Did Star Trek Books grow up in 2001?

[Captain Dax]

I've been reading tons of numbered novels from the 80s and 90s and they all seem very... Light? Fluffy? Rise-Adverse? i can't put my finger on it, i just see the moment it shifts with Avatar and the DS9 Relaunch, that once the novels created their own contiuity we stopped getting things like "Rogue Saucer" and started getting Warpath and the Mission Gamma series.

 

[ryan123450]

I've been reading tons of numbered novels from the 80s and 90s and they all seem very... Light? Fluffy? Rise-Adverse? i can't put my finger on it, i just see the moment it shifts with Avatar and the DS9 Relaunch, that once the novels created their own contiuity we stopped getting things like "Rogue Saucer" and started getting Warpath and the Mission Gamma series.

Seems like it was way less a decision to start doing heavier stuff than it was more being given the freedom after the 90s shows ended to take “ownership” of the characters and storylines and do what they wanted. This was not an option before that point.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I dunno. I think they've always been a mix of light and heavy.

 

[David cgc]

I'd say the balance had been shifting for a while before Avatar, though it makes a convenient bright-line demarcation. I think I'd actually put the start at the Invasion miniseries, and the move towards more "event" novels and miniseries.

 

[The Wormhole]

The tonal shift with Avatar onwards vs prior books had more to do with the fact that by 2001 the novels started becoming their own thing. After spring 2001, there were no more TV shows in production set in the 24th century. And aside from Nemesis, the 24th century would not be revisited onscreen until Picard premiered in 2020. The novels more or less had their own freedom to do their own thing without worrying about how to fit it in amongst a TV show currently in production, and the novels changed to reflect this new found freedom.

 

[Christopher]

The tonal shift with Avatar onwards vs prior books had more to do with the fact that by 2001 the novels started becoming their own thing. After spring 2001, there were no more TV shows in production set in the 24th century.

That's part of it, sure. But that just created the opportunity. The person who seized that opportunity was editor Marco Palmieri. He brought enormous innovation, intelligence, and ambition to the novel line, recruited a generation of new writers, and inspired and challenged us to elevate our game while giving us the freedom to take chances and push the envelope.

 

[bdub76]

That's part of it, sure. But that just created the opportunity. The person who seized that opportunity was editor Marco Palmieri. He brought enormous innovation, intelligence, and ambition to the novel line, recruited a generation of new writers, and inspired and challenged us to elevate our game while giving us the freedom to take chances and push the envelope.

That's awesome. I'm re-watching some TNG in preparation for the next season of Picard, and a lot of it comes off as dry and predictable. At the time it came out, I liked it a lot, but it doesn't hold up for me as well as DS9 compared to modern storytelling on TV post streaming.

 

[KRAD]

John Ordover deserves some credit also, as he was the one who pushed to move the line past being an endless stream of standalone novels that had no real impact beyond the covers the story was told between, starting with Invasion! in 1996 and continuing with New Frontier in 1997. The debut (and, more to the point, the success) of NF in particular was a major turning point, as that really loosened a lot of the storytelling shackles.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I've been reading tons of numbered novels from the 80s and 90s and they all seem very... Light? Fluffy? Rise-Adverse?

You can blame Richard Arnold for that.

 

[Therin of Andor]

You can blame Richard Arnold for that.

Richard's overview of the novels started when Vonda McIntyre was novelizing ST IV. When reading it, you can almost see the point where she tired of his memos, gave up and just finished it up.

It ended with the novelization of "Unification", the one where Jeri Taylor tosses in a TAS reference (to Phylosians, IIRC) seemingly to celebrate.

 

[Greg Cox]

Richard Arnold was before my time, so I know of his reign only by reputation, but we should credit the advent of Paula Block who took over approving the manuscripts for Paramount/CBS and who was always a pleasure to work with.

 

[ananta]

I haven’t read enough to comment on the writing quality, and this is a whole different topic admittedly, but I think that’s around the time the artwork on Star Trek books really went south. I remember when I was growing up the Trek books had some really beautiful painted artwork by talented artists such as Keith Birdsong. Around the turn of the century, something went wrong and a whole lot of cheap looking Photoshop junk became the norm. Maybe there have been some aesthetically good book covers since then, but there have also been a fair number I feel I could have done better myself.

 

[Greg Cox]

To slightly the counter the premise that there was some monumental sea change around 2001, I'll point out that I started writing TREK books around 1993 and have been writing them ever since, and at no point did I ever receive a memo telling me that I had to get more "grown-up" after 2001 or whenever. Certainly, I was never asked or expected to change my approach to writing Trek books . . . although I like to think I learned a thing or two over the decades.

 

[KRAD]

ananta: I feel the opposite of you. I found the cookie-cutter floating-heads covers by Keith Birdsong to be incredibly dull and boring and uninteresting. I've found the covers over the past twenty years to be far more interesting and individualized.

 

[Christopher]

I was amazed when I read an article about Keith Birdsong and found out that he did those lifelike covers almost entirely in colored pencil. My own scribblings with colored pencil never gave me the impression that was even possible. It is indeed a poor artist who blames the tools.

 

[JWolf]

I was amazed when I read an article about Keith Birdsong and found out that he did those lifelike covers almost entirely in colored pencil. My own scribblings with colored pencil never gave me the impression that was even possible. It is indeed a poor artist who blames the tools.

I've found a lot of those covers to have just something that looked off.

 

[Greg Cox]

True story: At least once a sneak peak at one of those floating heads covers influenced my writing of a book. When I saw that Beverly Crusher was going to be one of the floating heads on the cover of DRAGON'S HONOR, which Kij and I hadn't finished writing yet, I made sure she saved the day in the end.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Why would they do that in the first place, then?

 

[Greg Cox]

Why would they do that in the first place, then?

Do what?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Reading the blurb, I know she is a big part of the story. Sorry - I guess I mean what about having her face on the cover would make you want to have her be the hero, as opposed to what she already was, a big part of the story.

(Incidentally, noticing your location, have you ever thought about including the Amish as a plot point in a book?)