Best and Worst Trek novel you have read?

[ares93]

[

i'll never forgive Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels for that one. no matter how many good books they've written.

Well, at last count that's right around zero, am I right?

mission gamma cathedral, last full measure, the good that men do, the needs of the many. those were all very good books. but i'm still mad at them

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Best: Vulcan's Glory, How Much For Just The Planet?, and Doctor's Orders

Worst: Everything by Marshak and Culbreath, and Spock Messiah

 

[DS9Continuing]

the worst book in history is Trill: Unjoined. dear lord, i just wanted to break something when the cutest couple in star trek history broke up... i'll never forgive Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels for that one. no matter how many good books they've written.

Really? Cuz that made perfect sense to me. Bashir and Dax never had a stable relationship - too much baggage what with Jadzia and Worf and so on, and they spent pretty much the whole relationship fighting and making up again. It seemed only natural that they couldn't go on forever like that.

 

[ares93]

the worst book in history is Trill: Unjoined. dear lord, i just wanted to break something when the cutest couple in star trek history broke up... i'll never forgive Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels for that one. no matter how many good books they've written.

Really? Cuz that made perfect sense to me. Bashir and Dax never had a stable relationship - too much baggage what with Jadzia and Worf and so on, and they spent pretty much the whole relationship fighting and making up again. It seemed only natural that they couldn't go on forever like that.

been there, done that. it wouldn't have been impossible. nonetheless, i see you point. but still, i never bought the reasons why they broke up. in my opinion, ezri was full of it. or at least her reasoning was.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

I agree about Inception, it seemed that it should have been a short story or a novella at lower price rather than increase the margins, make the font a little bigger, and call it a full blown novel.

 

[flandry84]

/\You mean make it even more boring?

 

[David cgc]

Sorry to derail the thread briefly, but I just remembered something that I've never understood since I read Cold Wars back when the Gateways crossover first came out. Who was the giant they referred to, was that ever explained?

It was in the book-after-next in New Frontier.

Spoiler: Gods Above

The "giant" was one of the Beings/Gods, who had tapped the two versions of Smyt for a plan I don't fully recall. Personally, I'd really been hoping that it was going to be the giant Spock clone from "The Infinite Vulcan," as insane as that is. Well, because it was so insane.

 

[JD]

That would have been awsome!

 

[thew40]

Best: The Destiny trilogy -- tied with Unity and Rising Son.

Worst: Engines of Destiny. What a freaking mess of a book!

 

[UncleRogi]

Best: The Destiny trilogy, and Prime Directive

Worst: The Prometheus Design. I just couldn't read it.

 

[Cicero]

Best: A Stitch In Time (a difficult choice)

Worst: The Entropy Effect

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

I really can't pick a best, it's constantly changing. There's such a good selection in modern TrekLit that even a top ten list is constantly in flux for me.

However, every time this topic comes up, the worst is always a lock - Shadow Lord. Horrible, horrible, horrible. If the first and last chapters were removed, it could easily have been published as an original novel. Spock and Sulu are at best cameos and it focuses on aliens created by the author. Not to mention, the plot hinges on the Federation and Starfleet VIOLATING the Prime Directive...

 

[reech]

Best: Millenium Trilogy
Worst: The Laertian Gamble. Oh god, oh god, no...

 

[JD]

I really can't pick a best, it's constantly changing. There's such a good selection in modern TrekLit that even a top ten list is constantly in flux for me.

However, every time this topic comes up, the worst is always a lock - Shadow Lord. Horrible, horrible, horrible. If the first and last chapters were removed, it could easily have been published as an original novel. Spock and Sulu are at best cameos and it focuses on aliens created by the author. Not to mention, the plot hinges on the Federation and Starfleet VIOLATING the Prime Directive...

I just looked Shadow Lord up on Memory Beta, and it has Sulu in a TOS 5 year mission era blue uniform.

 

[Christopher]

^And that's the least of its bizarre qualities.

I actually think Shadow Lord is interesting in an alternate-universe kind of way -- sort of a cautionary tale illustrating why the Prime Directive is a good idea by showing how destructive it would be to impose progress on a culture that didn't want it.

 

[Reanok]

Best Ds9 Millenniumn trilogy, Prophecy&Change worst Destiny trilogy and warped Worlds of Ds9 Trill story.Windows to a lost world The Genesis waveminiseries.

 

[Starbreaker]

Best - Destiny: Mere Mortals by THE David Mack
Worst - Ancient Blood by Diane Carey

I'm sure there are much worse though.

 

[shadowedgalaxy]

Best:
Destiny trilogy, Fallen Heroes, the Q trilogy, Q-in-Law, Resistance, Millennium trilogy, Avatar, Genesis Wave books 1 & 2, Mosaic

Worst:
Ragnarok, Genesis Force, Before Dishonor, The Laertian Gamble, Bloodletter, Ghost Ship, Engines of Destiny

 

[BillJ]

Best


Destiny: Gods of Night
Captains Table: Once Burned
The Next Generation: A Rock and a Hard Place
Voyager: Full Circle
Deep Space Nine: Hollow Men
Crucible: McCoy


Worst


Destiny: Lost Souls
Star Trek: Engines of Destiny
Star Trek: Inception
The Next Generation: Rogue Saucer
The Next Generation: Before Dishonor
Crucible: Kirk

 

[Trent Roman]

Best vacillates between Peter David's Q-Squared and DRG3's Twilight, depending on how I feel. Twilight is probably the better book all told, but it is difficult to rival the place Q-Squared holds in my memories as the quintessence of Trek awesomeness.

Worst? The astounding crapitude that is the Voyager Relaunch. While there are probably worst books from a technical perspective (Dyson Sphere, Warped, the Rebels trilogy, etc.), those books are essentially disposable; they have no impact once you've tossed them aside. The VOY-R, however, was an unrivaled opportunity that was spectacularly blown, the potential utterly wasted, and these sad excuses for plots and characters rystalized as part of the books' continuity. It's the worst not just for what it was (which was pretty bad in the first place), but for what it failed to be.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman