Shatnerverse

[Count Zero]

I really enjoyed 'Collision Course', much to my surprise. Sure, it becomes rather implausible towards the end, but it's fun and exciting and the end scene is quite touching. I liked the world building.
The only other Shatnerverse book I've read was 'Avenger'. I don't remember much of it, apart from thinking that it suffered from 'small universe syndrome'.

 

[Captain Randy Hall]

In my opinion, the Shatnerverse books are Mary Sue fanfic written by someone who actually portrayed a beloved character. The Kirk in those stories makes Chuck Norris look like Tinkerbell. They're what a Michael Bay Star Trek movie would look like, if Bay had a hardon for William Shatner instead of the US military.

It's interesting that the only characters we seem to want from a Trek actor is the character he/she played. When did Nichelle Nichols write a Spock novel? Or George Takei do a Kirk comic? The only one I can think of is Walter Koenig writing an animated episode called "The Ultimate Vulcan."

The Shatnerverse novels were also aided by the writing of Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. Sure, they centered on Kirk, but there was some good stuff mixed in throughout, IMHO.

 

[Lindley]

Then you might like David George III's Kirk volume in his Crucible series. It takes on those events in a novel fashion, but without making Kirk superhuman, while still giving his story a great ending.

That was a great short story padded out to novel length, honestly.

But then, the entire Crucible trilogy was made up of a few good ideas glued rather awkwardly together. McCoy was the only one of the bunch which really *needed* the "City" link at all.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

^Flying cars are a very bad idea unless they're computer-controlled. People have enough traffic accidents in two dimensions. And if a normal car breaks down, you can just pull over to the side of the road, rather than falling to a grisly death.

A car that can alternate between flying and running on the road would be the best compromise I think. If it's having trouble in the air you just switch back to wheels! <G> Okay, so that's J.D. Robb's solution, but I just had to mention it.

 

[Lindley]

Screw flying cars, just get more people involved with General Aviation. The prices would go down with economies of scale....

 

[Christopher]

I'd rather have bullet trains.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

It's interesting that the only characters we seem to want from a Trek actor is the character he/she played. When did Nichelle Nichols write a Spock novel? Or George Takei do a Kirk comic? The only one I can think of is Walter Koenig writing an animated episode called "The Ultimate Vulcan."

And Koenig wrote a comic book centered around his character. As did Takei.

 

[Christopher]

Well, part of what actors do is to develop backstories for their own characters. And in general, they have to be focused on the characters they play as opposed to the characters played by other people. So it stands to reason that an actor would have more insights into his or her own character than into the other characters. That's their job -- to know their own characters inside and out. Knowing all the characters equally is more of a job for the writers, producers, and directors.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I was very unhappy (like a lot of people) and not satisfied with the way that Ron Moore ended with Kirk in Generations.

You know, that's almost refreshing. Generally, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga get blamed by default for everything people don't like about Trek, sometimes even when they had no involvement with it (like when people blame Braga for INS and NEM). And yet, even though GEN was scripted by Moore and Braga and co-plotted by Berman, Braga and Berman are the ones who don't get blamed for a change.

Don't you worry, sir. I do blame them for GEN. Especially Braga and Moore, who had written "All Good Things" just before it.

At least Moore redeemed himself with some excellent writing in DS9, and with "Trials and Tribble-atons". What did Braga do? VOY and ENT... Nowhere near close Moore's brilliance in writing or plotting.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

As for the Shatnerverse, I love it. Obviously, as my nick is derived from one of the characters in that series (the MU trilogy, in fact). The first trilogy was obviously the best, with AVENGER having the best plotting, but with the serious error of downsizing Picard's involvement in the Sarek story. ASHES is the most balanced one, and second best, whereas THE RETURN is the most fun one, but loses a bit credibility when Kirk wins a Klingon - and Worf no less (Worf, damn it!). SPECTRE, I like it better than RETURN, for its returns to ASHES's pace and the writing was just great. DARK VICTORY I liked, even though a lot of people didn't, and PRESERVER, I feel, needed a rewrite, as the first half is excellent, but the second half is trash. Complete trash. CAPTAIN'S PERIL, I thought, was good - a detective story where Kirk tries to solve a mystery and avenge his friend, CAPTAIN'S BLOOD was a nice follow-up to NEM, but a tad ridiculous, and CAPTAIN'S GLORY a reall good one, with an awesome epilogue thats an awesome cap for the character of Jim Kirk.

