Diane Duane’s excellent Trek novels

[DarrenTR1970]

I did manage to order about three of her novels with some pretty good prices, and this all does hype me up for how well they'll be to read. I probably should've ordered Dark Mirror too because I do enjoy the Mirror Universe stuff but I guess I'll cross that road when I get to it.

My local Half Price Books has a fairly extensive collection of new and used Star Trek novels, Diane Duane among them, at reasonable prices. Have you tried your local used book dealer

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

treated as basically a more advanced understanding of physics, more or less

Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

 

[Christopher]

Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

This genre is more "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." It's not oogy-boogy willpower or calling on divine entities to do you a favor; it's studying detailed procedures in a manual, following intricate formulas, and taking care to account for every variable to make sure it doesn't go wrong. And the third book shows the manual being upgraded into computer form -- which made more sense in the original timeline where the first few books took place in the '80s than in the updated timeline where they're in 2008, since in the latter version I have to wonder why it took so long.

 

[Commander Troi]

Sounds like an interesting series!

 

[Vulcanoid]

My local Half Price Books has a fairly extensive collection of new and used Star Trek novels, Diane Duane among them, at reasonable prices. Have you tried your local used book dealer

There are a few but they're not within a reasonable driving distance for the most part so I use online resellers for what deals I can get for the books I want to explicitly own.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

This genre is more "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."

And indeed, that sounds reminiscent of how Baum handled magic in the Oz books. And it also reminds me of ADF's Spellsinger series: the premise was that the wizard Clothahump (a turtle, with extradimensional storage drawers built into his plastron, which dredges up vague memories of Tooter Turtle cartoons) had heard that the wizards of this universe are called "Engineers," and so he pulled in Jon-Tom, a rock musician working a "day job" as a sanitation engineer. And now, I find myself thinking of Robert Asprin's Myth-Adventures. And Travis Baldree's recent books about Viv and her friends.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Diane's Duane's novel-original characters also appear in her several "Star Trek" comics and the text-based computer game, "The Kobayashi Alternative".


Duane Trek by Ian McLean, on Flickr

Above: Naraht the horta; Harb Tanzer, Chief of Recreation; Nurse Lia Burke; linguist Janíce Kerasus; and Doctor Tom Krejci (DC Comics TOS Series I: the "Double Blind" two-parter, #24-25, and "The Last Word", #28). All of these characters have appeared in Diane Duane "Star Trek" novels, and most also in the old, text-based, computer game, "The Kobayashi Alternative". Other Duane novel/game characters who get mentioned by name in "The Last Word" comic include Athende (the tentacled Sulamid), and Avoca.

In the omnibus of her first four "Rihannsu" novels, "The Bloodwing Voyages", Diane Duane revealed that the transporter technician, Theresa Renner, is named for her former housemate.

Harb's hair is miscoloured in the comic; it should be silver/white. When I was customising a Harb action figure, I emailed to clarify with Diane as to what mustache she had imagined for Harb and she said that it should be similar in style to Scotty's.

I ended up adapting a spare "Gilligan's Island" Skipper head for my Harb.


Trek customs... by me by Ian McLean, on Flickr