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The Star Trek Lit-verse Reading Guide

Just wanted to give everyone an update about a few big improvements at the Star Trek Litverse Reading Guide over the last few months.

As always, I've added the new books and comics released each month to their appropriate lists. I created a more mobile friendly version of the SCE Reading List page, in my slow process of creating those types of pages for all the reading lists. I've added the Unification novelization after realizing it was linked to the rest of the Lit-verse continuity web. I've added new pictures of my ever growing scale starship model collection.

And the main project that has consumed tons of time over the last months...A few years ago, my intricate system for making sense of the Klingon Day of Honor had to be scrapped due to realizing I had missed a key piece of evidence. I finally figured out an updated system that matches all the evidence and makes a logical pattern for when the Day of Honor is celebrated. In order to do that I pulled the trigger on creating a spreadsheet that users can input Earth dates to be converted into Klingon dates (or vice versa). That was a monster to figure out, and I finally cracked the code on it with a little logic help from ChatGPT. I've updated all the info on all my Klingon calendar pages, and everything is finally in a complete, working, accurate form. I particularly think the calculator is pretty cool, though it's obviously super niche and nerdy.

Ready to get my main focus back into the regular improvements to the site now that my Klingon side quest is complete!

www.startreklitverse.com

Hi! Newbie here; I came across your site years ago and enjoyed going through it to see how all the relaunch books and other stuff tied together. Was actually planning to start a Litverse read-through and then life majorly got in the way. Finally came back to the site on a whim a few days ago to see the updates over the last couple of years.

I do have a few questions, two pertaining to your additions to the site and one to certain books (and readers who are more familiar can chime in as well).

1. Is it just my imagination, or did you have a longer Kelvin timeline reading list on the site at one point? I can't find it now.

2. Has the Complete Chronological Order page been shelved? I was a bit disappointed to see that it stopped with Dawn of the Eagles.

3. Is the Prophecy and Change anthology considered part of the DS9 relaunch, since it was published in 2003, or no? I'm tempted to think no, especially since the Coda trilogy seems to nullify the events of 'Revisited', but I could be wrong. Ditto for Distant Shores, Constellations, and Enterprise Logs. (FWIW, TV Tropes - yeah, I know - does not list these 3 as part of the 'Novelverse', but The Sky's the Limit is included on the TNG Relaunch sub-page.)
 
I'm tempted to think no, especially since the Coda trilogy seems to nullify the events of 'Revisited', but I could be wrong.

Not necessarily. There were other Litverse events that took place after 2387-ish. Given the nature of what happened, it seems to be similar to what happened in the Millennium trilogy, where at one point O’Brien observes that the universe can’t end in 2400 because he met time-travelers from further in the future than that… but the universe ended anyway (it got better).

Coda is a bit Doctor Who, timey-wimey with all of history being attacked at once.
 
I explained in DTI: Watching the Clock why any event that's happened in any timeline can't be retroactively "erased" the way it's usually (and absurdly) portrayed in fiction -- that at most it can be forgotten after the fact when its timeline merges down into another at a later point in its linear time, so that its events appear to have been erased in retrospect but still happened at that point in the timeline. However, most subsequent writers have ignored this.
 
Hi! Newbie here; I came across your site years ago and enjoyed going through it to see how all the relaunch books and other stuff tied together. Was actually planning to start a Litverse read-through and then life majorly got in the way. Finally came back to the site on a whim a few days ago to see the updates over the last couple of years.

I do have a few questions, two pertaining to your additions to the site and one to certain books (and readers who are more familiar can chime in as well).

1. Is it just my imagination, or did you have a longer Kelvin timeline reading list on the site at one point? I can't find it now.

2. Has the Complete Chronological Order page been shelved? I was a bit disappointed to see that it stopped with Dawn of the Eagles.

3. Is the Prophecy and Change anthology considered part of the DS9 relaunch, since it was published in 2003, or no? I'm tempted to think no, especially since the Coda trilogy seems to nullify the events of 'Revisited', but I could be wrong. Ditto for Distant Shores, Constellations, and Enterprise Logs. (FWIW, TV Tropes - yeah, I know - does not list these 3 as part of the 'Novelverse', but The Sky's the Limit is included on the TNG Relaunch sub-page.)
Hi Silver Arrow! Glad the site has been useful to you. I enjoy hearing that from people from time to time, making the effort to keep it going and updated worthwhile. There is a longer Kelvin Reading List, though admittedly it's a bit buried in the submenus.


I'm slowly reworking all the pages and when I get to that one, the main Kelvin page will get all the comics added to it, as they do connect to the wider continuity web, but I've just never gotten around to adding all the entries to that main Kelvin page.

I do have hopes/plans to eventually get to a page I originally had in mind, which I called the Complete Lit-verse Reading List, which would just be all the reading lists merged together in chronological order. It's been on the back burner for many years. But there was once also the page called Post-Nemesis Month-By-Month, which was a detailed chapter by chapter chronological breakdown of all the 2380s Trek novels, similar to the Star Trek Timeliners' Timeline that was most recently published in Voyages of Imagination in 2006.

