A good starting place for Trek literature?

[Christopher]

My argument was that for someone just starting out, like Kat, who wanted something that felt like it could be part of the TV series, I'd probably recommend novels that were really good reads that aren't in conflict with canon continuity. I'd certainly recommend reading some of those novels later. But for what she was looking for it seemed that recommending novels that could literally be part of the original or TNG series would be better.

I still say that TOS didn't really make its own internal continuity a priority -- well, more so than usual for a '60s show, but a lot less so than audiences expect today. For that matter, even TNG was pretty slapdash with its continuity (retconning Data as contraction-less and emotionless in contradiction to his earlier portrayal, retconning in a Cardassian war that contradicted the peacetime Starfleet of the first two seasons, etc.). So if you're looking for something that "could've been part of the show," I think the overall feel and style of the story are more relevant to that than the continuity details. I mean, if it's something really blatant that it breaks the illusion, okay, I can get that; but a lot of the time, the inconsistencies in a novel are pretty subtle, hardly any greater than those that sometimes cropped up within the shows themselves.

For instance, one example I recall is Howard Weinstein's TNG novel Power Hungry. The only inconsistency between that novel and the show's continuity is that the novel portrays planetwide weather control as a practical impossibility, but later episodes like "Sub Rosa" and DS9: "Let He Who Is Without Sin..." portrayed planetary weather control as a routine, long-established reality. Which is the sort of thing that stands out to a detail-oriented mind like mine, but I think most people reading the novel would never even notice the inconsistency, or would shrug it off as a trivial point that didn't affect their enjoyment of the story. Similarly, the main continuity issue with Peter David's DS9: The Siege is that the Rio Grande is destroyed at the end, which we know in retrospect is an impossibility. Otherwise, it fits in quite well with season 1. (There's also the bit with Odo encountering another shapeshifter, but the novel carefully hedges on whether it's a member of Odo's species or just a similar one.)

 

[Damian]

(retconning Data as contraction-less and emotionless in contradiction to his earlier portrayal, retconning in a Cardassian war that contradicted the peacetime Starfleet of the first two seasons, etc.)

I've been rewatching TNG for the last several months and am in the latter half of the 2nd season now. Honestly I don't see that much of a difference in Data from later portrayals. Yes, the contractions thing--but by "Datalore" in the first season they already established he didn't use contractions (on occasion I have noticed a contraction slip through, but I think that is just a mistake--I imagine it's a hard habit to break since we use them so regularly). Before you mentioned it I probably wouldn't have even picked up on it. And any adjustments I did see I figured were just as Brent Spiner was settling into the role. Tim Russ was a bit more stiff as Tuvok when Voyager started, but as the show went on and he relaxed more into the role he appeared less stiff. So any 'changes' I might have perceived I just thought were Spiner becoming more comfortable as Data.

And Data's friends questioned his perceived lack of emotions a number of times. He said he lacked emotions, but a number of times it seemed the show wanted us to ask the question, did he really? Or were his emotions just different from ours. Of course Soong created an emotion chip to give him more human-like emotions, but that was because I figured Soong wanted to make an android in his own image, he thought of Data and Lore as his children in many ways.

So I always thought TNG was challenging us as viewers a bit there. Data would say he lacked emotions, yet things would happen where I thought the writers wanted to leave us with something to think about. He wasn't just an automaton. Perhaps the show runners focus on Data had changed, but I didn't really see that significant a change in Data in later seasons.

You got me on the Cardassian Wars. It's funny but at the time I just accepted it without a lot of question. I probably was misreading "The Wounded" a bit, but I thought the Wars took place sometimes before TNG began--and that maybe the fighting was winding down for some period before hostilities ceased. Based on dialogue by Chief O'Brien and on some things noted on DS9 it does seem the worst of the wars were sometime prior to TNG. Perhaps the war had become more skirmishes and less all out battle by the time TNG started. But honestly I didn't give it too much thought at the time.

