Best and worst Star Trek paperback novels

[jep]

My favorites are "The Prometheus Design", "The Wounded Sky", and "Uhura's Song".


My least favorite was ... actually, I can't recall its name... the "villain" in the book called himself "Omni". He killed Kirk, who actually turned out to be a clone of the real Kirk, who was still being held and mentally "broken" by Omni, and it just got progressively worse from there.





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[Sparky]

I liked Final Frontier too. I really liked Black Fire when I was growing up, even though it's completely absurd, Spock as an undercover pirate.

I liked Enterprise, in terms of Kirk taking command of the ship and interacting with his new crew, but the mission that they were sent on was god awful.

Nice. Black Fire was one of my favorites growing up as well.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

My favorites are "The Prometheus Design", "The Wounded Sky", and "Uhura's Song".

TWS is a great book. Kind'a surreal in places given what happens, but a really great book. I especially love the ending, with Enterprise returning home to a hero's welcome from half of Starfleet.

My least favorite was ... actually, I can't recall its name... the "villain" in the book called himself "Omni". He killed Kirk, who actually turned out to be a clone of the real Kirk, who was still being held and mentally "broken" by Omni, and it just got progressively worse from there.

That would be "The Fate of the Phoenix"...and do I ever wish I did NOT know that...one of the three WORST Trek books ever written...

Speaking of worst Trek books...

I liked Final Frontier too. I really liked Black Fire when I was growing up, even though it's completely absurd, Spock as an undercover pirate.

I liked Enterprise, in terms of Kirk taking command of the ship and interacting with his new crew, but the mission that they were sent on was god awful.

Nice. Black Fire was one of my favorites growing up as well.

You can NOT be serious, can you? The only two books I can think of worse than "Black Fire" would be "Triangle" and the aforementioned FotP...

 

[jep]

That would be "The Fate of the Phoenix"...and do I ever wish I did NOT know that...one of the three WORST Trek books ever written..

Yeah... that was it. What a godawful book.


Windows On A Lost World was pretty damned bad too.


A couple more that I really liked:

First Frontier

and

Ishmael




.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Triangle is the worst. Ever.

 

[Christopher]

My favorites are "The Prometheus Design", "The Wounded Sky", and "Uhura's Song".


My least favorite was ... actually, I can't recall its name... the "villain" in the book called himself "Omni". He killed Kirk, who actually turned out to be a clone of the real Kirk, who was still being held and mentally "broken" by Omni, and it just got progressively worse from there.

That was The Price of the Phoenix by Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath, the same authors who did The Prometheus Design, ironically. And the villain was named Omne. There was a sequel called The Fate of the Phoenix.

 

[Gorn Captain]

My favorites are "The Prometheus Design", "The Wounded Sky", and "Uhura's Song".

TWS is a great book. Kind'a surreal in places given what happens, but a really great book. I especially love the ending, with Enterprise returning home to a hero's welcome from half of Starfleet.

My least favorite was ... actually, I can't recall its name... the "villain" in the book called himself "Omni". He killed Kirk, who actually turned out to be a clone of the real Kirk, who was still being held and mentally "broken" by Omni, and it just got progressively worse from there.

That would be "The Fate of the Phoenix"...and do I ever wish I did NOT know that...one of the three WORST Trek books ever written...

Speaking of worst Trek books...

I liked Final Frontier too. I really liked Black Fire when I was growing up, even though it's completely absurd, Spock as an undercover pirate.

I liked Enterprise, in terms of Kirk taking command of the ship and interacting with his new crew, but the mission that they were sent on was god awful.

Nice. Black Fire was one of my favorites growing up as well.

You can NOT be serious, can you? The only two books I can think of worse than "Black Fire" would be "Triangle" and the aforementioned FotP...

Yeah, I am serious, is that okay?

I was like eleven years old when I read it. I said it was absurd. Sparky read it growing up too. Nobody said it was A Farewell to Arms.

 

[KarmicCurse]

I recall Spock's World being quite good. I like the way it took us forward through Vulcan's history. But it seemed to borrow from Dune at times.

 

[Silvercrest]

My favorites are "The Prometheus Design", "The Wounded Sky", and "Uhura's Song".


My least favorite was ... actually, I can't recall its name... the "villain" in the book called himself "Omni". He killed Kirk, who actually turned out to be a clone of the real Kirk, who was still being held and mentally "broken" by Omni, and it just got progressively worse from there.

That was The Price of the Phoenix by Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath, the same authors who did The Prometheus Design, ironically. And the villain was named Omne. There was a sequel called The Fate of the Phoenix.

Yeah, Kirk died, except he didn't actually die because Omne cloned him, except the original was still alive too, so there were two live Kirks and a dead body. Or something. They were fugitives and didn't have enough clothes between them after they broke out. The authors spent a disturbing amount of time describing which one was running around in his underwear.

