Great Things About Trek Lit

[JD]

Since we have a thread for complaints about Trek Lit, I thought I would counter that with a thread to discuss what we like about it. I've really found a lot to love about the ongoing novelverse and the following are just a few of them.
They've done a lot to really expand the universe beyond what we saw on screen. They've taken things mentioned or only barely seen on screen, and given them incredible amounts of depth. Whether it was a one off guest character who is brought back and turned into a major character, or a background race from an episode or movie who is given a name, history, and culture. Hell, if you told me that the Cardassian kid raised by a Bajoran from that one DS9 episode would not only get a book, but that it would be absolutely amazing, I never would have believed you.
They've also given us some great new characters of their own. I'd put Elias Vaughn, T'Prynn, and Nan Bacco right up there with any of the canon characters. Hell, Vaughn and T'Prynn alone are probably more well developed than some characters were on the shows and movies.
They've moved the characters from the shows/movies forward in great ways, whether it was marrying Picard and Crusher, or promoting Ezri Dax and giving her her own ship and crew.

 

[Jinn]

Also the Voyager relaunch.

 

[Thrawn]

Everything about Beyer's Voyager run. Everything. But especially: literally all of it.

The Borg story everyone always dreamed of getting someday.

Character arcs that matter for characters that didn't get them before - Ezri, Tuvok, Chakotay, Kim, debatably Riker, Ro, Geordi...

Making space-borne lifeforms make sense within an ecosystem, making all of the time travel stories logically consistent, explaining the TNG crew's odd behavior in first season, and making Enterprise something worth following. (All this is Christopher; he's a continuity spackling machine.)

Finished threads the shows left dangling - parasites, Bajor's admittance to the UFP, the fate of the Dominion, Romulan politics before and after Nemesis, B'Elanna's magic baby...

Mackenzie Calhoun, Zak Kebron, Taran'atar, Shar, Vaughn, T'Prynn, Reyes, Pennington, Nassir, Cambridge, Atlee goddamn Fife and Liam motherfucking O'Donnell, Dulmur, Lucsly, Nan Bacco, Torvig, K'chak'!'op, and Y'lira Modan.

Vanguard, and not only for the great story, but also for the amazing work reinterpreting and reanalyzing The Original Series.

The ending of Serpents Among The Ruins. The ending of Raise the Dawn. The ending of Ascendance. The ending of Crucible: McCoy.

Deep dives into Klingon, Vulcan, Romulan, Dominion, Ferengi, Andorian, Cardassian, and Trill culture.

...and that scene when Zak Kebron calmly bends a bridge railing off its housing and beheads a Romulan with it, which was absolutely the funniest thing 14-year-old me had ever read in his life.

 

[JD]

Trek Lit has also given us some of the best stories in the entire franchise, like the early DS9 Relaunch, Orion's Hounds, Serpents Among the Ruins, Vanguard, and Kirsten Beyer's Voy. Relaunch. I think Discovery hiring Kirsten has been some of the best news to come out of the series yet. Now if only they would could hire David Mack, Christopher Bennett, Dayton Ward, and Una McCormack.

 

[Sci]

I know she wasn't originally intended that way, but I would say that the story arc of President Nanietta Bacco became in many ways a long-running commentary on/reaction to the presidency of Barack Obama. Obviously she was originally created by KRAD as a sort of "anti-Bush"/Jed-Bartlet-esque figure, but between her facing a near-apocalyptic threat so early in her term (parallels to Obama facing a near-apocalyptic economic meltdown even before taking office), the moral compromises she made in trying to fight the proliferation of potentially deadly technologies in Typhon Pact: Zero Sum Game (parallels to Obama trying to stop the proliferation of nuclear technology to Iran), her status of finding herself thrust into a cold war with aggressive foreign powers formerly seen as not a threat (parallels to Obama confronting a newly-irredentialist Russia in Ukraine and Crimea), her attempts to somehow try to find a diplomatic solution to these crises (parallels to Obama negotiating a non-proliferation deal with Iran and trying to find a negotiated settlement to the conflicts with Russia and Syria), and then being succeeded by a populist demagogue who demonizes entire races of people (the Andorians) in the person of Ishan Anjar (parallels to the rise of Donald Trump and his treatment of Latinos, Muslims, and other minorities)....

... I mean, it's not exact, and I doubt it was intended, but it's awful hard not to see Nan Bacco as TrekLit's answer to Barack Obama for most of these last eight years.

 

[ryan123450]

I will echo everything everyone so far has said (at least the non political stuff). Alot of really great examples you've all come up with so far.

On a more personal note, TrekLit has done plenty of good in my life. I've met lots of great people on this board and off of it because of being a part of this community, several of which I consider my friends. I have a fun hobby in building and keeping up the Litverse Reading Guide.

Because of the post series continuity I'm able to still follow the characters I've loved from my favorite shows as a kid and teen, and that connects my back to those years in a fun and enjoyable way. And I've always been a nerd about keeping track of different Star Trek minutia, as a way to take a break from the troubles of the real world, and I'm grateful for TrekLit's continuation of the franchise, because that gives me an oppurtunity to continue doing that ten years after the shows ended.

And if it wasn't for TrekLit, Star Trek would have died for me years ago, and I probably wouldn't even have been interested in the new films or Discovery.

 

[USS Firefly]

I agree with all of the above.
And I love continuity in the books.

 

[Jinn]

Then there's also Gell Kamemor who is probably my favorite Romualn.

Also TrekLit is single handedly responsible for some of the stories set in my favorite Trek century, the 20th century. Greg Coy and Dayton Ward did a great job at connecting all the stuff we know about that century as well as the episodes and because those hundred years feature not nearly as much stories as the 22nd, 23rd or 24th century it can be read (and watched) in a couple of weeks. Also the fact that there is a book that is basically a Captain Proton magazine is just awesome.