Kind of funny too, because I can be a stickler for some things when it comes to continuity, and other things I just let slide. I suppose if earlier TNG episodes kept hammering away that the Federation hadn't been at war for the last few decades and it kept coming up over and over again I imagine I would have taken issue with it. But it just wasn't overt enough that I thought it was a gross inconsistency.

Now, of course, one might ask the question as to why the Federation flagship wasn't involved in the war, but I suppose there are ways to gloss that over. The Enterprise had families aboard and was designed primarily for exploration and expansion of the Federation so you probably wouldn't want it fighting in battles.

I can be more forgiving of inconsistencies in the continuity when there are ways to explain it away. Those explanations don't have to be perfect, IMO, just make some narrative sense and at least be somewhat plausible.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, the contractions thing--but by "Datalore" in the first season they already established he didn't use contractions

Yes, but he'd used contractions regularly in season 1 until they suddenly claimed he didn't. He even used one earlier in "Datalore"!!

And Data's friends questioned his perceived lack of emotions a number of times.

They never did in season 1, and only a couple of times in season 2. In "The Schizoid Man," Deanna was surprised to feel human emotion from Data, but that didn't preclude him having his own distinct flavor of emotion. In "Peak Performance," Picard asserts that Data isn't capable of the emotions Pulaski ascribes to him, but Pulaski argues that his android algorithms produce the same result as human emotions. It wasn't until "The Ensigns of Command" at the start of season 3 that Data was defined as being permanently, absolutely incapable of emotion, even incapable of developing emotion over time. That was a retcon Michael Piller introduced, and one I always hated, because it's one of the dumbest, most kneejerk cliches about artificial intelligence. (If anything, emotion would be immensely simpler to emulate in an AI than conscious thought. Emotions are the closest thing we have to programming, hardwired responses that we experience automatically rather than learning them or choosing to feel them.)

As I said, the original intention was that Data had an underdeveloped emotional potential, not as complete and free as human feeling but analogous to it and capable of evolving. He was basically a reworking of Phase II's Xon, a full Vulcan who would've sought to get in touch with his emotional side to understand his human crewmates better, crossed with Questor from The Questor Tapes, an android whose emotional programming had been largely erased and needed the help of his human friend to gain an understanding of emotion and become more complete. He was supposed to be on a journey of emotional discovery, and Piller short-circuited that by reducing him to a character forever incapable of emotion until he had a new driver stuck in his expansion slot.

He said he lacked emotions, but a number of times it seemed the show wanted us to ask the question, did he really? Or were his emotions just different from ours.

We can certainly read that into the episodes, but I think it was accidental. They seemed pretty committed to the simplistic idea that without specifically humanlike emotions (per a deeply ableist and neurotypical definition of "human" that is very offensive in retrospect), Data had no emotions at all.

Based on dialogue by Chief O'Brien and on some things noted on DS9 it does seem the worst of the wars were sometime prior to TNG. Perhaps the war had become more skirmishes and less all out battle by the time TNG started.

Of course, it's easy to rationalize it as a legal state of war that persisted long after the open fighting ended (much like how the US is still legally at war with North Korea nearly 70 years after the fighting ended). But the fact that we need to rationalize it afterward is because it's an inconsistency. The producers who wanted to show a Federation that had left war behind long ago were replaced by producers who wanted to tell war stories about Starfleet characters. It was a major change in the creative vision behind the show, no matter how you handwave it after the fact.

Now, of course, one might ask the question as to why the Federation flagship wasn't involved in the war, but I suppose there are ways to gloss that over. The Enterprise had families aboard and was designed primarily for exploration and expansion of the Federation so you probably wouldn't want it fighting in battles.

It's not just that. The first two seasons portrayed Starfleet's entire culture as being on a peacetime footing. In "Peak Performance," Picard dismissed the idea of war games as something antiquated and barbaric that Starfleet had left behind ages before. Whatever his personal proclivities, it would've been delusional for him to think that way if there had been a war ongoing at the time.