And the Romulan Commander was heavily involved, but the authors didn't have the guts to give her a name (or couldn't think of one), so they just called her "the Commander". Over and over.

It's been 20 years since I've seen this book, so I really hope I'm remembering some of this wrong.

George Zebrowski's "Heart of the Sun" was a waste of time, and his "Dyson Sphere", a follow-up to "Relics", was ludicrous. Any opinions? It's been a few years since I read these two also, so I might have misjudged them.

Anyone remember Joe Haldeman's "World Without End"? I think it was from the 1970s. It's been 25-30 years since I read that one, but I recall that it had an awful lot in common with "The World Is Hollow etc" and was another waste of time.

 

[Christopher]

And the Romulan Commander was heavily involved, but the authors didn't have the guts to give her a name (or couldn't think of one), so they just called her "the Commander". Over and over.

Actually in Fate of the Phoenix they named her Commander Charvon, which was commemorated in the more recent Romulan-centric novels of Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz, who TNG-ized it as Charvanek.

It's been 20 years since I've seen this book, so I really hope I'm remembering some of this wrong.

Nope, you're being pretty accurate overall.

 

[milo bloom]

Another fan of Final Frontier, also love stuff like Enterprise, Spock's World, Final Reflection. The ones that really have a more epic feel to them. I have a soft spot for Doctor's Orders, though I wish another way could have been found to make the main plot point work because the convoluted manner the writer uses is a bit painful.

I just found about 20 Trek books at Goodwill the other day, several of them reprints of the older 70's and early 80's books. Can't wait to get into them, though I'm just now discovering the Strange New Worlds collections, so those are a little higher on my reading list (they're fan submitted short stories covering all the Trek shows, and the very first story of the very first volume was a TOS story, and it almost made me quit being a Trekkie because it was so good, there wouldn't be any point in watching or reading anything else).

 

[darkwing_duck1]

That was The Price of the Phoenix by Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath, the same authors who did The Prometheus Design, ironically. And the villain was named Omne. There was a sequel called The Fate of the Phoenix.

Oops...I always get those two confused...

Yeah, I am serious, is that okay?

I was like eleven years old when I read it. I said it was absurd. Sparky read it growing up too. Nobody said it was A Farewell to Arms.

It' ok, I'm just surprised to hear someone actually praise it. I read it when I was about that age too (and liked it at the time), but I think I read most of the original run of Pocket Trek just because it was Trek....

I recall Spock's World being quite good. I like the way it took us forward through Vulcan's history. But it seemed to borrow from Dune at times.

Take the "historical" parts of SW and "The Romulan Way" and put them together and you have a pretty complete history of Duane's version of early Vulcan history.

 

[Rulius]

I still can't believe any of these is worse than Crisis on Centaurus.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I still can't believe any of these is worse than Crisis on Centaurus.

What don't you like about that one? I thought it was fairly well done. Not outstanding, but very serviceable.

 

[Trek_princess]

The Lost Years by JM Dillard is excellent. There are also three sequels to that story, and while I would say these are ok, The Lost Years is definitely the best. I started to get pretty tired of the story arc by the fourth book, and the first can act as a stand alone novel, so I would recommend that to everyone.

 

[Christopher]

^In fact, there was much less of a story arc to the Lost Years books than intended, due to changes in editors and policy from on high. It was supposed to be a trilogy coming out fairly close together, but the second book was heavily rewritten under orders from Roddenberry's assistant Richard Arnold (who maintained a strict, draconian hold on the tie-ins for some years) and the third was cancelled outright. Years later, another editor managed to get a different third book published, but it had some continuity discrepancies with the second. And years after that, they (possibly meaning yet another editor, though I forget) brought back Dillard to write a fourth book to close out the series. I'm not sure, but I don't think the fourth book really acknowledged much from the second and third ones.

 

[Omega_Glory]

My favorite was Best Destiny and the least favorite was Dreadnought.

 

[ToddPence]

I didn't really care too much for "The Lost Years". It had it's moments, but ultimately I recall it being kind of a drag. Actually, the one vivid memory I have of that book is a WTF moment. A brawl breaks out at some bar on a frontier world with many different races, and we are told that a Horta pulls out a phaser and fires. A HORTA drawing and firing a hand weapon?

 

[T.D. Possum]

I, too, shall defend "Black Fire". I love campy Star Trek. But my real favorites are the Rihannsu books.

Don't care for the Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath books. Or for "Shadow Lord".

 

[Christopher]

So, have any of you guys read Trek novels published in the past 20 years? We're still churning out a whole bunch of them, and the line has evolved and expanded considerably since the era of the books being mentioned here.