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Where's a good place to start?

B

bdub76

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
I read some of David's Q novels back in high school when they first came out, but I haven't read any Star Trek novels since. The new series are renewing my interest in Star Trek again, so I'd like to pick up some novels to read. And I'm a fan of Star Trek Online.

In terms of what I like, I'm a fan of Next Generation, DS9, the original series, and I'm really liking Picard. It's a little early for me to say I like Strange New Worlds, but I liked the pilot. I gave up on Discovery half way through season 2. And I'm not really a fan of Enterprise or Voyager.

What would you recommend I check out?
 
The Picard novels are really good (at least the first two, I haven't read the other ones yet!). The Last Best Hope is the general backstory of the show up to Picard quitting and does a really good job of weaving all off the different threads together. Personally, I enjoyed it more than the show. The Dark Veil is an adventure on the Titan after the synth ban came into effect and is a bit more stand-alone, while also implying some interesting things that you'll probably notice if you've already seen the show.

For DS9, I can recommend "A Stitch in Time", which is basically a non-linear Garak autobiography written by Garak actor Andrew Robinson, in the form of letters to Bashir.
Then there's "The Never-Ending Sacrifice", which is about the Cardassian child that got adopted by Bajoran parents and then turned out to be the lost child of some politician in that one DS9 episode. It basically chronicles what happens on Cardassia throughout DS9 and in the first two years after the war through the eyes of an outsider and it's absolutely fantastic. If you want to read just one Trek book, I'd say read this one; it paints a very detailed and interesting picture of Cardassian society, its regressive and revolutionary elements, its politics and culture. It's just great.
And the "obligatory" recommendation for DS9 is of course the DS9 relaunch, which is basically a bunch of books set in the year after "What You Leave Behind", continuing the story of the remaining characters (no Worf or O'Brien), as well as introducing some really interesting new ones (like Shar, Prynn and Vaughn). The reading order for the first batch of books is as follows: Avatar Book One and Two, The Abyss, Demons of Air and Darkness, the Mission Gamma mini-series, Rising Son, Unity, the Worlds of DS9 mini-series, warpath, Fearful Symmetry and The Soul Key. After that it gets a bit messy (and the quality takes a bit of a dip), but imo it's still worth it to read these books.
 
There's a huge post Voyager expanded universe which has now been contradicted by the new shows. There's some really good stuff in it, but I'd probably avoid that and stick to stuff spun off from the new shows and stuff set BEFORE and DURING the old shows as that's less likely to be contradicted.

I'd suggest Greg Cox for your TOS fix, Christopher L Bennett's DTI, Rise of the Federation and TMP stuff, absolutely anything at all by Una McCormack (including her Doctor Who novels :)) and particularly Never Ending Sacrifice, Ward and Dilmore's Vanguard series and...there's loads. I'd be remiss if I didn't shout out to Mack, Swallow and...I forget. Sorry guys !

Oh, and Articles of the Federation by KRAD. Probably non canon now, sadly, but...read it !
 
I recommend the NEW FRONTIER novels by Peter David or VANGUARD.

Both are pretty self-contained and awesome.

Also, the DEPARTMENT OF TEMPORAL INVESTIGATIONS.
 
Thanks.

I put the first Picard book on hold with the library. And I picked up A Stitch in Time to read for now.

I'm looking over the other recommendations now. I really like that TrekLit website above.
 
bdub76 said:
Thanks.

I put the first Picard book on hold with the library. And I picked up A Stitch in Time to read for now.

I'm looking over the other recommendations now. I really like that TrekLit website above.
Click to expand...

Glad the site is useful to you! It’s a labor of love! For my thoughts, check out the Simple Suggested Reading Lists. More are on the way.
 
David Mack said:
:vulcan: Ahem. “Ward and Dilmore’s” Vanguard series? Forgetting a few co-creators there? :razz:
Click to expand...
Apologies - quick response off the top of my head. I did pre-emptively apologise !

Vanguard from Mack, Ward, Dilmore and Palmieri (is that everyone ?)

And (sincerely) thanks for all the great reads !
 
For the reader who enjoys flowcharts of how the past couple decades of books fits together, Thrawn and 8 of 5 have created a valuable resource:
https://www.thetrekcollective.com/p/trek-lit-reading-order.html

Since you like TOS and TNG, then Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens is my top recommendation for you. Here are a few others:

TOS: The Latter Fire by James Swallow
TNG: The Romulan Prize by Simon Hawke
DS9: The Millennium trilogy by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (it's a bit long and complicated, but it is a real love letter to the DS9 series)
 
You are very welcome !

I'm going to employ a researcher before I post again...

:hugegrin:

P.S. What's Marco doing now ? Are you still in touch ?
 
You could start at the very beginning (can we have a quick chorus of "Do-Re-Mi," from The Sound of Music?)

That is, you could start with Blish's short-story-length TOS adaptations, ADF's novella-length and novel-length TAS adaptations, and the Bantam TOS novels, going all the way back to Blish's Spock Must Die!

Or not. A good many of the Bantam novels were (like some of the early Pocket novels) abominable.

On the first Picard novel, Una McCormack's The Last Best Hope, be aware that it is an unmitigated tragedy of the sort never before seen in TrekLit. And it's probably UMcC's only ST opus that I will probably never re-read, because unmitigated tragedy is not something I enjoy.

I would say that CLB and GC are without a doubt the best writers currently writing TrakLit. And the other current authors who have been mentioned on this thread are not far behind (including everything else that UMcC has written).

Oh, and I almost forgot: Diane Duane is probably the best of the non-current ST authors. Her Spock's World is absolutely amazing. As is The Wounded Sky.
 
Relayer1 said:
You are very welcome !
I'm going to employ a researcher before I post again...
:hugegrin:
P.S. What's Marco doing now ? Are you still in touch ?
Click to expand...
Marco is working as a senior content producer at Realm Media, which creates audio dramas in various genres. I met with Marco back in January; we grabbed a quick lunch and talked about the possibility of me pitching a project to Realm, which I did. We were almost good to go, but the deal fell apart at the last minute, so I'm back out in the spec-submission wasteland.
 
David Mack said:
Marco is working as a senior content producer at Realm Media, which creates audio dramas in various genres. I met with Marco back in January; we grabbed a quick lunch and talked about the possibility of me pitching a project to Realm, which I did. We were almost good to go, but the deal fell apart at the last minute, so I'm back out in the spec-submission wasteland.
Click to expand...
Well good luck to both of you. Glad he's still doing stuff.

:)
 
It's out of date and out of print, so it may be a bit hard to find, but I would strongly recommend the book Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion by Jeff Ayers, which covers pretty much all the officially licenced prose fiction up to 2005 or so. There's a lot of interviews with authors, background info, and more. You can read it cover to cover but you'd probably be better off dipping into it occasionally, looking up particular books or writers. It'll give you a good background on the first few decades of Star Trek books.
 
Steve Roby said:
It's out of date and out of print, so it may be a bit hard to find, but I would strongly recommend the book Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion by Jeff Ayers, which covers pretty much all the officially licenced prose fiction up to 2005 or so. There's a lot of interviews with authors, background info, and more. You can read it cover to cover but you'd probably be better off dipping into it occasionally, looking up particular books or writers. It'll give you a good background on the first few decades of Star Trek books.
Click to expand...
This book is amazing and I still can't quite believe it exists.
 
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