Bottle books?

[Art Vandelay]

Going back through the old numbered novels, I found that the ratio of one-off planets/civilisations/races/set of characters is insanely high. It's not that I don't have some favourites among those novels, but on TV we always had a fair amount of bottle shows that dealt mainly with the primary characters and didn't go off the ship/space station. I'm kind of partial to this type of episode, they were tightly scripted, allowed for many nice character moments and had a very particular storytelling flavour I just cannot put my finger on.

So I guess my questions are these...

Are there any recommendable "bottle books" - for lack of a better term?

Is there a reason for the civilisation-of-the-month syndrome in the early books? Editorial demands? Or is it just because with written words you can go wild when creating worlds - as opposed to a TV show on a tight SFX budget?

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think it's a case that "bottle stories" were usually more the result of TV budgetary restraints than a real desire to tell them. I really don't think there are many books that are bottle stories (I can't think of any myself).

 

[Art Vandelay]

To give you an example, I consider A.C. Crispin's The Eyes of the Beholders to be an excellent bottle story, and Mel Gilden's Boogeymen a so-so one.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Oh, you mean outside of Star Trek? Jeez, I can't remember the last book I read like that...

 

[Art Vandelay]

No, Star Trek of course - both titles I mentioned are TNG novels.

 

[captcalhoun]

the episodic nature of the early novels was moreorless editorial fiat, iirc, in the early pocket books. Gene, or at least the Infamous Richard Arnold, handed down rules that the books had to stick to the status quo and nothing very much change.

 

[Deano2099]

Bottle stories don't translate all that well to novel-length tales I guess. The early DS9 books are probably the best place to look. Can't remember many specifically but some of those written before The Defiant was introduced are necessarily primarily set on the station (not that there isn't a fair bit of Federation ship of the week too) - The Siege and Station Rage come to mind.

Or maybe try the short-story collections?

 

[Christopher]

the episodic nature of the early novels was moreorless editorial fiat, iirc, in the early pocket books. Gene, or at least the Infamous Richard Arnold, handed down rules that the books had to stick to the status quo and nothing very much change.

That's not true of the early Pocket novels. The early novels were those published beginning in 1981, and they were wildly diverse and creative. The era you're talking about didn't really come along until around 1990. It's more like the middle part of the three-decade history of Pocket Trek fiction than the early part.

 

[Greg Cox]

Honestly, I think a bottle book would be no fun to write--and hard to stretch out to 300 pages or so. By chapter three, I would be desperate to describe something besides walls and consoles!

So, to answer the OP's original question, I'm not aware of any editorial mandate to visit alien planets instead of staying onboard, but if you've got 80,000 words to write, and no budget issues, why write a "bottle book?

 

[Desert Kris]

Of the small handful of ST books I've read, not one has been entirely a "bottle" story, but a couple are largely so, with an excursion or two.

Dreams of the Raven mostly takes place aboard the Enterprise, with a landing party on a pivotal mission during the climax.

Final Frontier also takes place mostly on the Enterprise, with one character landing for a small period of time to meet up with another character, and then returns to the ship.

I can't remember, but I think The Children of Hamlin fits the criterion you describe. They still visit an alien...ship, I guess you could call it, a couple of times.

I think Vendetta has the Enterprise crew mainly on the ship There are a couple of ships that share the spotlight with Enterprise, so those crews get "screen time", on their own ship. There are also one or two flashbacks that take place in a different setting. There is a short away mission, and Picard stays off the ship for a little bit longer while the rest of the mission team return to Enterprise.

I recall Federation being this way, too, the original crew and TNG crew deal with things on board their incarnation of the ship; there is a third, pivotal character in the story who keeps changing his setting and eventually ends up on one or other of the Enterprises.

If these books are any indication, though, none of the novels that I am aware of entirely takes place on board the ship, there's always at least one landing party, but the books above have comparatively shorter away missions, as far as I can tell.

 

[Greg Cox]

Remember also that a novel needs a lot more plot than a typical hour-long tv episode, so you need more variety in settings.

Come to think of it, I have written some "bottle" stories, but they were just short stories. I can't imagine doing it at novel-length.

