Suggestions for a Newbie

[bajorangirl]

Wow. I didn't expect this much feed back! Thanks everyone.
So many of you have suggested the DS9 relaunch novel so seeing as though that is my favourite series I think I'll start with that first. I am interested in reading some of the stand alone books @ryan123450 has suggested "tales of the dominion war" has peaked my interest.
When I first joined this forum I was a little worried about posting as so many people on the internet can be cruel, you lot have been so nice and proven me wrong!!! Thanks again everyone

 

[Idran]

Nah, you really don't have to worry about that here! It can get heated from time to time, but I've never seen it get mean, or even mean-spirited.

 

[JD]

I understand your hesitation with this in mind, but to be fair, as a newby, a new reader, myself, I found that just reading the blurbs of the books to see if one interested me and use that to get into trek lit required me to check up on beta to see just what was going on.

I mean I started reading the first of the Typhon pact books, couldn't get the rest in the series and then went to Losing the peace followed by Before dishonour. I loved them books, yes they were hard to follow in the sense that I didn't have the backstory, but on the other hand, having a general trek knowledge (being an avid series and film watcher) allowed me to still mightilly enjoy the books.

All in all, while I would still say start with Before dishonour, I would also state, just go to the bookstore, get the book there is and if it suits your fancy go and have fun reading it. Then fill in the blanks with Beta and start collecting.

I did use MB to fill in some blanks for myself. Since Resistence and Death in Winter didn't get very good reactions I ended up skipping them and just reading over the info on Memory Beta. I did the same thing for the Christie Golden Voyager relaunch, and Before DIshonor after I gave up on it.
I honestly don't know if it is absolutely necessary though, I just did it because I wanted to make sure I wanted to know every detail. I think if you're happy with the shorter explanations in the books, you could probably be OK just jumping into whatever book interested you and going from there.

 

[ryan123450]

Wow. I didn't expect this much feed back! Thanks everyone.
So many of you have suggested the DS9 relaunch novel so seeing as though that is my favourite series I think I'll start with that first. I am interested in reading some of the stand alone books @ryan123450 has suggested "tales of the dominion war" has peaked my interest.
When I first joined this forum I was a little worried about posting as so many people on the internet can be cruel, you lot have been so nice and proven me wrong!!! Thanks again everyone

Yes this is really a great little corner of the interwebs. And many of the authors come here as well and let us pester them with our nerdery.

Keep in mind with Tales of the Dominion War that there are several stories which tell about characters from some of the Lit only book series. You will probably be fine and understand everything in the story itself, but be aware there is more to the tale for those who have read previous stories with those characters. There was one story, a sequel to a few 24th century Spock novels which I haven't read, and I just knew I missing something since I didn't know the whole back story. But there are also alot of great stories that you will unstand everything in right off.

 

[tomswift2002]

Wow. I didn't expect this much feed back! Thanks everyone.
So many of you have suggested the DS9 relaunch novel so seeing as though that is my favourite series I think I'll start with that first. I am interested in reading some of the stand alone books @ryan123450 has suggested "tales of the dominion war" has peaked my interest.
When I first joined this forum I was a little worried about posting as so many people on the internet can be cruel, you lot have been so nice and proven me wrong!!! Thanks again everyone

"Tales Of The Dominion War" is an anthology, so you'll see characters from aall across TNG and DS9 show up, as well as characters referenced in Voyager (of course Voyager was in the Delta Quadrant during the entire Dominion War, so you won't see them show up).

But you should also check out the stand-alone DS9 novel "Wrath Of The Prophets". It features the first appearance of Ro Lauren on n Deep Space 9.

Also from TNG you should check out John Vornholt's "Rogue Saucer". It takes place during TNG's Season 8 between "All Good Things" and the TNG portion of "Star Trek Generations".

But with the relaunches, I would recommend starting with "Death In Winter" for TNG, while with ds9 you should start with "The Left Hand Of Destiny". It takes place just prior to "Avatar", but was published after.