Novels most alike

[F. King Daniel]

I was thinking earlier about how TV/film Trek endlessly recycles stories ("The Changeling"/TMP, "The Naked Time"/"The Naked Now", "One"/"Doctor's Orders" etc), and if there were any Trek novels with similar copy+paste plotlines. The number of novels is rapidly closing on the number of episodes produced, so it has to have happened.... but I can't bring any examples to mind.

 

[chris_masters5]

The concept behind Michael Jan Friedman's TNG novel "Reunion" looks to be recycled in his DS9 novel "Saratoga". Both captains' (Picard and Sisko) former crews come onboard and one of them tries to sabotage the mission.

 

[zarkon]

Speaking of MJF, I think both Brother's Keeper : Republic & Fortune's Light have cities where hi-tech stuff is forbidden? It was only a small part of republic though

 

[Therin of Andor]

The concept behind Michael Jan Friedman's TNG novel "Reunion" looks to be recycled in his DS9 novel "Saratoga". Both captains' (Picard and Sisko) former crews come onboard and one of them tries to sabotage the mission.

Yeah, MJF was specifically asked, IIRC, to do for DS9 what he'd done so successfully for TNG, but it did seem to be rather close to a carbon copy plot.

As a newbie ST fan in 1980, it struck me how many Blish adaptations featured a world described as an Eden. And the Bantam novels often found a strangely artificial world with a bizarre being who needed to be tricked in some way. "Planet of Judgment", and three-in-a-row, "The Starless World", "Trek to Madworld!" and "World Without End", were all a bit same-y.

A lot of people complained that the plot and alien entities of TNG's "Possession" seemed too similar to TOS's "Demons", not realizing it was actually a deliberate sequel.

 

[Timo]

The L.A.Graf sort of follow a winning formula, but one pairing of their novels is especially amusing: Firestorm & Ice Trap.

With a simple swap of an element, they tell the same story of a natural resource being coveted by proud and violent people who inexplicably don't listen to reason, and a small contingent of Kirk's crew (guess who?) gets stranded in the hostile environment by a combination of painstakingly described technology shortcomings and an earthquake. They have to cooperate with the unreasonably hostile forces and slowly win their trust. In the process, they uncover key facts about the true nature of the environment and the resource, while the rest of the Enterprise team solves another half of the mystery, the two sides together ultimately revealing a previously unknown lifeform.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Thrawn]

Wasn't there something recently, I want to say in A Time To Sow/Harvest and Articles and one other one, where three stories in quick succession featured aliens that needed something native to their world/solar system to survive, and mysteriously went catatonic when removed from it?

 

[DS9Continuing]

As Deranged Nasat recently pointed out in humorous fashion, the Cardassian and Ferengi novels in the Worlds of DS9 series are basically the same story.

.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Sow/Harvest and Love/Hate both revolve around the premise of something native to the system/planet affecting the population. In one case radiation keeps a species from leaving their asteroid homes, in the other a local plant keeps the population docile and form killing one another. I found the similarities really odd in back-to-back books.

 

[JD]

Yeah, I noticed that too, and I remember even more comments when I was first reading them.

 

[Thrawn]

Right, and then Articles Of The Federation does it again. I remember KRAD posting about that, how it was funny, but it only happened because all of those books were commissioned under different editors and no one noticed.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but I really don't see a striking similarity between Cardassia and Ferenginar?

 

[Christopher]

^I assume you mean their respective Worlds of DS9 installments?

 

[Sci]

Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but I really don't see a striking similarity between Cardassia and Ferenginar?

I haven't read Deranged Nasat's post, but I would imagine the essential similarity is in the basic plot -- a new reformist government on a formerly repressive world faces a major crisis when reactionary factions attempt to overthrow it or undermine its legitimacy.

 

[BritishSeaPower]

Ahh, okay, thanks Sci. That makes a bit more sense, that general outline is very similar. Surprised I didn't see that, though. Maybe I was focusing too much on the terrorist attack in Cardassia and trying to figure out where that was similar to Rom's woes? Oh well, now I get it.

And sorry, Chris, should have been clearer! Or at least bothered to italicize the titles.

 

[DS9Continuing]

Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but I really don't see a striking similarity between Cardassia and Ferenginar?

I haven't read Deranged Nasat's post, but I would imagine the essential similarity is in the basic plot -- a new reformist government on a formerly repressive world faces a major crisis when reactionary factions attempt to overthrow it or undermine its legitimacy.

That's the nutshell, but it's slightly more complicated. A newly installed planetary leader, Federation-friendly but unpopular with the masses, is faced with a political crisis that could undo all the good progress they've made. "Our" characters investigate, and they discover that the leader's own right-hand man deliberately set up the crisis so that said leader could be seen to triumph over it and thereby solidify their power base. That describes The Lotus Flower and Satisfaction Is Not Guaranteed pretty much equally.

Now, I would never go so far as to say it was deliberate, I have no doubt it was purely coincidence, and wouldn't dream of claiming otherwise. Especially in the case of the WoDS9 novels, where a recurring theme of all six stories was the struggle between conservative and progressive forces in government. But nevertheless, the similarity is there.

.