Is there any original fiction with the animated series crew? I'm thinking of novels with M'Ress and Arex in particular.
Animated Series Novels
- Thread starter DeepSpaceYorks
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I've also just found that M'Ress appears in Galactic Whirlpool. I'm going to check them out, many thanks.
I read those TAS novels a long, long time ago. They're currently stored in a box somewhere, perhaps it's time to dig them out and read again.
Arex and M'Ress get only a brief mention in The Galactic Whirlpool. It's very much worth reading in its own right, but don't expect any major TAS connections.
Carter Winston ("The Survivor") appears in The Final Reflection.
Mostly I remember them in some later New Frontier novels. They get the occasional mention elsewhere, and pop up from time to time. In one novel I remember Chekov heading to Headquarters for tactical/security training (in anticipation of his promotion in TMP and his new role at the weapons station in TMP and TWOK when he returns to the Enterprise--interestingly, I'm just thinking, one of the few story lines carried over from TMP to TWOK). Lt. Arex comes aboard to take his place at navigation. I forget the name of the novel though.
Another thing I remember is Ex Machina talks about the life support belts from the animated series and it explains why they didn't become permanent.
Otherwise, most of the time it's usually a throwaway nod, or maybe a mention of one of the stories from the animated series. Early on in the novels most authors didn't seem to references it much, probably, as some have noted, because the authors hadn't seen it and back them there was no easy way to find information about them. Then there was the whole Richard Arnold saga, where the animated series was basically off limits. But nowadays things may come up from time to time. They're officially considered part of the Star Trek canon and it's a lot easier to get information about them.
Another thing I remember is Ex Machina talks about the life support belts from the animated series and it explains why they didn't become permanent.
Otherwise, most of the time it's usually a throwaway nod, or maybe a mention of one of the stories from the animated series. Early on in the novels most authors didn't seem to references it much, probably, as some have noted, because the authors hadn't seen it and back them there was no easy way to find information about them. Then there was the whole Richard Arnold saga, where the animated series was basically off limits. But nowadays things may come up from time to time. They're officially considered part of the Star Trek canon and it's a lot easier to get information about them.
I will note that ADF's Star Trek Log One through Ten were essentially novelizations (as opposed to the Blish/Lawrence adaptations, which were short stories, in some cases almost short-shorts), and that in many of the 3-episode titles, ADF wrote a fair amount of original material connecting the episodes, as well as greatly fleshing out the episodes, and that in the single-episode titles, his original material far exceeds what he adapted from the scripts, a good deal of it considerably better than the original scripts. (I will note that in Log Seven, it was fairly obvious that he considered the episode's premise to be preposterous, but what he did with it was far better than what happened much more recently, when Diane Carey was tasked with novelizing an episode she didn't especially like.)
Yeah, agree there. The Blish adaptations almost read like an after mission report Kirk made to Starfleet. Basically a summary of what happened. The only exception was probably the Mudd book that Lawrence did. "Mudd's Women" and "I, Mudd" were a bit more fleshed out than the usual adaptation (probably because she had more space to use). I bought the ADF Logs a few years back and will start reading those when I'm done Blish books. I guess it helps that there were a lot fewer animated episodes to fit into the 12 books he got as well.
There were only 10 Log books.
Oh, yeah. My bad. Still, proportionally he had more space for the Logs than Blish did for his adaptations. I look forward to reading the Logs.
The animated novelisations were an order of magnitude better than the TOS ones. If I recall correctly, they took three episodes per volume and told the story of the whole period the episodes took place in. They were embedded in a larger nattative with threads inserted that ran through the various stories and attempted to construct one whole novel rather than three adaptations.
The somewhat sketchy episodes were also tidied up, some of the more ridiculous elements tweaked and more characterisation included.
In my opinion, they did a pretty good job of turning what was mainly poor (or worse) source material into something much better, and certainly more enjoyable.
The somewhat sketchy episodes were also tidied up, some of the more ridiculous elements tweaked and more characterisation included.
In my opinion, they did a pretty good job of turning what was mainly poor (or worse) source material into something much better, and certainly more enjoyable.
The Star Trek Logs were OK, but I'm still a bit flummoxed by the author gratuitously adding subplots involving the Klingons even when the original episodes didn't involve them at all.
The last three or four books were adaptations of single 20 minute episodes that Alan Dean Foster was being asked to stretch out into dull-length novels. I guess he did what he had to, to bulk up 20 minute episodes with extra story material that would reach the novel-length goal asked of him.
The introductions in one of the reprints of the Log novelizations say he had a Klingon character he had already conceptualized for a Star Trek story project that didn't get used, so he re-purposed the character to get more original story content for the adaptations.
Yeah, I read the first Log last year. It was basically written like one continuous period with 3 separate missions. In fact, in that first one the Enterprise was on it's way to the 3rd story when it was basically detoured to the first 2 (more or less).
Foster basically approached the Logs in the manner of "fix-up novels," where you take several previously published stories and add bridging material or revisions to make them seem like a single novel. Asimov's Foundation "Trilogy" was constructed in this way. I've done it myself with Crimes of the Hub, although in that case I wrote the stories with a unifying arc in mind to begin with.
I think it's a shame that these characters haven't been explored in a TOS context, especially M'Ress. Do the Caitians as a species appear in any novels?
There have been quite a few individual Caitians in the novels, but I don't remember anything that focused on their homeworld and culture, if that's what you mean.
The ones I remember the most is some of the later New Frontier novels featuring M'Ress that came out. I think Peter David might have delved a little bit more into Caitian culture there (mostly when M'Ress is featured). As Christopher noted they have appeared here and there elsewhere, but not in any great detail.
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