Trek Litverse is Intimidating!

[CorporalClegg]

I am sorry to say that in all my life I've never really ventured into the realm of Trek literature. I've never had much interest in it. I guess I always saw myself above it or something as I figured I'd always have something more important or "better" to read. And the fan-fic like mediocrity of the Star Wars EU really put me off the idea.

I've read most of the movie novelizations, a few TNG series books here and there, and most of the Shatnerverse, but otherwise nothing.

So yesterday I went to the local use book store and saw they had The Lives of Dax and the Homecoming dualogy for like $2 each. So I thought what the hell. I read Dax last night and the Homecoming books today. (Just finished.) I really liked all three. The fan-wanking was minimal. (A little more obvious in Dax) But not nearly as bad as I expected.

In any case, I just read through the stickies and tried to decipher them the best I could, but I do feel a bit overwhelmed.

I'd like to start with 24c relaunch stuff. From the stickies, I kind of got an Idea of what to read and when, but wasn't too sure about spoilers. If I read one book will I run the risk of spoiling another? (Obviously, other than directly connect series.)

Also, are there any character connections that have an important impact? I gathered from Turtletrekker's sticky that writers like to "resurrect" their characters in later books. For example, I thought that Lyssa Campbell in Homecoming was someone from the show I just had forgotten about. Turns out she was one of Golden's creations from and earlier book. Luckliy she wasn't too imperative to the plot.

I've now almost convinced myself that I'd like to dive into most (if not all) of the Litverse. I read pretty fast and the books are short, but with several hundred of them, the thought that such an endeavor will likely take years is ... imposing.

I wish I'd started sooner.

 

[Christopher]

As a rule, the books and series are written to be understandable on their own. You can follow whichever series you want without needing the rest, and pick up any individual book and be informed of anything you need to know to understand it, unless it's part of a duology or trilogy, say. The links between books and series are merely meant to be bonuses, Easter eggs, a little something extra. It's like when Dr. Bashir guest-starred on TNG. If you didn't watch DS9, he would've been just another guest doctor of the week. The fact that it was a connection to another series had no relevance to the particular story being told. Same with Gul Evek showing up in all the Maquis episodes of TNG and DS9 as well as in the VGR pilot. If you didn't pay close attention, you wouldn't even notice it was the same gul, and it wouldn't matter because there wasn't any real story continuity among his appearances; he just happened to fill the role of a Cardassian gul in each of them. The recognition that this same character was apparently at the forefront of Cardassia's dealings with the Maquis was just a bonus for alert viewers to pick up on. It wasn't some vital clue you needed to know in order to comprehend the stories, because it had no bearing on the individual tales. Crossover elements in the literature are usually the same way.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I've now almost convinced myself that I'd like to dive into most (if not all) of the Litverse. I read pretty fast and the books are short, but with several hundred of them, the thought that such an endeavor will likely take years is ... imposing.

I wish I'd started sooner.

To me, jumping into Trek books is no different than jumping into any particular series. It's not necessary to know every little reference to something that came before unless that's just something you personally want to do. More often than not, they can be regarded as just a little background to a particular character or event mentioned in passing during a story.

I've been reading Trek books for over 20 years now, and I only have about 70 or so books in my collection because it's generally a case of me just choosing a particular book or series that I want to follow. I don't feel like I'm missing anything by skipping the ones that I don't follow.

 

[TerraUnam]

I've read later books of series, liked them, and then picked up the whole series. Destiny turned me on to Titan. I didn't regret anything about the order I read them in.

The books stand on their own, but the extra easter eggs that Chris mentioned just make a re-read all that much more enjoyable. I think of it as getting good value from a book.

 

[JD]

Like the others have said most of the series are fairly stand alone, with just a few minor references to events and characters from the others. But, even most of the books in an individual series are fairly stanalone unless they're part of a marked miniseries. They do tend to have character arcs throughout the books, but most of what you need to know if provided in the books. And if you want more info, we have Memory Beta (the non-canon Trek wiki) as a good resource. For instance, I know I've heard several people say that they jumped into the DS9 Relaunch part way through, and had no problem jumping in. Hell, I even jumped into the A Time To... series and Voyager Relaunch 3 books in and I consider several of the books in those series my all time favorites.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Just grab a book and jump in. Thats what I did after not reading any TrekLit for almost 10 years. Now I'm following the Titan, Vanguard, TOS and ENT books.

