Spoilers Catching up on the last 4 years of TrekLit

[Thrawn]

Boy, time sure does pass. I started a new job in October 2016 and didn't have much time to read for a few months, and ever since I've been meaning to catch up on the recent Trek novels at some point. And all of a sudden, it's been over three years. I did read Desperate Hours (which I thought was solid) and Architects of Infinity (which I thought was pure genius, much like all the other books Kirsten Beyer has written) but otherwise I haven't read a Trek novel since finishing Purgatory's Key.

Anyway, it's clearly well past time I caught up on these, and I've enjoyed when other board members have made threads out of projects like this so I'll do the same.

As a note: I'll be spoiling all the books I discuss in this thread, but only up to where I am in the project. No spoilers for books published later until I get to them.

I tend to skip the standalone TOS stories but I love Christopher's books a lot so I'll read his TOS entries. For similar reasons, I know I probably should read Rise of the Federation too at some point but I might not have the time on this re-read; I also need to catch up on the second The Romulan War book before starting those. (Wasn't ever a big fan of Enterprise, on TV or in books, so I've fallen way behind on those.) I'm not particularly interested in Prometheus or the new Strange New Worlds so I think I'll skip those. On the flip side, I didn't read Elusive Salvation when it came out, and I know that's important for Hearts and Minds, so I've started with that. (I did already read From History's Shadow.) This is the list:

Elusive Salvation
Time Lock
Prey trilogy
The Face of the Unknown
Headlong Flight
The Long Mirage
Control
Hearts and Minds
Shield of the Gods
Enigma Tales
Gamma: Original Sin
I, The Constable
Fortune of War
Drastic Measures
Fear Itself
The Way to the Stars
Available Light
The Captain's Oath
The Enterprise War
Collateral Damage
Dead Endless
(and by then I'm sure Last Best Hope will be out and I definitely want to read that)

I just finished Elusive Salvation, so I'll write that up first!

 

[Kilana2]

Skipping the Prometheus books might me a big mistake. On the other hand, I know how you feel: there is hardly time to read all the great Trek novels. As I'm not interested in anything concerning the show Enterprise I skipp the Rise of the Federation novels. Maybe I'll get into Enterprise at some point later in my life and then I'll have a lot of catching up ahead....

I'm still not sure if I'm going to register for Amazon Prime for the Picard show with all the costs involved.....

 

[Thrawn]

Elusive Salvation

I must admit, in general I'm sort of perpetually mildly disappointed in Dayton Ward's writing. I love his Vanguard entries, but outside of that he tends to be really... safe? Like, his writing absolutely feels like Star Trek, but when I pick up a Dayton Ward book I'm not expecting to get anything surprising or controversial or even particularly interesting. And his tendency to summarize over and over again, even retelling exactly what happened in previous chapters as part of summarizing other characters' perspectives, is super annoying. It's like he writes each chapter as if it's the first chapter of the novel, and I need to be reminded of all the relevant context because I haven't seen it in months. Except I just read it ten minutes ago, and I remember it pretty well, thank you.

I did enjoy From History's Shadow; it had a few unnecessary asides and some jumpy transitions, but it was fun to revisit the era and make a bunch of connections between various references and episodes. This entry has some of that, too, but I think the core narrative is a little less interesting and so the asides feel more tangential. I don't think the story we have here is quite worth a full novel; had the writing been tighter and the various early Iramahl misadventures, Admiral Kirk grumbling, and two epilogues been cut, this would've been a lovely piece of short fiction. As it stands, as a novel, it feels like the goal here was less to tell a compelling story and more to write a sort of catchall continuity reference collection. This keeps knotting together the various 20th century Star Trek bits, as expected, but also does some work knotting together the various pre-Wrath-of-Khan TOS continuity bits as well, which I wasn't expecting. And the novel certainly succeeds well enough in those goals, and being as much of a Star Trek nut as I am I know there's a joy in putting all the pieces together just for the sake of doing so. But the successes here are satisfying only in that sense and not because any particular revelation is surprising or inherently interesting. If I had sat down before reading this to guess as to how the various continuity questions were resolved, I feel like I would've come up with almost exactly this.

Plus, as per usual with Dayton Ward, no one really gets any character arcs, either. No one really has their mind changed or shows us anything new about themselves except maybe Wheeler, who I'm not that interested in anyway.

Overall, I did like the setting being unusual and getting some insight to Admiral Kirk’s state of mind pre-TWOK, and it certainly contained enough Star Trek spirit and Star Trek knowledge to feel like it belonged here. I kept turning the pages, and liked all of the cameos and the overall feel of the novel. But it's not a favorite. Dayton Ward once again writes a completely acceptable filler story that doesn’t challenge or surprise anyone, comfort food delivered extremely competently but in no way extraordinarily. I'm hoping for something a little more unexpected in Time Lock and the Prey trilogy.

 

[Kilana2]

Without German translations of From History's Shadow and Elusive Salvation German fans might be lost when it comes to reading Hearts and Minds. Alas, there will never be a German translation of the A time to.... novels. So the whole Min Zife affair is only mentioned in passing.

