"That book never happened!"

[F. King Daniel]

Fans love to censor Star Trek. Plenty of fans on TBBS will tell you that Star Trek V, The Animated Series, "Threshold", "These are the Voyages" and others "never happened" or "don't count" or actually happened in a way totally different to what we saw.

Recently, someone said they ignore the bit in New Frontier where the planet turned out to be a giant egg, and a giant flaming bird hatched and chased the Excalibur at warp 9. And that got me thinking: What books, or events in books, to Trek Lit fans censor out of their "personal continuity"?

I'm all-inclusive. Preposterous, nonsensical, contradictory, awful.... IMO it all "happened". I guess I suck at personal continuities. But I'm curious what others think.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

Well, one of my favorites, "Ship of the Line" didn't happen. We discussed thoroughly that the Bozeman's bridge crew was wrong and DTI told a different story about what the crew did in the 24th century.

I see no conflicts with NF stories. Those issues seem to be fan bias against PD. Of course in the newest one, I didn't like the Doctor and Seven being in the delta quad though this was explained.

 

[JarodRussell]

That the Enterprise spent most of the Dominion War in spacedock, with Riker screwing some female officer to get the repairs faster, and Picard being on an undercover mission.

 

[xortex]

I'm starting to feel that aliens are not a sustainable convention any more. I think kids especially these days don't believe in them and the pretense. I was looking at an old Trek book with these little three foot demon aliens and it was creepy and off putting.
Especially Titan's alen's working together under a Human Captain just doesn't fly with me. It's too jarring and seemingly ridiculous especially ugly aliens. If I want to see that I'd go to the DMV. And the Gorn laying eggs. I mean c'mon, this is science fiction. Can't they have little baby gorns. Serious literature and hard science is not really what Trek is all about.

 

[RandyS]

Fans love to censor Star Trek. Plenty of fans on TBBS will tell you that Star Trek V, The Animated Series, "Threshold", "These are the Voyages" and others "never happened" or "don't count" or actually happened in a way totally different to what we saw.

Recently, someone said they ignore the bit in New Frontier where the planet turned out to be a giant egg, and a giant flaming bird hatched and chased the Excalibur at warp 9. And that got me thinking: What books, or events in books, to Trek Lit fans censor out of their "personal continuity"?

I'm all-inclusive. Preposterous, nonsensical, contradictory, awful.... IMO it all "happened". I guess I suck at personal continuities. But I'm curious what others think.

My feeling is that with 285,000 parallel universes to play with, it ALL happened, in one reality or another.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I'm starting to feel that aliens are not a sustainable convention any more. I think kids especially these days don't believe in them and the pretense. I was looking at an old Trek book with these little three foot demon aliens and it was creepy and off putting.
Especially Titan's alen's working together under a Human Captain just doesn't fly with me. It's too jarring and seemingly ridiculous especially ugly aliens. If I want to see that I'd go to the DMV. And the Gorn laying eggs. I mean c'mon, this is science fiction. Can't they have little baby gorns. Serious literature and hard science is not really what Trek is all about.

I actually prefer Stargate and Halo-like pretenses that the Precursors were all humans (just butt-ugly ones). It explains why all the bumpy forehead aliens of Star Trek exist and why humans can interbreed with everybody.

I wish Star Trek would incorporate something like that.

 

[MatthiasRussell]

That the Enterprise spent most of the Dominion War in spacedock, with Riker screwing some female officer to get the repairs faster, and Picard being on an undercover mission.

What was the Enterprise doing during the Dominion War? NF said in one book that certain capitol ships like the Enterprise and Excalibur would held back in reserve in case the war dragged on. I don't recall Enterprise/Domion War books except the Battle for Betazed, but I wasn't reading much at the time.

 

[Starbreaker]

There were two really good Dominion War TNG books by John Vornholt.

 

[Destructor]

There were two really good Dominion War TNG books by John Vornholt.

But they themselves are 'discounted' by the Deep Space Nine relaunch, which directly contradicts them, so they're often considered not to be a part of the Trek Lit continuity by a lot of readers because the core continuity it essentially defined by the relaunch novels.

 

[xortex]

You gotta wonder if that's purposeful with all the turn around at Simon and Schuster, is it really that hard to keep consistancy and continuuity? I had a dog that did exactly what I didn't want him to do and I think he knew it.

 

[JD]

Not really. They were just written before the Novelverse really started with the DS9 Relaunch, and the authors have pretty much just occaisionally referenced a few random books from that era, and the TNGDW duology just happened to not be one of them. There really is no rule that all of the books have to be part of the novelverse continuity, just look at the Crucible books, which (from what I've seen on here, I haven't read them yet) totally contradict stuff in the novelverse.

What books, or events in books, to Trek Lit fans censor out of their "personal continuity"?

