Yes, thanks for the tip and I have read those already :-)
Ok, that's good. I didn't realize
Diplomatic Implausibility was the "first" Gorkon novel when I read it, and it was only happenstance that I read it before the actual Gorkon novels. I'm not positive but I think it was the popularity of that novel that gave them the idea to do the Gorkon series. At first I skipped those novels when they came out, but I'm glad I circled back to them.
Sorry for the double-post (it does not appear to be possible to edit?)
That's a little quirk that goes along with the "Newbie" tag. After a couple of posts that will drop off then you'll have the ability to edit prior posts.
I've also read The First Virtue (when going through the Double Helix series which seems necessary for New Frontier).
I almost forgot about that one. There is also a NF book in the Gateways series. I loved the first several NF books. They sort of dropped off for me after the first several books. I heard Peter David had an outline for his first NF books and they were all great reads. It seems that the books that came after that weren't
as good, though they were still decent. There are 2 major events that occur during NF's runs (I won't spoil them for you but you'll know what they are when you get to them). It seemed after the first there was a bit of a drop off, then another after the 2nd. But I'd still recommend reading those, perhaps your opinion will differ after all.
I'm planning to read the Stargazer series chronologically, with The Valiant first, then the main six, followed by The Buried Age. I have read Reunion though, which is another (older) TNG/Stargazer connected story,
Oh yeah, almost forgot about Reunion. IIRC that was released before
Valiant, but however they came out I also read
Reunion first, years ago. Michael Jan Friedman wrote both along with the Stargazer books and he uses all the same characters. If you start with
Valiant you'll have a nice, continuous story from there to the rest of the Stargazer series.
The Buried Age is written by Christopher Bennett. I believe it was in the acknowledgements where he basically noted that his book was intended to be in the same universe as the other Stargazer novels, though because his book was years past the last Stargazer book in-universe, you could probably read that anytime. But if you're reading them all anyway might as well read them in-universe chronological order.
IIRC the last Stargazer book took place in and around 2333 while
The Buried Age was over a decade later, I forget the exact year but there is large gap between the two. I mean, it does seem Friedman completed what he wanted to do with the Stargazer series, but I thought it was always a shame that series was not continued. Jack Crusher had not come aboard the Stargazer yet in those earlier books and by
The Buried Age he had already died some time before that. So other than a little bit here and there, we really don't see their friendship in the novels.
I kind of hope with the Picard show on the air now that maybe there will be renewed interest in the Stargazer book series, since that depicts an important part of Picard's backstory. Friedman doesn't seem to be writing Star Trek books anymore these days, but Christopher's book was really good so I think he'd be a good pick
(assuming that would interest him of course). Though, honestly, I'm sure any of our resident writers could probably do a good job. I'm not holding my breath, of course, but it'd be nice to see. Other than the doctor in one of the episodes I don't think anything in the show conflicted with the existing books up to this point (and the doctor we see could be easily explained so that's not a big deal to me).
Not exactly Star Trek literature at its best 
(outside one or two maybe)
). 
