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several old TOS novels - opinions appreciated..

RonG

RonG

Captain
Captain
Hi all,

As I await the new(ish) crop of Trek novels (just finished Vanguard: Open Secrets - fantastic BTW :techman:), I got some old TOS novels from a local used bookstore.

As it was a great deal, I got all of them, but I wanted to get your opinions (spoiler-free, if possible, or marked with spoiler tags..) on these novels:

- The Wounded Sky
- Doctor's Orders
- Black Fire
- The Pandora Principle
- The Prometheus Design
- Deep Domain

Looking forward to read your comments :) :cool:
 
- The Wounded Sky

Very imaginative. I became immersed in it during several flights within US, so I used to pretend each flight was a test in the book. This is the introduction to Diane Duane's original crew, and the glass spider scientist was the basis for TNG's Traveler in "Where No One Has Gone Before", cowritten by Duane.

- Doctor's Orders

Lots of humour and classic McCoy/Spock stuff, using some of the aliens Duane created for the text-based computer game "The Kobayashi Alternative".

- Black Fire

Many hate this with a passion, but it's a pro fanfic-style romp, with Spock turning space pirate. It turned up after a long gap in the novels and I devoured it. Sonni Cooper used to be Shatner's personal assistant or a big wheel in his official fan club (or both?)

- The Pandora Principle

The definitive Saavik novel, and derived from lots of hints from McInytre's Saavik stuff (from her novelizations of ST II and III). A must-read to be properly prepared for the forthcoming MWB (aka Garamet) Saavik novel.

- The Prometheus Design

Totally bizarre, and probably unreadable today, but uses tech from ST:TMP which made it quite unique in its day.

- Deep Domain[/QUOTE]

You'll note the author gets a credit in ST IV. This book is derived from research he did into cetacean ecology, and ideas he provided to the production of ST IV. It's interesting just for that, but also quite enjoyable IIRC.
 
I read Doctor's Orders in 1990 and have fond memories of it.

Deep Domain was the first Trek book I ever read, in 1987, and I do not have fond memories of it.
From what I remember it was one of those boring plots about two political groups arguing a lot and some member of the crew is abducted by one of the factions ( I guess the story reason is to have a familiar character to act as a conduit between the aliens and the reader)
 
Therin of Andor said:
- The Wounded Sky

Very imaginative. I became immersed in it during several flights within US, so I used to pretend each flight was a test in the book. This is the introduction to Diane Duane's original crew, and the glass spider scientist was the basis for TNG's Traveler in "Where No One Has Gone Before", cowritten by Duane.
Click to expand...

Sort of. The longer version of the story is that "Where No One..." started out as an adaptation of The Wounded Sky (or rather, Michael Reaves was developing a similar story for TNG and contacted Duane to ask her to collaborate and do a full-on adaptation), but it ended up being so heavily rewritten by the TNG staff that the end product bore almost no resemblance to the book.


Doctor's Orders: This is the one Duane TOS novel that doesn't really fit into the "Duaneverse" consisting of The Wounded Sky, Spock's World, and the Rihannsu books. It has one or two supporting characters in common, but was written in the period when Roddenberry's assistant Richard Arnold was cracking down on material in the books that diverged from "Gene's vision" as he saw it. So most of the distinctive alien crewmembers and continuity of the Duane books are missing from this one, and it's a more standalone tale. Still, a very fun read.


Black Fire: As Therin said, it's like a series of fanfic stories collected as a novel. It's bizarre and over the top, but can be fun if you don't take it too seriously.


The Prometheus Design: Actually the most interesting of the Marshak-Culbreath novels, though that's faint praise. Their books in general were bizarre; a couple were pretty much romance novels in a Trek setting. This one has its strange elements and many of their usual preoccupations, but it touches on some interesting philosophical questions (though it doesn't really explore them in depth).
 