I'm all-inclusive. Preposterous, nonsensical, contradictory, awful.... IMO it all "happened". I guess I suck at personal continuities. But I'm curious what others think.

I tend to accept everything that is part of the novelverse wether I like it or not. As for the stuff that's not, I've only read a handful of them so far, and I've liked pretty much all of them so I've accepted theminto my personal version of the novelverse continuity, and the stuff that isn't consistent I just kick it over to an alternate reality. Now, if I come across a book I don't like that's not part of the novelverse, then I will gladly ignore it, unless it comes into play later.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm starting to feel that aliens are not a sustainable convention any more. I think kids especially these days don't believe in them and the pretense. I was looking at an old Trek book with these little three foot demon aliens and it was creepy and off putting.
Especially Titan's alen's working together under a Human Captain just doesn't fly with me. It's too jarring and seemingly ridiculous especially ugly aliens. If I want to see that I'd go to the DMV. And the Gorn laying eggs. I mean c'mon, this is science fiction. Can't they have little baby gorns. Serious literature and hard science is not really what Trek is all about.

I actually prefer Stargate and Halo-like pretenses that the Precursors were all humans (just butt-ugly ones). It explains why all the bumpy forehead aliens of Star Trek exist and why humans can interbreed with everybody.

I wish Star Trek would incorporate something like that.

You mean like TNG's "The Chase"?

 

[captcalhoun]

the Andorian four genders shite.

never happened.

 

[Turtletrekker]

There were two really good Dominion War TNG books by John Vornholt.

But they themselves are 'discounted' by the Deep Space Nine relaunch, which directly contradicts them, so they're often considered not to be a part of the Trek Lit continuity by a lot of readers because the core continuity it essentially defined by the relaunch novels.

Vornholt's The Dominion War books were mentioned in the Shatner-verse book Spectre (specifically, the Dominion's attempt to create an artificial wormhole), so I have always considered those books to be a part of that continuity.

 

[Therin of Andor]

My take: The novels are written by journalists and authors working from ships' logs, and they tend to gloss over facts, and make leaps of logic, and use creative license, to create interesting works of faction.

the Andorian four genders shite.
never happened.

My three bondmates and I disagree with you.

 

[Mage]

the Andorian four genders shite.

never happened.

Really? I thought it was one of the more interesting things in TrekLit, and made the Andorians a lot more interesting.

As mentioned before, Ship Of The Line is just awfull. I borrowed it out to a friend who hasn't read any Trek novel yet, saying that if she could stomach that, she'll love everything. It's one that I never take into account myself.

 

[Relayer1]

I am all for keeping one coherent continuity for everything since the relaunch, but a lot of the older stuff just won't fit with it. The Myriad Universes explanation works for me - if future shows / films contradict the novels, it's another alternate. I'd really like every effort to be made to not contradict earlier work though.

I think most fans will agree that anything that made it to the screen (no matter how bad) has to be canon, unfortunately...

 

[F. King Daniel]

I loathe the multiverse excuse. It takes away most of the vastness and depth the novels add to the Trekverse. It's much more satisfying to me if the Spock from Rough Beasts of Empire is the same guy from, say, Vulcan's Glory and Enterprise: The First Adventure, and who also commanded the USS Surak between STIII and IV (which had a longer gap between them than the movies would have you assume, wink, wink) and went on adventures with his resurrected BFF in the Shatner novels too.

Lowest common denominator: If entirely contradictory episodes like "True Q" and "The Q and the Grey" can coexist in the same vague TV/film continuity, along with the ultrafast galaxy-spanning warp speeds of TOS vs the snail-like pace of Voyager, novels of a similarly contradictory nature (like Ship of the Line and Watching the Clock) can coexist too. At least IMO.

 

[JoeZhang]

the Andorian four genders shite.

never happened.

Really? I thought it was one of the more interesting things in TrekLit, and made the Andorians a lot more interesting.

Bored me to tears, I was hoping the Andorians were all going to be wiped out in Destiny so we'd never have to read about them again.

 

[zarkon]

@OP, not really.

If there's stuff that's just stupid, like how the torturous storyline the 4 gender thing had, voyager or enterprise, or if there's stuff I dislike, such as directions characters are taken(sisko, bashir) or suchlike, I don't really care if novels reference it.

I'm just not too bothered if book x decides to reference book v event even though book w tried to recon/ignore it. I'm happy just as long as they do it in a fun way. If they don't pick up on it at all, that's fine too, as long as the book is good. I like long evolving plotlines that draw on earlier material right through the run(being a big fan of guys like grant morrison or neil gaiman it'd be hard not to), but given trek is worked on by multiple writers it could be to the detriment of the individual novels to care too much about upholding all that's gone before.

I don't take things seriously enough to ever edit them out of existance, Lord Rust style. Might forget them though.