So for the American fans it is considered redundant, but Dayton's summaries might be important for German fans or people who didn't read all the books before.....

 

[Christopher]

It might be better to read Time Lock and Shield of the Gods back to back, since they're essentially a 2-parter. Actually The Collectors and those two were written to work as a single overall story, since there was a hope that maybe they could be collected in print as a fixup novel, but that plan only came along after I did the first one, so it's more standalone than the other two.

 

[Thrawn]

Noted, thanks.

Though I read pretty quickly when I prioritize it, and I have a wide open couple of months here. I suspect it won't be long between reading the two either way.

 

[Thrawn]

Without German translations of From History's Shadow and Elusive Salvation German fans might be lost when it comes to reading Hearts and Minds. Alas, there will never be a German translation of the A time to.... novels. So the whole Min Zife affair is only mentioned in passing.

So for the American fans it is considered redundant, but Dayton's summaries might be important for German fans or people who didn't read all the books before.....

Oh, I'm not at all upset at him summarizing previous books. It gets annoying for me when he summarizes previous chapters in the same book.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Likewise I haven't read any trek (or any books in general) for a long time. Really struggled to get through From History's Shadow.

With Picard just round the corner I thought I'd catch up on the novelverse -- just finished Hearts and Minds last night, then moved onto Available Light

Any plans to update this great chart? It's the sole reason I've read any trek books (or pretty much any books) over the last 6 years

https://www.thetrekcollective.com/p/trek-lit-reading-order.html

 

[Thrawn]

Yeah - the only reason that's gone so long without updating is that I've been so thoroughly behind schedule on actually reading them. When I'm done with this project, we'll totally update it.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Lovely, it's a great piece of work that really makes treklit accessible -- it should be printed in every book IMO.

 

[Damian]

In a way you're lucky. You can read those novels in a more logical order. I read them as they came out so sometimes I needed a little refreshing because I read novels from other series in between novels that followed more directly from one to another.

 

[JD]

Thrawn, you're pretty close to where I am in my catch up. I've been going through series by series, and I just finished up Section 31: Control. Bashir would technically make the Section 31 books DS9 books, but since some stuff comes into play in the TNG books I'm reading it with the TNG and Titan books.

 

[Thrawn]

I re-read The Collectors, just for fun, before Time Lock. What a delightful confection of a story. Just as great the second time. I've missed most of Christopher's work since Forgotten History, but at least up until that point, this kind of light and charming tone wasn't something I expected from him. Just a brilliant little romp.

 

[Christopher]

I re-read The Collectors, just for fun, before Time Lock. What a delightful confection of a story. Just as great the second time. I've missed most of Christopher's work since Forgotten History, but at least up until that point, this kind of light and charming tone wasn't something I expected from him. Just a brilliant little romp.

Thank you! If you want to see more of my humor-oriented writing, there's always the Hub series.

 

[ronny]

This is going to be an interesting thread. Even if I don't necessarily agree with your ratings for a book I always find your thoughts interesting.

I was in the same boat as you in that I took a break from reading Trek books but have recently started up again. I've gotten as far as reading the last of mass market paperbacks. I haven't started in on the trade paperbacks yet. I'm reading a few of the old numbered TOS books so I can finish those up. I'm I'm tired of that binge I'm switching to Discovery.

IMHO if you're thinking you're not going to be into Prometheus I can't think of a reason to try to change your mind. And Patterns of Interference isn't making me say "oh man, you really need to catch up" with Enterprise.

 

[Thrawn]

Time Lock

It's hard to know what else to ask for from an novella-sized story. I loved all the continuity callbacks to Titan and Watching the Clock, the setup of this was entirely unique to the Star Trek universe and enjoyably twisty to think about, the characterizations were all strong (I particularly enjoyed Dulmur's relationship with the Denobulan woman), and a good open-ended finish set up Shield of the Gods. If it weren't for the fact that The Collectors was sort of impossibly good, hilarious and packed full of new ideas, I'd say this was just about as good as one of the e-novella releases could be. This was great. Not rip-roaring, Borg-dinosaur brilliant like The Collectors, but great nonetheless.

(Side-note: I think I will stick to publication order; I sort of like experiencing these in the same order as I would've if I'd stayed current, reading the review threads as I go, etc. So, next up: Prey!)

 

[JD]

I really liked Prey, it cemented John Jackson Miller as a new favorite Trek writer.

 

[David Weller]

Time Lock

It's hard to know what else to ask for from an novella-sized story. I loved all the continuity callbacks to Titan and Watching the Clock, the setup of this was entirely unique to the Star Trek universe and enjoyably twisty to think about, the characterizations were all strong (I particularly enjoyed Dulmur's relationship with the Denobulan woman), and a good open-ended finish set up Shield of the Gods. If it weren't for the fact that The Collectors was sort of impossibly good, hilarious and packed full of new ideas, I'd say this was just about as good as one of the e-novella releases could be. This was great. Not rip-roaring, Borg-dinosaur brilliant like The Collectors, but great nonetheless.

