So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[JD]

Just finished my first Star Trek novel :
The Good That Men Do

I chose this book so I can get an idea for the expanded universe after the series ended. Felt a bit more like a What If… issue for how the series should have ended, with no holograms, a big twist for Trip, and a lead-in to the Romulan War. I come out slightly positive by the end, but ultimately unimpressed in much of the writing. Definitely influenced by this being my least favorite cast of the pre-DISCO era.


Currently reading :
Assignment: Eternity & A Time to Be Born
Assignment: Eternity is a great, light read so far. Love the characters, humor, and time travel shenanigans.

Just started the TNG book and I am loving it.

If you're DS9 fan I'd highly recommend the DS9 Relaunch which stars with the Avatar duology, it's basically started the whole interconnected novel and comics continuity that we got between the end of Voyager and Picard, and is one of the most consistently fantastic of any run of Trek books.

 

[Greg Cox]

Assignment: Eternity is a great, light read so far. Love the characters, humor, and time travel shenanigans.

Thanks! That was my very first solo Trek novel, way back when, after a couple of collaborations.

Hard to believe that was nearly thirty years ago!

 

[Gary_Seven]

You started out with a relatively minor opus by a relatively minor writing team. Then you jumped straight into one of the first ST novels by one of the true giants of current TrekLit.

I particularly recommend anything by Greg Cox, Christopher L. Bennett, or Diane Duane. They are the gold standard of TrekLit (note that DD hasn't written any TrekLit in well over a decade, and yet she's still remembered, and people are still reading [and re-reading, and re-re-reading] her stuff).

Thanks for the recommendations!

I’ve been selecting from the more interesting titles off the Trek Litverse Flow Chart + a few of the best writers I know from the series. As such, I don’t really have a good radar yet for the specific authors of merit in the Star Trek lit field.

At this moment, the paperbacks I’ve acquired from my recent book shops :
Assignment: Eternity, The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh Part I & II, To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh, Kobayashi Maru, Reunion, Allegiance in Exile, Vulcan’s Glory, IKS Gorkon: A Good Day to Die, String Theory Part I & II, Federation (+ A Time to… series which I found a good deal online for a used set)

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

These days, you'll probably have to go to a used book dealer to get any Diane Duane or John M. Ford. For example, DD's Spock's World goes for under $4 for a VG HC on Alibris. JMF's How Much for Just the Planet is in the same range for a VG MMPB.

 

[Gary_Seven]

If you're DS9 fan I'd highly recommend the DS9 Relaunch which stars with the Avatar duology, it's basically started the whole interconnected novel and comics continuity that we got between the end of Voyager and Picard, and is one of the most consistently fantastic of any run of Trek books.

DS9 is my favorite of the television series, so the Avatar books will be acquired at some point. I’m also interested in any novels that expand any lore/species/characters from earlier points in time for the series, even if its not the central plot. This is what brought Allegiance in Exile onto my shelf.

Thanks! That was my very first solo Trek novel, way back when, after a couple of collaborations.

Hard to believe that was nearly thirty years ago!

Kudos again and thanks for the great read! I’m only 1/3 in, but the pace is fantastic and it feels like you nailed the tone for a follow-up to an under-appreciated episode (Great? No, perhaps not, but certainly under-appreciated).

I’ve got your Khan books next, so I’ll be expecting big things now.

 

[Greg Cox]

Kudos again and thanks for the great read! I’m only 1/3 in, but the pace is fantastic and it feels like you nailed the tone for a follow-up to an under-appreciated episode (Great? No, perhaps not, but certainly under-appreciated).

It was one of my favorite eps. Always felt cheated that we never got the further adventures of Gary Seven, Roberta, and Isis. Probably why I brought the back in the books the first chance I got.

"The Return of Gary Seven" was actually the first idea I pitched to Pocket Books, although it ended up being the fourth Trek I wrote for them, for scheduling reasons.

(Dawns on me that my memory tricked me before. My VOYAGER book, The Black Shore, was actually my first solo Trek book, not Assignment: Eternity. The Gary Seven book came after that.)

 

[Christopher]

It was one of my favorite eps. Always felt cheated that we never got the further adventures of Gary Seven, Roberta, and Isis. Probably why I brought the back in the books the first chance I got.

"The Return of Gary Seven" was actually the first idea I pitched to Pocket Books, although it ended up being the fourth Trek I wrote for them, for scheduling reasons.

The thing is, if Assignment: Earth had gone to series, it probably would've been quite different from the Gary Seven novels and comics that have been done since. Judging from the series pitch document, it would've been an "SF-lite" show like the bionic series of the '70s, where the protagonist's advanced technology was usually the only science fiction element in stories about spy capers, political dramas, crime stories, medical crises, or more character-oriented dramas, aside from the occasional story about experiments gone wrong or dangerous new technologies. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd divorced it from any Star Trek connections so it could stand on its own. After all, Roddenberry originally created it as a separate project and only shoehorned it into Trek as a way to use Trek's budget to get his pilot made. He was probably hoping he could get a more conventional, present-day show on the air, one that wouldn't be so costly or difficult to make and have a better chance of a long run. So distancing it from the struggling ST would've been a good idea from that perspective.

And it would've been easier for freelance writers to pitch generic present-day crime or intrigue plots of the sort they'd peddle to other contemporary shows than to come up with something tailored to a unique science fiction setting. Not to mention that such contemporary plots wouldn't have demanded much in the way of expensive visual effects. So they would've probably ended up doing a lot of such generic stories with just Gary Seven's super-gadgets tacked on to help save the day.

I think the closest thing we've seen to the original intent was the first issue of John Byrne's A:E comic, and maybe the third, though that would've been one of their occasional forays into more SF-driven plots rather than a typical episode.