Remember When?

[Kilana2]

I think that just speaks to books in general, and is not necessarily indicative of a lack of interest. More people are seeking their entertainment online, or via e-books. I personally read a lot, though I haven't purchased a physical 'book' in 5 years. Libraries are seeing a reduction in customers, which I hope means that they're reading more e-books vice not reading at all.

Interestingly, Cross Cult (the German publisher) said on its Facebook page, that 25 % of their number of sales are ebooks. I don´t know about American publisher or other countries. It was a bit surprising, because many fans railed about ebooks via Facebook. I prefer the novels in the printed form.

 

[bbailey861]

Back in the day, I remember being grateful that there were books out there to fill the gap, but do I miss it or did I prefer the way it was back then? Not really. There is so much more material now - although as pointed out, the shelves of local bookstores do not have a lot of Trek on them. I have taken to ordering most of my stuff online now.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I don't miss it. I remember being a kid at the book store staring at the single shelf and feeling sad that I had now read every Star Trek book available.

I remember that too. But after TMP came out, a building avalanche of paperback novels began. I remember the day I decided to stop buying everything there was.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I worked in bookstores in the 80s. My manager was big trek fan so an entire section of the SF department was just Star Trek. People knew if they wanted Star Trek books, or science fiction on general, our store was the place to go.

 

[allstar77]

I'm not talking so much about quantity as I am quality. As I pointed out in my original post, the budding Pocket books and FASA gave a different representation of the Romulans and Klingons. I'm not arguing canon either. Just fond memories of a different Trek. I was just curious if anyone else missed those days, not what's on your bookshelf. I kinda liked what was done with some things before TNG and company came along.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'm not talking so much about quantity as I am quality. As I pointed out in my original post, the budding Pocket books and FASA gave a different representation of the Romulans and Klingons. I'm not arguing canon either. Just fond memories of a different Trek. I was just curious if anyone else missed those days, not what's on your bookshelf. I kinda liked what was done with some things before TNG and company came along.

I found a lot of the FASA stuff to be subpar. The art was a major turn off. The early Pockets were pretty good. A few wonky covers though. Like long haired, Fu Manchu Sulu.

 

[Melakon]

I tended to buy behind the scenes Trek books, preferring them to novels. The loss of two chain bookstores at the nearest mall before 2000 meant no bookstores within range of where I usually travel. As much as some of the background books interest me, I'm reluctant to buy any of them online, since I can't thoroughly examine them before purchase. I've not seen anything Trek related in any kind of store in years.

 

[Greg Cox]

I gotta say that if anything i see less TREK on the bookshelves now than I did in the early days of between feature films I mean Pocket books Star Trek section once had almost a whole four foot wide by seven foot tall section in my Waldenbooks and that was for novels alone! conversely, today i was at Barnes and noble (arguably, a much larger store on a square foot basis) and their Star Trek section has barely a full shelf end to end most of the available science fiction is dominated by Doctor Who and Star Wars (Not that I'm knocking either brand mind you)

There's still at least one Star Trek novel published every month, sometimes more. It may just be that Trekkies tend to be fairly tech-saavy early adopters, so that more people are ordering on-line or downloading the ebook versions instead of looking for them at bookstores.

At least that's one theory.

Lord knows we're still writing the books and they're still being published just as regularly--and often hitting the bestseller lists.

 

[Kilana2]

I gotta say that if anything i see less TREK on the bookshelves now than I did in the early days of between feature films I mean Pocket books Star Trek section once had almost a whole four foot wide by seven foot tall section in my Waldenbooks and that was for novels alone! conversely, today i was at Barnes and noble (arguably, a much larger store on a square foot basis) and their Star Trek section has barely a full shelf end to end most of the available science fiction is dominated by Doctor Who and Star Wars (Not that I'm knocking either brand mind you)

There's still at least one Star Trek novel published every month, sometimes more. It may just be that Trekkies tend to be fairly tech-saavy early adopters, so that more people are ordering on-line or downloading the ebook versions instead of looking for them at bookstores.

At least that's one theory.

Lord knows we're still writing the books and they're still being published just as regularly--and often hitting the bestseller lists.

The German publisher complains about bookstores not knowing anything about them and their novels. It depends on in which city you live. With emphasis on city. Now I´m living in a town I used to live already years ago. Only one ST novel to be seen, it´s James Gunns Joy Machine (German edition).
On the other hand: a bookstore, Leipzig train station, offers a wider range of ST novels.

There used to be more ST novels even in my town when the novels were still translated by publisher Heyne. But Cross Cult is a small publisher. One ST novel per month has to suffice. I happy to able to resort to the originals, thanks to Amazon.de

 

[IrishNero]

Science fiction as a genre attracts a finicky lot, so I think fan fiction has become a bit more diversified as the years have gone by. There are more authors out there that probably find the Star Trek universe a bit 'constricting' (my word) for their tastes, and may want to imagine their own universe, or at least invest their time and talent in endeavors that avoid the 'canon' pitfalls that inevitably come with a fan base that has seen a myriad of movies and TV episodes, and already possesses an established concept of the 'look and feel' of Trek. Those who still continue to write Trek books are typically hard-core fans themselves.

 

[Kilana2]

There are more authors out there that probably find the Star Trek universe a bit 'constricting' (my word) for their tastes, and may want to imagine their own universe, or at least invest their time and talent in endeavors that avoid the 'canon' pitfalls that inevitably come with a fan base that has seen a myriad of movies and TV episodes, and already possesses an established concept of the 'look and feel' of Trek. Those who still continue to write Trek books are typically hard-core fans themselves.

