Help me restore my excitement of Trek Lit

[RonG]

Hi all,

I haven't posted a lot lately and I wanted to share a personal opinion which dawned at me a short while ago, when I received VOY: Children of the Storm, Vanguard Declassified and TOS: Cast No Shadow.

I finally realized that I hadn’t felt excited –really excited—by a Trek novel in almost 3 years. Since Destiny concluded, as a matter of fact.

That's not to say that there haven't been good and even excellent novels out during those last 3-ish years:

Vanguard continues to be the highlight of the Trek lit world IMO, and once concluded, I'm sure it will stand as a shining example of a multi-novel series.
But all the same, it's more like a suspenseful TV series rather than a min series or a movie, if that makes sense.

Kirsten Beyer's Voyager novels are a delight, actually making me a fan of VOY for the first time ever. CLB's DTI Watching the Clock, Mack's Sorrows of Empire and KRAD's ASD were also fantastic. But none of these actually made me pull an all-nighter because I couldn't leave it…

Destiny seems to be IMO the apex of the Trek lit universe so far – I had already posted many times my opinion on it, so I don’t want to go into an analysis / review of this work, but suffice to say, that since its completion, the line as a whole seems a bit *meh* to me..


I would very much like your opinions on this.. how do you think I can restore my excitement from Trek lit??

 

[DimesDan]

how do you think I can restore my excitement from Trek lit??

I don't know.

I'm sure I've never actually felt excitement over the release of a Trek book, I've been keen to read some, but never truly felt excited.

It's nothing I've actually thought about and thinking about it now, I don't see what the fuss is about.

 

[RonG]

I've been reading Trek lit since the early 1990's almost non-stop.

Basically, since 2000, the modern Trek universe (DS9 Relaunch, etc) has been a constant source of entertainment and excitement.

Lately (since the end of 2008, to be exact), that's no longer the case.

maybe it should point out to me that I've gotten all that I can from modern Trek lit, but that very thpught is a bit sad, personally speaking..

 

[Sci]

About the only thing I can offer is this:

Saying that Destiny was the "apex" of Trek Lit is like saying that Trek Lit is all one story and Destiny was its climax. But Trek Lit is not a story; it is a common setting for many, many different stories. Stories that differ in tone, genre, style, and pacing. So I think you may just be looking at it wrong.

 

[Csalem]

I use to feel excited ten years ago when I started reading Trek because I could go into the shop and be surprised by all these 'new' books on the shelves. That stopped when i got onto the net and could find out months in advance what books were coming and what they were about.

 

[Idran]

I finally realized that I hadn’t felt excited –really excited—by a Trek novel in almost 3 years. Since Destiny concluded, as a matter of fact.

It might help if you tell us what books in particular in the past have given you the sort of excitement you're looking to recapture.

 

[wahwahkits]

I used to look forward to most Trek novels but not since the truly awful Typhon Pact. Hopefully TNG 25th anniversary books will restore my faith.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm really curious to see how Treklit deals with the 2387 supernova and, if they go in a Countdownish direction (which I hope they do - in a vague Superman Returns kinda way), Picard stepping down from command and Data returning from the grave.

It's once the post-Romulus direction is established that I wonder if my interest will remain.

 

[RonG]

About the only thing I can offer is this:
Saying that Destiny was the "apex" of Trek Lit is like saying that Trek Lit is all one story and Destiny was its climax. But Trek Lit is not a story; it is a common setting for many, many different stories. Stories that differ in tone, genre, style, and pacing. So I think you may just be looking at it wrong.

you're right, of course. Trek lit has a wide range of stories. It's just that as I stated in my OP, while many were good, none were *jaw-dropping* good, or as highly anticipated (personally speaking only of course).

It might help if you tell us what books in particular in the past have given you the sort of excitement you're looking to recapture.

series-wise - I used to love DS9R, IKS Gorkon, New Frontier,SCE and later Lost Era, ATT Vanguard and the early Titan. I used to love the epic scope stories like Federation, Millennium trilogy, Q-Squared, Vendetta etc.

I used to look forward to most Trek novels but not since the truly awful Typhon Pact. Hopefully TNG 25th anniversary books will restore my faith.

This here may be a large part of what's turned me "off", so to speak. Following Destiny, I thought ASD was a great setup for the 24th century Trek, and Full Circle was fantastic in its own right. However, of the the TNG/TTN novels post-destiny, I think only Synthesis (sp?) and Losing the Peace were to my liking.
The Typhon Pact novels were a disappointment to me, as each (most) of them had good points, but overall, as a "mini series" it felt very bland to me.

 

[Stoek]

Well I think Tyler Durden said it best when he said, "You decide your own level of (excitement)."

The best advice I can give you is to just keep reading. Sometimes these things are cyclical and you're just going through a fallow period.

When you least expect it you'll be reading the latest Trek Lit offering and suddenly that old feeling will be back.

 

[Christopher]

Could it be that it's not the books that have changed, but the broader context of your life? As time passes, people go through changes, and their priorities can shift. Maybe something else in your life has become the focus of your excitement. And that's not a bad thing. As long as you still find a thing enjoyable, it's okay if that enjoyment doesn't feel as urgent as it used to, if you're more relaxed about it. Change isn't always for the better or worse. Sometimes it's just change.

(And hey, if you're not staying up all night to read, that's not a bad thing either. A regular sleep cycle is good for your health.)

