So What Are you Reading?: Generations

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by captcalhoun, Dec 22, 2011.

  1. Nyotarules

    Nyotarules Vice Admiral Moderator

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    Started Star Trek The Fall series
     
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  2. Oz Trekkie

    Oz Trekkie Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    A Choice of Catastrophes
    (Star Trek: The Original Series)
    by Michael Schuster, Steve Mollmann
     
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  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Yes, of course, but I can see the advantage of a panel-by-panel approach, since it's more automatic and efficient than zooming and moving the image manually. Most of the time, it's easier and better; it just has its limitations when dealing with unusual panel layouts. I just wish it had a better alternative for dealing with those exceptions.
     
  4. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I might have to pull one of my New 52 Flash comics out of my archive and try the panel by panel view on one of them, they have a lot of unusual page layouts.
    I forgot to respond to this part of an earlier post in my last one.
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Yeah, I noticed that -- on Hoopla I get the full 2-page spread intact, but in Kindle it only displays one page at a time.
     
  6. B’Elanna

    B’Elanna Ensign Red Shirt

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    I’ve been a long time fan, but never looked into any of the Star Trek literature. Where would folks suggest a good place to start. I was raised on TNG, it is my original Trek! I love Voyager and DS9. I’d love some reading suggestions from you folks. Thanks!
     
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  7. Thrawn

    Thrawn Rear Admiral Premium Member

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    Read Destiny, a trilogy available in one collected volume. It’s so good. If you love it, see the flowchart in my signature for where to find stories leading to it or continuing from it, but don’t let the complexity worry you before you start. Destiny was absolutely written to be new-reader friendly.

    I’ve recommended Destiny to about 7 different people who’d never read TrekLit and they all loved it.
     
  8. Jinn

    Jinn Mistress of the Chaotic Energies Rear Admiral

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    If you like VOY and DS9 and would like to see the series continued, you're in luck. There are nineteen DS9 novels that contonue the story for like another year and they're pretty much all great (In this list they're the dark blue ones, starting at Avatar, until The Soul Key). If you like Cardassians, check out A Stitch in Time, which is basically a Gark biography in the form of a letter to Bashir, written by Garak actor Andrew J. Robinson himself. Beyond that Una McCormack's DS9 novels tend to feature Cardassians and do a great job with them.

    For Voyager, there are basically two relaunches, four books by Christie Golden continuing off from the finale and spanning a few months, that I don't think are particularly good, and a bunch of novels by Kirsten Beyer (who also works on Discovery and Picard) that I consider some of the best TrekLit, but they kinda spin out of the Destiny trilogy, that Thrawn mentioned, so it's probably better to read that first.

    Other than that, there's the Vanguard series, which is set in the 23rd century, and is kind of a spy story meets political thriller meets starbase on the edge of Federation space meets ancient mystery type story, with Tholians, Klingons and civilians thrown into the mix. It's a bit more dark than the relaunch stories, but rather good.
     
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  9. Smiley

    Smiley Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Since you have a TNG background, B'Elanna, I recommend the A Time To series, Imzadi, and Before Dishonor. You may also like seeing Riker and Troi's adventures on the Titan, which begin in Taking Wing.
     
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  10. Nyotarules

    Nyotarules Vice Admiral Moderator

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    I would recommend TNG fans start with the A time to series...it fills in the missing peices before the Nemesis movie (like or loathe it) then I would recommend all the Star Trek stories in the relaunch universe. Most of them are linked, but you do not need to read everything to understand each novel. I am not a TNG fan and enjoy the relaunch series.
    This link gives a good guide

    https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Relaunch_novels_timeline
     
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  11. Smiley

    Smiley Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I just finished reading Star Trek: The Weight of Worlds by Greg Cox. I voted it as "Above Average" in the poll. It tells a fine story that is true to the characters and universe set up in TOS, but I would not call it essential reading on the level of a Spock's World. The game from the trial by ordeal reminded me of "Code of Honor" in its setting, if that episode had had much more budget and time. The depiction of the Crusaders' home and Kirk offering mercy to Jaenab were two of the positive aspects of the book that I liked the best.
     
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  12. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Current nostalgia reading: DOCTOR SYN by Russell Thorndyke, first published way back in 1915.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2020
  13. Daddy Todd

    Daddy Todd Commodore Commodore

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    I recently bought ebooks of four volumes of Algis Budrys's SF criticism. I'm currently reading Benchmarks Continued: F&SF "Books" Columns 1975-1982.
    It's fun to see what A.J. made of later titan of the genre George R.R. Martin when he was but a newcomer -- he thought Martin could be a bit wordy.

