Sorry I didn't find that one.
How did you come to Trek-Lit
- Thread starter Jinn
- Start date
Sorry I didn't find that one.
I used to have a bigger ST book collection. But I lost some of the books I had in one of my moves. Including, and this is heartbreaking, a copy of Della Van Hise's novel "The Killing Time." I have another copy but the one I lost was autographed by the author.
I have been away from the Star Trek fandom for a while and have just gotten back into it over the past few years. I have used e bay to get some books I wanted. I had a handful I managed to keep close to me.
Some of my fave books that I have are "Yesterday's Son and Time for Yesterday." by A.C. Crispin. "Strangers from the Sky." and "Dwellers in the Crucible." By Margaret Wander Bonanno.
I've been taking books out of the public library. Right now I'm reading "Child of Two Worlds." about my FAVE character. Spock. (I LOVE Spock!)
Am pretty sure the first Star Trek novel I got was Spock, Messiah! lol, and I think even probably read it. But perhaps I also got Spock Must Die though not when it first came out (1970), since I wasn't a Trekkie yet then.
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I honestly don't recall what the first Trek novel/comic I read was. It was probably around 1990 or so (I was probably around 9 or 10) and it was probably a numbered TNG novel (TNG was my favorite Trek at the time). It was probably a birthday or Christmas gift, since I didn't really have money to buy novels for myself back then.
I'd guess late 70s for me and it was one of the James Blish ones. I'm not sure which one though.
I was introduced by a friend (with the nickname T´Pesh) to Star Trek (shows, movies) in the nineties. That's when I started reading and collecting the novels. Enterprise ist the only show I never watched completely (I never got hooked), so I've only read Enterprise short stories.
I prefer reading the German editions but I like also English editions, as it is almost impossible to translate everything into German. There was a change of German publishers and a big gap where no books were translated at all.
I prefer reading the German editions but I like also English editions, as it is almost impossible to translate everything into German. There was a change of German publishers and a big gap where no books were translated at all.
Well, John Ordover called me up and asked if I wanted to write a novel based on some upcoming new show called DEEP SPACE NINE . . . .
Oh, you meant how did I come to start reading TrekLit?
Honestly, I can't remember back that far. Probably one of the Blish collections back in the sixties and, much later, I remember picking up the novelization of the first movie, which got me started reading Trek books again.
Oh, you meant how did I come to start reading TrekLit?
Honestly, I can't remember back that far. Probably one of the Blish collections back in the sixties and, much later, I remember picking up the novelization of the first movie, which got me started reading Trek books again.
It was a long slow road getting into ST lit, and I think I will be far behind for all time. I mainly stick with TOS and TNG (with doses of New Frontier thrown in). I'm just too slow of a reader, and my head can only contain so much in terms of continuity. I latched onto the concept of the 80's TOS novel continuity as a useful "back to basics" that's a little bit of a reaction to the loss of 4 Star Trek (2009) continuity novels. I was looking forward to novels featuring the reimagined TOS crew from the Abrams movie, but without those the 80's TOS novel continuity is a nice ready made alternative.
A lot of the books I've collected to this end are books that I came close to reading when I was much younger. I remember checking a lot of them out at the library, or having family check them out for me, but they were just too big for me and I was too young back then. My earliest start with Trek lit was with novelizations of the movies, particularly The Voyage Home, when it was so popular. I gravitated towards Alan Dean Foster's log books, when I realized that they were the stories I had seen of the Animated series when my family went to see extended family in Boston.
The one book that I owned was Diane Carey's Final Frontier. The old problem of it being to big for me at too young an age persisted, and I plugged away at it over the course of a couple of months. I never read it properly that first time, skipping backwards and forwards, loosing my place, deliberately skipping the parts that were about the Romulans...it was a mess. I still have that original copy of the book today, it's so beat up! And I did get around to reading it properly, and every 5-7 years I pull it out and read through it.
I started reading more properly around the time that TNG was coming on TV. When Peter David's Vendetta came out, that was a no-brainer! Vendetta kind of has the First Contact movie beat, as an epic Borg story (I've not followed the relaunch of TNG, so the Borg haven't quite been oversaturated for me). The harcover of Imzadi drew my attention because I noticed what I thought was the Guardian of Forever on the cover, really loved that book.
