Recommendations for a guy new to Trek books?
- Thread starter NickSD
- Start date
If you're interested in post-TV series novels check out this thread. Link
Basically, the reading order for TNG post-Nemesis is
Death in Winter
Resistance
Q&A
Before Dishonor
Greater Than the Sum
Destiny (trilogy)
Losing the Peace
Typhon Pact: Paths of Disharmony
Indistinguishable From Magic
and VOY post-Endgame is
Homecoming
The Farther Shore
Spirit Walk duology
Full Circle
Unworthy
Children of the Storm
If you're interested in novels set during the series, I would recommend:
TNG:
Q-Squared by Peter David
Imzadi by Peted David
VOY:
Fire Ship by Diane Carey
Pathways by Jeri Taylor
Basically, the reading order for TNG post-Nemesis is
Death in Winter
Resistance
Q&A
Before Dishonor
Greater Than the Sum
Destiny (trilogy)
Losing the Peace
Typhon Pact: Paths of Disharmony
Indistinguishable From Magic
and VOY post-Endgame is
Homecoming
The Farther Shore
Spirit Walk duology
Full Circle
Unworthy
Children of the Storm
If you're interested in novels set during the series, I would recommend:
TNG:
Q-Squared by Peter David
Imzadi by Peted David
VOY:
Fire Ship by Diane Carey
Pathways by Jeri Taylor
^ I loved Fire Ship. I rarely see anyone else mention it.
If you are interested in out of print books you can find on amazon I can give you a variety of names. If you are interested in something new, I can give you a few recommendations.
As a TNG fan, I would highly recommend Indistinguishable From Magic. It focuses primarily on Geordi but you will get a lot of side characters you'll recognize from the show and takes place on a Galaxy class ship which will make it a fun read.
As a VOY fan, all 3 of the current books by Kristen Beyer are great and should be read in order (Full Circle, Unworthy, Children of the Storm). However, you could probably jump into Children without much difficulty. You also have to know that Janeway is dead and Voyager is now part of a fleet exploring the Delta Quadrant.
If you are interested in out of print books you can find on amazon I can give you a variety of names. If you are interested in something new, I can give you a few recommendations.
As a TNG fan, I would highly recommend Indistinguishable From Magic. It focuses primarily on Geordi but you will get a lot of side characters you'll recognize from the show and takes place on a Galaxy class ship which will make it a fun read.
As a VOY fan, all 3 of the current books by Kristen Beyer are great and should be read in order (Full Circle, Unworthy, Children of the Storm). However, you could probably jump into Children without much difficulty. You also have to know that Janeway is dead and Voyager is now part of a fleet exploring the Delta Quadrant.
I'd also reccomend the Voyager novel Battle Lines, set during the series. I really enjoyed that one. Voyager's conquered and made to fight in an alien war.
Also, I skipped Spirit Walk and didn't feel like I missed a thing.
Here are my favourite TNG's. They're all old, standalone, and can be gotten for little more than the cost of shipping, second hand, online:
Vendetta (post "Best of Both Worlds" Borg invasion, featuring the Plant Killers from TOS' "Doomsday Machine")
Federation (TOS/TNG crossover featuring Zephram Cochrane, incompatible with the movie First Contact)
Dark Mirror (a mirror universe Enterprise-D invades our galaxy, incompatible with, and far superior to, DS9's mirror universe)
Survivors (Tasha's backstory)
Metamorphosis (Data's made human)
The Captain's Honor (Picard and the Space Romans)
Q-Squared (Q, Trelane and 4 timelines intersecting, including one where Jack Crusher is captain of the Enterprise)
Also, I skipped Spirit Walk and didn't feel like I missed a thing.