So, overall, I found them to be rather entertaining, and not any better or worse than any other Trek books. So to lower them or dismiss them as May Sue fanfics is a silly thing for me to do, as there are plenty of Trek novels that actually qualify as such, and have worse writing than this series (after all, the Reeves-Stevens give a hand), and suffer from the smae probs this is accused of having (the small-universe thing).

If anything, I'm especially fond of them, as they exposed me to Trek literature, and were a fun alternative to Trek movies at the time - I was reading the MU trilogy during INS's time, and it was such a relief to do so because of that film's suckiness. Plus, the stories rectified one of GEN's most unforgiveable of decisions, as per Kirk's death, and for that alone I consider them valid, in my eyes.

 

[Saul]

^Flying cars are a very bad idea unless they're computer-controlled. People have enough traffic accidents in two dimensions. And if a normal car breaks down, you can just pull over to the side of the road, rather than falling to a grisly death.

I totally agree. I couldn't sleep at night without the thought that one of them might come crashing out of the sky into my house.
It would be a terrorist's wet dream if they ever became a reality.

However this is Star Trek where people are generally good people..on Earth at least. Only have to worry about someone warping a ship into the planet....

 

[Christopher]

It would be a terrorist's wet dream if they ever became a reality.

Not so much, because it's nothing they couldn't already do with a small plane. And if I correctly recall the chatter following 9/11, small planes can only do limited amounts of damage.

However this is Star Trek where people are generally good people..on Earth at least. Only have to worry about someone warping a ship into the planet....

Warp isn't the problem, since it doesn't represent a realspace velocity. High impulse is the problem. A runabout-sized ship hitting at half the speed of light would be an extinction-level event. A drunk driver could destroy a civilization. Which is why any spacefaring planet would need a very robust planetary defense grid -- and extremely strict enforcement of in-system traffic laws.

 

[flandry84]

Personally I love the Shatnerverse and get rather annoyed with the sniffy attitude shown toward these books.

The Reeves-Stevens' are among the very few Treklit authors willing to toss in random Trek references/tech and make it seem unforced.
And refreshingly,with plot devices like Project:Sign and the SI-owned Defiant class ship,Starfleet is portrayed as being a little proactive.

 

[Jbarney]

I'm actually surprised by how much I enjoyed the Shatnerverse books. I have not read all of them, just the first six. The stories involved are on the grand side of things, which sets them a part from the main continuity.

Which is actually one of my problems with them. I think it would have been much better for Pocket to market them as happening in a different continuity. It would have saved a lot of fans internet arguments/perspective differences if readers were given some indication from the start that the books were not designed to go with the main group of books unfolding in the 24th century.

Not saying a bright neon sign would have been needed in every book store that sold the Shatner books either, but better marketing (from the start) about Shatnerverse being different would have been cleaner.

They are worth reading.

 

[Broccoli]

I like the Shatnerverse. It is goofy fun, although the Mirror Universe trilogy was a bit convoluted and the Totality trilogy was very poorly put together. However, Collision Course was pretty good. Too bad there doesn't seem to be a follow-up coming anytime soon.

I was very unhappy (like a lot of people) and not satisfied with the way that Ron Moore ended with Kirk in Generations.

Whoa! I think I entered the Bizarro World.

 

[D Man]

I loved the mirror universe trilogy, I've re-read it a bunch of times. All the stuff with the conspiracies and mysterious happenings was great. I also like how the books tend to have Kirk and Picard sort of at odds with each other; it's more interesting than having them Team Up To Save The Galaxy. All the books are over-the-top fun, and the only one I didn't really like was the 2nd Totality book, with Kirk and an ancient McCoy running around on Remus. A bit much, I think.

