The Best Trek: Novels or TV?

[F. King Daniel]

Apologies if this has been discussed before…

99.9% of us came to Star Trek via TV or film, and Star Trek novels are frequently treated as inferior to the TV/film version (and “not real Star Trek” apparently).

Star Trek has given us loads of great films and episodes. It’s given us loads of boring, terrible and stupid episodes too. Loads of great books have been released over the years. Some really bad ones, too.

But, at its very best, is TV/film Star Trek better than the very best of the novel version? Or worse? I know it’s as subjective as you can get (obviously, books vs. TV has been around as long as both mediums), but which do you all prefer? What if you had to pick one for your dose of Star Trek?


I prefer TV/film, but only by a narrow margin. It’s because I love to actually see the cool aliens (the giant biped ants in ENT were brilliant. Generic forehead aliens are rubbish), the spaceships, the planets and the space battles. On the other hand, stuff like the finale of Destiny probably wouldn’t seem nearly as profound on TV.

 

[Paris]

Both mediums have their pros and cons. For me, i'm currently enthraled with Trek-Lit. I've recently come back to it after having been absent for a few years, and the quality of books I've read has been way up there. Books like the Destiny trilogy, Vanguard, the DS9-relaunch, and AotF/ASD are miles ahead of what Enterprise was doing in its first few seasons. But this new movie by JJA may move me back into the "screen trek" camp. Hopefully the movie is strong and the books continue to kick as much ass as possible...long live trek-lit!

 

[Christopher]

Apples and oranges. The shows are better at doing the things that TV does well, the books are better at doing the things that prose does well.

 

[Claudia]

I have to say I prefer TV/movie - of course, not every incarnation, but in essence TV/movie is the basis of every novel, even the ones that star all new characters. OTOH, since without any affection for TV/movie I'd never pick up TrekLit, the books of course have much to live up to.

Some novels come very close, though - Crucible: McCoy actually is the one novel that best bridges the gap... perhaps because it's so close to TV/movie-canon, but nevertheless tells its own moving story.

 

[JD]

I don't know if I could really pick, I really think both are equal in terms of quality. They have both done there own things very good at times, and not so good at times.

 

[captcalhoun]

novels. more of the recent novels have been better at being 'real' trek than the TV shows. as well as being full of rich, well-drawn characters and cool 'splosions and shit.

 

[Geoff Thorne]

novels. more of the recent novels have been better at being 'real' trek than the TV shows. as well as being full of rich, well-drawn characters and cool 'splosions and shit.

Dude, seriously. If you're going to just give the plot of my book away, why do I bother writing?

 

[Lynx]

Since I have most Voyager books in my collection, I must state that most of the early Voyager books are as good as or even better than the TV episodes.

The books "The Black Shore" by Greg Cox, "Marooned" by Christie Golden and "Her Klingon Soul" by Michael Jan Friedman are as good or even better than my favorite Voyager episodes. There are some more books who come close to that too.

 

[JustKate]

I agree with Christopher's "apples and oranges" comment, but I also think...oh, I don't know how to put this and I just know I'm going to be unclear...that for most of us, the TV shows and (to a lesser extent) the movies help us "see" and feel the impact of the books more than we would otherwise. Because of all these powerful images that we already have in our minds from the screen, there are a lot of things that nobody has to describe for us. So without those pictures...the books would have to be a lot different. Longer, for one thing!

But anyway, my introduction to Trek was of course TV, and I think that's still Trek's most natural form, much as I've enjoyed some of the books and a few of the movies. But because of TV, I read the books differently than I would otherwise.

 

[Lynx]

I agree with Christopher's "apples and oranges" comment, but I also think...oh, I don't know how to put this and I just know I'm going to be unclear...that for most of us, the TV shows and (to a lesser extent) the movies help us "see" and feel the impact of the books more than we would otherwise. Because of all these powerful images that we already have in our minds from the screen, there are a lot of things that nobody has to describe for us. So without those pictures...the books would have to be a lot different. Longer, for one thing!

But anyway, my introduction to Trek was of course TV, and I think that's still Trek's most natural form, much as I've enjoyed some of the books and a few of the movies. But because of TV, I read the books differently than I would otherwise.

You're absolutely right here. I'm not sure if I would have appreciated the characters that much if I've only read about them and not seen them in the TV episodes.

I've read a few of the "New Frontier" books. They are OK but not as good as the books about TNG and Voyager (I haven't read so much of the DS9 books yet and none of the TOS books) and the character I like most is Shelby, maybe because I've seen her on TV and knows what she looks like and acts.