 

[Damian]

We can certainly read that into the episodes, but I think it was accidental. They seemed pretty committed to the simplistic idea that without specifically humanlike emotions (per a deeply ableist and neurotypical definition of "human" that is very offensive in retrospect), Data had no emotions at all

I guess I just saw it differently when I originally saw it. I didn't see it as inconsistent as you did, and anything I did see I just assumed at the time was Brent Spiner settling into the role more. And it just seemed at times to me a bit of an irony. Data said he lacked emotions, yet he displayed in some ways what seemed like some sort of emotions, just not 'human' emotion.

The producers who wanted to show a Federation that had left war behind long ago were replaced by producers who wanted to tell war stories about Starfleet characters. It was a major change in the creative vision behind the show, no matter how you handwave it after the fact

Yeah, I don't disagree with you. Just at the time I didn't give that particular inconsistency a lot of thought.

I can be frustrating like that. Spore drive drives me up a wall (no pun intended), yet that bit didn't bother me. I can't say why. I guess if I can handwave it enough in my mind it doesn't bother me as much.

 

[Christopher]

Data said he lacked emotions

Again, he never said that until "The Ensigns of Command" at the start of season 3. A couple of characters said similar things about him a couple of times in season 2, but it wasn't until Michael Piller took over that Data started saying "I have no emotions" every five minutes.

 

[Damian]

Again, he never said that until "The Ensigns of Command" at the start of season 3. A couple of characters said similar things about him a couple of times in season 2, but it wasn't until Michael Piller took over that Data started saying "I have no emotions" every five minutes.

Oh, right, gotcha.

And I don't think it was every 5 minutes...maybe 10

I guess it's my own undoing but I haven't really watched too many of the 'making of...' and 'background' segments on my Blu-Rays and DVDs. So I don't always know the thought processes that go into making the shows. So typically my impressions are only what I actually see in the episodes/movies themselves.

I suppose one advantage of that is I sometimes interpret things a little bit differently--I didn't really notice those changes in Data's characteristics like you did.

But still, I should check them out more often. I did watch one that was actually very interesting on Enterprise and how Herman Zimmerman came up with his designs (in that case it's part of the reason I can appreciate the balancing act he achieved with making the NX-01 advanced from our perspective, yet try to backdate it from the original series, he had noted himself the thought process he went through on that to some extent). And it was interesting to see how he created the glowing effect in the warp core on the NX-01--basically some aluminum foil rotating with some hot lights IIRC. It was very interesting to see the effect we see on screen is basically created with household items you could get at Wal-Mart. In many ways, some of the best design work isn't created with fancy gadgets and super-computers--but with simple things lying around. I guess you could say in some ways that takes a more creative mind to use what's lying around to get what you need. You have an oblong piece of cardboard in the corner--can you use that for something?

I also remember one debate involving Rick Sternbach on trekmovie.com when he was talking about something involving the warp nacelles and how they work. I said to someone he made it almost seem like you could go out in the garage and build a warp engine yourself. If I could only remember where I put the deuterium

I'm going off the rails a bit, but it's one big reason I prefer Star Trek over Star Wars. I sometimes complain about some of the set design choices they make, but I do give them credit for trying to puzzle out why something goes where it goes and what its function is (even if it doesn't necessarily show up in the narrative)--and not just because it's 'cool' to look at. It gives Star Trek an added layer of realism that Star Wars doesn't really have (and in fairness was not intended to have since it's a fantasy/space opera more than true sci-fi).

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

The producers who wanted to show a Federation that had left war behind long ago were replaced by producers who wanted to tell war stories about Starfleet characters.

And sadly, they're still there.

 

[Damian]

And sadly, they're still there.

I guess war type stories are more 'exciting' to the viewers.

Sometimes they can be entertaining. I thought DS9 had some of their best episodes during the Dominion War (and even some during the hostilities with the Klingons).

I usually prefer variety though. I wouldn't want every Star Trek to be like DS9. It worked I thought there, but it'd be nice to have a Star Trek show that showed the more idealistic side of the Star Trek universe.

