I'm a big fan of the DS9 novel The 34th Rule, co-written by Armin Shimerman.
I want to go home again...
- Thread starter Chancellor M'rek
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I'm pretty sure we shouldn't have to pay for books if we're being messed with.
I don't know how serious you were about that, but one could argue that messing with readers' heads is a big part of our job description: you want to surprise them, stir their emotions, make them care about imaginary characters and situations, keep them guessing, and hopefully pull the rug out from beneath them from time to time.
And some of us can seldom resist going for a laugh once and a while.
Yes.
I didn't say it had to be my way or nothing at all. I said I'd like to see a situation where we both got what we wanted. Here's an example of what I meant. One month, a TNG novel set in the current timeframe (the relaunch) and then the next TNG novel set during the days of the show. You quoted that post. I'd suggest re-reading it.You talk about status quo as if doing novels set during the shows are the only option. Like I stated about, bit of both is good man.
And I respect that you feel that it has to be either the way you used to like it or nothing at all, but that's kinda black and white isn't? I mean, we live in a world where multiple options are available to us.
that's what I was worried about!I'll have to think, I've read a lot of the in-series novels.
Or 9-10 books a year, which appears to be what we're getting in 2017. Is this an accident of scheduling issues, or is the line being cut back to fewer titles a year?
Probably the former.
Discovery. Both the impact on Kirsten Beyer's schedule so far as her novel commitment, and the need to move Dave Mack's DSC novel out of its scheduled slot due to the delay in the show's premiere wreaked a bit of havoc on things.
(This actually helps to illustrate just how insane maintaining a schedule of regular tie-in publications can be. Even with editors working with writers who've been doing this a while, a hiccup from somewhere above your pay grade can still cause a train or two to veer off the tracks. TV can do that and adjust fairly quickly, but publishing takes a bit longer to course correct.)
(This actually helps to illustrate just how insane maintaining a schedule of regular tie-in publications can be. Even with editors working with writers who've been doing this a while, a hiccup from somewhere above your pay grade can still cause a train or two to veer off the tracks. TV can do that and adjust fairly quickly, but publishing takes a bit longer to course correct.)
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Welcome to the Trek BBS - threads take on a mind of their own around here sometimes!
I actually wondered if maybe that was your intent when I read your first post, but the thread was already along its merry way by then . . .
To give some suggestions:
Some of my favorites that I remember from TNG
- Masks and War Drums - both by John Vornholt;
- Q-in-Law by Peter David is a classic, unless you dislike either Q or Lwaxana, then pass on it;
- The Romulan Strategem - by Robert Greenberger
- both of the "giant" novels, Metamorphosis by Jean Lorrah, and Vendetta by Peter David
- Imzadi by Peter David and Dark Mirror by Diane Duane, both originally published as hardcovers
From DS9, I remember Fallen Heroes by Daffyd ab Hugh being quite good, and I know it's a favorite of many around here. I stopped reading DS9 novels after the first dozen or so and didn't start them again until the relaunch, so that's all that comes to mind.
I've never been a big Voyager fan - I only read the first 4 or 5 novels, but none of them stand out in my mind.
Hope that's a start to the answers you really wanted!
I didn't say it had to be my way or nothing at all. I said I'd like to see a situation where we both got what we wanted. Here's an example of what I meant. One month, a TNG novel set in the current timeframe (the relaunch) and then the next TNG novel set during the days of the show. You quoted that post. I'd suggest re-reading it.
The post where you said things needed to go back to status quo? Where the people who liked novels set after the shows had their time and it was time to go back? To me, it felt like you were saying two different things there.
thanks, i started reading Metamorphosis last night. It's a bit odd, what with a cat roaming the halls of the ship, pre-Spot not really liking Data. Oh well a freighter just got in trouble and they are using Wesley's super triple tractor beam, when I had to go to sleep.
I read a bunch of intraseries DS9 novels a couple years ago in tandem with a rewatch of the show. I particularly liked Warchild (season 1), Fallen Heroes (season 2), Time's Enemy (season 3), and Hollow Men (season 6). (You can read all of my reviews here.)
Some good TNG ones that come to mind are Survivors (season 1), Dark Mirror (season 4), and Intellivore (season 8, I guess).
