So What Are you Reading?: Generations

Gary_Seven said:

Just finished my first Star Trek novel :
The Good That Men Do

I chose this book so I can get an idea for the expanded universe after the series ended. Felt a bit more like a What If… issue for how the series should have ended, with no holograms, a big twist for Trip, and a lead-in to the Romulan War. I come out slightly positive by the end, but ultimately unimpressed in much of the writing. Definitely influenced by this being my least favorite cast of the pre-DISCO era.


Currently reading :
Assignment: Eternity & A Time to Be Born
Assignment: Eternity is a great, light read so far. Love the characters, humor, and time travel shenanigans.

Just started the TNG book and I am loving it.

Click to expand...

If you're DS9 fan I'd highly recommend the DS9 Relaunch which stars with the Avatar duology, it's basically started the whole interconnected novel and comics continuity that we got between the end of Voyager and Picard, and is one of the most consistently fantastic of any run of Trek books.

Gary_Seven said:

Assignment: Eternity is a great, light read so far. Love the characters, humor, and time travel shenanigans.

Click to expand...

Thanks! That was my very first solo Trek novel, way back when, after a couple of collaborations.

Hard to believe that was nearly thirty years ago!

hbquikcomjamesl said:

You started out with a relatively minor opus by a relatively minor writing team. Then you jumped straight into one of the first ST novels by one of the true giants of current TrekLit.

I particularly recommend anything by Greg Cox, Christopher L. Bennett, or Diane Duane. They are the gold standard of TrekLit (note that DD hasn't written any TrekLit in well over a decade, and yet she's still remembered, and people are still reading [and re-reading, and re-re-reading] her stuff).

Click to expand...

Thanks for the recommendations!

I’ve been selecting from the more interesting titles off the Trek Litverse Flow Chart + a few of the best writers I know from the series. As such, I don’t really have a good radar yet for the specific authors of merit in the Star Trek lit field.

At this moment, the paperbacks I’ve acquired from my recent book shops :
Assignment: Eternity, The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh Part I & II, To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh, Kobayashi Maru, Reunion, Allegiance in Exile, Vulcan’s Glory, IKS Gorkon: A Good Day to Die, String Theory Part I & II, Federation (+ A Time to… series which I found a good deal online for a used set)

These days, you'll probably have to go to a used book dealer to get any Diane Duane or John M. Ford. For example, DD's Spock's World goes for under $4 for a VG HC on Alibris. JMF's How Much for Just the Planet is in the same range for a VG MMPB.

JD said:

If you're DS9 fan I'd highly recommend the DS9 Relaunch which stars with the Avatar duology, it's basically started the whole interconnected novel and comics continuity that we got between the end of Voyager and Picard, and is one of the most consistently fantastic of any run of Trek books.

Click to expand...

DS9 is my favorite of the television series, so the Avatar books will be acquired at some point. I’m also interested in any novels that expand any lore/species/characters from earlier points in time for the series, even if its not the central plot. This is what brought Allegiance in Exile onto my shelf.

Greg Cox said:

Thanks! That was my very first solo Trek novel, way back when, after a couple of collaborations.

Hard to believe that was nearly thirty years ago!

Click to expand...

Kudos again and thanks for the great read! I’m only 1/3 in, but the pace is fantastic and it feels like you nailed the tone for a follow-up to an under-appreciated episode (Great? No, perhaps not, but certainly under-appreciated).

I’ve got your Khan books next, so I’ll be expecting big things now.

Gary_Seven said:

Kudos again and thanks for the great read! I’m only 1/3 in, but the pace is fantastic and it feels like you nailed the tone for a follow-up to an under-appreciated episode (Great? No, perhaps not, but certainly under-appreciated).

Click to expand...

It was one of my favorite eps. Always felt cheated that we never got the further adventures of Gary Seven, Roberta, and Isis. Probably why I brought the back in the books the first chance I got.

"The Return of Gary Seven" was actually the first idea I pitched to Pocket Books, although it ended up being the fourth Trek I wrote for them, for scheduling reasons.

(Dawns on me that my memory tricked me before. My VOYAGER book, The Black Shore, was actually my first solo Trek book, not Assignment: Eternity. The Gary Seven book came after that.)

Greg Cox said:

It was one of my favorite eps. Always felt cheated that we never got the further adventures of Gary Seven, Roberta, and Isis. Probably why I brought the back in the books the first chance I got.

"The Return of Gary Seven" was actually the first idea I pitched to Pocket Books, although it ended up being the fourth Trek I wrote for them, for scheduling reasons.

Click to expand...

The thing is, if Assignment: Earth had gone to series, it probably would've been quite different from the Gary Seven novels and comics that have been done since. Judging from the series pitch document, it would've been an "SF-lite" show like the bionic series of the '70s, where the protagonist's advanced technology was usually the only science fiction element in stories about spy capers, political dramas, crime stories, medical crises, or more character-oriented dramas, aside from the occasional story about experiments gone wrong or dangerous new technologies. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd divorced it from any Star Trek connections so it could stand on its own. After all, Roddenberry originally created it as a separate project and only shoehorned it into Trek as a way to use Trek's budget to get his pilot made. He was probably hoping he could get a more conventional, present-day show on the air, one that wouldn't be so costly or difficult to make and have a better chance of a long run. So distancing it from the struggling ST would've been a good idea from that perspective.

And it would've been easier for freelance writers to pitch generic present-day crime or intrigue plots of the sort they'd peddle to other contemporary shows than to come up with something tailored to a unique science fiction setting. Not to mention that such contemporary plots wouldn't have demanded much in the way of expensive visual effects. So they would've probably ended up doing a lot of such generic stories with just Gary Seven's super-gadgets tacked on to help save the day.