It's one reason I prefer where the novel continuity was at by the end of Collateral Damage over where it is with Picard. Yes, things were bad for a while after the Borg invasion and all the Section 31 shenanigans. But the Federation had gotten through that, they had a President that supported their ideals and Admiral Akaar wanted Starfleet to get back to it's core missions of exploration and discovery. And Captain Picard was back doing what he always did best, taking the Enterprise out to find new civilizations.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

That's one major reason why I was a fan of VOY: yes, they were trying to find their way home, and yes, they encountered people who didn't like them, and they eventually attracted unwanted attention from the Borg, but they were finding their way home while exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and boldly coming home through space where no one from the Federation had gone before.

It's also why I seem to have a higher opinion of Insurrection than a lot of others appear to have. And why I liked the early seasons of DS9 better than the Dominion War seasons.

 

[JD]

For instance, one example I recall is Howard Weinstein's TNG novel Power Hungry. The only inconsistency between that novel and the show's continuity is that the novel portrays planetwide weather control as a practical impossibility, but later episodes like "Sub Rosa" and DS9: "Let He Who Is Without Sin..." portrayed planetary weather control as a routine, long-established reality. Which is the sort of thing that stands out to a detail-oriented mind like mine, but I think most people reading the novel would never even notice the inconsistency, or would shrug it off as a trivial point that didn't affect their enjoyment of the story. Similarly, the main continuity issue with Peter David's DS9: The Siege is that the Rio Grande is destroyed at the end, which we know in retrospect is an impossibility. Otherwise, it fits in quite well with season 1. (There's also the bit with Odo encountering another shapeshifter, but the novel carefully hedges on whether it's a member of Odo's species or just a similar one.)

Minor things like that don't really bother me, and I'm willing to just kind of ignore them. The stuff that tends to get me, is the bigger stuff, like Strangers From the Sky talking about how Earth's first contact with aliens was with an Andorian ship that had gotten into trouble, or Federation presenting a totally different version of Zephram Cochrane from what we got in First Contact. I actually did read, and really enjoyed Strangers from the Sky, but I haven't gotten around to Federation yet. All of the praise I've seen for Federation has made me consider giving it a try though.

 

[Christopher]

Minor things like that don't really bother me, and I'm willing to just kind of ignore them.

Exactly my point. There are a lot of books whose continuity issues are subtle, so they can still "feel like the show" even if they don't exactly fit with canon (because canon doesn't exactly fit with itself a lot of the time anyway).

 

[JD]

I have to confess, this conversation, is actually making me start to reconsider my position. I've owned the Rihansuu: The Bloodwing Chronicles and The Empty Chair for years, and haven't read them, but I'm thinking I might have to move them up on my to read list.

 

[Damian]

I have to confess, this conversation, is actually making me start to reconsider my position. I've owned the Rihansuu: The Bloodwing Chronicles and The Empty Chair for years, and haven't read them, but I'm thinking I might have to move them up on my to read list.

Duane did a bit of balancing on the later novels. It was one of the few cases where a novel was basically given the ok to diverge from on screen canon, since her portrayal of Romulans differed from TNG and later shows.

But...where it didn't conflict with her story she did include some elements of what was seen on later shows. There were some canon Romulan characters noted for instance. And some other things we learned about the Romulans in later shows that she incorporated.

It was interesting to read. There was a bit of a mix of how she portrayed the Romulans in the past, with a bit of the new portrayal in TNG and later shows mixed in as well. And I thought she found a good way to bring the two together without contradicting her previous stories.

I believe the Vulcan's Soul trilogy also incorporated some elements of Romulan history into their novels from Duane's novels (that's IIRC). Particularly the 'sundering' was an expanded look at the basic history in one of her novels (at least I think she was the one that wrote the initial novel about their history). I enjoyed that trilogy as well. Not sure how it's viewed by others, I don't see too many talk about it. But I liked it.

 

[Christopher]

I believe the Vulcan's Soul trilogy also incorporated some elements of Romulan history into their novels from Duane's novels (that's IIRC). Particularly the 'sundering' was an expanded look at the basic history in one of her novels (at least I think she was the one that wrote the initial novel about their history).

