Rounding out Trek history

[Janos]

I indicated in the Sky's The Limit thread that what I liked about some books/anthologies (and by extension comic books) is that some fill in facts/stories that in the end enhance my TV show or movie experience. I also like where lines take on lives of their own like ENT handling the Romulan War or Dayton Ward handling the Klingon appearance question in In the Name of Honor, etc.

What are your fave such stories?

I know Greg Cox did his 3-part Rise and Fall of Khan which remains on my to read list (I will get to them once I get caught up on my other serialized reads).

I also just picked up the comic tpb for Mission's End which chronicles the last mission of, I believe, the original TOS era crew. I'll have to read The Lost Years book, also on my shelf, to see how they fit... if at all (which will be part of the fun).

Any faves stories out there like what I've described?

I know Peter David does a lot of that in a less grander scale in his books. Take throwaway lines from the TV shows or movies and builds on them.

 

[Thrawn]

The whole Lost Era series, especially Serpents Among The Ruins and The Art Of The Impossible, are fantastic with this sort of thing.

 

[Janos]

The whole Lost Era series, especially Serpents Among The Ruins and The Art Of The Impossible, are fantastic with this sort of thing.

I have the Art of the Impossible, Catalyst of Sorrows, and the Buried Age (plus the 3-part Terok Nor although not officially part of the Lost Era banner).

Did any of the Lost Era books, beyond AOFI and COS, cover any of the characters in the DS9 relaunch lit and in PAD's NF?

How are the Sulu and Garrett books in Lost Era?

 

[Christopher]

^Terok Nor is officially part of The Lost Era and is labeled as such on the covers; it's just that, as with The Buried Age, it was chosen to give more prominence to its individual series affiliation than its TLE affiliation.

 

[Thrawn]

Vaughn is in Serpents Among The Ruins, also.

The Sulu book is solid; great ideas, no complaints. The Garrett book is very weird, and unlike any other Trek book you'll read; some deeply hate it. I personally think it's fantastic.

 

[ryan123450]

I really like this kind of thing too. I love to see some other unexplored moments filled in.

 

[Janos]

Q-Squared by PAD is a fave of mine for the way that TOS' Trelane...

Spoiler: from Q-Squared

is connected to TNG's Q Continuum.

 

[OverlordSpock]

Vaughn is in Serpents Among The Ruins, also.

I also feel that Serpent Amount the Ruins is also one of the all time best, if not THE best, TrekLit work of all time. DRGIII outdid himself on that one. And, yes, Vaughn plays a minor, but key, role.

The Garrett book is very weird, and unlike any other Trek book you'll read; some deeply hate it. I personally think it's fantastic.

I'm torn on this book. Although I generally enjoy Cardassian-themed books, I couldn't really get into the Cardassian story in this book. It wasn't bad, but it didn't really draw me in. What I enjoyed more than anything about Well of Souls was Samir al-Halak's arc. I found the character facinating and would LOVE to see more stories about him, but I find it unlikely that I ever will.

 

[JD]

My favs would be The Serpents Among the Ruins, Art of the Impossible, The Buried Age, The Sundered, Terok Nor, and Forged in Fire. I haven't read Catalyst of Sorrows yet, but I do plan to, and from what I've heard about it it will probably be added to this list.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

The Garrett book is very weird, and unlike any other Trek book you'll read; some deeply hate it. I personally think it's fantastic.

I'm torn on this book. Although I generally enjoy Cardassian-themed books, I couldn't really get into the Cardassian story in this book. It wasn't bad, but it didn't really draw me in...

I enjoyed that part of the plot greatly, for several reasons, chief among them the thematic links to "A Stitch in Time". There was some very skillful and fascinating expansion on ideas introduced in that novel, I thought.

Of course, I love "Well of Souls" in general. I'm disappointed the "Captain's Log" entry featuring those characters was cancelled.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

My favs would be Serpents Among the Ruins, The Art of the Impossible, The Buried Age, The Sundered, Terok Nor, and Forged in Fire.

Those are all great books.

I haven't read Catalyst of Sorrows yet, but I do plan to, and from what I've heard about it it will probably be added to this list.

This one is great too. You should definitely read it.

The only Lost Era book that falls a bit flat is "Deny Thy Father" (the only one not yet mentioned). 1 misfire out of 10 is not bad at all, is it?

 

[Janos]

^Terok Nor is officially part of The Lost Era and is labeled as such on the covers; it's just that, as with The Buried Age, it was chosen to give more prominence to its individual series affiliation than its TLE affiliation.

Ooops. I haven't gotten to Terok Nor, but having seen the covers the Lost Banner does not seem pronounced. In any event, still looking forward to reading Terok Nor and I picked up the 4 TLE books I didn't have online today for a very decent price.

