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Recommend a book?

Vulcan Love Slave.

It's still in print. Ask them about it at Barnes & Noble. I'm sure they can order a copy.

IIRC, the Voyager: Elite Force PC game expansion pack had a few padd's laying about with passages from from Vulcan Love Slave on them.

I dread to think what the fan ficcers have come up with...
 
'Destiny' - but only if you don't care about established characters or you turn your brain off.

what do you mean by "you turn your brain off"?:borg:

if this is going where I think it is, I couldn't disagree more.

(just to make nyself clear - I do think Destiny should be on the top of every Trek book recommendation)

Here you go:

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=73838&highlight=destiny&page=38

Enjoy!

(and I disagree that 'Destiny' should be at the very top of book recommendations for the reasons outlined in the link)

PS - I'm curious: where did you think this is going?
 
'Destiny' - but only if you don't care about established characters or you turn your brain off.

what do you mean by "you turn your brain off"?:borg:

if this is going where I think it is, I couldn't disagree more.

(just to make nyself clear - I do think Destiny should be on the top of every Trek book recommendation)

Here you go:

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=73838&highlight=destiny&page=38

Enjoy!

(and I disagree that 'Destiny' should be at the very top of book recommendations for the reasons outlined in the link)

PS - I'm curious: where did you think this is going?

It went just where I thought it would :cool: - I don't want to turn this thread into a debate over the Destiny trilogy, but I do think that the link you provided showcases both our views nicely :)
 
to me it seems like the authors put as much effort into (insert Trek book here) as I would in writing a love poem to the casserole-quice-pie type thing I had for breakfast.
I'm assuming that you're a newcomer, and are unaware that a number of TrekLit authors regularly visit here. Because if you were aware, you'd think twice about hurling oh-so-clever little slams against the degree of effort and dedication they put into their writing.

And as already stated, it's hard to be helpful when all you have to offer is this drive-by shooting of a critique.

I have to agree with William on this one. I'm new here too but I've already discovered that Star Trek appeals to a lot of people for different reasons. I like the more action oriented stories but lots of people read for the character development for example. So you need to give us some more detail in what you look for in books.

Well, I guess that was a little mean. I apologize if I offended anybody, but I felt like mentioning the breakfast horror.

Anyway, I'm not really looking for a nything specific other than a good read- I haven't been able to find one since I finished the Space Oddyssey novels.
 
I'm not really looking for a nything specific other than a good read- I haven't been able to find one since I finished the Space Oddyssey novels.

That's still not terribly helpful. No licensed ST novel you've tried has satisfied you, and yet you're looking for "a good read". Most people here tend to think that ST novels are pretty good reads.

Virtually every book I've ever read other than the Nemesis novel has left me cold.
Maybe you need to mention a few ST titles and why you found them so lacking? You're not looking for "anything specific", and yet it sounds like you have very specific tastes in science fiction.
 
I'm not really looking for a nything specific other than a good read- I haven't been able to find one since I finished the Space Oddyssey novels.

That's still not terribly helpful. No licensed ST novel you've tried has satisfied you, and yet you're looking for "a good read". Most people here tend to think that ST novels are pretty good reads.

Virtually every book I've ever read other than the Nemesis novel has left me cold.
Maybe you need to mention a few ST titles and why you found them so lacking? You're not looking for "anything specific", and yet it sounds like you have very specific tastes in science fiction.


a list of favorite episodes (from any of the shows) can also go a long way in helping you decide (or get recommendations) on a Trek novel
 
I love this community. We're yelled at by the militant Janeway people for being mean to newcomers, but in this thread we're actually frustrated at someone for not providing enough information to help him properly! There are dozens of us, just waiting to give recommendations! We're trying! We'll be really helpful if he'll just let us! We've said so several times! We just need more information! WHERE IS HE! :lol:
 
I love this community. We're yelled at by the militant Janeway people for being mean to newcomers

We're only mean to the militant Janeway newcomers. And there've been a lot lately: all those double and triple registrations so they can vote in the poll and do a moonlight flit. :guffaw:But - oh dear, I forgot - we're not supposed to use humour to make our point because that's patronizing to newcomers, too.

But yeah, sadly there's no answer that will pacify them, I'm afraid. Where were all the militant McCoy fans when DRG III killed him off twice in the one book?
 
I love this community. We're yelled at by the militant Janeway people for being mean to newcomers

We're only mean to the militant Janeway newcomers. And there've been a lot lately: all those double and triple registrations so they can vote in the poll and do a moonlight flit. :guffaw:But - oh dear, I forgot - we're not supposed to use humour to make our point because that's patronizing to newcomers, too.

But yeah, sadly there's no answer that will pacify them, I'm afraid. Where were all the militant McCoy fans when DRG III killed him off twice in the one book?

They're waiting their turn to rise, right after the Militant Duffy Fans who will not buy a *single* Trek novel until Duffy is resurrected! :lol:
 
I don't really know how to be helpful here, but I'll list a few of my personal favourites, though some of these are certainly not universally liked:

A Stitch in Time (my number one :))
Catalyst of Sorrows
Terok Nor trilogy
The Never-Ending Sacrifice
Millennium trilogy
Destiny trilogy
The Buried Age
Well of Souls
Orion's Hounds.

The "Titan", "Vanguard" and Deep Space Nine post-finale series are often listed as favourites, and I think they tend to be consistently good.

