Anyone else disappointed where the books have gone?

[timmy84]

A little background.

I started reading the books starting with the DS9 relaunch. I loved the show and wanted to read more and I wasn't disappointed. I eventually expanded out to Voyager after that ended and TNG after Nemesis (I've found books that took place during the series I didn't enjoy much, but post series books I enjoyed a lot. Probably since the writers were free to make more impactful stories or something like that).

Now we are here today. Reading the DS9, TNG, Titan, Voyager, and Enterprise books. Lots of reading material for me. However, I've found myself extremly disappointed now with most books. I find Voyager returning to the Delta Quadrant great as well as the Enterprise books showing the start of the Federation. The Titan books I have always been disappointed with, but my desire for more Trek has kept me coming back book after book, and this new direction has potential. But DS9 and TNG? I just don't care for them anymore. I haven't read a TNG book in a while (I personally think the Typhon Pact storyline was weak) and the last DS9 book I found more interesting in the past segments then in the present.

I guess this is more of a rant then the start of a discussion, but I am wondering if people in general are satisfied where these series have gone or are going.

 

[DimesDan]

Not really no.

 

[Nathan]

I tend to have a high bar these days when it comes to Trek Lit. I think the quality has come down a few notches. I liked Vanguard, the DS9 and Voyager relaunches. Titan, TNG, and Enterprise mainly floundered for me. The New Frontier was 'meh'.

I'm probably one of the few people who has read 90% of the books (I'm 45 and started when I was 16). I think the high point was during the Initial DS9 relaunch, Lost Era, and Captain's Table books. It seems it was down hill from there. A few exceptions of course like Vanguard and a couple of Voyager (the ones past Christe Golden that is). I think after post-Vanguard books (Seekers series) is jut meh too.

Of course I'm speaking in generalities as there were some kick ass TNG books along the way, but I find myself buying/reading less and less Trek books. And the ones I do, I tend to speed read.

 

[20fridge]

For me it depends on the series. I love where Voyager and Enterprise are going. Both are realizing the unfulfilled potential from the series. DS9 had a strong start and then... I'm still not sure how I feel about where it's going. DRGIII has some good ideas, but the execution has been mixed. There are too many balls in the air and I think each one on its own could be quite good.

And then there's TNG. It's the most frustratingly inconsistent series. Crew turnover in the early books was infuriating. Resistance is still one of my least favorite Trek novels of all time. Before Dishonor is not to far behind. And Death in Winter is only good for the result it yields. But then there's Greater Than the Sum, Brinksmanship, Q&A, Cold Equations, and Destiny which are all fantastic. The Fall and Takedown are both good, but after the Typhon Pact series the back and forth and spottiness of the TNG books is beginning to wear on me. Honestly, I would be happier if a status quo existed for at least a few books. Armageddon's Arrow felt like a step in the right direction and finally began to develop the lit-only characters and told a relatively smaller stakes story. In short, I'm not the biggest fan of where TNG has been going but am hopeful that things could turn around soon.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

The big problem, I think, has been the heavy emphasis on EVENT stories in the 24th century, taking up multiple slots in the yearly schedule, and little time for series that have been so in flux like TNG and DS9 to establish a solid status quo. TNG and DS9 haven't had a real chance to build what their baseline is, and because they end up drawn into the events, the Destinies, the Typhon Pacts, the Falls, they're all about the event itself, and less so about the characters.

I'm actually kind of hopeful, though, considering that TNG had The Light Fantastic and Armageddon's Arrow and DS9's now resolved the Ascendants story and had The Missing and the upcoming Force and Motion that allow some adventures with these characters that utilize them a little more on a character level than on the plot level, that we're going to see a change in this. I mean, yeah, we have Prey coming, but even that seems like it'll be focused mainly on TNG characters, even if they're spread across the Enterprise and the Titan.

 

[Csalem]

Like most people I enjoy Voyager, Titan and Enterprise novels. The TNG and DS9 novels have become a bit uneven. For me a lot of the TNG characters are really undefined and a bit of a blur. Chen seems to be only new character who has been fleshed out.
DS9 just seems to focus on Ro and Blackmer and again the other characters are just there to fill out the backgrounds.
Titan, Voyager and Enterprise seem to handle their large cast of characters much better and make those stories much more richer.

 

[DarKush]

I can't say disappointed, but to be honest I have lost interest. I've got some Trek books piling up basically because I'm not that interested in reading them, but there is still some vestigial impulse that had me buying them. I used to tear through Trek books in the 90s and was very interested in Trek Lit. in the early 00s, when they started building a shared literary universe. I thought that was so cool. But after Destiny and the initial Kristen Beyer Voyager books I started losing interest.

I don't think the Typhon Pact stories delivered like I hoped they would, and I felt the same way about The Fall. There were some individual good stories and character arcs in those stories, but overall I have to say meh to both enterprises. I was also reading the newer Enterprise books, which are good, but I lost interest in the latest one and haven't finished it. I also haven't finished Sacraments of Fire.

I do think though that once I started writing fan fiction my interest in Trek lit. did start to wane. I mean once I realized I could just write my own stories and started coming up with my own characters in a Trek milieu I wasn't so dependent on what various writers or editorial regimes were doing with Trek.

I also have to admit that outside of the revived DS9 in the early 00s, there haven't been many new Trek lit. characters that have struck a chord like Taran'atar or Elias Vaughn.

And I also have to wonder if the further removed I am from live-action Trek the further removed I've become from the characters. I'm not quite in that world anymore and I'm not able to watch Trek every week like back in the '90s. And those 90s books perhaps weren't as important as the newer books or had a connected universe, but I did enjoy them. They were like extra episodes of shows and characters that I loved. The post-series books started out that way (especially DS9) started out that way, but after not seeing DS9 in a very long time I have less connection to the show and characters now, so the show's hold on me, and the books' hold on me is more tenuous.

