"The Janus Gate" by L.A. Graf

[E-DUB]

Went to a massive used book sale this last weekend an found a copy of this. All three paperbacks collected into a single hardcover. Never seen this before and I used to look at the Trek book section religiously. Can someone (or someones) give me some info on what I've got here?

 

[Stevil2001]

Went to a massive used book sale this last weekend an found a copy of this. All three paperbacks collected into a single hardcover. Never seen this before and I used to look at the Trek book section religiously. Can someone (or someones) give me some info on what I've got here?

It's a Science Fiction Book Club edition; they used to do a lot of the old trilogies this way.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Science_Fiction_Book_Club

 

[Christopher]

It's a Science Fiction Book Club edition; they used to do a lot of the old trilogies this way.

I have that edition. I think it actually works better that way. I've seen the trilogy criticized for its pacing, how the first book feels like too little happens, and I think the pacing feels better if you perceive the whole trilogy as one book instead of three. Not very logical, I know, but it works for me.

 

[Stevil2001]

I don't have any SFBC editions of Star Trek books (or Star Wars ones, they did a lot of those too), but I have occasionally picked up their omnibus volumes for other series. They had a gorgeous one of the first three Temeraire books by Naomi Novik, for example; totally worth tracking down the used hardcover for the gorgeous original cover it received. (Most of the Star Trek ones, though, just got cover art that merged the constituent parts' covers.)

 

[E-DUB]

Thanks, all. The story itself was part of a brief rethinking of TOS stories whereby they sought to tie the narrative into the series as if it were a story that you hadn't seen. An actually promising premise that didn't last long.

 

[Corran Horn]

Strap yourself in for some Giotto action!

 

[Therin of Andor]

Thanks, all. The story itself was part of a brief rethinking of TOS stories whereby they sought to tie the narrative into the series as if it were a story that you hadn't seen. An actually promising premise that didn't last long.

Agreed!

I was so inspired at the time, I attempted at an appearance chart for these so-called "lower decks" Star Trek: The Original Series novel trilogies, a Pocket Books experiment in 2002, in hope of "rebooting" the novel series. Pocket's initial plan was to revisit the original series (TOS) episodes through the eyes of "lower deck" crew, but the idea was absorbed back into the usual run of TOS fiction. The resulting stories turned out to be not all that different in style to the regular line. The chart covers: The Janus Gate, a trilogy by LA Graf; the Errand of Vengeance trilogy by Kevin Ryan; and Ryan's sequel trilogy, Errand of Fury.

I had hoped to provide a linear guide for fans wishing to track the recurring "lower deck" crewmembers through the new story arcs in these publications. The key to the first six 2002 books was that they entwined events of the actual aired episodes, and featured an ensemble cast of familiar faces: the "lower deck" characters, red-shirts, semi-regulars and guest star crewmembers of TOS. As I suspected (and as was mentioned in "Voyages of the Imagination" by Jeff Ayres, 2006), the novel trilogies were also inspired by a previous trilogy, "My Brother's Keeper" (1999) by Michael Jan Friedman. I later added original characters used by Alan Dean Foster in his "Star Trek Log" adaptations of the animated series (TAS) and, just for fun, I also tracked characters in David R George III's "Crucible" trilogy.

I kept the episode order as per the 2006 version of the Pocket Books' timeline. That is, TOS episodes listed in production order (TOS episodes were not originally screened in anything like the order they were produced) but for this project, it seemed better to put the TAS episodes in the order that those episodes appeared in Alan Dean Foster's "Star Trek Log" adaptations (Ballantine Books).

I made additions to the canonical TOS episodes' crewmember names and titles are shown in bold where first mentioned in novels. Numerals in parentheses track the cumulative appearances of characters in aired episodes. Sometimes certain characters appeared in TOS episodes without lines or an end credit. Question marks show where a particular actor cannot be confirmed if playing a new or familiar role, or if a novel only suggests the identity of a lower deck crewmember. Pavel Andreievich Chekov is treated as a lower decks character for Season One of TOS, and has either left the ship or returned to the lower decks during TAS. The final column is not meant to be exhaustive, but is an attempt to track other appearances of TOS characters in other Pocket novels and stories.

My 2007 update is still sitting at Oocities, a fan-preserved version of the defunct Geocities, but unable to be edited:
https://www.oocities.org/area51/station/1558/TOScrew.html

 

[Corran Horn]

This makes me wish the old psiphi boards were archived somewhere reachable.

 

[Christopher]

This makes me wish the old psiphi boards were archived somewhere reachable.

I discovered recently that my old PsiPhi bookmark goes here: http://psiphi.comicboards.com/startrek/ But I'm not sure if it's the same thing.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

They had a gorgeous one of the first three Temeraire books by Naomi Novik, for example; totally worth tracking down the used hardcover for the gorgeous original cover it received.

I also have that omnibus. And yes, Todd Lockwood's cover painting is gorgeous. I used it at work as a desktop wallpaper circa 2008.