My local library has quite an extensive trek collection and i dont know where to start. I like TNG, TOS and ENT if that factors into anything. I have heard some of the books are great, but others not so much.
Never read a Trek book before, wanting to know where to start
- Thread starter drazzz52923849
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Definitly check out the thread at the top of this forum called Charting the Novelverse. It will give the long answer as to everything you should check out.
Short answer: For Enterprise there's the awesome continuation of the series, usually referred to as the Enterprise Relaunch. Think of it as the Season 5 that never was. It starts with Enterprise: The Good That Men Do.
TNG has many places to start. There are Enterprise-D novels and Enterprise-E novels, and even some that chronicle Picard's life before the series. Of the Enterprise-E novels there are 3 basic starting points:
TOS has no real contuation, but there are several areas to look into. Most of the TOS books over the years have been stand-alone adventures in the original 5 year mission. Many others were standalone adventures in the second 5 year mission post-The Motion Picture. There are Pike novels, a few Kirk-pre-Enterprise novels, a few Enterprise-A novels, Excelsior novels, and several that show Spock in the 24th century. Some of my favs:
Short answer: For Enterprise there's the awesome continuation of the series, usually referred to as the Enterprise Relaunch. Think of it as the Season 5 that never was. It starts with Enterprise: The Good That Men Do.
TNG has many places to start. There are Enterprise-D novels and Enterprise-E novels, and even some that chronicle Picard's life before the series. Of the Enterprise-E novels there are 3 basic starting points:
- The "A Time to..." series: Chronicles the year leading up to Star Trek: Nemesis and lays the groundwork for everything that follows. If you're in a hurry you could skip to the final 3 of the 9 books.
- Death in Winter: Starts the "TNG Relaunch" which begins just after Star Trek: Nemesis. If you're in a hurry you could skip to the final pre-Destiny book, Greater Than the Sum.
- The Destiny Trilogy- This is where to begin if you want to just dive in without reading 15 books beforehand. This is THE big event of Trek literature. A big TNG/Titan/Enterprise/DS9/VOY crossover.
TOS has no real contuation, but there are several areas to look into. Most of the TOS books over the years have been stand-alone adventures in the original 5 year mission. Many others were standalone adventures in the second 5 year mission post-The Motion Picture. There are Pike novels, a few Kirk-pre-Enterprise novels, a few Enterprise-A novels, Excelsior novels, and several that show Spock in the 24th century. Some of my favs:
- Burning Dreams
- Mere Anarchy
- The Lost Years series
- The Rihannsu series
- Excelsior: Forged in Fire
- The Lost Era: Serpents Among the Ruins
Here are some old ones I loved that you can pick up for barely more than the cost of shipping at Amazon. They're pretty much stand-alone adventures (i.e. you don't have to have read anything first)
TOS:
Prime Directive
My Enemy, My Ally
Crossroad
The Romulan Way (sequel to My Enemy, My Ally)
Final Frontier (nothing to do with STV; George Kirk and Captain April launch the Enterprise)
Dreadnought
The Lost Years
The Final Reflection (an awesome take on the Klingons that pre-dates TNG version)
Pawns and Symbols (another pre-TNG version of the Klingon Empire)
TNG:
Federation (a TOS/TNG crossover)
Vendetta
The Captain's Honor
Metamorphosis
ENT:
Daedalus
Daelalus' Children
A few bits and bobs have been since contradicted by TV/film Treks made afterwards (date of the transporter's invention, pre-TOS tech, the Klingon lifestyle etc), so if you're obsessed by continuity you might want to stick to more modern books.
