the TOS Novels numbers

[Gate11au]

OK i just pick up 60 new TOS novels but i having issues getting them in order as som have old cover with a set of numbers on them and then a different set of covers i ganna say newer ones that are black and have a list in side that contradicts the numbers on the older novels i have and just got,
Is there multiple numbering systems or different sets of books i mean i have doubles of some of them like yesterday son and the number on the list inside the newer book is 6 but the book i have has 34(not sure but it high number) on it so how do i sort this out ?

Thank in advance. sorry if this has been asked and answered before.
i do hope this make sense if not i post photos tomorrow

 

[Jinn]

I'd probably write down all the names in an excel file and then add the numbers Memory Beta has for the novels.

 

[Jinn]

Ah, and generally there is this list created by dyster. It lists all Star Trek novels/novellas/short stories/whatever in publication order.

 

[Defcon]

Maybe you have some british novels and some US ones? If I'm not mistaken there were UK reprints with different numbering in the 80s and 90s.

 

[ronny]

Maybe you have some british novels and some US ones? If I'm not mistaken there were UK reprints with different numbering in the 80s and 90s.

Yep, that's true. Pocket Books vs. Titan Books numbering.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Titan_Books

 

[Gate11au]

Maybe you have some british novels and some US ones? If I'm not mistaken there were UK reprints with different numbering in the 80s and 90s.

WHY would you renumber them it just confusing me now

Yep, that's true. Pocket Books vs. Titan Books numbering.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Titan_Books

This is very help full now i can arrange the novels on my shelf in the right order.

 

[Starbreaker]

WHY would you renumber them it just confusing me now




This is very help full now i can arrange the novels on my shelf in the right order.

They were from different publishers in different countries. The numbers don't mean anything anyway.

 

[Therin of Andor]

WHY would you renumber them it just confusing me now.

Pocket Books did a branding change for the US printings after the huge success of ST IV. Unlike the first three movie novelizations (the first two only getting their numbers in later reprintings; I think numbers only started appearing from the 16th book), ST IV's novelization was unnumbered. "Chain of Attack" was the first bimonthly original Pocket novel to carry a large "Star Trek" title in the familiar TOS font.

Over in the UK, Titan had just picked up the simultaneous TOS reprint license and started their line with "Chain of Attack", but numbering it as their #1. Because Titan was releasing its titles monthly, every second novel was a renumbered US reprint. It lead to some anomalies, such as JM Dillard's "Demons", a followup to "Mindshadow", coming out as a new title before the release of the UK edition of "Mindshadow". For the UK readers, a Dillard-original character gets killed off before being introduced!

I think Pocket regretted retro-numbering TMP and ST II after ST III came out. Carrying the complete list of novels in the back, with a mail-order form, meant that they kept all those books in print. I think TMP must have created a record the one of the longest periods in-print for a movie novelization. And, for readers/collectors who liked to keep their novels in numerical order, it spread the novelizations throughout the shelf, and then where to put the unnumbered ones (ie. later novelizations and paperback reprints of hardcovers)?

The Titan books became even more complicated when Pocket's three US "giant" paperbacks (unnumbered) sold so well as reprints in the UK. A few chunkier US-number novels were presented by Titan as additional "giant" novels.

 

[ronny]

Yeah that numbering of half the novelizations was odd. I didn't really worry about how I put on the shelf though. When I wanted to look at Wrath of Kahn or Search For Spock I think of them as novelizations, not #7 or #17, so I put them with the novelizations. I have other missing gaps in my numbered books. I've got the massive 4 book collection of the Diane Duane Romulan novels and the Greg Cox Q trilogy collection instead of the individual titles so I'm missing all kinds of numbered books. I can't remember if I've got the Invasion Omnibus or the individual titles. For space reasons I've been boxing up the books as I read them so all that's really on the shelf now is the unread numbered TOS and Shatnerverse books and and the books from the last few months I just haven't gotten to yet.

And I'm really not sure how much Pocket regretted numbering the novelizations anyway. DS9 #1 and VOY #1 were both novelizations of episodes.

 

[Bibliomike]

I used to try to shelve my copies by stardate, not Pocket's numbers.

 

[Leto_II]

^ Although, as Christopher has pointed out in here, at the end of the day, stardates really mean very, very little, and were mainly concocted by Roddenberry simply as a means of vaguely suggesting a future not connected to the Earthly Gregorian calendar as we know it today. If you go strictly by stardate-order, you'll end up with stories set near the very end of the 5YM -- but possessing "lower" stardates than some Season 3 and TAS episodes -- very early in your run. (Tears of the Singers, for example.)

 

[Dayton Ward]

<-- Number Killer.

 

[Avro Arrow]

^ They say that people only remember the first and last in something, so I guess it's you and Roddenberry for posterity!

 

[Bibliomike]

^ Although, as Christopher has pointed out in here, at the end of the day, stardates really mean very, very little, and were mainly concocted by Roddenberry simply as a means of vaguely suggesting a future not connected to the Earthly Gregorian calendar as we know it today. If you go strictly by stardate-order, you'll end up with stories set near the very end of the 5YM -- but possessing "lower" stardates than some Season 3 and TAS episodes -- very early in your run. (Tears of the Singers, for example.)

I know. I didn't say it made sense or even worked very well. I just said I did it, mainly because I was a nerdy kid (who grew into a nerdy adult)

 

[tomswift2002]

How long was TMP in print for? I remember picking my copy up shortly after Christmas 1996, and the front cover has an ad for Q-Squared, while the back cover says "Coming in August" 'Crossroad's' & 'Warchild' and "Coming In September" 'Requiem'. The interior pages list ads for "All Good Things" hardcover, "Sarek" and a TNG order form listing up to "Foreign Foes". So I'm guessing my copy was printed in 1995 or 1996. (The copyright page says it's a 12th printing.)

 

[Bibliomike]

How long was TMP in print for? I remember picking my copy up shortly after Christmas 1996, and the front cover has an ad for Q-Squared, while the back cover says "Coming in August" 'Crossroad's' & 'Warchild' and "Coming In September" 'Requiem'. The interior pages list ads for "All Good Things" hardcover, "Sarek" and a TNG order form listing up to "Foreign Foes". So I'm guessing my copy was printed in 1995 or 1996. (The copyright page says it's a 12th printing.)

It was in print a very long time. I bought a replacement copy in a Borders (heh, remember those?) a few years past the point you mention, circa 1998. (Now, of course, that copy could have been printed several years earlier... and I no longer have it to check... I went through a bad habit of purging my collection, thinking, "Surely I'll never want to read that book again..." - and now my only copy of Roddenberry's novel is an ebook.)