This book was like a "greatest hits" of TrekLit when it was published in 1999. Does anyone here have memories of reading this? What did you think of it?
For anyone in the business, do you know how it sold and if anything like it is likely to be published ever again?
Overall, I loved the book by Mary P. Taylor. There was some great (new) perspectives to stuff in there, but I was current with the novels and had no need to read the reprinted excerpts. It was the kind of book that would have usually have been a fanzine but, by being a licensed product, Mary could revisit whole excerpts legally. It commemorated twenty years of "thrilling Star Trek novels".
I believe this was the first version in print of "The Star Trek Novel Chronology" appendix, showing where each book fell in the grand Star Trek saga – "because readers demanded it!"
As for Jeff Ayers' book, "Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion" seven years later, which was probably inspired by Mary's book, I seem to recall we were lucky to get that, too, and that it was an editorial feat that was unlikely to be repeated or extended (in hardcopy form). My personal frustration was the column of
blank space in the reviews of the Ballantine TAS adaptations, "Star Trek Logs" #7, 8, 9 and 10, which could have been devoted to a description of the two-thirds per each book of extra story, original to Alan Dean Foster. We did eventually get a five-part essay in the five-volume trade reprints.
Also frustrating were a few novelists, still living, who chose not to talk with Jeff Ayers. The Reeves-Stevenses, for example, were revamping their own website and there was a promise that they would have pieces there about each of their books. I don't think that ever happened.
Was Vonda McIntyre interviewed? I remember she already had pieces about the evolution of each of her Trek books on her author website, but I can't remember if she spoke to Jeff.
And there there was an update of the Timeliners' Timeline.