I think the closest thing we've seen to the original intent was the first issue of John Byrne's A:E comic, and maybe the third, though that would've been one of their occasional forays into more SF-driven plots rather than a typical episode.

I'd never heard that about Assignment: Earth, I'd always assumed it was going to be another sci-fi series.

Gary_Seven said:

Thanks for the recommendations!

I’ve been selecting from the more interesting titles off the Trek Litverse Flow Chart + a few of the best writers I know from the series. As such, I don’t really have a good radar yet for the specific authors of merit in the Star Trek lit field.

Click to expand...

Gary_Seven said:

Reunion,

Click to expand...

This is a good one, and if you really like it, the did a prequel series with it's version of the Stargazer crew and Picard when he first takes command of that ship.

Gary_Seven said:

Allegiance in Exile,

Click to expand...

I haven't read this one, but I believe it's actually a prequel to the DS9 Relaunch with an earlier version of elements from that series playing a role in.

Gary_Seven said:

IKS Gorkon: A Good Day to Die,

Click to expand...

Just as an FYI, even though it say "book one" this is actually the third IKS Gorkon book, TNG: Diplomatic Implausibility and the second book in the The Brave and The Bold crossover duology. The books are always written so you can read them on their own, so you don't have to read the first two, but it does continue on some story arcs started in those books. I actually picked it up a few years ago, but when I started it and realized it was continuibg on from those two, I stopped until I read them

Gary_Seven said:

String Theory Part I & II

Click to expand...

The String Theory trilogy is over all pretty fantastic. I loved the first two books, but didn't enjoy the third quite as much, it wasn't enough to ruin the whole trilogy though.

hbquikcomjamesl said:

These days, you'll probably have to go to a used book dealer to get any Diane Duane or John M. Ford. For example, DD's Spock's World goes for under $4 for a VG HC on Alibris. JMF's How Much for Just the Planet is in the same range for a VG MMPB.

Click to expand...

Pretty much every Trek book published by Pocket is available as an e-book. As far I can tell the only ones that aren't are the first three Shatnerverse books.

JD said:

I'd never heard that about Assignment: Earth, I'd always assumed it was going to be another sci-fi series.

Click to expand...

Well, yes, but in the same vein as Search or The Six Million Dollar Man where usually the only sci-fi element is the heroes' tech or abilities, or sometimes a cutting-edge experiment or scientific breakthrough. The series prospectus specifically criticized The Invaders for focusing on alien villains, saying that audiences would respond better to conflicts among human characters.

This was, however, a change from the original 1966 half-hour version that was unconnected to Star Trek. In that one, the villains were time-traveling, shapeshifting aliens called Harth and Isis, whose technology resembled black magic (like Sylvia and Korob in "Catspaw") and who were trying to change history to prevent humanity from becoming the interstellar power that would defeat them centuries in the future (presaging the idea of the Temporal Cold War). That version's pilot script had several scenes in common with the final Trek episode, mainly involving Roberta and her encounters with Seven's technology, but it was more like an unfunny sitcom, right down to a suspicious meddling detective like Brennan in My Favorite Martian. Maybe it was Art Wallace who pushed the concept in more of a dramatic and grounded direction in the revised series pitch, or maybe Roddenberry did that to distance it from Star Trek so it could stand on its own.

Christopher said:

Well, yes, but in the same vein as Search or The Six Million Dollar Man where usually the only sci-fi element is the heroes' tech or abilities, or sometimes a cutting-edge experiment or scientific breakthrough.

Click to expand...

I still have very fond memories of Search. Along with licensed (albeit POD DVD-R) DVDs of the feature-length pilot and the entire run of the series. Loved the concept, loved the cast, loved Dominic Frontiere's music. Of course, the title of the series makes it inherently difficult to find anything related to it online. I was ten years old when it aired.

Now halfway through the fourth chapter of John Williams: A Composer's Life. Absolutely astounding, some of the stuff he worked on (and some of the people he worked with) in his youth.

hbquikcomjamesl said:

I still have very fond memories of Search. Along with licensed (albeit POD DVD-R) DVDs of the feature-length pilot and the entire run of the series. Loved the concept, loved the cast, loved Dominic Frontiere's music. Of course, the title of the series makes it inherently difficult to find anything related to it online. I was ten years old when it aired.

Click to expand...

I was unaware of it for a long time. The first place I heard of it was in a catalog for the Roddenberrys' Lincoln Enterprises, which sold its scripts alongside scripts for Star Trek and other classic shows. I saw the pilot online some years back, but I've never managed to see the rest of the show, though I've been curious about it. It was ahead of its time in featuring field agents supported by "guys in the chair" monitoring and advising them in real time from a command center.

Christopher said:

The first place I heard of it was in a catalog for the Roddenberrys' Lincoln Enterprises, which sold its scripts alongside scripts for Star Trek and other classic shows

Click to expand...

No doubt because of Justman's involvement.

I liked the idea of Probe Control making no distinction by gender or ethnicity among its experts. And I will admit to having a pre-teen crush on both Angel Tomkins and the late Ginny Golden.

hbquikcomjamesl said:

No doubt because of Justman's involvement.

Click to expand...

Oh, that's why. I'd forgotten that part.

And the Gene Coon connection is why Lincoln had Kung Fu merchandise.

I finished up The Return of the King's "Book 5", and I decided to take a short break and I'm working my way through Marvel's Voyager comics #10-#13, and I'm about halfway through #12. 10 was OK, but #11 and #12 have been a lot better so far. My biggest problem with #10 was the whole thing just felt kind of pointless, and the narration felt a little over dramatic at times.

It's been quite a few years since the last time I worked my way through LotR.