 

[Thrawn]

^ It's definitely possible, though. The aforementioned The Siege and Station Rage are both just asskickingly awesome. I might also add the first book of the Millennium trilogy. It's possible that, being a station, DS9 restricts possibilities enough that writers are more inclined to come up with "bottle" novels, but I don't think it would be at all impossible on a ship.

 

[Desert Kris]

It makes sense to me that you can only go so far with that much story to tell, with novels. My experience with the books I listed above is that by the time the book gets to point where a landing party is needed, the away mission has more at stake, and excitement and anticipation have been heightened.

Yeah, a novel has so much potential freedom to explore beyond the confines of the ship, it would be strange to hold back on that completely for an entire novel's length.

In some ways, I imagine it could be argued that the novels have the potential to tell better stories than the original series on which they are based because of that freedom. Especially for TNG, which seems to have more bottles shows than TOS did (it's just an impression, I can't break it down by the number of episodes or compare the percentages); the novels naturally have so much potential to be more expansive. They are only limited by how far they can take things with the regular crew, but TV shows rarely seemed to take the lead on taking the characters too far anyway, so it's not like the books were going to be too far afield from a character development standpoint.

I can kind of understand where the original poster is coming from, if we look at the Enterprise, it's a big toy that would be lot's of fun to play around with. Add the Holodeck from TNG's Enterprise, and that ratchets the fun up several notches more. There's also that wonderful, endearing notion of the Enterprise as a character herself. It really makes The Search For Spock a heartbreaking jawdropper, from that perspective.

It also makes sense to me what Mr. Greg Cox is saying, too. The Enterprise is a great, loveable, memorable vehicle to take the characters from one adventure to another. Once they get to their next adventure, it's a good time to get off the ship.

 

[Christopher]

On the other hand... A bottle show on TV is limited to the standing sets to save money, so the whole thing takes place in just a few rooms and corridors, and focuses mainly on a finite cast of 7-9 major characters and a few supporting characters. But in a novel, you have the freedom to explore the entire starship, including all the bits that were only hinted at onscreen or mentioned in behind-the-scenes materials, and you can introduce any number of guest characters among the crew. I'd say there's more than enough variety of settings and crewmembers aboard a Starfleet capital ship to sustain an entire novel.

 

[Idran]

Especially for TNG, which seems to have more bottles shows than TOS did (it's just an impression, I can't break it down by the number of episodes or compare the percentages)

Yep.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Bottle_episode

2 for TOS, 8 and a half for TNG (seems weird to count Shades of Grey as one, but technically yeah), 9 for DS9, 11 for Voyager, and 6 for Enterprise.

 

[Stevil2001]

I can't remember, but I think The Children of Hamlin fits the criterion you describe. They still visit an alien...ship, I guess you could call it, a couple of times.

I guess this gives us the question-- what does "bottle" mean when applied to a book? Because though Hamlin only has a couple scenes set on the alien ship, they would completely break the budget if it was on screen. Plus there's a fair amount of guest characters.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Thanks for all the recommendations, Desert Kris.

On the other hand... A bottle show on TV is limited to the standing sets to save money, so the whole thing takes place in just a few rooms and corridors, and focuses mainly on a finite cast of 7-9 major characters and a few supporting characters. But in a novel, you have the freedom to explore the entire starship, including all the bits that were only hinted at onscreen or mentioned in behind-the-scenes materials, and you can introduce any number of guest characters among the crew. I'd say there's more than enough variety of settings and crewmembers aboard a Starfleet capital ship to sustain an entire novel.

That's part of the reason I adore your novel Ex Machina. You do leave the ship, but you also show a lot of the TMP-style refit Enterprise and her rather diverse crew.

Going back to my initial question and giving it some thought... I've read Trek books for 20 years now, and they've never been better than today. However, I planned on revisiting the good old days, only to find out that so many mid-90s TOS and TNG novels are: Enterprise arrives at a planet, has some adventure with the natives, Enterprise leaves, never to return again. I strongly dislike those books.

I loved The Entropy Effect, Yesterday's Son, Ishmael, Strangers from the Sky, The Lost Years, Survivors, Strike Zone, Metamorphosis, The Eyes of the Beholders and Imzadi, and they all had a great story without suffering from the civilisation-of-the-month syndrome.

So I guess in hindsight the reason for my post was that I was looking for some great numbered Trek novels that don't feature said syndrome. Sorry that this came masked as a question about bottle books...