Another year has passed, a good opportunity to look back on the last year in terms of Trek-Lit. What did you read on '09, what did you like and dislike, what are your plans and expectations for the new year.
In total I read 20 Star Trek books this year, compared to 33 in 2008 not that much, but still more than new books were published, so I still got closer to the goal of reading them all one day.
Out of those twenty titles, 12 were new releases (Out of 16 in total 2009), I only missed the Movie-Adaption, the Romulan War and both DS9-Relaunch-tittle (At least the last 2 will change in the next weeks).
The books were (In order from January to December):
Destiny: Gods of Night
Destiny: Mere Mortals
Destiny: Lost Souls
A Singular Destiny
Titan: Over a Torrent Sea
Mirror Universe: Obsidian Alliances
Voyager: Full Circle
Gorkon: Honor Bound
Vanguard: Open Secrets
TOS: Vulcan's Soul 2 - Exiles
Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows
Gorkon: Enemy Territory
TNG: Losing the Peace
TOS: Mere Anarchy
TOS: Troublesome Minds
New Frontier: Treason
Voyager: Unworthy
Klingon Empire: A Burning House
Titan: Synthesis
TOS: Vulcan's Soul 3 - Ephiphany
Destiny: Well, whats to say it, that hasn't been said, discussed, analysed and torn to little pieces in every detail here? It was one hell of a ride, three fantastic books, which turned the entire Lit-Universe upside-down. After I was finished with "Lost Souls", it took me almost a month before I was able to pick up another Trek-book.
KRADs immediate follow-up for Destiny, "A Singular Destiny", gave us a refreshingly new perspective on the Federation and was a nice (kind of) continuation of Articles of the Federation, which sadly never go an sequel. But at least we can consider ASD as AotF 1.5
"Over a Torrent Sea" sadly didn't quite meet my expectations. Christophers prior Titan-installment, Orions Hounds is among my all time-favourites which truly radiates this mysterious "Sense of Wonder" from each page. OaTS was still a quite interesting story, but somehow I was hoping for more than that. But fortunately this year gave us two Titan-books, and the next one, "Synthesis", reminded me, why I like the Titan-series so much. Here we truly get to see the strange, new worlds, nobody has ever seen before. The story about the Sentry-civilisation and it's conflict with the Null was great, an epic conflict, interesting characters and both, lots of action and emotion. And Titan even got a new Crew member. That's quite a nice playground for Michael Martin to work with for the upcoming "Seize the Fire".
My biggest surprise in 2008 was the Mirror-Universe-Anthology "Glass Empires", which turned me, somebody who never liked the MU-Stuff, into a big fan of it. In 2009, "Obsidian Alliances" and "Shards and Shadows" continued this process, two great Anthologies, full of fun, action and drama. I'm really looking forward to "The Sorrows of Empire" and I'm crossing my fingers, that the sales continue to justify more Mirror Universe-Books, like the already discussed "Rise like Lions".
While we're talking about surprises, 2009 also contained a quite big one: The Voyager-Relaunch and Kirsten Beyer. So far I never read "String Theory" (Will change this year), so this was my first novel from here and I didn't really know what to expect, but it honestly wasn't much after the disaster of "Spirit Walk". What I got wasn't only exceeding my expectations but "Full Circle" rather turned out to be one of the best Trek-novels ever, my personal All-time-favourite number 2, right after Crucible 1, "Provenance of Shadows".
"Unworthy" didn't quite hold the standard, but it was still a great book, which made sure, that Voyager is back on track. Now let's just hope, that we don't have to wait until Voyager's twentieth-anniversary in 2015 for more Voyager-novels.
Another project from 2008, which I finished in 2009 was KRADs Gorkon/Klingon Empire-saga, and it was indeed a story well told A very good mix of action, comedy and great insights into the Klingons and their society, a theme which I thought had been told in abundance in TV, but these four books proofed me wrong. Which makes it even sadder, that this series has mostly come to an premature end.
Vanguard forth installment once again proofed, that this series is currently setting the standards in Trek-Lit in terms of characters and story. Everybody who thinks, that Trek only consists of childish black-white point-of-views should read these books, you'll be amazed how many shades of grey you will find. So far I haven't read "Precipice" (The German translation is schedule for February, a remarkable short time between the original and the translation, the only reason I'm willing to wait until then), but I'm quite sure, David Mack won't let us down.
