Classic Star Trek in literature

[Lt. Tyler]

Hi everyone. I would like to have everyone's opinion on what they consider to be the early Star Trek novel era. I know it starts with the James Blish novels in 1967 and I was thinking perhaps anything before the Star Trek II novelization?? Or from 1967-1981? Anyhow what to you classifies the classic Star Trek novel era?

 

[ryan123450]

Well there's the obvious distinction one could draw between pre-Pocket Books and Pocket Books. I'd say that is an important factor to consider.

 

[Bibliomike]

Certainly the Blish novelizations would be the start, but any ending point will be an arbitrary distinction. Maybe as good a one as any is the publication of the first TNG novel, Ghost Ship, in 1987 (or maybe '88)? With the advent of TNG, Trek novels and the universe they were building started expanding, simply because authors now had the 24th century to play in, too.

But I suspect a first-generation TOS fan might end the "early era" with the license shifting to Pocket in 1979.

Another way of demarcating any novel "eras" might be with changes in editorship (at least once the license got to Pocket). Or maybe the "early novel" era ended when authors could no longer submit unsolicited Trek mss.

 

[Idran]

Ghost Ship seems too early, I'd say; there wasn't really a big change in novel feel when the first TNG books started, as far as I remember. They still felt largely the way TOS books did, just with a shift forward in setting.

If we're setting ages comic-style, it should probably go more by the overall tenor of the field; by that, I'd say you'd have the pre-Pocket age, the Rihannsu age (80s continuity and all that, picking the name because it's one of the more prominent parts even if it didn't actually start with the Rihannsu series), the [Arnold] age, the 90s age (I can't think of a good name for this, but the intermediary era when novelists started having fewer restrictions but interlocking works hadn't yet picked back up), and the Relaunch age.

edit: Arnold, not Maizlish

 

[Christopher]

^I think you mean the Richard Arnold age, not Maizlish. Leonard Maizlish (by some accounts) had a firm hand on the writing on TNG's first season, but it was Arnold who oversaw the novels and comics.

 

[Idran]

^I think you mean the Richard Arnold age, not Maizlish. Leonard Maizlish (by some accounts) had a firm hand on the writing on TNG's first season, but it was Arnold who oversaw the novels and comics.

Oh, er, you're right; I always mix up those two. Thanks.

 

[Bibliomike]

Ghost Ship seems too early, I'd say; there wasn't really a big change in novel feel when the first TNG books started, as far as I remember. They still felt largely the way TOS books did, just with a shift forward in setting.

I suppose this is true, since all the writers of the early TNG novels had to go on, presumably, was the Writers' Bible and some scripts.

To clarify, my point was, once the spin-off series has debuted -- 21 years into franchise history -- that seemed like a logical point, imo, to say we've moved out of any "early novels" era.

I'm curious as to what prompts the question, frankly.