(Side-note: I think I will stick to publication order; I sort of like experiencing these in the same order as I would've if I'd stayed current, reading the review threads as I go, etc. So, next up: Prey!)

I’m still doing a 24th century read through and try to read in publication order. But sometimes I get distracted and go off on something else.

For example, I recently saw a lot of love for Greg Cox’s Khan novels so went off and read them. I’m also reading the new Discovery and TOS novels as they come out.

 

[Thrawn]

Prey: Hell's Heart

I'm completely happy with this book through the end of Act 2. The first act, the attack on the conference, is masterfully done – slowly built up, devastatingly executed, and in the process establishing a whole history we didn’t previously know with plausibility and depth. The second act, too, is fantastic – the characterization of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy as they relate to Klingons in this period is fascinating, insightful, and complex. That little section is on its own one of my favorite Spock stories ever. His determination against Kirk, against Potok’s uncommunicative nature, against Korgh’s arrival, and his faith in the future of these people – it’s all fasctinating and well told. I feel like the book maybe moves a little slowly up until this point, as only really two things happen in half a novel, but the two things are big and complicated and so I'm on board.

Unfortunately, I feel like the rest of the book doesn't live up to the promises made by the opening. Spock's faith in the Unsung is, at least so far, invalidated; a disappointing follow-up to a Trek-like moment of faith that I found inspiring. Korgh’s political rise makes no sense – in order for this to work, Miller reduces everyone else on the council, particularly Martok, into reactive figures with no political capacity at all. All Martok can do is say “shut up”, basically, over and over, and that doesn't feel like the inspiring and canny leader that I know from his other appearances. He has no counter-maneuvers, no plans, and no responses aside from frustration and impotence. It’s not just unrealistic, it’s boring to read, especially as we also follow Riker and Alexander and they, too, have no counter-maneuvers, no plans, and no responses aside from frustration and impotence. Everyone’s just standing around waiting for the plot to happen.

All the plot movement towards the climax, also, turns out to be mostly irrelevant. No one dies or experiences any real character arcs on the Unsung world; no one figures out anyone’s plans. If Worf hadn’t been abducted in the first place, the story would’ve played out identically except that it would lack Worf reporting that a fake Kruge was ordering people around, which is a small outcome for such a long plot. Frustratingly, his interactions with Valandris are sort of... vapid? This would’ve been a great opportunity to develop Worf further after his recent tragedies, his third dead love interest, but nope, he just talks about honor a lot – speechifying we’ve heard before. We learn nothing about Worf, and Worf learns nothing about himself or his views. The book gets close to something real when Valandris talks about honor being useless to her since she’s already condemned, but Worf doesn’t seem to react to it much, and in the end his major victory is convincing her not to kill him, which is then (apparently?) nullified almost immediately as in the end she “forgets” why she even did that at all. That was set up to be an interesting conflict, but no one really grew or changed (though I’m hoping future entries change my mind about that).

And none of the rest of our heroes really did... anything? LaForge didn’t figure out anything useful until the climax, and there are so many characters missing entirely – nothing from Titan, nothing from Crusher, nothing from Elfiki, no arcs or changes or compelling perspectives from any of the Ent-E supporting cast… If we define main characters as characters that are necessary for plot points to happen, the only characters in this series so far are Spock and Korgh. Maybe Valandris (I feel like she's being set up for more later). Everyone else just reacts and tries to catch up, in the end making no progress and accomplishing nothing. And that would be fine if we got some real character development along the way but we don’t. What assumptions do Picard, Riker, Worf, Smrhova, Alexander, LaForge, or Martok have to face? What actions do they take that have any import?

Compare the second half of the book to the Destiny Trilogy, for instance. The first book of Destiny had character arcs for a dozen people, multiple complex morally gray situations full of surprises and depth, and a lot of decisions that mattered. Exchange a different character for Picard and the story doesn't work, exchange a different character for Riker and the story doesn't work, etc. Here, any of our heroes could have been anyone else except maybe Worf. Riker just plays the role of Generic Admiral; Picard, Generic Captain.

But… still… the first half was really good! So far, this seems like a kind of a poor development of a brilliant setup. If he can find more complicated things to do and to examine in the other two books, there’s still a chance this lives up to its potential, which is strong. But man did I find the second half of this one to be a letdown. I kept waiting for any of these people that I’ve come to know and love over a decade-plus of ongoing novels to show up and act like themselves and it just didn’t happen. It was especially weird after how subtly he characterized Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in the flashback. That section was great! The end just felt to me like watching someone play with action figures – they looked right, but had no real characterization. Weirdly empty.

 

[Starbreaker]

I got about 6 books behind on TNG, and I'm a little hesitant to get back into it right now that we're so close to the Picard series and it's going to be radically different.

I think The Way to the Stars is the best of the Discovery books that I read this year. Una really made a great, simple novel out of the Tilly character.