    As someone who gave up on ASOIAF halfway through the third book because I wanted Martin to GET ON WITH IT, that made me laugh out loud.
     
  14. Stephen!

    Stephen! Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I've finished "Hearts and Minds" & "Available Light" and now getting back to finishing Star Wars: Master & Apprentice, which I started last year.
     
  15. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

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    Book Log 2020 #7 – THE MURDER ON THE LINKS by Agatha Christie

    I actually intended to read The Mysterious Affair At Styles because it was published 100 years ago come October, but it turned out the earliest Poirot novel on my shelves is this second one, from 1923.

    As luck would have it, it’s one of my favourite Poirots anyway, written in a brisk and light way, based on a real murder case, and set up as a deliberate ‘Poirot is a better detective than Holmes because,’ riff, with Surete detective Giraud in the Holmes role. It’s a book of its time, told mostly in dialogue, with little sense of place or location – of course at the time readers would know what the Calais steamer or a French holiday villa was like, with no need of atmospheric description – but keeping hold and flowing cleverly and with speed.

    Reading it post-Suchet is quite astonishing, as Poirot and Hastings – always the best narrator for him – are so clearly Suchet and Fraser that you an’t help wondering a] how the hell enybody else – especially Ustinov – was ever accepted in the role, and b] where Christie got the time machine so that she could base the characters on their performances. I mean, seriously, it’s fucking supernatural…

    Anyway, yeah, a really enjoyable read, as you might expect from a pre-War Christie.
     
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  16. Smiley

    Smiley Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    To Lonemagpie or anyone else who enjoys cozy (or cosy) mysteries:

    The trend in a lot of the series I have seen is for the protagonist to be setting up or working in a small business with some fun friends/acquaintances/townspeople when a crime is essentially dropped in their lap. The setup works well for a single mystery, but future entries have to come up with lots of contrivances for the same person to investigate more crimes. Poirot and Marple avoided this by being a consultant and/or by traveling a lot. Are there any mystery series you would recommend that are just as believable on the back end as in the initial outing?

    I am nearly done with the novelization for The Rise of Skywalker. I enjoyed some of the extra bits like showing how Zorii and Babu got off Kijimi. However, I am not finding it as good as the other Expanded Edition novelizations of the era (Solo, The Last Jedi), and I would put it about on par with the Attack of the Clones novelization.
     
  17. hbquikcomjamesl

    hbquikcomjamesl Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Hmm. "Doctor" and "Thorndyke" in the same sentence. That kind of gives me High Anxiety.

    At any rate, James, First and Second Peter, First, Second, and Third John, and Jude leaving The Revelation of St. John the Divine for tomorrow.
     
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  18. trampledamage

    trampledamage Clone Admiral

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    I really enjoy the Daisy Dalrymple series written by Carola Dunn. They are set in 1920's England and the set up for Daisy to end up embroiled in many murders is written into the first novel - she's trying to earn her own living as a journalist and has landed a job writing about historic homes in England because she has the contacts being an "Honorable" herself.

    They're lightweight, but the plots are good, the crimes sometimes vicious, the characters really enjoyable and the settings well written.
     
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  19. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Most Sherlockians favor the theory that "The Final Problem" fictionalizes Watson's ignorance of Moriarty, that Watson knew full well who Moriarty was, but he obscured that fact from the readers because they had not encountered Moriarty previously in Watson's accounts of Holmes' investigations.

    There's a reference to Watson's "sad bereavement" in "The Empty House" that's taken as an oblique reference to Mary Morstan's death. As for why Watson is being oblique...

    Watson marries again, just before Holmes retires and moves to Sussex to tend his bees. Watson would have been writing the stories in Return after that marriage and a decade, plus or minus a year, after being made a widower. One could theorize that Watson limited references to Mary in Return out of deference to his new wife. IIRC, Watson doesn't refer to this wife in any of the tales. Holmes does, however, in one of the two stories he writes, "The Blanched Soldier," writing that Watson "had deserted me for a wife."

    There's also evidence that Watson was married a third time, before Mary Morstan. And Sherlockian Brad Keefauver argues in favor of six wives for the good doctor.
     
  20. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    As I said, I find that problematical because the opening of the story stresses that it's Watson's attempt to set the record straight against the misrepresentations of Moriarty's brother. So you'd think he'd want to be as accurate about it as possible.

    Also, though both stories have their weaknesses, I'd say "The Final Problem" is the better and certainly more important of the two, so it seems odd to dismiss it as the less authentic one.

    Could it be that his editor rewrote it over his objections? That might account for the continuity problem of both Colonel and Professor Moriarty being called James in different stories.

    That makes sense, I guess.


    Wow, that makes Trek continuity nerds seem like amateurs.