TOS:
Prime Directive
My Enemy, My Ally
Crossroad
The Romulan Way (sequel to My Enemy, My Ally)
Final Frontier (nothing to do with STV; George Kirk and Captain April launch the Enterprise)
Dreadnought
The Lost Years
The Final Reflection (an awesome take on the Klingons that pre-dates TNG version)
Pawns and Symbols (another pre-TNG version of the Klingon Empire)
TNG:
Federation (a TOS/TNG crossover)
Vendetta
The Captain's Honor
Metamorphosis
ENT:
Daedalus
Daelalus' Children
A few bits and bobs have been since contradicted by TV/film Treks made afterwards (date of the transporter's invention, pre-TOS tech, the Klingon lifestyle etc), so if you're obsessed by continuity you might want to stick to more modern books.
If you're interested in modern Trek, I think a good place to start would be The Lost Era series. It's a series of standalone novels that deal with events that happened between the prolouge of Generations and the beginning of TNG. I've read all but two of them and they range from good to great. In fact, four of them would easily go into my top twenty Trek books. IMO reading this series will give you a pretty good idea of what modern Trek Lit is like.
They are in order:
The Sundered: Sulu and the Excelsior crew discover an offshoot of the human race and have to deal with Tholians. I'm not completely sure (it's been a while since I read it) but I think it might have been slightly contradicted by Enterprise.
Serpents Among the Ruins: Deals with the Enterprise-B and it's Captain and crew's involvement in the Tomed Incident.
The Art of the Impossible: The Betrekka Nebula Incident.
(The last two there, are two of the one's on my top twenty list, they are amazing)
Well of Souls: I haven't read this one, so all I know is it deals with the Enterprise-C. This one is very controversial, some people love it and others hate it. Most of what I have heard about it hasn't interested me.
Deny Thy Father: Deals with Will Riker and his father. Most of what I've heard about this has been fairly negative, so I never bothered reading it.
Catalsyt of Sorrows: I haven't read this one yet, but I plan to in the near future. In it Uhura, now an admiral and head of Starfleet Intelligence, sends Ben Sisko, Tuvok, Beverly Crusher, and Selar on a covert mission in Romulan territory.
The Buried Age: Another absolutely amazing book, this one deals with Picard between the destruction of the Stargazer and his getting command of the E-D.
The Terok Nor Trilogy: A Trilogy of books covering the entire Cardassian Occupation of Bajor. The first books is another one of my Top 20, it is absolutely frelling incredible. The other two aren't quite as good, but are certainly worth the read.
They are in order:
The Sundered: Sulu and the Excelsior crew discover an offshoot of the human race and have to deal with Tholians. I'm not completely sure (it's been a while since I read it) but I think it might have been slightly contradicted by Enterprise.
Serpents Among the Ruins: Deals with the Enterprise-B and it's Captain and crew's involvement in the Tomed Incident.
The Art of the Impossible: The Betrekka Nebula Incident.
(The last two there, are two of the one's on my top twenty list, they are amazing)
Well of Souls: I haven't read this one, so all I know is it deals with the Enterprise-C. This one is very controversial, some people love it and others hate it. Most of what I have heard about it hasn't interested me.
Deny Thy Father: Deals with Will Riker and his father. Most of what I've heard about this has been fairly negative, so I never bothered reading it.
Catalsyt of Sorrows: I haven't read this one yet, but I plan to in the near future. In it Uhura, now an admiral and head of Starfleet Intelligence, sends Ben Sisko, Tuvok, Beverly Crusher, and Selar on a covert mission in Romulan territory.
The Buried Age: Another absolutely amazing book, this one deals with Picard between the destruction of the Stargazer and his getting command of the E-D.
The Terok Nor Trilogy: A Trilogy of books covering the entire Cardassian Occupation of Bajor. The first books is another one of my Top 20, it is absolutely frelling incredible. The other two aren't quite as good, but are certainly worth the read.
drazzzz - you'll get lots of answers, and they'll all be pretty much right; there's a lot of good TrekLit out there. But ryan's first reply is the best so far.
Another good resource is Memory Beta (just google it); it has pages for all the ongoing book series and from there it's pretty easy to figure out which books are good starting places.
