^ Are you thinking of Vonda McIntyre's take on Janice Rand in "Enterprise, The First Adventure"?
Best and worst Star Trek paperback novels
- Thread starter Miss Mess
- Start date
^ no, definitely not that one. After some quick research, I think it was Diane Carey's "Dreadnought!". I can't explain the punctuation.
I would have thought Death's Angel by Kathleen Sky.
It was much worse than Dreadnought ...
by several orders of magnitude.
It was much worse than Dreadnought ...
by several orders of magnitude.
^ never heard of either of them. That must have come later.
Earlier actually. Death's Angel was during the Bantam period I believe.
Guess I'm lucky I missed it.
That's right. It was the last Bantam Trek novel, published in April 1981, just two months before Pocket began its original Trek publishing line with The Entropy Effect. I guess Pocket had to wait until Bantam's license expired before they could put out original books, but clearly they were getting them ready beforehand.
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
I really enjoyed Killing Time. It is written by Della van Hise. There are two versions of this book. They pulled the first one off the shelves for it was a bit to homoerotic between Jim and Spock. They replaced it with a less slashier version. But, being a slash fan, I am kinda glad I have the original. Besides that, it felt like the series. The humor, the intrigue. I found it a pleasant read.
Knight Templar
Commodore
Anyone read the Star Trek novels when they were published by Bantam and not Pocket?
The Bantam novels were generally poor. Of those only The Galactic Whirlpool, Planet of Judgement, Vulcan, and Death's Angel were worth reading.
Avoid The Starless World, Trek to Madworld, Perry's Planet, Spock Messiah!, and various others.
Pocket has published so many that it is mainly a matter of taste.
The Bantam novels were generally poor. Of those only The Galactic Whirlpool, Planet of Judgement, Vulcan, and Death's Angel were worth reading.
Avoid The Starless World, Trek to Madworld, Perry's Planet, Spock Messiah!, and various others.
Pocket has published so many that it is mainly a matter of taste.
I really loved Doctor's Orders (read 7 times+ Huge McCoy fan course I'm gonna love it) And Q- Squared(Hug Q fan too) I hated all of those books written by Shatner I tried reading on and couldn't get through it.
Knight Templar
Commodore
"Dreadnought" & "Battlestations" by Diane Carey. Both had Star Trek adventures as seen from the point of view of a young woman in Starfleet named "Piper". Basically most of the books focused on her and the minature "crew" of fellow young officers she surrounded herself with
I actually like those novels. They were a different take on the Star Trek universe and I liked how they showed how the more "regular" people in Starfleet viewed the "heroic" Kirk, Spock and company.
Two of the novels I hated the most were
"Dwellers In The Crucible" and "Pawns And Symbols".
Neither of those novels features the regular Star Trek characters in anything more than cameos.
I think the Piper novels get unfairly characterized as "Mary Sue" stories. A Mary Sue is a guest character who overshadows and outperforms the regulars, and who wins their admiration without deserving it. The Piper novels were more like TNG's "Lower Decks," or maybe the current Young Justice animated series. They also probably owed a lot to Robert Heinlein's "juvenile" adventure novels told from the perspective of youngsters who learn and grow into heroes over the course of the story. They were about a cast of characters who were younger surrogates for Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty, the next generation of officers who were learning from the masters. Piper was the viewpoint character, the first-person narrator, but she didn't outperform the established heroes; Kirk and Spock were several steps ahead of her at every stage, and she had to learn from their example and overcome her own mistakes and hangups. And she wasn't a solo hero, but a member of a team paralleling the Kirk/Spock/McCoy/Scotty team. So it wasn't about a guest character overshadowing the heroes; it was about letting us see the heroes from the perspective of the junior officers who served under them and strove to learn from them.
I'll admit, though, that the second novel Battlestations! did veer somewhat toward Mary Sue territory by having Piper gain a rapid promotion to Lieutenant Commander and be accepted into Kirk's inner circle of friends just a month out of the Academy -- not to mention having her materially involved in exposing and defeating a second vast, Federation-threatening conspiracy in as many months.
Now, someone mentioned Bantam's Death's Angel before. That novel features just about the most blatant, textbook Mary Sue character I've ever seen in professional Trek literature -- though it may be tied on that count with the early Pocket novel Triangle.
Around 1979 I was buying and reading all the Bantam ones, but have memories of very few because I was only 11. I particularly remember Vulcan! by Kathleen Sky (because it was about racism and there was partial nudity!) and Trek to Madworld.
I think it was Trek to Madworld where Kirk was stunned by a phaser and tried to stay conscious; it gave a detailed description of what a phaser stun feels like, which seemed kind of interesting. But even at age 11 it was obvious that one character was a ripoff of Willy Wonka, which felt like a cheat...
I enjoyed Black Fire, even more Price of the Phoenix and Fate of the Phoenix since I really enjoyed seeing Linville's Commander in action.
Strangers From the Sky is my personal favorite.
Mission to Horatius should have been titled 'Revolution Nummer Ein' a la the Beatles song. They say the book was "geared toward the young adult." The young adult what?!?
Mission to Horatius should have been titled 'Revolution Nummer Ein' a la the Beatles song. They say the book was "geared toward the young adult." The young adult what?!?
Knight Templar
Commodore
Perhaps but in regard to "Death's Angel" I think the actual story was pretty well done. Plus, kudos for nice cover art.
Perhaps but in regard to "Death's Angel" I think the actual story was pretty well done. Plus, kudos for nice cover art.
I really enjoy the cover art from all of the first print Bantam Star Trek books. My personal favorite is the cover of Blish's Star Trek 8.
It should be noted that certain publications written by creators of Star Trek's various series are sometimes referenced in later episodes of those series. Somewhat paradoxically, the novels themselves remain apocryphal in such cases, while whatever information was mentioned on-screen becomes canon.
Similar threads
- Locked
- Locked
