Thank you Trek Lit posters, authors & David Mack!

[bryce]

I just wanted to say a personal thanks to all the posters in this forum, the current gang of Trelit authors - some of you I know are regular posters here - and special thanks to Trek author David Mack - for bringing this reader back to the Star Trek novel world after my near 20-year absense!!!

I just turned 38 yesterday, and I havent read a Star Trek novel in many, many years; but in my late teens and early 20's I was an avid devourer of Star Trek novels - I have fond memories of Trek novels like Strangers from the Sky, Dwellers in the Crucible (Hi garamet!!! ) Final Frontier*(so much better a Trek prequel than Enterprise)*Diane Carey'sRihannsu books (better version of the Romulans than TNG's campy 2-dimensional portrail, IMHO) & the LOL "How Much for Just the Planet?" - and I eventually accumulated a huge box full of Star Trek paperbacks - but after I got married & had kids I sorta drifted away from the Trek lit world.

I considered occassionally giving the newer ones a read from time to time, but I noticed - when I read threads in this forum - that the later novels now have their own shared continuity (similar to Star Wars' "EU" book series) and as neat and intriguing as I thought that was, I also found it a bit intimidating to someone who hadn't been keeping up, and I worried it would lessen my enjoyment if I didn't know very much about all these new characters & their shared backstories except what I gleaned from Trek Lit forum topics - and it would just be to daunting a task to to read dozens and dozens of books to catch up.

And even if I wanted too - where in the heck was I supposed to start!?

But I kept reading this forum anyway in the hopes that I could maybe try to pick up enough info so that if I did decide to jump back in the Trek novels &their shared world, I wouldn't be a complete outsider.

And it here that I noticed all the raving about how good Mack's Destiny miniseries was, as well as his Vanguard books, and how much people here enjoyed books like KRAD's Articles of the Federation (a great premise if you ask me) and Christopher L. Bennett's Ex Machina (a fasinating premise) - so I decided what the hell, I'd give it a shot, and I picked up a copy of Gods of Night & a used copy of Ex Machina last week.

And I started Gods of Night first, just yesterday, and I am hooked!

I love it!!! And I'm glad I decided to give these books a shot!

Thank you Trek Literature!!!

 

[David R. George III]

Welcome back into the fold, Bryce! I actually just started reading Gods of Night myself, and I too am hooked. You couldn't have gone wrong by selecting a David Mack novel to reintroduce yourself to Trek literature.

 

[foravalon]

I think a good jumping on point for the recent era of trek lit is the beginning of the DS9 Relaunch in 2001, then just work your way forward more or less by publishing date. There are still the odd pseudo-series out like Stargazer, New Earth, Voyager, and the Shatnerverse books, which don't play too well with the rest of the continuity, so feel free to avoid those if you're trying to ride on the common continuity wagon, and the TNG books don't really tighten up until the Time-to series, but really, with the dawn of the DS9-R, and the majority of the series which have followed, it's been a magical time for Trek lit. Another honorable mention from the lit era of the 20th Century includes the New Frontier series by Peter David, just plain awesome fun.

 

[David Mack]

^ Thanks, bryce, and to DRG III, for the kind words. Glad I could once again be someone's "gateway drug" to the current crop of TrekLit.

 

[LightningStorm]

There are still the odd pseudo-series out like Stargazer, New Earth, Voyager, and the Shatnerverse books, which don't play too well with the rest of the continuity, ...

Stargazer and Voyager? Voyager? What about these two series are noncontinuous with the rest of the books? Regarding Destiny in particular Voyager is there and continuous from Homecoming on, in fact Full Circle is one of the many post-Destiny books directly related to those events.

 

[ClayinCA]

There are still the odd pseudo-series out like Stargazer, New Earth, Voyager, and the Shatnerverse books, which don't play too well with the rest of the continuity, ...

Stargazer and Voyager? Voyager? What about these two series are noncontinuous with the rest of the books? Regarding Destiny in particular Voyager is there and continuous from Homecoming on, in fact Full Circle is one of the many post-Destiny books directly related to those events.

Yeah, I didn't understand those references to the Stargazer or Voyager books, either, I'm afraid...

 

[Marie1]

Its kinda funny, actually... especially including VOY- probably from all he's read around here lately... LOL

 

[foravalon]

Well frankly because Stargazer and Voyager books from the time of the "great continuity renaissance", to coin a phrase, are all isolated and off on their own, having very little impact or connection to the rest of the series at the time. Even the crossover books that really tried to make an effort to be connected were dubious at best.

And even the four Voyager books set back in the Alpha Quad were strange little oddities that still had little connection, the concept of the Voyager Relaunch faltered and more or less died. Voyager has always been very neither here nor there, and only just recently are the events being referenced in the other books and the characters sort of shoe-horned back in with the rest of the 'verse in a variety of other series.