I've never really read Trek lit regularly, until recently. I collected and read books here and there, mainly gravitating towards newer event books. Best Destiny was a slightly disappointing follow up to Final Frontier. Reeve-Stevens's Federation was incredible, and great early practice for having a fluid perspective on continuity when the First Contact movie came out later. With Federation I discovered that Reeve-Stevens were authors that I really liked, so naturally I gave Prime Directive a try after having steered clear years earlier. Reeve-Stevens have helped me to keep an eye out for and appreciate ST characters and episodes I wouldn't have bothered with, if they hadn't made them compelling, so years later when I had the chance to watch every episode of TOS, I was able to appreciate more of the stories.
I've gone back to chase after big event novels that I missed years ago, and happily discovered that they are part of the 80's TOS continuity I'm now reading more of. The scarcity of ST television and movie, combined with a renewed spark of enthusiasm brought on by the 2009 Star Trek movie lead to a snowball effect of me collecting a lot more ST books, and making more time for them in my reading schedule.
A lot of the books I've collected to this end are books that I came close to reading when I was much younger. I remember checking a lot of them out at the library, or having family check them out for me, but they were just too big for me and I was too young back then. My earliest start with Trek lit was with novelizations of the movies, particularly The Voyage Home, when it was so popular. I gravitated towards Alan Dean Foster's log books, when I realized that they were the stories I had seen of the Animated series when my family went to see extended family in Boston.
The one book that I owned was Diane Carey's Final Frontier. The old problem of it being to big for me at too young an age persisted, and I plugged away at it over the course of a couple of months. I never read it properly that first time, skipping backwards and forwards, loosing my place, deliberately skipping the parts that were about the Romulans...it was a mess. I still have that original copy of the book today, it's so beat up! And I did get around to reading it properly, and every 5-7 years I pull it out and read through it.
I started reading more properly around the time that TNG was coming on TV. When Peter David's Vendetta came out, that was a no-brainer! Vendetta kind of has the First Contact movie beat, as an epic Borg story (I've not followed the relaunch of TNG, so the Borg haven't quite been oversaturated for me). The harcover of Imzadi drew my attention because I noticed what I thought was the Guardian of Forever on the cover, really loved that book.
I've never really read Trek lit regularly, until recently. I collected and read books here and there, mainly gravitating towards newer event books. Best Destiny was a slightly disappointing follow up to Final Frontier. Reeve-Stevens's Federation was incredible, and great early practice for having a fluid perspective on continuity when the First Contact movie came out later. With Federation I discovered that Reeve-Stevens were authors that I really liked, so naturally I gave Prime Directive a try after having steered clear years earlier. Reeve-Stevens have helped me to keep an eye out for and appreciate ST characters and episodes I wouldn't have bothered with, if they hadn't made them compelling, so years later when I had the chance to watch every episode of TOS, I was able to appreciate more of the stories.
I've gone back to chase after big event novels that I missed years ago, and happily discovered that they are part of the 80's TOS continuity I'm now reading more of. The scarcity of ST television and movie, combined with a renewed spark of enthusiasm brought on by the 2009 Star Trek movie lead to a snowball effect of me collecting a lot more ST books, and making more time for them in my reading schedule.
I can't imagine re-reading any Diane Carey book more than once. Some of them are so awful I can't imagine re-reading them at all.
Reeve-Stevens's Federation was incredible, and great early practice for having a fluid perspective on continuity when the First Contact movie came out later. [/quote]
Federation is what First Contact should have been. Federation is one of my absolute favorite Star Trek novels, and that's the characterization of Zephram Cochrane that makes sense to me. The one in the movie is just a dumb caricature, and for me the only redeeming part of that movie at all is Lily. I liked her, and how she stood up to Picard.
And that closing bit of Federation...? That's a perfect jumping off place for a new series. It can go literally anywhere.
Odd: I rather like her stuff. Don't particularly care for her politics, and I particularly don't care for her habit of putting extreme libertarianism into Vulcans' mouths, but personally, I regard her "Piper" novels as examples of how much fun a "Mary Sue" can be if it's really done right.