 

[Nardpuncher]

Even though I believe that you can jump into TrekLit with any book, I can understand how some people would feel, I guess the word is worried about missing out on references and getting a bit lost.

When I start a new fantasy book I always read the first 50 to 100 pages much too carefully as I want to make sure I understand the setting and who the characters are.Rather silly of me.
I'm on book 3 of The Song of Ice and Fire and am not missing anything as I think Martin is a great author, but I wouldn't really want to take a quiz about the characters!

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'll just suggest you read the Destiny trilogy before you read the Borg-heavy preceeding TNG books (Resistance, Before Dishonor, Greater Than the Sum), and perhaps the first Titan before that to meet Riker's crew.

And don't worry about missing out on references. I still don't know what happened at Tezwa, but I'm cool with it

 

[JoeP]

And don't worry about missing out on references. I still don't know what happened at Tezwa, but I'm cool with it

See, that would drive me nuts! I wish I was able to do that. Maybe then I'd jump back into NJO-era Star Wars lit. I stopped reading after NJO.

 

[barnaclelapse]

It is a little imposing to get into Trek literature at this point. I can certainly agree with that. I bought several books while staffing Balticon a couple of years back, didn't care for the first one I read and haven't gotten into the others since. Star Trek is the kind of thing where a bad book for the first outing can kind of ruin it for the rest of the books.

At least that's how it feels to me.

There's just so much material out there. It can be difficult to figure out where to start from. Personally I thought of my favorite character (McCoy) and went from there.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Even though I believe that you can jump into TrekLit with any book, I can understand how some people would feel, I guess the word is worried about missing out on references and getting a bit lost.

See, that would drive me nuts! I wish I was able to do that. Maybe then I'd jump back into NJO-era Star Wars lit. I stopped reading after NJO.

Yeah. I'm really anal about this sort of thing. Like I'm afraid I'd miss out on something. I have this nasty habit of having to re-read all the previous books in a series when a new one comes out. What can I say? It's a nasty character flaw. I just have to live with it--or seek professional help.

And I had sort of lied a bit. I still had like six or seven pages left of The Farther Shore when I made the post. (I had gotten up to brush my teeth, take meds, turn of computer, etc.) Once I got to the part where Chuckles was made captain of Voyager, I spent ten minutes banging my head against the headboard. That's the sort of thing I hated about the Star Wars EU. Guy couldn't captain a rickshaw pulled by a someone with no legs. Never mind the fact there was no logical reason for it, or even that he deserved it. It was just silly and terrible fan-wanky.

 

[Christopher]

Well, what was the alternative? The series was called Voyager, so readers would have an expectation that it would focus on the cast and ship from that series. And NEM canonically established that Janeway was promoted to admiral, so that leaves Chakotay as the logical character to fill the role of the ship's captain. So I wouldn't call it "fanwanky," I'd call it inescapable.

And really, personal opinions about the characters aside,how is it any different from Spock captaining the Enterprise in TWOK or Kira commanding DS9 post-finale?

 

[JoeP]

Once I got to the part where Chuckles was made captain of Voyager, I spent ten minutes banging my head against the headboard. That's the sort of thing I hated about the Star Wars EU. Guy couldn't captain a rickshaw pulled by a someone with no legs. Never mind the fact there was no logical reason for it, or even that he deserved it. It was just silly and terrible fan-wanky.

Well, don't let that deter you from continuing the Voyager line. I can't speak to the Spirit Walk books as I never read them, but Full Circle and Unworthy are top notch. Easily the best Trek novels I read all last year (though admittedly, I didn't read them all).

 

[JD]

They even give Chakotay some personality, and alot of great development.

 

[Paris]

The Chakotay we get to read about in the VOY-R is waaaaayyy more interesting than the Chakotay from the tv series. There were some wacky things in the Spirit Walk books when it comes to Chakotay, but Full Circle and Unworthy are fantastic. Full Circle (and its author Kirsten Beyer) made Chakotay into one of the most interesting characters in the whole treklitverse. He's been made into the center piece of the VOY-R, and personally, i can't wait for Ms.Beyer's third outing (2011's Children of the Storm).