Now we're poised on the brink of a potential Voyager Re-Relaunch and I hope the Voyager series, if it can even still be called so, makes a strong and lively comeback or is gracefully put to rest.

Stargazer and Voyager? Voyager? What about these two series are noncontinuous with the rest of the books? Regarding Destiny in particular Voyager is there and continuous from Homecoming on, in fact Full Circle is one of the many post-Destiny books directly related to those events.

Sorry for any confusion in my post, I don't mean to imply that VOY and Stargazer are in separate continuities, just that their contributions to the continuity have been notoriously tangential.

 

[LightningStorm]

The Voyager "relaunch's" perceived quality or lack thereof hasn't any effect on how connected it is to the whole.

Also, if I am understanding you correctly, you are more referring to the one-off books? If that is the case then DS9, TNG, TOS, and ENT should also be included in that list of 'disconnected' series, as IMO should NF.

 

[Christopher]

And even the four Voyager books set back in the Alpha Quad were strange little oddities that still had little connection, the concept of the Voyager Relaunch faltered and more or less died. Voyager has always been very neither here nor there, and only just recently are the events being referenced in the other books and the characters sort of shoe-horned back in with the rest of the 'verse in a variety of other series.

That's not an accurate interpretation. The series didn't "falter and die"; it actually sold quite well, judging from the number of reprints, but the author was unable to continue and its original editor left, so it was put on hiatus while Marco figured out how best to move forward with it, and then he and Kirsten Beyer took their time making sure they got it right. Make no mistake, Full Circle is a direct continuation from Spirit Walk.

And the only reason the events of the VGR post-finale novels didn't connect much with the other series was chronological; it was set in 2378, ahead of DS9 and SCE and before NEM and the post-NEM novels. It's not that anything's been ignored and is now being "shoehorned," simply that it's a big universe spanning a lot of time, and these books were covering a portion that others didn't really overlap.

 

[foravalon]

The Voyager "relaunch's" perceived quality or lack thereof hasn't any effect on how connected it is to the whole.

Also, if I am understanding you correctly, you are more referring to the one-off books? If that is the case then DS9, TNG, TOS, and ENT should also be included in that list of 'disconnected' series, as IMO should NF.

tangential
3 a: divergent , digressive b: touching lightly : incidental , peripheral <tangential involvement> ; also : of little relevance <arguments tangential to the main point>

If that doesn't describe what the Stargazer and Voyager pre-Destiny books have been for you, that's cool, we can agree to disagree. But it pretty much sums them up for me. Not that they can't be fun, don't get me wrong, I consider myself a pretty heavy trek reader, a continuity junkie, but it wasn't until I read Destiny that I even felt compelled to go back and read the Voyager books, and that's only in order to have some context for Full Circle which I'm greatly looking forward to.

 

[LightningStorm]

tangential
3 a: divergent , digressive b: touching lightly : incidental , peripheral <tangential involvement> ; also : of little relevance <arguments tangential to the main point>

divergent
1 a: diverging from each other <divergent paths> b: differing from each other or from a standard <the divergent interests of capital and labor>

As I said, perhaps I misunderstood what you were intending to say, I can afterall only read what you wrote, not what you were thinking.

Nonetheless, even given you clearly meant more 3b than 3a, I'd venture to say all of the series before Destiny only touched lightly on each other as DS9 is set in a whole different time frame, Titan is off doing other things far from the Federation and TNG was doing it's thing locally but those things (until The Borg came) didn't really affect Titan or Voyager or DS9 or NF.

 

[foravalon]

You're exactly right about my intentions regarding that definition of tangential. No mind-reading required I'm not implying divergence at all, just pretty much everything from 3b onward.

And I think we've definitely got to agree to disagree about the other series' connections. I think that the DS9-R, SCE, Gorkon, Lost Era, Dominion War, A Time-to, Titan and the rest the more recent TNG books, etc have all been firmly entrenched in eachother's stories, plot threads, and characters. To me anyway it seems as if they all have a common editorial thrust to them that just isn't present in the other tangential series I've mentioned. To a lesser degree New frontier has also had a decent recognition and representation in those other series as well.

I don't think issue is based solely on chronology either, since various stories I've mentioned as being associated with that tight continuity of those series have taken place in many different eras.

 

[JD]

I don't know if I'd really say Stargazer was tangential, after all we did see it's characters in The Buried Age, which I belive was slightly connected to Q&A in the end, and then there were the appearances of Greyhorse and Joseph (at least) in Death in Winter (there might be more of them in it, I don't know I haven't read it).