 

[OverlordSpock]

I'm torn on this book. Although I generally enjoy Cardassian-themed books, I couldn't really get into the Cardassian story in this book. It wasn't bad, but it didn't really draw me in...

I enjoyed that part of the plot greatly, for several reasons, chief among them the thematic links to "A Stitch in Time". There was some very skillful and fascinating expansion on ideas introduced in that novel, I thought.

And I loved A Stitch in Time. I'm not saying I really disliked the Cardassian storyline in Well of Souls, just that it didn't really draw me in. It's a decent book (and like Thrawn says, it's very...different...from other TrekLit—that's a good thing!), but except for the parts about al-Halak, it wasn't exceptional.

Of course, I love "Well of Souls" in general. I'm disappointed the "Captain's Log" entry featuring those characters was cancelled.

Oh...if only we could re-visit these characters on the Enterprise-C...

 

[Janos]

I have liked the old Enterprise stories. There was that old anthology, Captains' Logs I think, that chronciled profiled each ship and theri captain although instead of the NX I believe the covered a modern day carrier Enterprise captain if I recall correctly.

Outside of this, what are you favourite Enterprise original,A,B,C,D, and E stories? Plus the NX class.

 

[sulfur]

For stuff that "fills in the gaps", the comic series "Captain's Log" from IDW was fantastic. It comes out in TPB form next week, but some shops (including Amazon) are already selling and shipping it.

A great story about Harriman dealing with the events of Generations after Kirk's "death", and a really good take on Pike's accident between "The Cage" and "The Menagerie". Jellico and Sulu make up the other two stories in the collection.

 

[Christopher]

There was that old anthology, Captains' Logs I think, that chronciled profiled each ship and theri captain although instead of the NX I believe the covered a modern day carrier Enterprise captain if I recall correctly.

Well, it came out a year before Enterprise premiered, hence no NX-01. And it had two Diane Carey stories featuring real-life captains of historical Enterprises, a sloop during the Revolutionary War and the WWII aircraft carrier.

 

[F. King Daniel]

IMO novels "connecting the dots" of Trek history have been a mixed bag. Federation wrote a great story around the 1993 Star Trek Chronology's version of the 21st century. My Brother's Keeper was a somewhat bland look at Kirk's early years in Starfleet and the Enterprise relaunch has been an awful mishmash of retcons trying to fit Enterprise (which was clearly intended as a reimagining of Trek's formative years) into the old Chronology's timeline.

Stories focused more on characters instead of events have generally fared better: Final Frontier was a fantastic maiden voyage of the as-yet-unnamed Enterprise under Robert April and George Kirk, Enterprise: The First Adventure was an enjoyable tale of the TOS crew getting together and Diane Duane's tales of Vulcan and Romulan origins have been great.

I very much enjoyed the novels telling the origins and backstories of individual characters, like Saavik (Pandora Principle), and Demora (Captain's Daughter)

 

[David cgc]

...and the Enterprise relaunch has been an awful mishmash of retcons trying to fit Enterprise (which was clearly intended as a reimagining of Trek's formative years) into the old Chronology's timeline.

I especially like the dueling retcons between the Enterprise-Relaunch and Enterprise, Season 4.

Spoiler: Examples

"In A Mirror, Darkly," says the 23rd Century is more advanced, and that clean, shiny walls and bright colors were just popular in the 2260s. The novels say that it was an intentional degradation in technology to defeat Romulan computer infiltration (though, one, no one's ever said how exactly the telecapture system is supposed to work, and two, I don't see how making the consoles a different shape and using colored switches as opposed to silver ones is supposed to result in less-advanced computers. It's not like they don't still have speech input, or can't analyze the events of the episode and give the captain a plan to win the day). Then, of course, there's the subtle retcon that the Romulan Bird of Prey in "Minefield" wasn't actually cloaking, but was using a holographic active camouflage (suggested by the way the drone ships worked), so it wasn't really invisible. In the books, though, that's ignored in favor of saying they just blew up the second the camera cut away from them, so it wasn't really practical. And let's not even get into the fact that, amazingly, the visual medium managed to preserve the fact that no one had ever seen a Romulan, but it's the books, where you'd think such a thing would be easier to pull off, that have cute little justifications for why the characters have to keep meeting face-to-face with Romulans. Nor am I pleased about the attempt to wipe the NX-class starship from history.

Feh. I remember when the false report of cancellation came down at the end of season 3, I was actually relieved that the books would be able to take over and begin doing some Romulan War/Dawn of the Federation stuff. Then season 4 happened, and the books actually came along, and it turned out that the show itself ended up pursuing the storyline much more artfully.