What are your favourite series (TV, I mean)?

I second (or third) all of these, and I'd add Mission Gamma, Rising Son and Unity from the DS9 relaunch. But as everyone's said, without knowing which series you like its hard to recommend anything...

I'd put the entire Terok Nor trilogy on the list, not just its first part. But I am (or so it seems) the only person who liked Night of the Wolves and Dawn of the Eagles (parts 2 and 3) better than Day of the Vipers (part 1).

I liked each part equally, so you're not the only one ;)
 
Alright, since I supposed I have to provide SOME criteria for a book I'd like... sigh :rolleyes:
Anything about TOS, TNG is good too. I'd like something dark and foreboding with a dash of melancholy, maybe a lot of easily likeable characters dying very violent deaths. I don't like it when books leave me with that blue skies, Sunday-morning-sunshine, happy feeling.
 
I honestly don't remember how much death there is in it, but I think you might like Serpents Among the Ruins. It's definitely one of the darker Trek books, and most certainly does not have a happy ending.
 
^ really? I think Serpent has a happy ending. Since
everyone on the casualty list was already dead, so apart from one "crazy" Romulan admiral and a couple of his close subordinates, no one died.


itisnotlogical, you still haven't let us know what Trek book have you read recently, so we can figure out what you don't like.
 
Alright, since I supposed I have to provide SOME criteria for a book I'd like... sigh :rolleyes:

Why the sighs? It is important, when asking for recommendations (and with us knowing you found previous ST titles not to your liking).

Anything about TOS, TNG is good too. I'd like something dark and foreboding with a dash of melancholy, maybe a lot of easily likeable characters dying very violent deaths.
DS9's "Fallen Heroes" by Dafydd ab Hugh is very dark, with plenty of death, but you're looking for TOS or TNG.

I'd happily recommend "The Entropy Effect" by Vonda McInytre for frustrating, melancholy deaths. Also maybe her novelization of ST II. Nice tie-ins between the two.

Another vote for "Crucible: McCoy" by Davide R George III. And definitely the "Destiny" trilogy by David Mack.

TNG, how about "Vendetta" by Peter David, the first big Borg novel? I also really love his "New Frontier" novels, "The Captain's Table: Once Burned" (a standalone flashback novel to Calhoun's time on the Grissom) and the bittersweet "Stone and Anvil".
 
Fallen Heroes, Q-Squared, Destiny trilogy, Captain's Table: Once Burned, Shadows on the Sun, Federation, A Stich In Time, Best Destiny, Prime Directive, Articles of the Federation, Serpents Among The Ruins, A Buried Age, Ex Machina, Crucible: McCoy (Crucible: Spock and Crucible: Kirk, too), The Art of the Impossible, A Time for War A Time For Peace, Orion's Hounds, Avatar, Abyss, Mission:Gamma (er.. the whole DS9 relaunch.) Losing the Peace, A Singular Destiny, are all fantastic books.
 
You put the DS9R in there? I've never really seen the series as being that dark, myself.
 
Can anyone recommend a really excellent Trek book to me? Virtually every book I've ever read other than the Nemesis novel has left me cold... to me it seems like the authors put as much effort into (insert Trek book here) as I would in writing a love poem to the casserole-quice-pie type thing I had for breakfast. Can anyone recommend a really really really high quality Trek novel? Like, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert type stuff?

Nope. Well, I can't speak to the comparison to Herbert, because I've never read Dune (yeah, I know) or its progeny because I'm not that interested in the universe, but no one that I'm aware of is on the level of Clarke. Then again, I've only read a fraction of what's out there, so I could be wrong.

I was recently pretty impressed with Over a Torrent Sea. It is a somewhat flawed work (the B-plot is distracting, overlong, maybe even a little pointless, and undermines the effectivenes of the A-plot), but it is a shot at harder science fiction in a Trek context, with the baffling exception of the composition of an asteroid, which is made of plot magic.

It also tries and mainly succeeds in being a character piece, focusing on Aili Lavena. It would have succeeded even more if it weren't held back by a narrative structure that 1)demanded most everybody have something to do, even if they are Sir Not Appearing In This Film and 2)pressed for a more-or-less linear telling of the present events, instead of a deeper, closer, subtler examination of the person who is obviously the main character. On the other hand, Titan is a series, and it's an ensemble series, so in the context of the series as a whole this complaint might disappear, and I don't want to say that the tangential characters (tangential to this story) are per se uninteresting, even if some of them are.

In addition to this, and perhaps because of it, some of the dramatic scenes are little too on the nose, again, lacking subtlety. I don't think it's showing instead of telling, because it isn't--it's more like showing and telling at the same time.

This is actually a recommendation, but became a review somewhere in there. I'd pare it down, but it has nowhere else to go. :(

... or am I being too picky? :p
A little, maybe.

itisnotlogical said:
Anything about TOS, TNG is good too. I'd like something dark and foreboding with a dash of melancholy, maybe a lot of easily likeable characters dying very violent deaths. I don't like it when books leave me with that blue skies, Sunday-morning-sunshine, happy feeling.

Destiny will get thrown out here, as it always does, but the trilogy is about two books too long and too many characters are dreadfully uninteresting. Not to unrecommend it, because it has very good parts. I'm still struggling with whether those very good parts were worth the slog through the other 700 or so pages.
 
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