I'm sure there are a few ST authors (beyond the obvious Marshak/Culbreath duo) who made it into Pocket releases whose stuff I find utterly unreadable, but none of them come to mind. Most of the really bad ones never made it out of Bantam. (Gordon Eklund comes to mind: who else would have come up with Devil World? -- probably the only thing out of either of his two ST novels that didn't stink was the throwaway bit in The Starless World about flying at "Disneymoon")
I've often described Memory Prime as the first Star Trek novel I ever read, but I'm not actually sure that's the case--I know I signed it out of my junior high's library, but I also bought both Timetrap and the novelisation of "Encounter at Farpoint" around that time (late 1987/early 1988). The former of those two titles is just as likely a candidate.
Well, yeah, they're not always a win. I don't necessarily agree with the philosophy that is core to Final Frontier's story line, I just like that proto-crew that predates Captain Pike's "proto-crew." Fun bunch of characters. Cool to have the idea of a top secret maiden voyage for the Enterprise; she's not even finished, she hasn't even been named, but we know what ship we're reading about.
The book she wrote about the Enterprise-E? Gaudy and unfocused, a travesty of a book that should have been something else entirely.
The follow up to Final Frontier was okay, and I though it was neat that I had read one of the books that was drawn on for a little bit of inspiration for JJ Abram's first ST movie. I was hoping for something a little different than what the book actually was, but it was okay.
First Frontier was fun enough.
Her prose agrees with me, most of the time, the politics sometimes not.
I liked both Federation and First Contact, so even though I recognized that they are such different interpretations of how those formative events unfold, I never really worried about which one mattered. I think I was just glad that First Contact was so much better than Generations, for one thing! I liked the new Enterprise that First Contact established. I preferred the poetic and dignified Zefram Cochrane that Federation gave us (I hadn't watched the TOS episode he appeared in at that point). I liked the both versions of humanity living on the edge while their warp technology develops as an unprioritized side project. Federation and First Contact offered different things, and I was receptive to both: Federation gives a more in depth look, First Contact gives some rock n' roll fun. That's just me, I know.
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My first Trek reading experience was the novelization of TMP in Dcmber 1979, I used to think. I read it before seeing the movie, after knowing only random TAS and TOS.
Over the next few weeks of 1980, I started finding new(!) and second hand Bantam/Corgi and Ballantine/Corgi books. I read "The Fate of the Phoenix" long before reading "Price" - and before seeing "The Enterprise Incident". One day, I spotted a tatty, scond hand "Star Trek: Mission to Horatius" by Mack Reynolds on the shelf... for about $AU 70!
Then I remembered... As children in the 60s, my brother and I both read his copy of "Mission to Horatius". We enjoyed it, and my brother's long forgotten book secretly made its way into my growing ST collection in 1980. The book's content wasn't anything Earth-shattering, at least not for us, although it may have piqued our curiosity for TAS when we found that in b/w on Saturday mornings in the 70s.
Update: Ah! I had an entry in the other thread!
Where and when you started reading Trek....
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A couple years ago, I was getting a craving for new Trek and wanted to go back to the trek I grew up with, the 24th Century. I ended up reading the DS9 relaunch and the last book I read was Unity. I'm currently reading a non-trek book now, but I will get to Worlds of DS9 eventually. I think after those series of books, I want to go over to Voyager and read Homecoming and Further Shore.
I loved DS9: The Way of the Warrior so I sought out the novelization at the time.
BBC 2 used to show Star Trek TNG at 6pm and throughout the 1990sI used to watch the first three minutes before I had my dinner and then the last fifteen minutes. Then around 1999 I decided to get back into it properly and start recording the shows. I also decided to start to read the novelisations to catch up on what I missed. First four books I bought were All Good Things, First Contact, Caretaker and Dominion War: Book 1. I didn't realise the last one was a pure novel and not novelisation. I loved all the books but Dominion War was brilliant so seeked out more novels.
My local library had a few Trek books and one of them was New Frontier: Book 5. I tried reading it but knew none of the characters and didn't finished it. I decided to stick to the TV series books but a few months later found NF 1-4, bought it and loved it.
Special mention too for The Return by Shatner which was also an early read and another I thoroughly enjoyed.
One other thing that impacted on my reading was that I got my first part-time job late in 1999 so now had money to spend on books and 45-minute train journey into and out of work, so had plenty of time to read and devour the books.
My local library had a few Trek books and one of them was New Frontier: Book 5. I tried reading it but knew none of the characters and didn't finished it. I decided to stick to the TV series books but a few months later found NF 1-4, bought it and loved it.