 

[Thrawn]

I agree with Christopher's "apples and oranges" comment, but I also think...oh, I don't know how to put this and I just know I'm going to be unclear...that for most of us, the TV shows and (to a lesser extent) the movies help us "see" and feel the impact of the books more than we would otherwise. Because of all these powerful images that we already have in our minds from the screen, there are a lot of things that nobody has to describe for us. So without those pictures...the books would have to be a lot different. Longer, for one thing!

But anyway, my introduction to Trek was of course TV, and I think that's still Trek's most natural form, much as I've enjoyed some of the books and a few of the movies. But because of TV, I read the books differently than I would otherwise.

Huh, that's weird; I don't actually agree. In a lot of cases, my favorite parts of the books are the ones that stretch way past what the TV shows could've done; I like the novels because they take the same concepts and go WAY further with them. Many of my favorite characters are the book-only ones. I'm thinking about it, and I really think that as I read, I don't spend much mental effort on explicitly visualizing the people; just more absorbing their emotions and philosophies. I don't think I react differently at all to onscreen and not onscreen characters. As long as they're good characters, I'm all for it either way.

And then I think the books tell bigger, longer stories, and so I personally prefer that.

 

[JustKate]

Huh, that's weird; I don't actually agree. In a lot of cases, my favorite parts of the books are the ones that stretch way past what the TV shows could've done; I like the novels because they take the same concepts and go WAY further with them. Many of my favorite characters are the book-only ones. I'm thinking about it, and I really think that as I read, I don't spend much mental effort on explicitly visualizing the people; just more absorbing their emotions and philosophies. I don't think I react differently at all to onscreen and not onscreen characters. As long as they're good characters, I'm all for it either way.

And then I think the books tell bigger, longer stories, and so I personally prefer that.

Oh, I agree with that, too, Thrawn, but I really think the shows help (me, at least) even when the book is talking about something the shows never covered. See, I knew I would be unclear...

To use a simplistic example: Without Trek, my views of spaceships would be based on rocket ships and flying saucers from the 50s and 60s, modified slightly by Star Wars. So just being able to visualize a Trek sort of ship is useful for me.

And yes, the great thing about the books is that they can tell The Big Story.

 

[Thrawn]

Well, but on the other hand, I read the entirety of Destiny without a clue what the Aventine looked like, and we have many ships with no clear design for the interior spaces. Doesn't seem to matter much.

 

[JustKate]

^ Maybe not to you. Maybe you have a better visual imagination than I do. Or maybe I just like being able to "see" all the pretty starships in my head. Could be.

 

[cb31]

I too like having something to base the pictures in my head on when I read Trek fiction (maybe it's just laziness on my imaginations part) but I like knowing what most of the main characters and races look like, it saves a lot of description by the authors and leaves more pages for story!

On the other hand, not having any idea what the New Frontier characters looked like didn't hinder my enjoyment of those books in the least.

As for the topic of this thread I have to go with the novels, I'm really liking the continuuing plots and stories currently in Trek fiction!

 

[JD]

My feelings are pretty much a mix between Thrawn and JustKate. I really do feel that the books couldn't have been as good if it were not for the characters and the universe that the shows have given us, but on the other hand IMO the books have taken the good parts of the shows and been able to expand on them and take them in great new directions. And in the process they have also added alot of really interesting new elements to the universe.
As for new ships and characters, IMO the authors usually do a good enough job describing them that I am able to get a pretty clear idea of what they look like.
As I said up thread I really do think they about equal in terms of quality. Also in my mind they are both so intertwined that at I really just think of them as one big entity. In fact there are times where I'm thinking of a characer, or event that I loved, and I honestly can't remember if it/they were in a book or on the screen.

 

[tmclough]

I agree with those who like the episodes as a guide to what the characters are like. However, I don't think it's so much their visual appearance, as it is the character of the characters, if that makes sense--their personality, both individually and as a race. This helps me tell whether a character is in- or out-of-character, as well as helping me try to guess ahead what's going to happen next or later.

Because of this, I have had difficulty in the past with New Frontier (still haven't tried it again, yet), and more recently with Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers (despite the appendices at the end which at least tell me whether the characters are Bajoran, Cardassian, or other). I'm currently reading The Final Reflection (from The Hand of Kahless), and so far, it's a little easier reading than NF or TNotV. Part of the reason for this may be related to comments I've read online about TFR being good enough to be a stand-alone novel (just change the names, etc.).

That said, I still like most of the ST novels I've read. I'm already looking forward to start reading Millenium and DS9-R, as soon as I'm finished watching DS9 on DVDs. I'm almost at the end of Season 3, so it'll still be a few more months before I'm ready.

As to the original question, both episodes and novels have their advantages. Episodes are much easier for me to follow, even when they are on the boring side; their also much quicker from start to finish. Novels, on the other hand, when I can follow them, go into much deeper detail in just about every aspect.