Michael Jan Friedman novels

[Stevil2001]

On the topic of McCoy's back history, has the character of Joanna been explored at all in recent years?

Joanna (and other aspects of McCoy's backstory) will get a fair amount of exploration in A Choice of Catastrophes later this year.

 

[JD]

Sweet! McCoy is one of my favorite TOS characters, so any book with alot of McCoy is a must read for me.

 

[Bishop76]

I like McCoy quite a bit too but he's one of those characters that it seems like the writers never quite get right IMO - though I can definitely see how he'd be a tough character to get down on paper. Kind of like how no one ever really seems to get Han Solo right in the SW novels.

 

[Reanok]

I really like Reunion and Shadows on the Sun they're really well written and I like both novels alot.

 

[RonG]

Other than Reunion and Shadows on the Sun, which seem to be the best-received MJF novels, are there other notable novels worth reading? (other than Kahless, which I'd read and quite liked)

Are Crossover and Requiem any good?

 

[Stevil2001]

Crossover is fun. The Valiant and Starfleet: Year One are also favorites.

Going outside the novels, I though MJF's New Worlds, New Civilizations, a collection of "articles" accompanied by artwork, was excellent. Some of his best writing and some great pictures.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I just looked up Shadows on the Sun, and it sounds like one I might have to check out. Where did the concept of McCoy joining Starfleet to get away from his ex-wife come from? I thought it was something new they came with for the last movie, but obviously it's older if it was used here to.

Oh, it's much, much older. As D. C. Fontana explains in her introduction to Star Trek 365, it's something that DeForest Kelley came up with as part of his backstory for the character. After the first season, Fontana asked the actors for their insights into the characters, Kelley made the suggestion that he had a daughter and a broken marriage, and Fontana added that to the April 1967 revision of the writers' bible. The relevant section is quoted in spread 23 of Star Trek 365. "We will suspect that it was the bitterness of this marriage and divorce which turned McCoy to the Space Service."

McCoy's bitter divorce (along with the existence of his daughter Joanna) is one of those things that's been "known" in fandom forever even though it was never onscreen, because it was mentioned in the writers' bible and The Making of Star Trek. The TMoST version (p. 240) reads:

...McCoy's unhappy marriage and subsequent divorce made him long for an escape from familiar and painful surroundings. He therefore plunged into intensive courses in Space Medicine and then volunteered for Star Fleet. Dr. McCoy, like many a man before him, has taken up wandering in order to get away from painful memories.

The earliest prose work to address McCoy's divorce and subsequent choice to join Starfleet was Joe Haldeman's Planet of Judgment for Bantam. There were also a couple of Gold Key comics dealing with McCoy's daughter (there called Barbara) which probably came out earlier, but I don't recall if they addressed his divorce.

IIRC, in Spock Must Die! early on, Kirk walks into the middle of a conversation where McCoy is saying something like 'I sometimes feel like I've been a ghost for years.' The book says something like 'Kirk thought for a moment that McCoy was discussing his divorce' but it transpires that he is discussing the effect of the transporter beam, on being dissolved and reassembled molecule by molecule.

 

[Corran Horn]

I thought "Reunion" was the best. I also enjoyed the Stargazer series.

 

[kkozoriz1]

To me MJF is like literary comfort food. A satisfying read but doesn't really push the boundries. Which is fine. Sometimes I want beef wellington and other times the only thing that satisfies is mac & cheese. A varied diet.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Other than Reunion and Shadows on the Sun, which seem to be the best-received MJF novels, are there other notable novels worth reading?

I thoroughly enjoyed the "My Brother's Keeper" trilogy. Whereas some of those early trilogies felt like duologies forced into three volumes, this set focused on a different ship assignment for each book, a satisfying self-contained early Kirk&Gary adventure in each book, recurring in-jokes and recurring characters - and a spunky/feisty Andorian girlfriend for Kirk!

 

[neogothboy74]

MJF is easily my least favorite Trek author. Having said that, I actually really liked his novelization of TNG finale "All Good Things..."; it's actually better than the episode IMO. Packed with continuity and really great in-jokes. Other than that I can't think of any books by him that I've enjoyed. He's just not for me I guess. I hope you find some great books to read though.

 

[DrCorby]

I liked "Double, Double" A LOT. "Kahlass" and Starfleet, Year One" were also quite enjoyable. "Reunion" I thought was OK. I'm definitely NOT a fan of his "Stargazer" series. I haven't read many of his recent books, including "A Death in Winter", mostly because I'm not excited about the decision to get Picard and Crusher together.

 

[chelly]

I liked Reunion and Death in Winter, then again Dr Crusher is one of the characters I wanted to see more of. I also liked many of the others that have been mentioned.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I consider Reunion to be my favorite MJF book.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

On the topic of McCoy's back history, has the character of Joanna been explored at all in recent years?

Joanna (and other aspects of McCoy's backstory) will get a fair amount of exploration in A Choice of Catastrophes later this year.

Excellent news. I'll have to check that.

I'm guessing McCoy: Crucible didn't cover Joanna at all?

Going outside the novels, I though MJF's New Worlds, New Civilizations, a collection of "articles" accompanied by artwork, was excellent. Some of his best writing and some great pictures.

Oh, crap, I completely forgot about that book. I absolutely loved every entry, even if the art got a bit weird at times. The Q Continuum and Cardassian (which, along with A Stitch in Time, got me interested in Cardassian culture) entries are the stories.

 

[DarKush]

He's not my favorite, but I've enjoyed quite a few of MJF's books along the years. I really liked his take on the early Federation and wished that ENT had incorporated some of that into its show. Also liked several of the SGR books and Kahless and Crossover were big, near epic books. Crossover probably would've made a better movie than GEN.

One issue with him was he would create some cool species and never revisit them like the Nuyyad.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

I liked "Double, Double" A LOT. "Kahlass" and Starfleet, Year One" were also quite enjoyable. "Reunion" I thought was OK. I'm definitely NOT a fan of his "Stargazer" series. I haven't read many of his recent books, including "A Death in Winter", mostly because I'm not excited about the decision to get Picard and Crusher together.

THat reminds me, I ended up enjoying Double, Double even though I wasn't sure I would. Also liked Kahless.

 

[Therin of Andor]

One issue with him was he would create some cool species and never revisit them like the Nuyyad.

Urajel broke her arm in an encounter with the Nuyyad [in The Next Generation novel Valiant (2000), but a factoid not revealed until Stargazer: Gauntlet.]

See, this is somewhere where the authors really just can't win. For every person who says "The Nuyyad were cool; we should have seen them again", someone else will say "Can't MJF invent some new aliens?"

 

[ATimson]

See, this is somewhere where the authors really just can't win. For every person who says "The Nuyyad were cool; we should have seen them again", someone else will say "Can't MJF invent some new aliens?"

I can understand why people might say the latter about aliens being reused from the TV show. But are there really any races from the novels that people have complained about being overused?

 

[Therin of Andor]

I can understand why people might say the latter about aliens being reused from the TV show. But are there really any races from the novels that people have complained about being overused?

Probably!

I've certainly seen complaints of "Why did the author invent a whole new race when they could have used Canonical Race X?" and "Why did the author use Canonical Race Y when they could have invented some new alien?"

Similar to "Why did the author invent a new Starfleet admiral when they could have used Nogura?" and "Why did the author use Admiral Nogura/Noguchi/Hayes/Necheyev when they could have invented some new admiral?"