 

[RonG]

it could very well be that as Christopher said, the broader context of life (divorce, re-marriage and family plans come to mind ) may have put Trek lit at a lower "priority" these last few years.

that, coupled with the (IMO) fluctuating quality of Trek lit these last few years (due to editorial direction changing more than once?), may help explain my feeling.

Last, I think Stoek also has a great point - one which I'll try to go by

thanks, guys! you've been a great help, and a reminder of one of the best advantages of Trek lit - this board!

 

[Christopher]

Wow, if you're planning to start a family (congratulations), it's no wonder the novels aren't as great a preoccupation anymore. But just think how much fun it'll be to introduce your kids to Star Trek a few years down the road.

 

[RonG]

Wow, if you're planning to start a family (congratulations), it's no wonder the novels aren't as great a preoccupation anymore. But just think how much fun it'll be to introduce your kids to Star Trek a few years down the road.

My plan exactly, Christopher!
Trek and Comics for the young'uns, just like their old man!

 

[bfollowell]

it could very well be that as Christopher said, the broader context of life (divorce, re-marriage and family plans come to mind ) may have put Trek lit at a lower "priority" these last few years.

that, coupled with the (IMO) fluctuating quality of Trek lit these last few years (due to editorial direction changing more than once?), may help explain my feeling.

I find this really funny because my interest has returned for similar reasons as your excitement may have waned. Divorce from someone that always put me down because of my ST interest, remarriage to someone that supports me in any and everything I do, regardless of whether it interests her or not and the fact that my kids are all getting older (all but one of my seven kids; biological, adopted and step are all 18 or older and my youngest is 12) Not having to be such a hands-on parent and hopefully having at least a few years before grandkids start popping up has freed up enormous amounts of time for me to reacquaint myself with TrekLit and I'm loving every minute of it.

- Byron

 

[Therin of Andor]

My voracious reading of Treklit is directly related to the length and comfort levels of my daily commute to and from work. Wonderful when I was traveling by train for four hours per day, and no playground duty at lunch. Unluckily, I now live a mere 15 min. walk from work and am on duty during lunchtimes (eating on the run) - and I get only one long commute per week, when I travel to the CBD to collect my book and toy stash. Hard to get too excited about novels you don't get time to read.

 

[DorkBoy [TM]]

I think I know exactly what Ron means. (Not the "life" part, but back to the books part...)

Destiny was good. Really good. I wouldn't say it was the climax of the novels by any stretch, but it was sort of a mountaintop experience. Sort of like the DS9 relaunch was up to and including Unity (and how disappointing it was afterward).

After that, there's this feeling of "Where does it go from there? I can't wait!" I had a lot of excitement for the Typhon Pact books. They weren't bad, but not great either. Its just really hard to follow up on something as awesome as Destiny and you can't really maintain that same level of intensity, its just not possible. So they felt like a bit of a letdown. (Judging from the reviews here, I think a lot of people felt the same.)

I've been reading and collecting Trek since the mid-80s, and I kind of go through cycles of interest, too, as far as needing a break from Trek or certain serieses within Trek.

For a while during the late-90s I got absolutely burned out on the "planet of the week" standalone like-an-episode books. To the point that, for a long while I stopped reading. (I've gone back and caught up since, at various points, at least in the serieses I care about.)

Anyhow, in recent years I've swung the other way. Most every book is "a very special" type of story. Used to be, those were the books I really looked forward to. (At one point I stopped reading anything but hardcovers and "giant" paperbacks.) Now that they're all that way, I kind of miss the bland-old episode books like I got sick of in the 90s and early 00s.

I find myself really looking forward to some of the upcoming novels again though; I noticed there are quite a few old school TOS standalones, including the one coming up here in September.

Meanwhile, I've been digging through my to-be-read pile and finding that some of the 90s books in serieses I wasn't into and wasn't reading (aka Enterprise and Voyager) are really scratching that itch for me. What's cool is, there are quite a few old books in these serieses that I've never bought or read.

Just last night, I ordered the few remaining TNG / TOS books I've never read from a used books site. (The "Errand of Fury" trilogy, and "Tooth and Claw.") I'd skipped them at the time, but lately I've just really felt like reading this sort of thing.

As far as recent serieses that are REALLY doing it for me in recent years, it's Voyager, Titan, and Vanguard. Vanguard is just awesome, and the other two are the ones doing all the "seeking out strange new worlds" while the big-E is stuck cleaning up post-Borg messes.

 

[BrotherBenny]

My wife is supportive of me, but she tempers my impulsiveness, so it's a good balance. I buy all the books and read them when I can, usually pushing ST to the front of the line.

Dorkboy, the plural of series is series, not serieses.

Sorry to be a pain, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people add unnecessary suffixes.

 

[bfollowell]

Dorkboy, the plural of series is series, not serieses.

Sorry to be a pain, but it's a pet peeve of mine when people add unnecessary suffixes.

I know what you mean. There's someone on here that's always typing also as "all so" and it bugs the heck out of me. I don't know why spelling and punctuation seem to bother me so, but they do. I try not to say anything most times though because next time it'll likely be me typing something incorrectly! Besides, most everyone on here are nice enough people that I figure, if the worst they have going for them is poor grammar, they're still great people to be around. Heck they're Star Trek fans after all!

- Byron

 

[Christopher]

^Shouldn't that be "suffices?" (Just kidding...)