Name the first ST novel you read

[Nardpuncher]

The Abode of Life. I was five years old and I begged my mom to buy it for me because it had Kirk and Spock in silver pajamas and gold boots on the cover. It was also my first novel that I attempted to read. Took awhile and I'm sure I didn't understand everything that first go 'round. Read it again in junior high and was quite disappointed in it.

However, I still have a fondness for the book since it was my first. I still posses the book for that sentimental reason.

I remember that cover and I may be wrong but I think they had leather boots, which were brown.
But the other thing I remember about that cover is that Kirk's 'phaser' was obviously copied from a cheap toy as my friend Chris Sellner had the exact same toy.

My first book was Deep Domain in 1987, and just an hour ago I got Inception at Taipei 101's bookstore here in Taiwan.
I got a kick out of looking at the inside information where it tells when it was published, February 2010. Wow, I've been reading Trek books for 23 years!

 

[RoJoHen]

It actually came out 8 years ago.

You didn't have to do that. You really didn't.

For some reason I thought that would make you feel better.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It was either Capture the Flag or Atlantis Station, the kiddie mini-novels when I was little.

 

[Christopher]

Does Star Trek Log Three count as a novel? That was the first work of ST prose fiction I read. If not, it was probably Bantam's The Starless World, or maybe Planet of Judgment.

 

[RookieBatman]

The first Star Trek novel I read was The IDIC Epidemic, when I was in third grade, or thereabouts. My best friend at the time gave it to me because he wasn't into Star Trek anymore, and I gobbled it up. I remember being absolutely desperate to find out what was gonna happen next.
I read Spock Must Die at some point around the same time; it may have been before or after. But I didn't really think of it as a novel, because I read it in the back of Star Trek Reader 4 (which I was absolutely delighted to find at the library, since there were many Trek episodes I hadn't seen at the time), so I thought of it more like a bonus story than a novel. I didn't even realize at the time that it had ever been separately published.

That was about all I read as a kid; my first Star Trek novel as an adult, that got me back into the fold, was The Ashes of Eden. So what you will about the Shatnerverse, but I found the book tremendously exciting, with a cinematic appeal, and it almost single-handedly rekindled my love for the whole Star Trek mythos. So, even if I read it again some day, and it ends up not being as good as I remember (which did happen when I read IDIC Epidemic again a couple years back), I'll always consider it fondly for that reason.

Oh, and props to RoJoHen for the Chuck love. I'm a big fan, too!

 

[Csalem]

'All Good Things' followed by 'First Contact', 'Caretaker' and 'Dominion War Book 1'. I bought all four together and for some reason felt I should only read novelisations first. Luckily the last book was spectacularly good and inspired me to read other novels.

 

[LightningStorm]

Voyager: Echoes this was in the summer of 2001, bought it at an airport bookstore and read it on my trip to DC.

 

[Sky]

Strangers from the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonanno. It was 1989, I found it in our local bookstore and bought it right away. I was astonished - I had no idea that there were Trek books! I had to read it with a dictionary since I had not had any English lessons yet. And yes, I still have it. Am in fact rereading it again right now.

 

[craig keith]

For me it was starfleet academy based on the interplay game , i was just getting into trek at the time and i picked it up and a book shop , iv generally brought a trek book every month since ...

 

[Dayton Ward]

One of the Bantam novels, but I don't recall which one.

The first Trek book I read was one of the Blish collections of episode adaptations.

 

[JD]

My mom actually read the YA books to me before I was able to read. As for the first adult book I read myself, that would be NF: House of Cards. I pretty much just read NF for quite a few years before I read the Avatar books, after that I spread out into all of the series.

 

[Nardpuncher]

The first Star Trek novel I read was The IDIC Epidemic, when I was in third grade, or thereabouts. My best friend at the time gave it to me because he wasn't into Star Trek anymore, and I gobbled it up. I remember being absolutely desperate to find out what was gonna happen next.
I read Spock Must Die at some point around the same time; it may have been before or after. But I didn't really think of it as a novel, because I read it in the back of Star Trek Reader 4 (which I was absolutely delighted to find at the library, since there were many Trek episodes I hadn't seen at the time), so I thought of it more like a bonus story than a novel. I didn't even realize at the time that it had ever been separately published.

That was about all I read as a kid; my first Star Trek novel as an adult, that got me back into the fold, was The Ashes of Eden. So what you will about the Shatnerverse, but I found the book tremendously exciting, with a cinematic appeal, and it almost single-handedly rekindled my love for the whole Star Trek mythos. So, even if I read it again some day, and it ends up not being as good as I remember (which did happen when I read IDIC Epidemic again a couple years back), I'll always consider it fondly for that reason.

Oh, and props to RoJoHen for the Chuck love. I'm a big fan, too!

You had a friend who was an ex-Trekkie by grade 3?

Thanks for dusting off some old brain cells with the mention of The Star Trek Reader, I'm off to google those books now!

 

[Lucky Charms]

My first was the movie novelization of ST III: The Search for Spock. Reading that book is what actually made me become a ST fan. Up until then I would occasionally watch an episode, but the characters did not really come alive for me until I read the book after seeing the movie.

Reading the David and Saavik sex scene was very titillating to my 12 year old brain.

 

[Elias Vaughn]

I want to say it was the TNG numbered novel 'The Devil's Heart'. It's the earliest I remember, at any rate.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Thanks for dusting off some old brain cells with the mention of The Star Trek Reader, I'm off to google those books now!

I happened across a set of the four books in pristine condition at an antique mall () several years ago and snapped them up. Had to have 'em, even though I already had the original 12 books as well as the 25th anniverary repubs.

It's that cover art. It tasked me.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Started with the Blish and Foster novelizations in the 70s, then the TMP novelization.

I honestly don't know what the first original ST novel I read was, but, since it followed the TMP book, I suspect it was *probably* The Entropy Effect

 

[DimesDan]

Like a few others I read Vendetta first, it was a while after BBC2 had first shown Best of Both Worlds and seeing Picard, Guinan and a Borg (see below) on the front just grabbed my prepubescent interest.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

I didn't start reading Star Trek novels seriously until 2005, in order to bury the pain of my mother's first stroke. I found Ex Machina at the local Wal-Mart and bought it mainly for its cover. I loved the book immediately and have read it several times since then. Although I have enjoyed other novels (such as Best Destiny and Burning Dreams), Ex Machina is still my favorite Trek novel.

 

[Reanok]

StarTrek 2 the Wrath of Khan novel.It got me hooked on reading Star Trek books . I bought copies of James Blish's Star Trek novels from a used book store.And read them all and got Corona and many other terrfic TOS books I still have.

 

[Cap'n Crunch]

For me it was the Maximum Warp duology in 2001. I got them for my 8th grade trip to DC, but didn't really read them until I got back. When I first saw them in the store I was a bit surprised that there were novels based on Star Trek. At the time I was still pretty new to Trek and all I had seen were reruns of TNG, so I thought the cover art with the Enterprise-E (which I had never seen before) was strange.