My addition to the list is Star Trek: Vanguard. It's a novel-only series set during TOS but in a totally different place, on a space station. It's like if HBO reimagined TOS; it's freaking incredible, and only 5 books in so far, so an easy one to latch on to (though the third book can be a little annoying to get a hold of). Guaranteed awesome.
Another good resource is Memory Beta (just google it); it has pages for all the ongoing book series and from there it's pretty easy to figure out which books are good starting places.
My addition to the list is Star Trek: Vanguard. It's a novel-only series set during TOS but in a totally different place, on a space station. It's like if HBO reimagined TOS; it's freaking incredible, and only 5 books in so far, so an easy one to latch on to (though the third book can be a little annoying to get a hold of). Guaranteed awesome.
There's also the Shatnerverse: Starting with The Return, James T. Kirk is resurrected in the 24th century and goes on a series of epic adventures with Spock, Really Old McCoy and the crew of the Enterprise-E. It's totally OTT, but I love it. Wanna see Kirk punch out Picard? Wanna find out how many times you can stomach Kirk saving the day?
Before all that is The Ashes of Eden, Kirk's last 23rd century adventure and argubly the best in the Shatner/Reeves-Stevens line.
Before all that is The Ashes of Eden, Kirk's last 23rd century adventure and argubly the best in the Shatner/Reeves-Stevens line.
I just got Renegade. I like it so far.
I was actually referring to the stuff with the Defiant. I honestly forgot about the different appearances for the Tholians.
Well, given that the interphase sent the Defiant drifting through time and alternative realities, it's not impossible that it could've shown up in 2298 before making its way to the Mirror Universe in 2155.
The greater inconsistency is with SCE: Interphase, in which the Defiant was rescued intact. But then, maybe it's a parallel Defiant.
The greater inconsistency is with SCE: Interphase, in which the Defiant was rescued intact. But then, maybe it's a parallel Defiant.
Well, it ended up in a parallel timeline. If the whole universe around the ship can be duplicated, why can't the ship?
That's always been my personal explanation, that the ship was somehow duplicated by the interphase phenomenon.
I can't seem to remember the name off the top of my head. I THINK it's Millennium, but don't quote me on that. It's one of the DS9 books.
I'm sure someone here knows which one I'm talking about. The one with the red wormhole?
EDIT TO ADD: It's actually 3 books, but they reprinted it as one big book.
I'm sure someone here knows which one I'm talking about. The one with the red wormhole?
EDIT TO ADD: It's actually 3 books, but they reprinted it as one big book.
Ditto. "Weird Stuff sometimes happens" is kinda Starfleet's motto.
"Somehow duplicated" was what I used to accept, but now that I think about it, it seems more elegant to assume the Defiant from Interphase simply came from a third alternate timeline. The Prime Universe Defiant crossed to the Mirror Universe, and a Defiant from some "Universe C" crossed into the Prime Universe. After all, we know that the same people and ships often end up in the same place at the same time in parallel realities, even very different ones; most of the parallel Worfs in "Parallels" had been attending a bat'leth tournament and the ship was always in proximity to the spatial anomaly, and both the Prime and Mirror Enterprises in "Mirror, Mirror" were trying to obtain dilithium from Halka, with the same four-person landing party beaming up at the same moment. So it follows that when the Prime Defiant fell into the interphase, a closely parallel "Universe C" Defiant could've suffered the same fate at the same moment, and ended up making the same kind of dimensional crossover that the Prime Defiant did. That way, the same singular mechanism explains everything, and you don't need to complicate the variables by postulating a separate duplication method.
I'm reminded of that Stargate episode where dozens of alternate SG-1's came through the gate. Pretty soon the Tholian Empire will collapse under the weight of duplicate alternate Defiant's drifting out of that rift
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^No, I'm thinking it's more of a one-to-one displacement -- each timeline loses one Defiant and another Defiant moves in to fill the void. So it's like they all shift over by one timeline. 
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