Standalone nature of New Frontier? And some others

[NightJim]

A good few years ago, I decided to jump into the lit verse and managed to burn myself out just as I reached the end of the Dominion War. Now I feel the pull of it dragging me back, but I also don't want to try and eat the whole cake and just become too bloated to continue again. I decided to zero in one aspect that grabbed me, Captain Mackenzie and the Excalibur. What worries me is how standalone is this? Are there any books outside the New Frontier line that are must reads to understand what's going on? Things like, Is the Destiny trilogy important at point X for example.

The same question goes for Prometheus and the Full Circle fleet? Both of which sound really interesting.

 

[Jinn]

A good few years ago, I decided to jump into the lit verse and managed to burn myself out just as I reached the end of the Dominion War. Now I feel the pull of it dragging me back, but I also don't want to try and eat the whole cake and just become too bloated to continue again. I decided to zero in one aspect that grabbed me, Captain Mackenzie and the Excalibur. What worries me is how standalone is this? Are there any books outside the New Frontier line that are must reads to understand what's going on? Things like, Is the Destiny trilogy important at point X for example.

The same question goes for Prometheus and the Full Circle fleet? Both of which sound really interesting.

The only book that you have to read in order for the narrative to make sense that isn't part of the actual New Frontier series is the Double Helix novel "Double or Nothing", which is written by Peter David and is a NF/TNG crossover. Really, it's just a NF novel with the serial number filed off.

Other than that, I can't think of anything.


Edit: Prometheus is kind of a middle thing, I think the only major connection to the LitVerse is that the political ramifications of The Fall are brought up, but I don't think you really need to read it to understand Prometheus.

Full Circle stuff, I'd read the TNG novel Before Dishonor before, as it features a character death that gets explored in the Full Circle novels, and obviously Destiny is basically the set up for the Full Circle novels.

 

[NightJim]

Thanks, . I'll stick to New Frontier for now!

 

[Thrawn]

For NF, the flowchart in my signature might be helpful; just know that you don't have to read the entire Gateways crossover. Pick the NF parts only (Cold Wars and the New Frontier section of What Lay Beyond) and that works just fine. It's also totally fine to skip the comics; last I checked, they were a bit hard to find these days.

As far as Full Circle goes, the Voyager books that begin with Full Circle are incredible TrekLit, some of the best. They do refer to earlier things, but I think the best way to approach that is:

1) Just read Destiny. It's great, it's designed to work for new readers, and I've given the trilogy to several people who've never read any TrekLit before and they've all loved it. (It's not a bad idea to read Before Dishonor before Destiny too, but don't be too turned off if you don't like Before Dishonor; it's a pretty divisive novel, and not representative of the quality of Destiny or the Voyager books later. I usually just tell my friends to read Destiny and I haven't gotten any complaints!)
2) Start reading Full Circle and continue from there. Be aware that when you read Full Circle, you will read some references to earlier Voyager novels that you haven't read, but also be aware that those Voyager novels aren't very good and most of what's going on in Full Circle is clearing the narrative board so that Kirsten Beyer can set her own stories in motion. If a few things are a little vague, don't worry about it; those things will cease to be important by the end of the first novel, and after that you can just read the Voyager novels in order without worrying about any other references, and they're so good. A bit of a completist myself, I understand how this sounds a bit awkward, but I've also recommended this strategy to several of those people who liked Destiny and wondered what to read next, and they've all agreed - Full Circle is occasionally an awkward start, but by the end of the book they're completely on board, and the rest of the Voyager novels from there are more than good enough to justify a little patience at the beginning.

 

[Christopher]

1) Just read Destiny. It's great, it's designed to work for new readers, and I've given the trilogy to several people who've never read any TrekLit before and they've all loved it. (It's not a bad idea to read Before Dishonor before Destiny too, but don't be too turned off if you don't like Before Dishonor; it's a pretty divisive novel, and not representative of the quality of Destiny or the Voyager books later. I usually just tell my friends to read Destiny and I haven't gotten any complaints!)

Before Dishonor is fairly disconnected from Destiny despite both involving unrelated Borg attacks. Greater than the Sum is actually the book that wraps up the last lingering threads from BD and leads directly into Destiny.

 

[KRAD]

I think the advice to read Before Dishonor before reading Full Circle and its sequels, because of two characters who play a big role in BD......

 

[veritech]

Is it necessary to read Homecoming, The Farther Shore, and the Spirit Walk duology before starting Full Circle and it's sequels?


--EDIT
I just read Thrawn's post and it answers my question . . . .sorry!

 

[JD]

A good few years ago, I decided to jump into the lit verse and managed to burn myself out just as I reached the end of the Dominion War. Now I feel the pull of it dragging me back, but I also don't want to try and eat the whole cake and just become too bloated to continue again. I decided to zero in one aspect that grabbed me, Captain Mackenzie and the Excalibur. What worries me is how standalone is this? Are there any books outside the New Frontier line that are must reads to understand what's going on? Things like, Is the Destiny trilogy important at point X for example.

The New Frontier books are both figuratively and literally off in their own little corner of the Trek universe. There are a few points where the consistency with the rest of the Novelverse is a bit questionable in some of the later books after it really took off. I'll keep this vague to avoid spoilers, but the one instance I remember is that there was a character that goes through some pretty massive changes in Destiny, but when they appear in a NF book that should have been after Destiny, it's not entirely clear if those changes had actually taken place.
It's pretty clear from the NF books that Peter David probably hasn't read any of the other Novelverse books. Not that there's anything wrong with that, he's a busy guy who probably didn't have the time to stay up to date on things that didn't have a direct impact on his books.
A few of the other books have made references to NF, but outside of the Gateways and Double Helix crossovers, I don't think they ever refer back to anything no written by Peter David.

 

[Nyotarules]

New Frontier like Vanguard, the best Star Trek tv shows that were never produced.

 

[NightJim]

Thanks everyone! I started reading A Quiet Place last night after a quick memory beta read of what I'd read before.

Special thanks to Thrawn. That is very detailed explanation of Full Circle to the point I want to go and read it now!
I actually read the Homecoming duology way back and enjoyed it. I was staying away from the Spirit Walk books though. I heard of their reputation.

 

[JD]

The early Voyager relaunch books are pretty well covered over at Memory Beta, so if you don't want to go in to Full Circle totally blind, you can just skim through some of the Voyager articles on there. That's what I did, and I was able to go into Full Circle with enough knowledge of what came before to follow it OK.