- The Wounded Sky

Brilliant, really imaginative

- Doctor's Orders

Brilliant again

- Black Fire

I know I've read this but don't remember anything of it

- The Pandora Principle

Vaguely remember this as pretty good

- The Prometheus Design

Don't think I've read that, or at least don't remember it

- Deep Domain

One of Weinstein's sledgehammer eco-lectures, IIRC

ETA- makes me want to read those two Duane books and Pandora Principle again - shame they're a couple of hundred miles away!
 
Christopher said:
Doctor's Orders: ... was written in the period when Roddenberry's assistant Richard Arnold was cracking down on material in the books that diverged from "Gene's vision" as he saw it.
Click to expand...

At the time I wondered if Diane didn't deliberately use her aliens from the text-based computer game "The Kobayashi Alternative" when she knew Richard Arnold would be slashing out any appearances by Naraht or her previous original-to-novels crew. ;)
 
I figure she was probably going to use them anyway, since she liked recycling characters from one context to another (e.g. her novel characters showing up in her DC Trek comics). Arnold would've nixed her nonhumanoid characters from prior novels as too divergent from canon (which depicted an overwhelmingly human crew), but wouldn't have had the same problem with "guest" aliens who weren't in the crew. (Some of her prior human characters, such as Lia Burke and Janice Kerasus, do appear or get referenced in the book, but aliens like Naraht and Athende are gone.)
 
That list contains several of my favorites. The Pandora Principle just for being a Saavik book, Doctor's Orders for the humor, and Deep Domain mostly for the whales. And I think I was a particular fan of Chekov/Uhura/Sulu at the time too.
I also loved The Wounded Sky, which was very imaginative. I tend to love Duane's writing anyway.
Don't remember Black Fire well enough to say, and I never did get around to reading The Prometheus Design.
 
Diane Duane is the best trek author of all time. Klingons as golf freaks was great. A few of these novels, and many of the early books in general feed nicely into my 'anti-canon' views of the trek-verse.
 
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I'll echo most of the sentiments above, adding that The Wounded Sky is not only one of my favorite Trek novels, but one of my favorite science fiction novels overall. It's also a good introduction to Duane's cast of characters that appear in her Rihannsu series.

Saavik's background in The Pandora Principle has been accepted and utilized by many other authors, including myself when writing The Chimes at Midnight.
 
Geoff said:
Saavik's background in The Pandora Principle has been accepted and utilized by many other authors, including myself when writing The Chimes at Midnight.
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It's been a year since I read Chimes, so I don't recall this off-hand, but did you reference my favorite part of Saavik's background from Pandora -- that she was a star pitcher for Starfleet Academy's baseball team? :)

It's okay to say no; Deep Space Nine unfortunately renders that unworkable.
 
The Wounded Sky
I realize that I am in the minority, but I honestly never liked this book. I have tried to read it three times over the years and could never get into it. However, as I said, I am in the minority on this one -- it seems to be very popular.

Doctor's Orders
Loved it!

Black Fire
This one is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Reads like fan fiction but I always enjoy it.

The Pandora Principle
Don't remember much about it, but I did enjoy it.

The Prometheus Design
Like the other books by these authors, I found this one to be convoluted and senseless.

Deep Domain
Really enjoyed it. Liked how it was set near the end of Kirk's postulated "second five year mission."


Enjoy these books!
 
Allyn Gibson said:
It's been a year since I read Chimes, so I don't recall this off-hand, but did you reference my favorite part of Saavik's background from Pandora -- that she was a star pitcher for Starfleet Academy's baseball team? :)
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, no, since in my "universe" she never attended Starfleet Academy... though I guess in retrospect I could've worked in a baseball reference somewhere. Ah, well.
 
That's right. For some reason, I thought she did attend the Academy, but now I've just realized that she didn't, because Spock wasn't there to mentor her.

Sorry, such an obvious thing, and I completely forgot it.
 
KingstonTrekker said:
I know....I just didn't want to come right out and say it because I didn't want to use a spoiler tag :)
Click to expand...
There's a statute of limitations on spoilers, especially on a book that's over twenty years old. :)

This Penny Arcade! on the subject still cracks me up. Rosebud is a sled. King Kong dies. The Titanic sinks. Frodo destroys the One Ring. These aren't spoilers, people! :)
 
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