 

[CorporalClegg]

And really, personal opinions about the characters aside,how is it any different from Spock captaining the Enterprise in TWOK or Kira commanding DS9 post-finale?

Yes, and I shouldn't have to explain why.

 

[RookieBatman]

And don't worry about missing out on references. I still don't know what happened at Tezwa, but I'm cool with it

See, that would drive me nuts! I wish I was able to do that.

Me too. I go crazy with that kind of stuff. There was this one time I was reading one of the DC Star Trek comics, that was set out of continuity from the others (set at the end of the five year mission, with the regular issues being set well into the movie era), and they made a very noticeable reference to some incident with Spock's parents, that, as near as I can figure, just never happened. That was so frustrating, I really had to control myself to keep reading.

But, the flip-side of that is when there's a reference, and you did read the thing it's calling out to, then it's all worth it.

 

[Christopher]

And really, personal opinions about the characters aside,how is it any different from Spock captaining the Enterprise in TWOK or Kira commanding DS9 post-finale?

Yes, and I shouldn't have to explain why.

I think you overlooked the part where I said "personal opinions aside."

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Full Circle (and its author Kirsten Beyer) made Chakotay into one of the most interesting characters in the whole treklitverse. He's been made into the center piece of the VOY-R, and personally, i can't wait for Ms.Beyer's third outing (2011's Children of the Storm).

Paris speaks truth! Yes, the relaunch did a wonderful job with redeeming the Chakotay character. I'm waiting eagerly for CotS too.

 

[Thrawn]

There's an unusual lack of good advice in this thread. So let me rectify that.

The DS9 relaunch so far all takes place in a 1 year period from April 2376 to early 2377. It's fantastic, but also getting a little out of print, and scheduling problems led to it losing some steam.

The VOY relaunch, of which you've read the first two, continued for only two more books (the Spirit Walk duo) before both author and editor moved on to other things. It was sort of re-relaunched, with a VASTLY better author, more recently (see below).

Everything else in the 24th century is now together chronologically following Nemesis. This post-Nemesis ongoing continuity is totally awesome, and the high point of TrekLit in my opinion. Here's everything you'd have to read to really get all the important references:

A Time To Kill
A Time To Heal
A Time For War/A Time For Peace - the last 3 books of a 9 book series setting up Nemesis; the first 6 are unimportant.
(Nemesis falls here)
TNG: Death In Winter - crew reorganization post-Nemesis
Titan: Taking Wing - first adventure of Riker's crew
Titan: The Red King
Articles Of The Federation - a year in the life of the Federation president
Titan: Orion's Hounds
TNG: Resistance
TNG: Q&A
TNG: Before Dishonor - these last three TNG books are unfortunately inconsistent; the only real weak point on the list
Titan: Sword Of Damocles
TNG: Greater Than The Sum
Destiny: Gods Of Night
Destiny: Mere Mortals
Destiny: Lost Souls - epic crossover trilogy about the Borg invasion, following 4 crews. AMAZING.
TNG: Losing The Peace
A Singular Destiny
VOY: Full Circle - re-relaunches VOY, starting after the Spirit Walk books and covering the next 3 years, through and past Destiny
VOY: Unworthy
Titan: Over A Torrent Sea
Titan: Synthesis

Then, coming in November, the Typhon Pact miniseries, which will also catch DS9 up to the unified 24th century timeframe.

Now, if that's too intimidating, I totally understand, and I want to make clear that you can just start with Destiny because it's TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOME all by itself. But if you're paranoid about missing references, that's the whole ongoing 24th century continuity at this point, and it's certainly easier than reading several hundred


You should also read Vanguard. It's an original series set during TOS, five books strong so far: http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_Vanguard It's like TOS re-imagined by HBO, and it's consistently jaw-droppingly awesome.

And if you want to find out more about the DS9 relaunch's 2376-2377 arc, just follow this list: http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/DS9_relaunch but skip The Left Hand Of Destiny and the comics.