Here are my favourite TNG's. They're all old, standalone, and can be gotten for little more than the cost of shipping, second hand, online:
Vendetta (post "Best of Both Worlds" Borg invasion, featuring the Plant Killers from TOS' "Doomsday Machine")
Federation (TOS/TNG crossover featuring Zephram Cochrane, incompatible with the movie First Contact)
Dark Mirror (a mirror universe Enterprise-D invades our galaxy, incompatible with, and far superior to, DS9's mirror universe)
Survivors (Tasha's backstory)
Metamorphosis (Data's made human)
The Captain's Honor (Picard and the Space Romans)
Q-Squared (Q, Trelane and 4 timelines intersecting, including one where Jack Crusher is captain of the Enterprise)
I thought Homecoming and The Further Shore were enjoyable (although I hated the treatment of one of the characters)
Oh, and add The Devil's Heart to my TNG list. An ancient artifact makes Picard act strangely. I loved that one.
Oh, and add The Devil's Heart to my TNG list. An ancient artifact makes Picard act strangely. I loved that one.
"Fire Ship" is awesome! Even covers the transition of Janeway's "bun of steel" making way for her shorter hairstyle!
Fire Ship was probably the first Voyager novel to transcend the Voyager formula. Really great book.
I know those tidbits are old news, but... man, way to spoil a guy who probably knew nothing about that.
Fire Ship is not universally loved.
If you're completely new to the Pocket Star Trek novels, a quick bit of history. While the shows were on the air the novels were largely standalone adventures, much like a typical TNG or Voyager episode. They don't need to be read in a certain order, it doesn't matter if you skip some. You'll sometimes see these books referred to as the numbered novels, because for many years Pocket numbered the books in the various series. All the numbers really signify is publication order.
When the shows went off the air (and the TNG movies ended), Pocket carried on where they left off with unnumbered novels that have a lot more continuity between them. Not all unnumbered novels are part of these post-finale books, because Pocket dropped the numbers before really moving on these changes, but people around here sometimes refer to numbered vs unnumbered novels.
Warning: Every so often someone comes along, asks for suggestions, and starts out with a book they just can't stand. It happens. There's a hell of a lot of variety in the Trek books line, some due to editorial regimes, some due to individual writers' styles. Every book that is glowingly recommended in this topic will be some reader's least favourite book. So if the first book you try doesn't do much for you, don't be discouraged. Try something else. Star Trek books can prove to be addictive. I've been reading them for 40 years or so.
If you're completely new to the Pocket Star Trek novels, a quick bit of history. While the shows were on the air the novels were largely standalone adventures, much like a typical TNG or Voyager episode. They don't need to be read in a certain order, it doesn't matter if you skip some. You'll sometimes see these books referred to as the numbered novels, because for many years Pocket numbered the books in the various series. All the numbers really signify is publication order.
When the shows went off the air (and the TNG movies ended), Pocket carried on where they left off with unnumbered novels that have a lot more continuity between them. Not all unnumbered novels are part of these post-finale books, because Pocket dropped the numbers before really moving on these changes, but people around here sometimes refer to numbered vs unnumbered novels.
Warning: Every so often someone comes along, asks for suggestions, and starts out with a book they just can't stand. It happens. There's a hell of a lot of variety in the Trek books line, some due to editorial regimes, some due to individual writers' styles. Every book that is glowingly recommended in this topic will be some reader's least favourite book. So if the first book you try doesn't do much for you, don't be discouraged. Try something else. Star Trek books can prove to be addictive. I've been reading them for 40 years or so.
No book is universally loved. There are some people who hate Destiny yet love Warped.
If you're looking for books set during TNG then I'd recommend Q-Squared by Peter David. It features Q, and Trelane and deals with several different alternate realities. It's one of the best TNG books I've read.
If you're interested in the current post-finale books, I'd recommend the A Time to... series. When I read them I skipped ahead to the 3rd and 4th book, and IMO they ranged from ok, to absolutely amazing. The series is nine books and it covers the events between Insurrection and Nemesis. Alot of the story lines introduced in the series go on to play a role in the post-Nemesis series. ( The links I posted are for Memory Beta, the wiki dedicated to all of the non-TV Trek series. IMO this is one of the absolute best sources on the web for Trek book info.)
