Non-star Trek books for Star Trek fans

[Miami Vice Admiral]

Hi all,

Curious what non-Star Trek books you have read that reminded you of Star Trek in some way that you think other fans would enjoy.

First off I’d like to throw out the Hornblower and Aubrey/Maturin series. These are both series of naval adventures during the Napoleonic wars. They match Star Trek’s themes of duty and adventure. I believe Roddenberry may have listed Hornblower as an inspiration and I once read an interview with Nicholas Meyer where he said he didn’t really get Star Trek until he thought of it as Hornblower in space.

On the sci fi side I’d nominate the Chanur series by CJ Cherryh. It’s a space opera about what happens to a fragile peace between several alien powers when first contact is made with humans. I don’t think Cherryh’s style or tone matches Star Trek, but her books are often about detailed alien races and how to bridge the gap in species relations.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I cannot too strongly recommend ADF's Humanx Commonwealth series. I find them absolutely marvelous, and the Commonwealth is very much an analogue of the Federation, and of any number of other analogous alliances throughout SF.

As with Lewis's Narnia series, and Tolkien's Middle Earth books, I recommend reading them the first time in publication order (i.e., starting with The Tar-Aiym Krang), and then (assuming you find them re-read-worthy) re-reading them in order of internal chronology.

 

[Miami Vice Admiral]

I cannot too strongly recommend ADF's Humanx Commonwealth series. I find them absolutely marvelous, and the Commonwealth is very much an analogue of the Federation, and of any number of other analogous alliances throughout SF.

As with Lewis's Narnia series, and Tolkien's Middle Earth books, I recommend reading them the first time in publication order (i.e., starting with The Tar-Aiym Krang), and then (assuming you find them re-read-worthy) re-reading them in order of internal chronology.

I got a couple of those on the shelf but I haven’t started yet. Do you have any particular favorites? Are the Pip and Flinx books worth reading as an adult?

 

[Zarm]

As with Lewis's Narnia series, and Tolkien's Middle Earth books, I recommend reading them the first time in publication order

The sign of a good head on your shoulders! :-) I will have to look into the Commonwealth series...

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Watership Down. Particularly the incident at Cowslip's warren. All seems like Eden until its horrifying secret is revealed.

Spoiler: Twist

The wild rabbits are being trapped and killed by a farmer and it's the price they pay for safety from wild animals and disease.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Are the Pip and Flinx books worth reading as an adult?

Despite the fact that, when we first meet Flinx, he is still in his teens, this is not children's literature. Pip's venom is a corrosive (and very fast-acting) neurotoxin, and scenes where she defends Flinx (Pip's gender is a very mild spoiler) could be upsetting to younger readers. And while the sex scenes quite literally leave everything to the imagination (just like the sex scenes in my own novel-in-progress, as well as a narrow escape from date-rape), there are sex scenes. And eventually, Flinx is a happily married adult.

That said, neither do any HC novels have the kind of explicit sex scenes you find in David Gerrold's When HARLIE Was One. (Which I first read while I was in high school, and which I found a bit shocking at the time.)

I will note that my own novel-in-progress introduces its protagonist as a 22-month-old toddler, and follows her adventures until, some 400 pages later, she earns her Ph.D. And while I wrote it to the literary equivalent of a soft-PG movie, with the intent that most parents would not object to their kids reading it, neither is it kid-lit.

Oh, and actually, Baum's Oz novels, and even the various Stratemeyer series (like the Bobbsey Twins, the Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew) are of at least some interest to adult readers.

 

[Miami Vice Admiral]

Despite the fact that, when we first meet Flinx, he is still in his teens, this is not children's literature. Pip's venom is a corrosive (and very fast-acting) neurotoxin, and scenes where she defends Flinx (Pip's gender is a very mild spoiler) could be upsetting to younger readers. And while the sex scenes quite literally leave everything to the imagination (just like the sex scenes in my own novel-in-progress, as well as a narrow escape from date-rape), there are sex scenes. And eventually, Flinx is a happily married adult.

That said, neither do any HC novels have the kind of explicit sex scenes you find in David Gerrold's When HARLIE Was One. (Which I first read while I was in high school, and which I found a bit shocking at the time.)

Oh ok good to know! From some of the newer covers I got sort of a middle school vibe. I’ll have to start reading them. And I’d consider no explicit sex a bonus personally

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And I’d consider no explicit sex a bonus personally

Explicit sex scenes in novels are highly overrated, unless you're after what, in Airplane!, is referred to as "whacking material."