Out of the four TOS-books I read last year, "Mere Anarchy" was easily the best one, this detailed exploration of an entire Alien society we've never seen in the shows was an fascinating experience which will hopefully be repeated sometime in the future. "Troublesome Minds" had lot's on interesting ideas could have easily been one hell of a novel, but it as simply too short to accomplish that. It indeed felt like a Classic-Trek episode with an typical Alien-of-week-plot, but honestly I expect a bit more from a Trek-novel nowadays. In 2009 I also finally finished the Sherman/Shwartz Vulcan-arc, which was in my opinion a bit too predictable and featured far too much Small-Universe-Syndrome. The story of the Sundering and the Romulan Diaspora was due to bee told, but these books sometimes stretched like a chewing-gum.
2009 also brought us the first full length New Frontier-novel, "Treason". In many ways it was a typical PAD-novel, a fast, entertaining read which often feels more like a comic without pictures than an actual novel, but somehow this style is more entertaining with shorter intervals between the individual instalments. One novel in three years is too slow, to keep me interested of I have forgotten lot's of details, before I learn about it's continuation.
So, overall, despite the comparable small number of Trek-Books in 2009, it was a good year, not a Single book, that was a complete frustration. Sure, many were just average, but not below that, and many quite better than that. Let's just hope, that this trend will continue in 2010.
Some of my plans for the new year (Of course apart from keeping up-to-date with the new releases) are Voyagers "String Theory", the "Rihannsu"-saga (My wife bought me one of those ridiculously overpriced few examples of "The empty Chair" which can be found Online as a birthday-present) and if time permits I'm going to make a second attempt with that impressive Captain's Table-omnibus, which has been collecting dust since I gave up with that series after that catastrophic first installment I forced myself through some years ago.
And since I started this long post with some statistics, let's also finish it with some: I started this year with "The Soul Key", which is according to my Excel-sheet, the 280th Trek-book I've read. So, I'm quite sure, that in the next installment of this thread I can proudly report that I broke the 300-book-barrier (Out of 537 in December 2010).
In total I read 20 Star Trek books this year, compared to 33 in 2008 not that much, but still more than new books were published, so I still got closer to the goal of reading them all one day.
Out of those twenty titles, 12 were new releases (Out of 16 in total 2009), I only missed the Movie-Adaption, the Romulan War and both DS9-Relaunch-tittle (At least the last 2 will change in the next weeks).
The books were (In order from January to December):
Destiny: Gods of Night
Destiny: Mere Mortals
Destiny: Lost Souls
A Singular Destiny
Titan: Over a Torrent Sea
Mirror Universe: Obsidian Alliances
Voyager: Full Circle
Gorkon: Honor Bound
Vanguard: Open Secrets
TOS: Vulcan's Soul 2 - Exiles
Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows
Gorkon: Enemy Territory
TNG: Losing the Peace
TOS: Mere Anarchy
TOS: Troublesome Minds
New Frontier: Treason
Voyager: Unworthy
Klingon Empire: A Burning House
Titan: Synthesis
TOS: Vulcan's Soul 3 - Ephiphany
Destiny: Well, whats to say it, that hasn't been said, discussed, analysed and torn to little pieces in every detail here? It was one hell of a ride, three fantastic books, which turned the entire Lit-Universe upside-down. After I was finished with "Lost Souls", it took me almost a month before I was able to pick up another Trek-book.
KRADs immediate follow-up for Destiny, "A Singular Destiny", gave us a refreshingly new perspective on the Federation and was a nice (kind of) continuation of Articles of the Federation, which sadly never go an sequel. But at least we can consider ASD as AotF 1.5
"Over a Torrent Sea" sadly didn't quite meet my expectations. Christophers prior Titan-installment, Orions Hounds is among my all time-favourites which truly radiates this mysterious "Sense of Wonder" from each page. OaTS was still a quite interesting story, but somehow I was hoping for more than that. But fortunately this year gave us two Titan-books, and the next one, "Synthesis", reminded me, why I like the Titan-series so much. Here we truly get to see the strange, new worlds, nobody has ever seen before. The story about the Sentry-civilisation and it's conflict with the Null was great, an epic conflict, interesting characters and both, lots of action and emotion. And Titan even got a new Crew member. That's quite a nice playground for Michael Martin to work with for the upcoming "Seize the Fire".
