Favorite Stand Alone?

[Stevil2001]

Dreams of The Raven I always liked the fact McCoy was the one who helped solve the mystery of the alien attacks in that book.

Oh, another good, underrated one. I wish Carmen Carter had done more; I don't remember disliking any of her books.

 

[Good Will Riker]

My pick is:

Peter David's TNG novel "A Rock and a Hard Place."

 

[Kelso]

Strangers from the Sky, without a doubt. Every word in that book is as close to perfect as novels can get. The juggling of the two timelines in the book, married with the false document passages produces a wonderful effect that grabs you and doesn't let go. I've found that lately, as I re-read some of TrekLit's older stuff, a lot of it just doesn't hold up anymore. The old numbered novels generally can't hold a candle to what messrs. DeCandido, Mack, and George are putting out, but SFTS still works, even if it doesn't fit in with the current canon.

Agreed! Strangers from the Sky is fabulous and holds up very well. Also, I love that it featured the characters from Where no man has gone before so prominently.

Though, my fav. Trek novel is Spock Must Die!.

 

[Plecostomus]

Death Count by L.A. Graff and Dreadnought! by Dianne Carry. Also, Blackfire by Sonni Cooper.

 

[HappyDayRiot]

I know you said no Peter David novels for some reason... but it has to be Q-in-Law.

 

[Reanok]

The Pandora Priciple by Carolyn Clowes. I always liked this look at Saavik's back ground.Also Liked the new characters Lieutentant Roby London and his alien friend Obo and the Romulan that Enterprise rescued.

 

[JD]

Since people are including Peter David now, I'm gonna go ahead and include Q-Squared as another favorite standalone.

 

[Reanok]

Imzadi and Q in Law Lxwana teaches Q a lesson. Lxwana chasing Q ALL over the Enterprise and using Q powers to get even as a woman scorned. Q lerned his lesson the hard way.

 

[BaloksPuppet]

I wouldn't go so far as to call it my favorite, but I think Ishmael by Barbara Hambly is a really good one that doesn't get mentioned often enough. Another often neglected title that I really enjoyed was First Frontier by Diane Carey and James Kirkland. I was kind of expecting that one to suck, but I actually thought it was a pretty solid story.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Ohhh yeah, First Frontier definitely caught me by surprise, too!

 

[JWolf]

It's the same as my answer to favorite novel: The Entropy Effect by Vonda N. McIntyre.

My choice as well.

 

[Reanok]

The Entropy Effect I really liked that book. Corona By Greg Bear.

 

[MMCL]

I'm not sure it fits the criteria exactly, but I really enjoyed the Wildfire omnibus.

It was the first SCE stuff I'd read - until then I'd steered clear of it because it wasn't proper trek (eg my characters from the screen) - but the intensity of the relationship between Gomez and Duffy made me want to buy up the lot.

And so I have

 

[Claudia]

If I hadn't read "The Entropy Effect" in spring, I doubt I would have begun reading ST-books en masse again.

For that alone, it counts among my favourite standalone-novels...

 

[Nerroth]

I agree with the positive sentiment for Burning Dreams - great, great book - but if we are trying to stick with TNG and/or DS9 books, I'd stretch a little into the Lost Era and go for The Buried Age.


Phenomenal book - and a great look into a side of Picard we don't see enough of on-screen.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Dreams of The Raven I always liked the fact McCoy was the one who helped solve the mystery of the alien attacks in that book.

Ah, yes, I remember the Ravens. Sylar writ large.

 

[ncc71877]

TNG: Reunion by MJF. First Trek book I ever read. Tried to do a book report on it and was rejected, when the teacher cleary said 'any book you wanted,' but then she generally disliked science-fiction anyway.

ncc71877

 

[Red Ranger]

My pick is:

Peter David's TNG novel "A Rock and a Hard Place."

Hey, GWR, I like that one, too. But the one standalone ST book I most enjoy is The Entropy Effect by Vonda McIntyre. Sulu gets some ink, the author creates several bizarre alien characters, and some compelling human ones, too, like Hunter and Flynn, and she has a good grasp of the Kirk/Spock friendship. And it features a threat that could end the universe! Good novel. And I see it's getting some love in this thread, too, and that makes me happy! -- RR

 

[Red Ranger]

Another vote for Diane Duane's The Wounded Sky.

I agree with Nerys Dukat that this book would've gotten an award if it had been a non-ST book.

TWS is a story that is fun, interesting, imaginative, and exciting. Duane captures perfectly the "voices" of the TOS characters.

Agreed. Love The Wounded Sky, esp. the spider-woman engineer whose name escapes me, the one who helped create the inversion drive. I like how Kirk is so impressed with her, he thinks it would be fun to be a glass spider, and tells her so. Even Scotty is impressed with her engineering knowledge. I love the part where Enterprise is outside the Milky Way galaxy and they can see it in its total form from the observation deck. And Duane has a plethora of strange ETs in the book, in addition to the spider-woman engineer. -- RR

 

[Red Ranger]

Well, it was written at a time when the Trek universe wasn't as clearly delineated as it is today, so there was more room for authors to inject their own worldbuilding concepts and distinctive voices. The Entropy Effect was Vonda McIntyre-style Trek, just as Planet of Judgment was Joe Haldeman-style Trek and The Wounded Sky was Diane Duane-style Trek. Back then, there was less consistency but a lot of individuality to the books.

It seemed unlike Star Trek to me not because it conflicted with what came after, but because it was such a tremendous departure from what had been seen before. The world presented in The Entropy Effect was shockingly unlike that seen in TOS.

Cicero:

Sorry you feel that way. Yes, there were several aspects of the book that were unlike TOS, but I felt McIntyre simply built on the TOS world. Introducing the border patrol characters, the massive space colony Aleph Prime, Spock's old crazy mentor, Georges Mordreaux -- I got quite a kick out of them.

And I miss what Christopher is talking about, how individual authors were allowed to embellish and add their own contributions to the ST world. Too bad it's not like that anymore.

Uh oh, I've gotten so carried away with my responses that I may have committed the barely pardonable triple posting sin! Ahhhhh!

Red Ranger