 

[F. King Daniel]

In my opinion, the Shatnerverse books are Mary Sue fanfic written by someone who actually portrayed a beloved character. The Kirk in those stories makes Chuck Norris look like Tinkerbell. They're what a Michael Bay Star Trek movie would look like, if Bay had a hardon for William Shatner instead of the US military.

Although I’m anti-Shat in STXII, I would *love* to see a Michael Bay-directed huge-budget Shatnerverse movie. It would be truly terrible, yet truly awesome at the same time. The mind boggles at the sort of things that would happen



About the Shatnerverse and regular TrekLit: I’m not so sure there is much in the way of irreconcilable contradictions between them (although I haven’t read everything, I think the biggest problem spot is the mirror universe) – I always thought of it more as they just never EVER mention that Kirk is up and about in the 24th century in any of the other books. If there are contradictions, they don’t seem as noticeable as those between current Trek and say, the Rihannsu books or The Final Reflection, and elements of those (and other old books) crop up time and again.

Silly Shatnerverse speculation: Couldn’t the ancient building on The Return’s Borg homeworld (in the Delta quadrant), with its big engraved metal doors be a remnant of the crashed Caeliar city that begat the Borg in Destiny? The Borg would have eventually Borgified the whole planet, but maybe they kept what was left of the original city as a monument to the perfection to which the Borg strive (and put a giant Lever of Death right next to it)

 

[Christopher]

About the Shatnerverse and regular TrekLit: I’m not so sure there is much in the way of irreconcilable contradictions between them (although I haven’t read everything, I think the biggest problem spot is the mirror universe) – I always thought of it more as they just never EVER mention that Kirk is up and about in the 24th century in any of the other books.

There are major contradictions between the Totality trilogy (the Captain's _____ books) and the main novel continuity (hereinafter MNC). In the Shatnerverse, Bajor is not yet a UFP member in 2378, while in the MNC it joined in 2376. The Shatnerverse starship Titan spends 2380 participating in Romulan reconstruction post-Nemesis and doesn't have its first encounter with a new alien species until 2381, whereas the MNC Titan spends much less time at Romulus and has its initial first contact in March 2380. The Shatnerverse Doctor/EMH is in the Alpha Quadrant in mid-2381, whereas the MNC Doctor is aboard the Galen in the Delta Quadrant at the time. Most significantly, the Shatnerverse Kathryn Janeway is still alive and well in 2381, a year after her death in the MNC.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I read Ashes of Eden and was entertained and delighted by it. It could, arguable, be slotted in with the rest of canon without being classified as "shatnerverse."

It was.

It was only when several of the Pocket novelists stated that they'd be ignoring the resurrection of Kirk (in "The Return") in their books, if Kirk was going to be referenced, that someone coined a name for Shatner's series.

 

[F. King Daniel]

About the Shatnerverse and regular TrekLit: I’m not so sure there is much in the way of irreconcilable contradictions between them (although I haven’t read everything, I think the biggest problem spot is the mirror universe) – I always thought of it more as they just never EVER mention that Kirk is up and about in the 24th century in any of the other books.

There are major contradictions between the Totality trilogy (the Captain's _____ books) and the main novel continuity (hereinafter MNC). In the Shatnerverse, Bajor is not yet a UFP member in 2378, while in the MNC it joined in 2376. The Shatnerverse starship Titan spends 2380 participating in Romulan reconstruction post-Nemesis and doesn't have its first encounter with a new alien species until 2381, whereas the MNC Titan spends much less time at Romulus and has its initial first contact in March 2380. The Shatnerverse Doctor/EMH is in the Alpha Quadrant in mid-2381, whereas the MNC Doctor is aboard the Galen in the Delta Quadrant at the time. Most significantly, the Shatnerverse Kathryn Janeway is still alive and well in 2381, a year after her death in the MNC.

Ah.

I stand corrected.