 

[F. King Daniel]

Explicit sex scenes in novels are highly overrated, unless you're after what, in Airplane!, is referred to as "whacking material."

Unless they're so utterly terrible you're left wondering if the author has any experience in that field at all. Then they're kinda funny.

Oh, and on topic, the Orville: Sympathy for the Devil ebook. It takes half the book to actually meet our heroes, and that first half will make you wonder if you've downloaded the wrong ebook, but it's so worth it.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Unless they're so utterly terrible you're left wondering if the author has any experience in that field at all. Then they're kinda funny.

Which is another reason why I left everything to the imagination in my own opus. Although I will say that I lampshaded the hell out of my subversion of the "anatomically impossible sex" trope, when my protagonist's friends react to the details of what the would-be date-rapist wanted to do. Because I figured that having characters wonder if something's anatomically possible (and my protagonist and the love of her life ending up very sore when they find out that it's possible, but not necessarily worth the aftereffects) is better than actually attempting to describe something that's anatomically questionable.

 

[Cicero]

A. E. van Vogt's "Black Destroyer" is a clear antecedent to Star Trek and Forbidden Planet (and inaugurated the golden age of science fiction). The title alien visually inspired the displacer beast from Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[Miami Vice Admiral]

A. E. van Vogt's "Black Destroyer" is a clear antecedent to Star Trek and Forbidden Planet (and inaugurated the golden age of science fiction). The title alien visually inspired the displacer beast from Dungeons & Dragons.

That’s the story that he sued Fox for over Alien right? I had no idea it was considered the inaugural story of the golden age, that’s pretty cool! Plus Van Vogt was a big Star Trek fan and wrote several unused episodes.

 

[Christopher]

Plus Van Vogt was a big Star Trek fan and wrote several unused episodes.

Rather, he pitched several story outlines that were all rejected. Outlines aren't episodes any more than a cake recipe is cake.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

A. E. van Vogt's

I'd barely heard of him, but had never read any of his works, and neither did I know anything about him until I read the Wikipedia article on him. And given his pro-authoritarian political leanings, and his connection to L. Ron Hubbard, I think I'll keep it that way. That sort of anti-democratic bovine scat was one of the many things that turned me off of the whole Dune milieu.

 

[Greg Cox]

I confess: I have always bounced off A. E. Van Vogt. Tried reading him as a kid, tried reading him as an adult, recently tried reading him as a senior citizen. He just doesn't work for me.

Unlike, say, Theodore Sturgeon, Fritz Leiber, C. L. Moore, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. G. Wells, John Wyndham, etc.


Meanwhile, as to the topic at hand, Unwilling to Earth by Pauline Ashwell has a very Trek vibe, even though it dates back to the fifties. And A. C. Crispin's Starbridge series is (no surprise) feels very much like Trek as well.

(Full disclosure: I reprinted the former at Tor back in the day, and wrote the cover copy for the first editions of the latter, likewise.)

 

[Bryan Levy]

I wouldn’t be the first to say The Hunt for Red October. Jack Ryan has some real Kirk qualities.

 

[The Wormhole]

Oh, and on topic, the Orville: Sympathy for the Devil ebook. It takes half the book to actually meet our heroes, and that first half will make you wonder if you've downloaded the wrong ebook, but it's so worth it.

For those against eBooks, a print edition of that was just released last month.

 

[Miami Vice Admiral]

And A. C. Crispin's Starbridge series is (no surprise) feels very much like Trek as well.

I read about 80% then I gave up. I was really enjoying it but I couldn’t take the age gap situation. Are the rest of the series a bit less problematic?

 

[James Swallow]

Vonda N. McIntyre's Starfarers series (link) and David Gerrold's Star Wolf novels (link) deserve a mention here.

 

[Christopher]

Vonda N. McIntyre's Starfarers series (link) and David Gerrold's Star Wolf novels (link) deserve a mention here.

Yes, considering that Star Wolf was basically Gerrold's take on "how I would've done TNG given free rein" and incorporated ideas he'd developed for TNG during his stint as its uncredited co-creator. And it was a reboot of characters and concepts from Gerrold's earlier novel Yesterday's Children, which was loosely based on Gerrold's unsold pitch for a 2-part TOS episode. Which is why the title has nothing to do with the novel's plot, since it's left over from the original version of the pitch, which eventually became Gerrold's Bantam Trek novel The Galactic Whirlpool -- so he essentially turned this one unsold pitch into three different novels, or six if you count the expanded Yesterday's Children aka Starhunt and the Star Wolf sequels.