At some point I fell behind in updating it for quite a while, and then I eventually was invited to join the Star Trek Timeliners group myself. We've been improving the timeline document and keeping it updated for about the last decade, while hoping and searching for an outlet to get it published again. That hasn't happened yet, and I had at some point decided that I didn't want my small portion of a Lit-verse timeline being posted online to in any way contribute to the idea that the information in the Timeliners timeline was all available online and so didn't need to be put into print again. So I shelved that page. We Timeliners would still love to see our project printed again in some form, so hopefully there's demand for it and an opportunity will come up someday. It is insanely larger and more detailed than what was published in 2006, and I would love for everyone to be able to see it someday, somehow. For our part, it's free for the offering if S&S or any other licensed publisher ever wants it again.

Anyway, thanks for the questions and making use of the site!
 
Not necessarily. There were other Litverse events that took place after 2387-ish. Given the nature of what happened, it seems to be similar to what happened in the Millennium trilogy, where at one point O’Brien observes that the universe can’t end in 2400 because he met time-travelers from further in the future than that… but the universe ended anyway (it got better).

Coda is a bit Doctor Who, timey-wimey with all of history being attacked at once.

Ha, yeah, it's been a while since I last read Coda, but Doctor Who is an apt comparison.

I explained in DTI: Watching the Clock why any event that's happened in any timeline can't be retroactively "erased" the way it's usually (and absurdly) portrayed in fiction -- that at most it can be forgotten after the fact when its timeline merges down into another at a later point in its linear time, so that its events appear to have been erased in retrospect but still happened at that point in the timeline. However, most subsequent writers have ignored this.

Ah, thanks. Haven't read any of the DTI books yet, but I will.

Hi Silver Arrow! Glad the site has been useful to you. I enjoy hearing that from people from time to time, making the effort to keep it going and updated worthwhile. There is a longer Kelvin Reading List, though admittedly it's a bit buried in the submenus.


I'm slowly reworking all the pages and when I get to that one, the main Kelvin page will get all the comics added to it, as they do connect to the wider continuity web, but I've just never gotten around to adding all the entries to that main Kelvin page.

I do have hopes/plans to eventually get to a page I originally had in mind, which I called the Complete Lit-verse Reading List, which would just be all the reading lists merged together in chronological order. It's been on the back burner for many years. But there was once also the page called Post-Nemesis Month-By-Month, which was a detailed chapter by chapter chronological breakdown of all the 2380s Trek novels, similar to the Star Trek Timeliners' Timeline that was most recently published in Voyages of Imagination in 2006.

At some point I fell behind in updating it for quite a while, and then I eventually was invited to join the Star Trek Timeliners group myself. We've been improving the timeline document and keeping it updated for about the last decade, while hoping and searching for an outlet to get it published again. That hasn't happened yet, and I had at some point decided that I didn't want my small portion of a Lit-verse timeline being posted online to in any way contribute to the idea that the information in the Timeliners timeline was all available online and so didn't need to be put into print again. So I shelved that page. We Timeliners would still love to see our project printed again in some form, so hopefully there's demand for it and an opportunity will come up someday. It is insanely larger and more detailed than what was published in 2006, and I would love for everyone to be able to see it someday, somehow. For our part, it's free for the offering if S&S or any other licensed publisher ever wants it again.

Anyway, thanks for the questions and making use of the site!
*facepalm* And I could have found the longer Kelvin page myself if I just looked. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

Got you on the Complete Reading List. Looked great. Hope you can finish it someday. Been trying to combine your various lists together into a single long one for my Litverse read but the TNG/DS9/VOY section is proving particularly snarly with the 2369-2387 material, given the series' episode overlaps and later relaunch books sometimes taking place at the same time.

Also, wanted to mention that the Historian's Note for TNG Hearts and Minds places it before Section 31: Control, but the TNG page has it listed after Control.
 
Ha, yeah, it's been a while since I last read Coda, but Doctor Who is an apt comparison.



Ah, thanks. Haven't read any of the DTI books yet, but I will.


*facepalm* And I could have found the longer Kelvin page myself if I just looked. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

Got you on the Complete Reading List. Looked great. Hope you can finish it someday. Been trying to combine your various lists together into a single long one for my Litverse read but the TNG/DS9/VOY section is proving particularly snarly with the 2369-2387 material, given the series' episode overlaps and later relaunch books sometimes taking place at the same time.

Also, wanted to mention that the Historian's Note for TNG Hearts and Minds places it before Section 31: Control, but the TNG page has it listed after Control.
Ok that’s a great catch. I’ll look at that and get it fixed when I get a chance. Thanks.
 
No problem, @ryan123450! By the way, I'm curious as to how you came to the conclusion to put the final SCE duology Remembrance of Things Past before the Vulcan's Soul trilogy in 2377. Context clues? Educated guess?
 
