"Essential Legends" of Trek?

[Christopher]

I'm not here for charm, I'm here for stories that add to the tapestry of continuity. Correcting old novels might make them more relevant again. Like updating a science book to a 2nd edition.

That's an incredibly poor analogy, because it isn't science, it's make-believe. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers, and there sure as hell isn't going to be a test. The point of fiction is not to provide data points for continuity, it's to entertain and stimulate the imagination. Its "relevance" is in what it makes us think and feel, not whether it's compatible with some other story.

And seriously, back in the first generation of Trek novels, the books often had an impressionistic relationship with onscreen continuity, since back then it was an accepted norm for novelizations and adaptations to take creative liberties rather than being slavishly accurate. They were just stories, alternative interpretations of the general ideas and characters of a series, since it was understood that this was fiction and the premise and characters were just themes to explore variations on, not historical facts that had to be documented correctly. Goodness knows, back then I often wished some of the books would be more faithful to the screen, but fans these days have prioritized continuity to a toxic extreme, to the point of devaluing literally everything else about fiction, and it's just gone insanely too far.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Coda was released as TPB originally, so not sure what the point would be?

I wouldn't buy a trade paperback rerelease of Coda -- the trade paperbacks I have are perfectly fine -- but you know what I would? A Barnes & Noble Classics 3-in-1 leatherbound omnibus with bookmark ribbon. Comes shrinkwrapped, looks good on the shelf alongside B&N Classics editions of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, War and Peace, the King James Bible, and Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Wars.

Yes, KW Jeter's Boba Fett trilogy was issued in a B&N Classic leatherbound edition. Personally, I liked it, but I am given to understand that's very much the minority opinion...

Am I the only one who loves Lost Years?

If you're talking the Dillard book on its own, I like it, but I don't love it. Her writing is fine, I've always liked Dillard's prose, and the characters all ring true, but it has a very reactive plot (the main characters are either at the mercy of others' decisions or reacting to others' actions) and it leaves me feeling dissatisfied. Which may be the point, come to think of it; we're so used to seeing Kirk as a man of action in command of a situation, and here we see him sold a desk job that doesn't suit him, so we as the readers are as much out of our element in a Star Trek novel as Kirk is here.

I do like it, truly. I've reread it three or four times over the last thirty-five years. It works, but I'm left unfulfilled, and the rest of the series doesn't rectify that.

As I sit here typing this, I feel that I would rather see this out of Paul Wesley and Ethan Peck, not a Star Trek Year One but a look at how and why Kirk and Spock go the ways they go at the end of the Five Year Mission. Why does Kirk take the desk job? Why does Spock abandon Starfleet for Vulcan asceticism? Yes, I know the literature, comics and novels, have offered multiple final years and final missions, and The Lost Years takes us into that untold chapter, because it's the part of the story on which Canon is silent. I would take that over the first days of Kirk's command of the Enterprise. Of course, I'd rather see them in a post Motion Picture timeframe, sans pajama uniforms, over a "Lost Years" era story.

 

[JD]

Imagine these novels got rewritten to fit current continuity before rerelease.

Hell no, half the fun of reading an older Trek book is seeing the

For me I like the idea of the Legends Essential collection because it gets the books back on the shelves and catches the eye of people that haven’t read legends yet. I probably wouldn’t buy new copies either but I’d love it if more Star Trek fans knew about the novel verse. I guess I’m part of the problem because I want them to release things but don’t want to pay for them

Also thank you! All my hours in the pun username laboratory have finally paid off!!

Almost all of Pocket's Trek books are available as e-books, so this feels kind of unnecessary to me. The only Pocke Trek books I've come across that aren't available as e-books are the first three Shatnerverse books, Best Destiny, and Enteprise: The First Adventure.

 

[Stevil2001]

I can't even imagine how you could "update" these books. What would a version of Final Frontier compliant with current canon even be like? Imagine going through it and carefully deleting every reference to April's cardigan. Bizarre.

 

[Markonian]

If all books were released as ebooks, it would be cool if the addendum included every cover the book had ever been released with. Like IDW comics.

I can't even imagine how you could "update" these books. What would a version of Final Frontier compliant with current canon even be like? Imagine going through it and carefully deleting every reference to April's cardigan. Bizarre.

I’m sure the cardigan isn’t an issue. But descriptions of ship and uniform appearances plus technology and historical references could be updated.

 

[Christopher]

I can't even imagine how you could "update" these books. What would a version of Final Frontier compliant with current canon even be like? Imagine going through it and carefully deleting every reference to April's cardigan. Bizarre.

I know! Let's update The War of the Worlds to be consistent with the modern, lifeless Mars.

 

[Greg Cox]

I can't even imagine how you could "update" these books. What would a version of Final Frontier compliant with current canon even be like? Imagine going through it and carefully deleting every reference to April's cardigan. Bizarre.

And how would this work anyway? Who is going to do these updates? Some underpaid intern? Or, worse yet, Chat/GPT? Do we really think that publishers and/or CBS aren't going to be tempted to use AI for this?

At the risk of channeling my inner Doctor McCoy, do we really want some damn machine rewriting Mike Ford or Peter David?

 

[Miami Vice Admiral]

I know! Let's update The War of the Worlds to be consistent with the modern, lifeless Mars.

Still might be an improvement on Ice Cube’s version

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I know! Let's update The War of the Worlds to be consistent with the modern, lifeless Mars.

Not to mention Barsoom!

Still might be an improvement on Ice Cube’s version

No filmed version of The War of the Worlds can possibly be worse than the Pendragon Pictures version, set in the 1890s.

 

[Avro Arrow]

The only Pocke Trek books I've come across that aren't available as e-books are the first three Shatnerverse books, Best Destiny, and Enteprise: The First Adventure.

Best Destiny is available. (Source: I have it.)

I can't even imagine how you could "update" these books. What would a version of Final Frontier compliant with current canon even be like?

Or The Final Reflection… what would that even look like?!

I like consistent world building as much as the next person, but Star Trek is a franchise that has been added to by different people over many years, longer than I’ve been alive. Rewriting old books to try to make them “consistent” with current canon is a fool’s errand. What happens in a decade after their release when the ongoing canon has created more inconsistencies?

This is such an awful idea that I’m having trouble believing it’s a serious suggestion. And if someone turns up their nose on some older books because they’re inconsistent and therefore less “relevant”, then they are missing out on some great fiction, and are only hurting themselves.

 

[Miami Vice Admiral]

I wouldn't buy a trade paperback rerelease of Coda -- the trade paperbacks I have are perfectly fine -- but you know what I would? A Barnes & Noble Classics 3-in-1 leatherbound omnibus with bookmark ribbon. Comes shrinkwrapped, looks good on the shelf alongside B&N Classics editions of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, War and Peace, the King James Bible, and Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Wars.

Yes! We yearn for more omnibus editions. Especially if we got a prey trilogy omnibus with one of the German covers instead

 

[Avro Arrow]

One thing that would certainly entice me to rebuy a book I already have in TPB format: additional fictional content. Pay the writer to write an additional short story or two, presumably related to the main book somehow, and then include that as exclusive content.

I would have been all over that Crucible omnibus that DRGIII mentioned back when, with the additional short stories added in. I'm still a little salty that it never came to pass.