And though I do have some Trek DVDs, I don't have ready access to all of the series. So I'm not as connected, and I'm not as willing to accept that Trek Lit.'s version of events is canon, my canon. So stuff they've done is good, some I agree with, other stuff I don't really care for.

 

[RandyS]

Only the 24th century books. I'm enjoying ENTERPRISE's early look at the Federation. And TOS is fine as is. TNG, DS9, and VOYAGER all need to return to their series timeframes.

 

[Jedi Ben]

Nope.

The one plot that does need returning to for DS9 is the Dominion, which might now be got to with the Ascendants dealt with.

 

[CaptainDonovin]

Not really, I usually have few complaints about where the story lines are going. That said there have been a few I could have skipped.

Sometimes it has taken a while to long get there (slow story wise) but I find myself more interested on where the series are heading & now how the new series will negate all that we've read. I know they haven't been considered canon but since the novelverse has been all the prime universe Trek we've had I've become fond of the stories, especially Enterprise & DTI. Plus I know if I don't like the novel I read... it's likely better than anything I could come up with & I've tried.

 

[bfollowell]

Not really, though I have really started to lose interest in TNG and TOS novels. I still read them and, don't get me wrong, I enjoy them, but I don't find myself looking forward to them as much as I used to and, sometimes, they may sit on my tablet for two or three months after publication before I get around to reading them. Conversely, if there's a new DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, Seekers, or just about any other series book, I'm starting them as soon as I finish whatever book I happen to be reading at the time.

 

[stardream]

I'm not tired of Voyager. I enjoy them immensely. I'm toying around with catching up on the DS9 and Enterprise books.

 

[Idran]

The only thing I'm not really a fan of is standalone 5YM TOS stories without ties to a wider universe, but otherwise nah, I'm pretty happy with where Treklit is right now. I've said it before, but in my eyes the best Treklit in the current Litverse is better than the best Trek episode/movie and the worst Treklit is better than the worst Trek episode/movie.

Plus I know if I don't like the novel I read... it's likely better than anything I could come up with & I've tried.

Why does ones skill at writing matter as a reader, though? Like, I'm not saying whether or not it's likely true or false, it just seems irrelevant to me. If I'm watching a bad movie, it doesn't even enter my mind to consider my own lack of directorial or screenwriting skills.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Not at all. You want "bad," consider the late Bantam era, when literally every other book was some variation on "Kirk & Co. go at it with some godlike alien being and get their nuts kicked." Titles like The Starless World, World Without End, and the ever-popular Devil World.

Now consider what we've got today: books dealing with characters and situations from five different television series, sometimes with more than one of them, books dealing with the Pike era, books dealing with the April era, books dealing with the Stargazer era, books expanding on characters and situations introduced (or even situations that were barely even referenced) in only one or two episodes, and books dealing with characters and situations completely original to the novels. And if not everything is up to the standards of, say, Spock's World, most of it is nonetheless a good deal better than the best novels of the Bantam era.

 

[JD]

I'm only up to The Fall with TNG/Titan and DS9, so I can't comment on anything past there, but I do think the books right around that point have dropped a bit from their height. For me the best period was the time from the beginning of the DS9-R through to Destiny. There were a few stinkers in there, but most of them were at least good. After Destiny things seemed to fall in quality a bit. Where the older books were often set withing days of each other, and really spent time building up stories now we're constantly jumping forward over years, and it seems like the books aren't really giving us time to get to know the characters like we did in some of earlier books.
The books themselves are still well written and good on their own, but when looked at as a whole they're just not at the same level they were a few years ago. I do still really enjoy them, and I still look forward to the reading more of them. I'm just not quite as enthusiastic about them as I was when they were at their best.
The KMFB's Voyager books have been uniformly great though.

 

[flandry84]

I have long since given up on Voyager for many reasons(mainly the overbearing character of Janeway).
TNG seems(to me at least) rather colourless and directionless and brimful of characters that I simply care nothing about.
Neither Seekers nor Enterprise interest me in the slightest so it's down to Titan,TOS or DS9 for me(and this from someone who once bought every release).

 

[Mage]

I'm very happy. Sure, it isn't always perfect, but it's still good.

 

[Jedi Ben]

I think the level of expectation is key - I don't expect much from my Trek buys, for me, they're light entertainment reading - in that respect they deliver very well.

 

[Idran]

Not at all. You want "bad," consider the late Bantam era, when literally every other book was some variation on "Kirk & Co. go at it with some godlike alien being and get their nuts kicked." Titles like The Starless World, World Without End, and the ever-popular Devil World.

Now consider what we've got today: books dealing with characters and situations from five different television series, sometimes with more than one of them, books dealing with the Pike era, books dealing with the April era, books dealing with the Stargazer era, books expanding on characters and situations introduced (or even situations that were barely even referenced) in only one or two episodes, and books dealing with characters and situations completely original to the novels. And if not everything is up to the standards of, say, Spock's World, most of it is nonetheless a good deal better than the best novels of the Bantam era.

What books have we had in recent history dealing with the April or Stargazer era? Did I miss something lately?

Edit: Actually, have we ever had a book in the April era? I know there was a short story about the Enterprise's responding to Taurus IV, but that's the only one I can think of.

 

[Christopher]

Edit: Actually, have we ever had a book in the April era? I know there was a short story about the Enterprise's responding to Taurus IV, but that's the only one I can think of.

Diane Carey's Final Frontier and Best Destiny were the first April-era books, though they were part of the '80s continuity and don't really reconcile with modern canon. I don't think we've had a full April-era novel since.