Enterprise Novels: My First Taste

[AstroSmurf]

For some reason, as much as I love Trek, I have never gotten into reading the novels. I can't seem to effectively marry the onscreen characters with their written counterparts. There is always this disconnect and I have to force myself to hear the dialog in the actual character voices. (I know it is weird but something I need to do.) After a couple of chapters I get so frustrated I usually put the book down never to pick it up again. The only Trek novels that I have truly enjoyed were some of Peter David's TNG works like "Vendetta" or "Q-Squared". They were fun reads and stayed true to what I thought the TNG characters are/were. I also never had any trouble hearing the characters speaking their dialog either.

Well this summer I have been on a book feeding frenzy. Since May I have read 22 books and was running out of new titles to pick-up. So this week, out of desperation, I finally picked up "The Good That Men Do". It is something I have been meaning to read for several years now but I just didn't have the courage. With my past experiences I was scared of being disappointed. But after chewing through it in less than two days, I am thrilled to say I was not disappointed at all.

First off, hooray to Mangels and Martin for bringing Trip back in such a clever and inventive way. Second, the characters were spot on. I didn't struggle with hearing them speak the dialog, Archer especially. They even captured Trips southern twang nicely. But the thing I was most surprised by... the emotion. I actually cried several times while reading this novel, especially during Elizabeth's funeral, Archer telling Trip's parents and T'Pol packing up Trip's things. It touched me and I was not expecting that at all. I also didn't realize how much I missed these characters. I want to read as many of the novels as I can, just to keep them alive.

So now that I am hooked and I want more does anyone have recommendations on my next read? Are there any I need to stay away from? I am looking for advice for my next Amazon order so let me know what you think!

 

[Admiral Shran]

If you liked The Good That Men Do, you can't go wrong with Kobayashi Maru, the next book in the ENT Relaunch.

I've just started it myself and am enjoying it. A lot of people feel it's a letdown after the awesomeness of TGTMD. I, however, don't see why.

 

[AstroSmurf]

^ Thank you! I have it on my list.

I am kind of shocked no one else has bothered to read any of the books... or willing to give suggestions.

Anyone? Anyone?

 

[Jack Bauer]

I'd recommend the Daedalus duology: Daedalus and Daedalus's Children. I also like Rosetta.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I hated the Enterprise relaunch novels . The order is Last Full Measure (set during the third season, with a little teaser/framing story set in the future featuring Trip and Kirk's dad), The Good That Men Do, Kobayashi Maru, The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing and a forthcoming second Romulan War book. I couldn't finish Raptor's Wing.

I did love the Daedalus duology. They're my favourite Enterprise books. They're set towards the end of season 2.

By the Book was written before the show aired, and mostly features made-up below decks characters playing a tabletop RPG in the mess hall (seriously). Season 1.

Surak is another early book, and is similar to the episode "The Seventh" (in fact it had to be rewritten a little prior to release when the episode appeared). I don't remember much, but I recall the characterizations were poor.

What Price Honor is a Malcolm book, set in two timeframes (very start of season 1, season 2). It was okay.

I haven't read Rosetta yet.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Oh yeah, and there's the awesome Destiny crossover trilogy. No NX-01 Enterprise crew, but the NX-02 Columbia crew features heavily along with the Enterprise-E, Titan (Riker's ship) and Aventine (Captain Dax's ship - the book is set seven years after DS9 ended and a lot has changed. It's not as weird as it sounds if you've read the DS9 books) in an epic story about the beginning and the end of the Borg and an invasion that kills billions.

 

[Blackbird]

Haven't read TGTMD yet, but it's on my to do list.

Anything that tryes, even in a small way to undo what was done in These Are The Voyages is fine with me. I kringe just thinking about that ep,Guurrr.

 

[Leathco]

I like beneath the raptors wing. It's a great book, a little long, but it fits in with both what we know of the romulan war from tos plus the enterprise crew, who surprisingly aren't in the book as much as you'd think.

 

[SFRabid]

As much as I love Enterprise, it took me two years to get through TGTMD. I have KM now and am reading about a chapter a month. I think my problem is I don't consider the storyline with Trip to be a good one and keep waiting for him to come back to the characer he was before TATV.

 

[AstroSmurf]

I hated the Enterprise relaunch novels . The order is Last Full Measure (set during the third season, with a little teaser/framing story set in the future featuring Trip and Kirk's dad), The Good That Men Do, Kobayashi Maru, The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing and a forthcoming second Romulan War book. I couldn't finish Raptor's Wing.