And that is good, given that the Star Trek universe is such a complex place with a great number of characters, aliens, planets, places and technology to be explored. And we discuss about it daily here. As long as we buy the novels ST keeps on living.

 

[plynch]

For some reason, I picked up a used "Planet of Judgement" paperback by Joe Haldeman. It was sort of a different Trek universe feel. Kinda cool, kinda disconcerting.

I wander. I was way into it in the 70s as a kid. It was boomtown shangri-la for Star Trek. How weird, when you think of it. Picture some alt universe where people go nuts over "Voyage" reruns and it spawns films and series in the '90s.

IrishNero, I like your thoughts.

When everything is available, nothing is special.

 

[Melakon]

I liked "Planet of Judgement". I stopped reading fiction around the time TNG showed up though, because I was writing myself and wanted to avoid influence. It's been non-fiction ever since.

 

[Push The Button]

My early Trek memories: watching the original 79 episodes on a grainy black-and-white UHF picture out of Boston, which was 50 miles away. Building the AMT Enterprise and Klingon Battle Cruiser kits. Watching The Animated Series on Saturday mornings. Reading The Making of Star Trek, Gerrold's The Trouble with Tribbles making-of book, and later The Star Trek Compendium. Watching TMP during its first run at the Darlton, which was a beautiful old single-screeen theater in my hometown that is sadly long gone now.

It all seems like a hundred years ago. Now I can watch any Trek episode from any series, or any of the movies in HD whenever I want on a giant screen with perfect stereo sound, but it will never be as much fun as it was back in the 1970's.

 

[Kilana2]

They re-run TNG, VOY, DS9 and to a lower degree ENT on a certain channel on a regular basis here in Germany. They show TOS, too. But on an unimportant channel that isn´t available for me on top of that.

I found whole TOS episodes on Youtube. Watched the Conscious of the King the first time in English. Same goes for City on the Edge of Forever. I´m too spoiled by the dubbing. I think there are countries where they showed ST without dubbing at all. Subtitles at most....

 

[EnriqueH]

At the end of last summer, I started a Star Trek Franchise marathon in chronological order.

I started with TOS, then TAS, then the TOS movies, then TNG, and then I began alternating TNG and DS9 (according to Okuda's chronology), and now I'm finishing DS9 Season 3 and Voyager Season 1.

I decided early on to leave Enterprise for last because, even though it's a prequel, there's something about it that gives me the vibe that I'll lose perspective or context if I watched it first.

Getting to the point of this thread...I find that the franchise loses...SOMETHING...(its power?) as I get farther and farther away from TOS. (I saw Star Trek VI sometime in October, I think.) There was a kind of magic about TOS, the films and the characters. There's a certain mystique that gets lost as we get farther away from the original characters.

Having said, I'm STILL grateful for the spin-offs because, even though "that mystique" is losing its power over the franchise, the shows are overall very good to excellent, (I loved TNG, I'm loving DS9, and I'm enjoying Voyager) and it's part of the Star Trek story.

 

[plynch]

charm

Hard to define. Impossible to do by trying.

 

[Kor]

In line with this discussion, I have always loved the cover artwork on the James Blish TOS novelizations. Does anyone have any background on those paintings, the artist, etc.?

Some of the visuals in AbramsTrek remind me of those covers.

Kor

 

[IrishNero]

They re-run TNG, VOY, DS9 and to a lower degree ENT on a certain channel on a regular basis here in Germany. They show TOS, too. But on an unimportant channel that isn´t available for me on top of that.

I found whole TOS episodes on Youtube. Watched the Conscious of the King the first time in English. Same goes for City on the Edge of Forever. I´m too spoiled by the dubbing. I think there are countries where they showed ST without dubbing at all. Subtitles at most....

Just curious if Germans (really, I mean anyone not American) understand many of the cultural references that are primarily American. I often wonder that when I'm watching movies; only because I lived outside the US for many years and became more aware of that issue while living abroad. Do you experience some level of alienation because of that (And I'm making a big assumption here that you are not simply an American living abroad yourself)?

 

[Kilana2]

They re-run TNG, VOY, DS9 and to a lower degree ENT on a certain channel on a regular basis here in Germany. They show TOS, too. But on an unimportant channel that isn´t available for me on top of that.

I found whole TOS episodes on Youtube. Watched the Conscious of the King the first time in English. Same goes for City on the Edge of Forever. I´m too spoiled by the dubbing. I think there are countries where they showed ST without dubbing at all. Subtitles at most....

Just curious if Germans (really, I mean anyone not American) understand many of the cultural references that are primarily American. I often wonder that when I'm watching movies; only because I lived outside the US for many years and became more aware of that issue while living abroad. Do you experience some level of alienation because of that (And I'm making a big assumption here that you are not simply an American living abroad yourself)?

Some people think that I´m Russian. Why they come to that conclusion is lost on me. I don´t speak a single word Russian, not to mention the spelling or pronounciation.
As to the cultural references. Some are familiar, some are lost on me. Could you name any examples?
I had an advanced English course back in school, but American history was next to none-existent. Generally I´m interested in history, if not in every single datails. So it´s no wonder that I relate to most of the Shakespeare references but have my difficulties with American-only stuff. I like American country music. Many songs have historical or cultural contents. And then I look them up, but as I said, not in details. The Alamo, for instance, mentioned in DS9 made me listen to a certain Marty Robbins song. Most Germans, I think, are not interested in songs with too much text and historical content, they prefer "easy listening" und "fun".