As I recall it, the first book in that trilogy contradicted Duane's portrayal of Surak's life on Vulcan and his involvement in the Sundering; but the second book had a different editor, and apparently there were some changes in policy, because the second book hewed very faithfully to Duane's version of the Sundered's journey from The Romulan Way.

 

[Damian]

As I recall it, the first book in that trilogy contradicted Duane's portrayal of Surak's life on Vulcan and his involvement in the Sundering; but the second book had a different editor, and apparently there were some changes in policy, because the second book hewed very faithfully to Duane's version of the Sundered's journey from The Romulan Way.

Ok, forgot about the portrayal of Surak. But I do remember when reading about their journey from Vulcan to their new home that it sounded very familiar. I took me a while of hunting through my novels and I eventually found it (of course I forgot again which one it was tonight ). Basically the same story, just more fleshed out in the trilogy since those characters would give rise to the Watraii.

I do recall also that the trilogy was at least partially acknowledged by the relaunches. I recall the Watraii were mentioned here and there in some later novels. Though I think the marriage between Spock and Saavik was not (or at least was ignored).

But I liked how the trilogy thread the needle about the origins of the Remans. In Duane's novels the Remans were just Romulans who settled on Remus, while in Nemesis, while it's not explicitly stated, we are left with the impression they are a separate species. The trilogy basically presents the possibility that maybe both are right. I can't recall if Duane made any mention of the Vulcan's Soul trilogy in return in The Empty Chair (I believe the trilogy was before that, though I can't say positively--I read The Empty Chair sometimes after so I may be backwards there).

The Watraii were an interesting villain as well--and their planet was about as inhospitable as you could get on a Class M world. In some ways it reminded me of the planet Commander Keller of the Challenger ended up on in the Gateways short story, at least with the persistent electrical storms and the hellish environment.

 

[dupersuper]

Starting at Genesis Wave, Book One is not a bad idea, but you can ignore the New Frontier books.

But...New Frontier.

 

[Desert Kris]

Minor things like that don't really bother me, and I'm willing to just kind of ignore them. The stuff that tends to get me, is the bigger stuff, like Strangers From the Sky talking about how Earth's first contact with aliens was with an Andorian ship that had gotten into trouble, or Federation presenting a totally different version of Zephram Cochrane from what we got in First Contact. I actually did read, and really enjoyed Strangers from the Sky, but I haven't gotten around to Federation yet. All of the praise I've seen for Federation has made me consider giving it a try though.

Federation is such a great read. It doesn't bother me that the First Contact movie depicts Zefram Cochrane differently, I love them both and wouldn't trade one for the other.

 

[Damian]

But...New Frontier.

Yeah, certainly the earlier NF novels were great reads.

If you're just doing a relaunch read they're not really necessary for that. Personally I always considered them part of the overall relaunch universe (even though they don't always fit neatly hand in glove). But other than a token mention here or there the NF stories aren't usually referred to in the other series, and vice versa. In universe I just figured it was because they were basically alone in the former Thallonian Empire so there wasn't many opportunities for cross-overs with the other series.

But that being said, I'd still read them at some point. Calhoun is a true maverick captain, and Peter David has a good sense of humor in his novels which make them fun to read.

 

[JWolf]

But...New Frontier.

That starts July, 1997. That means a lot more books to be read before getting to A Time to.

 

[Damian]

That starts July, 1997. That means a lot more books to be read before getting to A Time to.

Well, assuming you want to read NF. I don't think that's necessary for the relaunches though.

Sort of like Voyager (well, at least up to To Lose the Earth which will have ties to the upcoming Coda Trilogy). I consider both part of the wider relaunch universe, but not necessary to read those if you just want to do a TNG and/or DS9 read (I probably would read TNG and DS9 novels, oh and the Titan novels too if you want to do a TNG relaunch read through because there are a number of crossovers between them).

Actually, one of our fellow posters has a good timeline for how to read the relaunches and of course I can't find it right now. I'll copy it over once I do.