If you're interested in the current post-finale books, I'd recommend the A Time to... series. When I read them I skipped ahead to the 3rd and 4th book, and IMO they ranged from ok, to absolutely amazing. The series is nine books and it covers the events between Insurrection and Nemesis. Alot of the story lines introduced in the series go on to play a role in the post-Nemesis series. ( The links I posted are for Memory Beta, the wiki dedicated to all of the non-TV Trek series. IMO this is one of the absolute best sources on the web for Trek book info.)
That isn't spoiling it anymore than telling someone who never WATCHED Voyager that it is about a ship stuck 75 years away from home or that Enterprise is a prequel and centers around a temporal cold war.
That is basic info about the series any reader should know jumping in. That was the info I was given by a friend promoting the relaunch to me.
While "Voyager's part of a fleet exploring the DQ" is fine for Beyer's novels, "Janeway's dead" is surely as much a spoiler for Before Dishonor as "Spock dies" or "Data dies" are for The Wrath or Khan or Nemesis.
That's the part I was talking about more than the return to the Delta Quadrant.
If you're looking for an excellent stand alone TNG novel (which I would recommend for a new reader) I would recommend:
Imzadi: A very dramatic and touching story that sheds light on Riker and Troi's relationship. It was reportedly the last novel that Gene Roddenberry approved. (According to the author). Other fantastic books by the same author (Peter David) include: Q in Law, Q Squared, Strike Zone.
Fortune's Light: One of my favorite stand alones, and features Riker on a world allied with the UFP to search for an old friend that may have gone rogue. The B-story is less interesting, which focuses on Data.
Grounded (a story of an alien organism that grafts itself to the ship) and The Romulan Prize (a Romulan/Federation intrigue story) are some great reads too. The characters feel very real. They could easily have been episodes of the series (albeit with a slight budget increase.)
And someone earlier in this thread recommended The Devil's Heart. It is an EXCELLENT work of fiction and the only one I can remember reading from Carmen Carter, which is sad.
For Voyager, many of the stand alones (as well as the early relaunch novels) were written by Christie Golden and should thus be burned not read. However, The Escape by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith is a nice entry from the first season.
Imzadi: A very dramatic and touching story that sheds light on Riker and Troi's relationship. It was reportedly the last novel that Gene Roddenberry approved. (According to the author). Other fantastic books by the same author (Peter David) include: Q in Law, Q Squared, Strike Zone.
Fortune's Light: One of my favorite stand alones, and features Riker on a world allied with the UFP to search for an old friend that may have gone rogue. The B-story is less interesting, which focuses on Data.
Grounded (a story of an alien organism that grafts itself to the ship) and The Romulan Prize (a Romulan/Federation intrigue story) are some great reads too. The characters feel very real. They could easily have been episodes of the series (albeit with a slight budget increase.)
And someone earlier in this thread recommended The Devil's Heart. It is an EXCELLENT work of fiction and the only one I can remember reading from Carmen Carter, which is sad.
For Voyager, many of the stand alones (as well as the early relaunch novels) were written by Christie Golden and should thus be burned not read. However, The Escape by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith is a nice entry from the first season.
Carmen Carter's other books include:
TOS: Dreams of the Raven (an excellent McCoy novel, though no longer consistent with his age as established post-TNG)
TNG: The Children of Hamlin (intriguing, dark first-season novel, though since it was written before the show premiered, its take on 24th-century Starfleet is not quite as placid as the show's version
TNG: Doomsday World (in collaboration with Michael Jan Friedman, Peter David, and Bob Greenberger)
Whatever one may feel about Golden's post-finale VGR novels, there's a reason she was considered the go-to writer for VGR. Her first several, The Murdered Sun, Marooned, and Seven of Nine, were widely regarded as among the best of the VGR novels published during the series.
Christopher, thank you for the other novel recommendations for Carmen Carter. I think I have a copy of Children of Hamlin that I have yet to read.
As far as Christie Golden's work, I should have been kinder. For that I am sorry. However, I just felt her work never did the characters justice, and the novels you mentioned are amongst my least favorite works of Trek fiction. IMO.
As far as Christie Golden's work, I should have been kinder. For that I am sorry. However, I just felt her work never did the characters justice, and the novels you mentioned are amongst my least favorite works of Trek fiction. IMO.
Similar threads