Well Vulcan’s Soul Book 2 says it’s a year and two months after the war, so regardless of when you think the war ended specifically (which is a debated point), the trilogy must be early in the year. And the SCE book just before RoTP is specifically dated August. So regardless of their exact dates, that must at least be the order of events.

After I typed all that I realized you said it the other way around. So I must have that backwards! So that’s another thing I need to get fixed! Thanks!

And after I typed that I see on the TNG Reading List page I do have it in the correct order. Are you seeing it somewhere else I’m not thinking of?
 
Well Vulcan’s Soul Book 2 says it’s a year and two months after the war, so regardless of when you think the war ended specifically (which is a debated point), the trilogy must be early in the year. And the SCE book just before RoTP is specifically dated August. So regardless of their exact dates, that must at least be the order of events.

After I typed all that I realized you said it the other way around. So I must have that backwards! So that’s another thing I need to get fixed! Thanks!

And after I typed that I see on the TNG Reading List page I do have it in the correct order. Are you seeing it somewhere else I’m not thinking of?
Ah. no, sorry. I haven't seen it listed anywhere else besides the TNG timeline; apologies for the confusion. It was more curiosity on my part. Admittedly I have not read a good chunk of the Litverse material since around 2009-ish, so I'm way behind. I have read the entire Vulcan's Soul trilogy and remembered it being set in 2377, but it's been years, and I never read any of the SCE stories.
 
Ha, yeah, it's been a while since I last read Coda, but Doctor Who is an apt comparison.



Ah, thanks. Haven't read any of the DTI books yet, but I will.


*facepalm* And I could have found the longer Kelvin page myself if I just looked. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

Got you on the Complete Reading List. Looked great. Hope you can finish it someday. Been trying to combine your various lists together into a single long one for my Litverse read but the TNG/DS9/VOY section is proving particularly snarly with the 2369-2387 material, given the series' episode overlaps and later relaunch books sometimes taking place at the same time.

Also, wanted to mention that the Historian's Note for TNG Hearts and Minds places it before Section 31: Control, but the TNG page has it listed after Control.

Ok that’s a great catch. I’ll look at that and get it fixed when I get a chance. Thanks.
I'm still reading Hearts and Minds, but my understanding is that it's better to read Hearts and Minds after Control because:
  • Hearts and Minds was released after Control, and Hearts and Minds's "Historian's Note" has a pretty big spoiler for it.
  • The very end of Hearts and Minds actually does take place after the end of Control, which is the only place the events of the two novels actually intersect.
 
I'm still reading Hearts and Minds, but my understanding is that it's better to read Hearts and Minds after Control because:
  • Hearts and Minds was released after Control, and Hearts and Minds's "Historian's Note" has a pretty big spoiler for it.
  • The very end of Hearts and Minds actually does take place after the end of Control, which is the only place the events of the two novels actually intersect.
That must have been my original reasoning. Just been a while, so I couldn’t recall offhand.
 
Can I suggest to add Double Helix Vectors and the Terok Nor novels to the DS9 page as well? I honestly feel they should be added there the same way the NF backstories and pre-TNG short stories are on the NF page.
 
Well I feel like New Frontier is the odd man out, since it's the lit-only series with the most backstory given to set up the story, while any backstory for TNG, DS9, and VOY is all just bonus. At least that's the way I tried to explain my reasoning on including all the pre-New Frontier short stories on that page's intro. All the TNG, DS9, and VOY backstory tales are listed in the Early 24th Century Reading List, which I'm actually working on revamping right now. Double Helix and Terok Nor are definitely listed there, along with tons of other similar stuff.
 
Never mind. I think this isn't the place for me to discuss Star Trek. I'm out. Thanks to everybody for the interaction with my posts since I signed up last week.
 
Never mind. I think this isn't the place for me to discuss Star Trek. I'm out. Thanks to everybody for the interaction with my posts since I signed up last week.
Silver Arrow I sure wasn’t trying to be combative. Just a personal preference for how I organized things. Hopefully this is in response to other interactions on the board, and not this thread.
 
Silver Arrow I sure wasn’t trying to be combative. Just a personal preference for how I organized things. Hopefully this is in response to other interactions on the board, and not this thread.
I’m always impressed by how open to others’ input, and willing to explain your own choices, you are. Kind of the epitome of being a useful resource in your interactions in addition to the page you made. Even if this poster was annoyed at you, you can’t please everyone! We all know you do an excellent thing here.
 
I'm still reading Hearts and Minds, but my understanding is that it's better to read Hearts and Minds after Control because:
  • Hearts and Minds was released after Control, and Hearts and Minds's "Historian's Note" has a pretty big spoiler for it.
  • The very end of Hearts and Minds actually does take place after the end of Control, which is the only place the events of the two novels actually intersect.

That must have been my original reasoning. Just been a while, so I couldn’t recall offhand.
Having just finished Hearts and Minds I will confirm that it would make no sense to read Hearts and Minds first, despite the chronological placement. (Not sure why Control is even said to happen second, to be honest; the events of the two novels have absolutely no connection at all except for the fact that Hearts and Minds's ending follows Control's ending!)
 
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