My biggest surprise in 2008 was the Mirror-Universe-Anthology "Glass Empires", which turned me, somebody who never liked the MU-Stuff, into a big fan of it. In 2009, "Obsidian Alliances" and "Shards and Shadows" continued this process, two great Anthologies, full of fun, action and drama. I'm really looking forward to "The Sorrows of Empire" and I'm crossing my fingers, that the sales continue to justify more Mirror Universe-Books, like the already discussed "Rise like Lions".
While we're talking about surprises, 2009 also contained a quite big one: The Voyager-Relaunch and Kirsten Beyer. So far I never read "String Theory" (Will change this year), so this was my first novel from here and I didn't really know what to expect, but it honestly wasn't much after the disaster of "Spirit Walk". What I got wasn't only exceeding my expectations but "Full Circle" rather turned out to be one of the best Trek-novels ever, my personal All-time-favourite number 2, right after Crucible 1, "Provenance of Shadows".
"Unworthy" didn't quite hold the standard, but it was still a great book, which made sure, that Voyager is back on track. Now let's just hope, that we don't have to wait until Voyager's twentieth-anniversary in 2015 for more Voyager-novels.
Another project from 2008, which I finished in 2009 was KRADs Gorkon/Klingon Empire-saga, and it was indeed a story well told
A very good mix of action, comedy and great insights into the Klingons and their society, a theme which I thought had been told in abundance in TV, but these four books proofed me wrong. Which makes it even sadder, that this series has mostly come to an premature end.Vanguard forth installment once again proofed, that this series is currently setting the standards in Trek-Lit in terms of characters and story. Everybody who thinks, that Trek only consists of childish black-white point-of-views should read these books, you'll be amazed how many shades of grey you will find. So far I haven't read "Precipice" (The German translation is schedule for February, a remarkable short time between the original and the translation, the only reason I'm willing to wait until then), but I'm quite sure, David Mack won't let us down.
Out of the four TOS-books I read last year, "Mere Anarchy" was easily the best one, this detailed exploration of an entire Alien society we've never seen in the shows was an fascinating experience which will hopefully be repeated sometime in the future. "Troublesome Minds" had lot's on interesting ideas could have easily been one hell of a novel, but it as simply too short to accomplish that. It indeed felt like a Classic-Trek episode with an typical Alien-of-week-plot, but honestly I expect a bit more from a Trek-novel nowadays. In 2009 I also finally finished the Sherman/Shwartz Vulcan-arc, which was in my opinion a bit too predictable and featured far too much Small-Universe-Syndrome. The story of the Sundering and the Romulan Diaspora was due to bee told, but these books sometimes stretched like a chewing-gum.
2009 also brought us the first full length New Frontier-novel, "Treason". In many ways it was a typical PAD-novel, a fast, entertaining read which often feels more like a comic without pictures than an actual novel, but somehow this style is more entertaining with shorter intervals between the individual instalments. One novel in three years is too slow, to keep me interested of I have forgotten lot's of details, before I learn about it's continuation.
So, overall, despite the comparable small number of Trek-Books in 2009, it was a good year, not a Single book, that was a complete frustration. Sure, many were just average, but not below that, and many quite better than that. Let's just hope, that this trend will continue in 2010.
Some of my plans for the new year (Of course apart from keeping up-to-date with the new releases) are Voyagers "String Theory", the "Rihannsu"-saga (My wife bought me one of those ridiculously overpriced few examples of "The empty Chair" which can be found Online as a birthday-present) and if time permits I'm going to make a second attempt with that impressive Captain's Table-omnibus, which has been collecting dust since I gave up with that series after that catastrophic first installment I forced myself through some years ago.
And since I started this long post with some statistics, let's also finish it with some: I started this year with "The Soul Key", which is according to my Excel-sheet, the 280th Trek-book I've read. So, I'm quite sure, that in the next installment of this thread I can proudly report that I broke the 300-book-barrier (Out of 537 in December 2010).
I'm amazed I'm still keeping this going; obsessions of this level tend to burn out pretty fast for me, but there's so much good stuff to read!