Special mention too for The Return by Shatner which was also an early read and another I thoroughly enjoyed.
One other thing that impacted on my reading was that I got my first part-time job late in 1999 so now had money to spend on books and 45-minute train journey into and out of work, so had plenty of time to read and devour the books.
Hmmm... I can't say that I can positively remember which Trek novel I read first.
I know I watched TOS in syndication as a kid (I was part of the second generation of Trek fans who grew up watching it in the 70s). I went to see TMP in the theaters in 79-80, and found it boring. I think my Trek fandom waned after that, because when TWOK came around in 1982, I remember thinking, "Well, the first movie wasn't very good, why should the second one be any better?"
Apparently, I was a very cynical 10-year old.
I saw TSFS with some friends when I was in junior high in '84, and that basically re-triggered my affection for Trek. I know that not too long after that, I picked up the DC Comics adaptation of STIII, and issue #9 of the regular comic, which continued the story of Kirk's crew after the movie. And I remember that by the time I was in high school ('86-'90), I and several of my friends were reading Trek novels, but I'm at a loss as to which one I started with. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was Enterprise: The First Adventure, as reading about Kirk's first mission on the Enterprise definitely would've intrigued me. But oddly enough, I didn't like that one too much. I did get a copy of Spock's World in hardcover back in the day, and I remember really loving D.C. Fontana's Vulcan's Glory. I remember high school classmates telling me about other books like The Final Reflection and The Romulan Way, although I didn't read them for myself until years later.
I know I watched TOS in syndication as a kid (I was part of the second generation of Trek fans who grew up watching it in the 70s). I went to see TMP in the theaters in 79-80, and found it boring. I think my Trek fandom waned after that, because when TWOK came around in 1982, I remember thinking, "Well, the first movie wasn't very good, why should the second one be any better?"
Apparently, I was a very cynical 10-year old.I saw TSFS with some friends when I was in junior high in '84, and that basically re-triggered my affection for Trek. I know that not too long after that, I picked up the DC Comics adaptation of STIII, and issue #9 of the regular comic, which continued the story of Kirk's crew after the movie. And I remember that by the time I was in high school ('86-'90), I and several of my friends were reading Trek novels, but I'm at a loss as to which one I started with. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was Enterprise: The First Adventure, as reading about Kirk's first mission on the Enterprise definitely would've intrigued me. But oddly enough, I didn't like that one too much. I did get a copy of Spock's World in hardcover back in the day, and I remember really loving D.C. Fontana's Vulcan's Glory. I remember high school classmates telling me about other books like The Final Reflection and The Romulan Way, although I didn't read them for myself until years later.
Well My first read was Guises of the Mind (Star Trek The Next Generation, No 27) i know this as my school library got it in for me special as I had just learned to read novels in Year 7 as i had a learning disability and only just learned and i love star trek so the school help out by getting it. Tho i can not say i remember it in any way.
The first book i Bought with my own money ( 1997 ish) was only a month later it was Q-Squeared By Peter David and i Love it and began reading all of his work.
I have been reading Star trek from then on However I am so far be hide atm only just at the end of Typhon pact series and although I have been buying all the TOS and seeker books etc as they come out but have not even open the covers as i am to stuck in the relaunch time line,
I have a massive collection But full of holes i have since re got them all on my Ereader so the hole are gone. this being in Australia we had a book supplier crash around the middle of the relaunch and missed most of the DS9 books and only have them on ebooks. but have most of the relaunch books so happy me and loving them all the all the way
Tho i did buy Crossover as my second book and have never finished it Just found i don't like MJF writing style.
The first book i Bought with my own money ( 1997 ish) was only a month later it was Q-Squeared By Peter David and i Love it and began reading all of his work.
I have been reading Star trek from then on However I am so far be hide atm only just at the end of Typhon pact series and although I have been buying all the TOS and seeker books etc as they come out but have not even open the covers as i am to stuck in the relaunch time line,
I have a massive collection But full of holes i have since re got them all on my Ereader so the hole are gone. this being in Australia we had a book supplier crash around the middle of the relaunch and missed most of the DS9 books and only have them on ebooks. but have most of the relaunch books so happy me and loving them all the all the way
Tho i did buy Crossover as my second book and have never finished it Just found i don't like MJF writing style.
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