I did love the Daedalus duology. They're my favourite Enterprise books. They're set towards the end of season 2.

By the Book was written before the show aired, and mostly features made-up below decks characters playing a tabletop RPG in the mess hall (seriously). Season 1.

Surak is another early book, and is similar to the episode "The Seventh" (in fact it had to be rewritten a little prior to release when the episode appeared). I don't remember much, but I recall the characterizations were poor.

What Price Honor is a Malcolm book, set in two timeframes (very start of season 1, season 2). It was okay.

I haven't read Rosetta yet.

Thank you so much for that. Your post is exactly what I am looking for. And from you explanation alone I will avoid By the Book.

 

[Mach5]

As much as I love Enterprise, it took me two years to get through TGTMD.

It took me two evenings.

 

[Reanok]

I liked the Enterprise relaunch novels I didn't like the Destiny trilogy books very much I didn't like how the Columbia crew was written in the Destiny novels.I'm also tired of reading books having the borg in them.The books were depressing with all the endless borg attacks and all the death and battles.I had to force myself to finish the last book.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm an avid Trek novel reader, and I read books from all series and movies. One thing I found with reading the early ENT novels (which were being written concurrently with the show), was that many of them were actually quite good simply because they fleshed out the characters a lot better than the show did. However, if I had to recall one ENT novel that really stuck with me, it'd be Rosetta.

The thing about Rosetta, however, is that the author's grammar and writing style has a lot to be desired (at least in this book). But if you can get past that, the story itself is nothing short of amazing. I'd even go so far as to say that its premise is what the entire series of ENT should have been based on.

But I'm not going to spoil it for you

 

[ialfan]

I too love the Enterprise "relaunch". I recommend reading (of course) Kobayashi Maru and The Romulan War #1. Also, the Mirror and Myriad Universes series are great reads. The first Mirror Universe novel has a followup story to In A Mirror Darkly and the first Myriad Universe story is a TOS-era one featuring T'Pol. The Destiny trilogy is also a logical (and excellent) Enterprise connected story featuring Captain Hernandez of Columbia.

 

[Reanok]

I enjoyed the earlier Enterprise novels By the Book and the one where Malcolm Reed was the main character in the novel.Surak's Soul and the Daedalus novels are okay.I liked Rosetta too.I also liked the tv novelizations for Broken bow,Shockwave and the Expanse.

 

[judge alba]

hadn't read many trek books for quite awhile. normally just get audio books when i can find them.
then one day at a car boot sale i found Kobayashi maru and The Good That Men Do for 50p each bought them home and enjoyed them so bought the romulan war one from amazon havent started it yet but quite looking forwards to it

 

[commodore64]

Ewww. I thought in Good That Men Do, T'Pol and Archer were not themselves at all. The dialogue wasn't the same. The mannerisms weren't the same. And the things they said -- their motivations -- weren't the same. In fact, I felt like I was reading some guy who really liked Trip and couldn't quite deliver the other characters, and didn't care.

 

[star]

It's interesting what bias we bring to the books by how each of the characters speak to us personally on the show. If you never liked Trip, then TGMD is probably not going to be at the top of your favorite ENT novels list.

I just finished TGMD this weekend. And I feel so-so about it. I had some trouble with T'Pol's characterizations. Also, while it was a fix for TATV... I didn't really care for the fact that the authors felt the need to bring in another Trek series to fix it. (I suppose the mentality is if it takes one series to destroy ENT then another series can repair the damage.)

I'm currently reading KM... and I have the same feelings about it. Not hating it, but not loving it either. Honestly, I've read some fanfiction better written than this stuff. But I own the books and I will read what I have.

I will say that I love the TNG novels, especially the Peter David ones.

 

[AstroSmurf]

^ I just got through rereading Peter David's "Vendetta" yesterday. And after all these years, I still love that book. (And I still want to see the planet killer eat that Borg cube on a big screen.)

But I have to agree that we all tend to love books that accent the characters or the qualities of the characters we are partial too. It is only human nature. (And ALL those opinions are valid here in this thread. ) But I am one of the few that never picked favorites with the Enterprise characters. I like them all for different reasons.

I received my copy of Kobayashi Maru in the email on Saturday. I hope to start it in the next couple of days. I also ordered the two Daedalus books yesterday. I am jumping with both feet and I hoping they live up to the hype.

 

[Mach5]

Ewww. I thought in Good That Men Do, T'Pol and Archer were not themselves at all.

No, they were fine, they just weren't what you wanted them to be.