books, but most of the authors do a good job of providing enough exposition and background information that a new reader can easily connect the dots.
--Sran
Again, that depends on the book. Most of the TOS books are standalones that don't reference the other novels. Heck, I seldom reference my own books if I can avoid it . . . unless they're part of a trilogy.
Totally disagree. As I said earlier, many avid fans found Star Trek proper via the tie-in novels, comics or RPGs.
Generally when I answer a question on a forum like this, I do so not only for the person who asked but also for whoever else might be wondering the same thing.
How about giving an honest answer based on experience?
Which novels have you found inaccessible? I, for instance, gave Destiny to someone whose only familiarity with the Borg was Best of Both Worlds and First Contact, and who had never seen any Trek outside of The Next Generation or read any other Trek novels, and they loved it.
But you didn't yourself. Unless you thought that the experience would be implicit in the response? You didn't name any specific examples or criticisms - no books, or even authors, that you felt were guilty of it - you just cast a wide net over literally every single piece of Treklit. When someone makes a response with no specifics as you did, that comes off as nothing more than a baseless generalization. If it's based on personal experience, then go into that experience; flesh out your post, don't just drop a comment out of nowhere.
(Also, a thread is a conversation, not a Q&A; this isn't Quora, it comes off as rude not to at least acknowledge what's come before in the thread. It's like hearing that someone asked a question at a party two hours ago, and bursting in on their conversation to answer it while ignoring everyone else around.)
I disagree. The vast majority of the authors do a great job of ensuring you don't need to know the whole back story to get what's going on in the books. I have loaned a lot of books over the years to people who are not into Trek and they have never, not once, complained that the books are inaccessible and that they couldn't figure out the story was about. Go ahead and grab a book and see where it takes you.
Last party I went to, the conversations had no resemblance to an internet forum whatsoever. Maybe you go to different parties? The other replies didn't interest me, the thread topic did. If that's rude, so be it.
If the question has been answered and no new opinions are allowed, maybe the thread should be closed or the thread title changed to reflect that "yes" is the only permissible answer.
The best thing about the books is that you can read them all together and get a lot out of it, you can read bits and pieces and still enjoy it. You don't have to know every show to enjoy the books, they usually do a great job of providing the relevant information from the episodes they reference so that you can truly dive into the story being told in the book.
It's not that no new opinions are allowed, it's that you didn't contribute anything beyond just an opinion. Other people gave anecdotes of personal events where they brought people into Trek books, or gave descriptions of books that showed they were accessible, but you basically just went "no" without adding anything else. I can understand wanting to contribute an answer for the sake of people that want one, and I can see that you want to help others come to a conclusion. So I'll put it this way: If one person gives a five-star review to a product with a paragraph or two describing specifically why they think it's such a quality product, and one person gives a one-star review with nothing more than "this is a bad thing", which do you think would be more useful to others? Which would be more effective at helping others the way you want to help people with the same question as the OP?
If you disagree with the thread, that's fine, but you should go into more detail about why you disagree, not just state the fact that you disagree without elaboration.
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