 

[VDCNI]

Oh so many things. Though I have my issues with certain bits at the moment as mentioned in the other thread generally it's a very positive story.

New stories with favourite characters.
Moving those characters on in new and interesting ways. Though I don't object to the odd story set in the TV years one of the joys of the books are seeing characters change and grow.
Now they're not in a holding pattern waiting for the next love interest of the week we get to see strong relationships between characters like Picard and Crusher.
The DS9 relaunch, after Unity it wobbled but up to then it may be my favourite run of Star Trek stories ever.
The Voyager relaunch. Even more astonishing as unlike DS9 it didn't have as much to work with. I barely watched the last two seasons of the show but love this.
Vanguard. I'm not a fan of TOS so it took me a while to try out this but what a great series. Yes not every plot line works but overall this is an astonishingly high quality series.
Rise Of The Federation and DTI. This is all thanks to Mr Bennett. I doubt any other writer would have got me reading these as neither concept was particularly interesting to me.
Increased diversity. Freed from the limitations of the TV series we got to see a much bigger range of races and sexuality and a less western centric feel to the series as a whole. Best seen in the Titan series but all the books have done it well.
Articles of the Federation - just a great book.
Destiny - a fantastic balance of epic action and human story telling.
New ensembles. Though I like most of the new characters the key for me is seeing them interact with each other and the TV cast. Bashir, Dax and Nog working with Vaughn, Bowers and Shar or how much we found about Ro through her interactions with Kira and Quark.
This forum! I came to Trek BBS to see what people were saying about the books and its still the section I hang around the most.
Long journeys. I fly to Australia in a few weeks and I know I'll be downloading Destiny and the DS9 relaunch onto my Kindle to help pass the time.

 

[starri]

David Mack finding a way to make the Borg scary again.

Diversity. Yes, in terms of ethnicities and sexual orientation and gender, but also with aliens that would either be too expensive or impossible to depict onscreen. Can you imagine a weekly series trying to do Jetanian or Chaka or Hulian?

The idea that religious beliefs aren't necessarily something that would disappear even after we discover that aliens are real. And I'm saying that as an atheist.

 

[ryan123450]

I now the "complaints" thread has been going on alot longer than this one, but it's sad that on a board devoted to TrekLit, this thread now has only 10 replies and the other thread has 16 pages. Strange and dissapointing.

 

[Markonian]

Not surprising. One is easier prompted to complain rather than shower praise for something that is going well. The sales numbers represent the silent majority.

 

[Jinn]

I now the "complaints" thread has been going on alot longer than this one, but it's sad that on a board devoted to TrekLit, this thread now has only 10 replies and the other thread has 16 pages. Strange and dissapointing.

Well, the complain threat has a lot more to discuss about. This is basically everyone saying what they like in one post.

 

[JD]

I now the "complaints" thread has been going on alot longer than this one, but it's sad that on a board devoted to TrekLit, this thread now has only 10 replies and the other thread has 16 pages. Strange and dissapointing.

It's still picking up, but I was really hoping this thread would grow as fast as the complaints thread did.

 

[Christopher]

Uh-oh. Now the good-things thread is getting complaints about how it's less active than the complaints thread? Should those complaints go in the complaints thread instead? But then there'd be even more complaints in the complaints thread! I'm so confused!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Yo dawg, I hear you like to complain, so we made a complaints thread where you can complain about people complaining.

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[Desert Kris]

...explaining the TNG crew's odd behavior in first season...

This interests me...what's the explanation? Alternatively, what book (or books) is this developed in. Or both!

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

This interests me...what's the explanation? Alternatively, what book (or books) is this developed in. Or both!

I think in specific, this is regarding The Buried Age, the book that bridges the gap between the loss of the Stargazer and Picard taking command of the Enterprise. The latter portion of the book shows what brings about Picard assembling this particular command staff for the Enterprise (well, we sort of see it throughout, but that's where it all solidifies), so it helps to sort of smooth over some of the portrayals that are a little off-kilter in season one in comparison to later TNG. Like the one that stands out in my mind in specific is Picard telling Worf that he wants Worf to diversify beyond security, leading to him being the sort of floating position filler he served as until Tasha's death, which, presumably, is part of why Worf is made security chief when that happens, rather than some other Assistant Chief who'd served under Tasha.

 

[Tirius]

The great thing of Trek Lit for me has always been that it can do stuff the shows and movies can't. Many consecutive series, bigger scopes with dozens of recurring characters, more alien worlds/people and extending the life of the series well beyond the normal running time of a tv show. Challenging the boundaries of the status quo while still being Star Trek at its core. Books like Articles of the Federation, The Buried Age and the DTI novels would never have been possible in a regular tv series, but they number among the finest Trek tales out there. And on the other hand, we also have the continuation for characters/places we all know and love in the form of things like the DS9 en VGR post-finale novels. In the absense of a regular tv series these past years, the novels have become what keeps Trek alive for me, and the way things stand - I can't see even Discovery replacing them in that spot anymore.

 

[stardream]

I LIKE the interconnected stories. I like the idea of the characters from the different series knowing and interacting with one another. I like the idea of when a crisis occurs (such as the assassination of Bacco) we see the effects it has on all of them. I see it as one BIG story rather than neat little divisions of DS9, TNG, Titan etc. Voyager is a bit apart but it's still part of 'that' universe.

Having said that, I've reached the point where the Enterprise and Titan are now finally free of the politics back home and are back to exploring (which is what Voyager is doing in the Delta Quadrant). I'm finding I'm enjoying this just as much as I did the political intrigue and 'cold war' stories.