Tie-in fiction is always going to fundamentally nostalgic, and I believe you're deluding yourself if you think otherwise-- if you really wanted something "new" you wouldn't be reading books based on a tv show that went off the air decades ago. Like, there's a million books out there doing something more interesting than Star Trek novels. But on the other hand, something that's 100% nostalgic doesn't really have a reason to exist when you can just rewatch the originals.
So tie-in fiction has to balance those two factors, and the best tie-in fiction is both nostalgic and new simultaneously. However, everyone of course is going to want those factors balanced at different points. I don't know that I want a glut of novels set during the television series per se, but I do know that while the early DS9 relaunch novels really effectively balanced nostalgia and newness, the TNG relaunch was so different that there was little for me to be nostalgic for, and I think that's a mistake. It might just be that my tastes have changed, though. (Personally speaking, of course. Clearly it works for a lot of people.)
Some good TNG ones that come to mind are Survivors (season 1), Dark Mirror (season 4), and Intellivore (season 8, I guess).
Tie-in fiction is always going to fundamentally nostalgic, and I believe you're deluding yourself if you think otherwise-- if you really wanted something "new" you wouldn't be reading books based on a tv show that went off the air decades ago. Like, there's a million books out there doing something more interesting than Star Trek novels. But on the other hand, something that's 100% nostalgic doesn't really have a reason to exist when you can just rewatch the originals.
So tie-in fiction has to balance those two factors, and the best tie-in fiction is both nostalgic and new simultaneously. However, everyone of course is going to want those factors balanced at different points. I don't know that I want a glut of novels set during the television series per se, but I do know that while the early DS9 relaunch novels really effectively balanced nostalgia and newness, the TNG relaunch was so different that there was little for me to be nostalgic for, and I think that's a mistake. It might just be that my tastes have changed, though. (Personally speaking, of course. Clearly it works for a lot of people.)
Indeed. For many people, the appeal of tie-in fiction (or fan fiction) is the opportunity to go beyond what the original work did -- to fill in the gaps it left, to explore the questions it left unanswered, to tell the kinds of stories it couldn't or wouldn't tell. So it's not just about wanting to recreate the original experience, but wanting to add somethng new to it.
Sorry, I was in kind a sarcastic mood yesterday, so I thought I might go back and explain myself a bit here.Well
okay, if that's your view, I can't really argue against it.
I can definitely see the appeal in contemporary fiction, but I there's also enough to get out of older books that I think even if new sci-fi stopped being written people could still find older books that can give them what they're looking. Hell, some become more relevant over time, or just cycle back around to being relevant again. I think 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale are perfect examples of this, both were written decades ago, but still deal with themes and ideas that are incredibly relevant today.
Oh definitely. I'm not saying that older works can never be relevant or significant or enjoyable today. Just that there's definitely a different experience, both in the being a fan and in the reading itself, between being in a "live" fandom and a "dead" one. (Even if this is more of a small subset of a fandom, I think it still applies.)
As a side note, in the Sci-Fi novel series The Long Earth, Humans gain the ability to jump into parallel worlds at will, but only "Datum" Earthever developed Homo sapiens. As a result, of the diaspora, no new high-end Hollywood movies are produced anymore (lack of committed workforce), and prior still watch Contact 80 years after its production (which then starts to influence English language).
Yeah, I read that one, too, back during my first interest in Trek as a teen (when I was watching DS9 and Voyager on City TV)
We basically want to have in the current writing style of Trek books what you had in the old style.
Brilliant series wish it was on TV!
You know.....
I already mentioned I prefer my TrekLit set after the shows, but there is a certain type of novel I wouldn't mind.... There are plenty of episodes that leave you hanging. Plotpoints that make you go 'huh, I wouldn't mind if we get a follow-up to that', but we never did. And you could set those stories DURING the shows.
I know this is borderline plotsuggestion, but I'm gonna risk it..... Say, a novel that shows us what happened with the Malcorians and Mirasta Yale. Perhaps set during the last season of TNG, or between TNG and Generations. Stuff like that.
I already mentioned I prefer my TrekLit set after the shows, but there is a certain type of novel I wouldn't mind.... There are plenty of episodes that leave you hanging. Plotpoints that make you go 'huh, I wouldn't mind if we get a follow-up to that', but we never did. And you could set those stories DURING the shows.
I know this is borderline plotsuggestion, but I'm gonna risk it..... Say, a novel that shows us what happened with the Malcorians and Mirasta Yale. Perhaps set during the last season of TNG, or between TNG and Generations. Stuff like that.
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