Any love for the Bantam books?

[Christopher]

A friend of mine always referred to the Bantam books in high school as "afternoon books" in that he would borrow one from me and read it that afternoon. We both appreciated the longer Pocket books when they arrived and the different approach.

The early Pocket novels weren't significantly longer than the Bantam novels, still in the 150- to 250-page range, and their approach didn't become noticeably different for a few years.

 

[AstroMike]

The new approach I mentioned was that some of them were post TMP novels.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I don't know if that's entirely clear. I think we were getting TMP based covers, but the stories themselves weren't always that clear in regards to when they were set. The references could be inconsistent.

 

[Christopher]

Covers aside, it was usually pretty clear when a novel was set post-TMP. Early (say, pre-1990) novels set unambiguously after TMP included:

The Covenant of the Crown
The Prometheus Design
Triangle
Dwellers in the Crucible
Deep Domain
Time for Yesterday
Timetrap
The Kobayashi Maru

Although there were a few that postulated a sort of transitional period or "second five-year mission) between series and movie, such as Black Fire (featuring a ship refit and uniform change), the Diane Duane novels, and Pawns and Symbols, so maybe that's what you're thinking of.