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Curious how well the Discovery novels tie in with what's been canonically depicted onscreen!

Quinton

Quinton

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
I was reading up on the ongoing tie-in works from Pocket Novels and I'm considering dabbling in them sometime soon. I don't mind whether or not they sync especially well with what has been put to the screen but I'm curious nevertheless. I recall that "Desperate Measures," the first book, pretty clearly ended up not clicking too well with what we learn in the show's second season?

It's just interesting to me how this stuff works is all. We go into the supplemental media knowing that its depictions of the Star Trek universe can be proven "inaccurate" at any future date; I still enjoy it anyway so long as it's well-written. (And we have a great batch of writers these days!)

Anyway, this is Memory Alpha's list of releases. "Wonderlands" isn't out yet, of course.

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While we're at it, does anyone have any specific recommendations out of this pack? Personal favorites and all that jazz?
 
Quinton said:
I recall that "Desperate Measures," the first book, pretty clearly ended up not clicking too well with what we learn in the show's second season?
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That's for sure. The book was written while Bryan Fuller was in charge of the show and followed his ideas of Michael and Spock's relationship, which of course was completely disregarded by the writers of the second season who had their own ideas. The novel is also essentially a team-up of the Enterprise with the Shenzhou, which neither Michael, Saru, Pike, Spock or Number One seem to remember having met previously in the second season.

As for the others, I don't recall any contradictions popping up with them.
 
They're generally well-regarded. I'd probably rank about as follows:
1. The Way to the Stars (Tilly)
2. Dead Endless (Stamets)
3. The Enterprise War (Pike/Enterprise prior to Season 2)
4. Die Standing (Georgiou)
5. Fear Itself (Saru)
6. Drastic Measures (Lorca & Georgiou)

But they're all solid picks, so just go with whichever character you're interested in or whichever author you're interested in exploring.
 
I would put The Way to the Stars and Fear Itself as the best Discovery books so far.
 
As for continuity, I think Fear Itself used a different name for the Kelpien homeworld than was later established in the series?
 
mastadge said:
As for continuity, I think Fear Itself used a different name for the Kelpien homeworld than was later established in the series?
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Yes, but that's easily reconciled; how many different names for Earth are there in various languages? Heck, it's called both Earth and Terra in Trek usage (though DSC's writers have forgotten that "Terra" is used in the Prime as well as the Mirror Universe).
 
Doesn't Desperate Hours mention other Kelpiens serving in Starfleet? That doesn't seem to line up with what we learn about Kelpiens in S2.
 
Of the first four Discovery novels (the only one’s I’ve read), The Way to the Stars is the one I’d whole heartedly recommend.
 
Thanks, everybody! I appreciate the explanation re: "Desperate Hours" and the novel recommendations as well. Sounds like I'm in for a fun time.
 
Kaminar was probably created along with the Ba’ul, which is also why it would be the neutral name for the planet, whereas Kelpia would remain an option for private use among Kelpiens, consistent with all the references in Desperate Hours.
 
I haven't read it yet, but I think I asked about Fear Itself a while back, and someone said that the references to the Kelpians relationship with the predators on their homeworld, didn't line up with what we got in season 2.
 
The Wormhole said:
No, Fear Itself was pretty consistent, even mentioning the Ba'ul by name despite being released months before that name was first spoked onscreen.
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Here's a quote from Fear Itself:

Saru imagined them like the ba'ul, the apex predators from his homeworld, which would lie in wait until they struck out at their prey.

This seems to imply that the Ba'ul are ambush predators which isn't really consistent with them beaming up the Kelpiens who willingly offer themselves as sacrifices as depicted in Season 2.
 
I liked Drastic Measures (a "Conscience of the King" prequel with some DSC guests) and The Enterprise War the best, with Die Standing being another decent standout. Way to the Stars is worth reading (more Tilly is inherently a good thing), but it is a little more linear and softer on the plot (although it does make it feel more like a real biography, since people's lives don't follow a three-act structure).

Quinton said:
I recall that "Desperate Measures," the first book, pretty clearly ended up not clicking too well with what we learn in the show's second season?
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The prose makes it pretty clear that David Mack was visualizing "The Cage" look for the Enterprise and its crew's costumes, while DSC and the Short Treks all show the Disco-prise designs were already in use -- although, to be fair, the mere existence of the Diso-prise is a huge "Continuity Snarl" that's there's no good in-universe answer for (from a certain point of view, Mack got it right, and DSC got it wrong :) ). Course, since the novel format doesn't have pictures, it does soften the "error," since we don't literally see things the way we do with a TV show.

The Enterprise War does its best to reconcile Desperate Measures with the rest of DSC. The level of success can be debated, but I think it's the best we could expect, under the circumstances.

I seem to recall that John Jackson Miller indicated in a interview that he planted a throwaway line to imply that the Disco-prise was a temporary refit exclusive for the mission they were on in the book. That would be as elegant a solution as any, although the Short Treks muddied things with anochronistic Disco-prise sightings (but, thankfully, the line was vague enough that there isn't a continuity error beyond the Disco-prise situation as a whole.
 
The Way to the Stars is easily the best, but I also enjoyed Drastic Measures a lot too. It really managed to make Kodo's killing of half the population fit logically into the established Trek universe.

I didn't like Desperate Hours too much, but I only read it once when it came out. Frankly, same for Fear Itself, which I half-read some time ago and now tried to restart. I'm a hundred pages in and just can't get into the story. I do like the depiction of Saru, though.
 
Jinn said:
I didn't like Desperate Hours too much, but I only read it once when it came out.
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Thought it was okay as an episode zero for the show, although I will concede that I have a hard time keeping track of all the minor Shenzou crewmembers who it's hard to put a face to and never really got a chance to make themselves memorable on the screen. (I mean, outside of Burham and Saru, Detmer was the only Shenzou alumni to really establish herself as part of the Discovery crew and be a regular face.

Jinn said:
Frankly, same for Fear Itself, which I half-read some time ago and now tried to restart. I'm a hundred pages in and just can't get into the story. I do like the depiction of Saru, though.
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Started it before watching the show, but couldn't get through it, too. Maybe now that I've started seeing the show and have found Saru to be one of my new favorite characters, it might get easier?
 
Just my 2p worth, re Fear Itself, continuity et al -

As with all the books based on ongoing shows, we work from what information is current and what gets shared with us from CBS et al; thus, we have the Kaminar and Ba'ul refs in Fear Itself before they appear in the show.

Early plans for Fear Itself were to have a lot more backstory for Saru and his species, and I actually wrote an entire background document on the Kelpiens detailing ideas for how their culture and society could work, including stuff about the Ba'ul based on inferences from the previous episodes of Discovery and building on hints from Desperate Hours. Some small elements of that got folded into the TV episodes, but the writers on the show eventually went in a different direction.

This is how it goes when writing tie-ins! Ultimately, we can only keep in line with what has come before, because the TV shows and movies lead, and we must follow.
 
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