TNG book recommendations?

[Greg Cox]

The novelization of Far Beyond the Stars is a massive expansion on the episode. I haven't read it, but I've owned it for a while and flipped through it, and it's basically Benny Russell's entire life story with stuff going all the way back to his childhood, instead of just the stuff leading up to his breakdown that we got in the episode.

By Steven Barnes.

 

[Avro Arrow]

The root beer scene was added late in the production process because the episode ran short. It wasn't in the script that Diane adapted. (I wrote the back cover copy for that novelization, and I got the same script Diane did, and there was no root beer scene, so I was rather surprised to see it when I watched the episode....)

Weird to hear that scene was just a last-minute time filler, considering what an icon scene it ended up being...

 

[Christopher]

Weird to hear that scene was just a last-minute time filler, considering what an icon scene it ended up being...

It makes sense to me, in a way. Since it wasn't necessary for the plot, it was a scene purely about character and ideas, a chance to slow down and explore something rather than just checking off plot beats.

 

[Cicero]

The novelization of Far Beyond the Stars is a massive expansion on the episode. I haven't read it, but I've owned it for a while and flipped through it, and it's basically Benny Russell's entire life story with stuff going all the way back to his childhood, instead of just the stuff leading up to his breakdown that we got in the episode.

For some reason, I always forget about that one. (Maybe I never saw it in stores?)

This review stood out to me among the many plaudits for it on Goodreads:

Some time ago, I read in André Carrington's Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction a critical analysis of Steven Barnes' novelisation of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Far Beyond the Stars." In that episode, Avery Brooks and the other members of the cast appear as Americans living in the mid-20th century. Brooks is Benny Russell, a writer for a science fiction pulp magazine; the other actors play the roles of his colleagues at the magazine, and his acquaintances. The episode deals openly with racial issues, including race within the world of science fiction - the unlikeliness of a person like Benny Russell being seen as a writer of sf, the impossibility of him selling a story in which he imagines a black commander of a starbase in a distant future.

Carrington's description of Barnes' reworking of the episode intrigued me, and I made a note to myself to obtain a copy of the book to read.

It's an interesting piece of multiple recursion - a black science fiction writer retelling the story of an episode of a science fiction show featuring a black starbase commander - an episode in which the actor portraying that commander is also playing the role of a black science fiction writer telling the story of a black starbase commander. And so it had to be, for who but a black science fiction writer could give the character of Benny Russell the bone deep experiences of being multiply othered that a black man in America who is also writer of science fiction must live through?

Barnes' text gives Benny the depth, intelligence and passion that is inherent in Avery Brooks' creation of the live character, and a past that informs his resistance to the 'acceptable' roles and behaviours for black men in the 1950s. There's a flashback in the novel, to Benny's youth. It's 1939, and he and a few other kids from the Harlem youth centre he hangs out at have gone on a field trip to the World's Fair. The theme for that exposition was "the world of tomorrow" and they are exploring the exhibits in the General Motors Futurama building. Benny is excited by much of what he sees, but it's excitement with a bitter core: "Never in his life had he experienced anything like that, and only one thing could conceivably spoil the experience for him: Every last one of the thousands of little human beings shopping, working, playing, worshipping and living in the cities of the future had been white."

...

It was a powerful episode, and Barnes has transformed it into a powerful novel.

 

[BillJ]

As I was reading through older threads in this forum I saw a post that said Peter David's dialogue sounds like it's out of a comic book. I realize that's just one person's opinion, but it scared me a bit. Now that the idea has been planted in my head, I'm afraid I'll be predisposed to be judgemental of David's dialogue.

David wrote both comics and novels. Much of his work is magical. Among the very best Trek writers in any medium.

RIP.

 

[Atomic_Monkey]

David wrote both comics and novels. Much of his work is magical. Among the very best Trek writers in any medium.

RIP.

I hadn't realized he passed away. I'm sure I must have read some of his comic books back in the '90s and/or the twenty-aughts. I collected a number of Spider-man titles in those decades, though it's all a blur in my memory.

 

[BillJ]

I hadn't realized he passed away. I'm sure I must have read some of his comic books back in the '90s and/or the twenty-aughts. I collected a number of Spider-man titles in those decades, though it's all a blur in my memory.

He also wrote the tail end of DC’s first Trek run and the beginning of its second. “The Trial of James T. Kirk” is great (second DC run, #10-12).

 

[Greg Cox]

I hadn't realized he passed away. I'm sure I must have read some of his comic books back in the '90s and/or the twenty-aughts. I collected a number of Spider-man titles in those decades, though it's all a blur in my memory.

Peter passed away slightly less than a year ago, although his health had been failing for some time.

 

[Atomic_Monkey]

I want to thank everyone who offered recommendations. I'm thrilled with the response and think the suggestions were great. I've managed to scrounge up copies of most of them.

Although I'm most excited to dip into the original fiction, I've started off with the novelization of First Contact because I already had it on hand. I'm about 80% done. I like J.M. Dillard's prose style and look forward to reading her original fiction.

I understand that modern novelizations are required to stick closely to the scripts, and authors are limited from adding much, so I wasn't surprised to find it a very straight-forward adaption. With that said, Dillard was able to sneak in a much needed backstory for Lily.

 

[Atomic_Monkey]

If you're interested in the Enterprise-E era stories set before Nemesis, I'd recommend the Slings & Arrows e-book miniseries.

I picked up a copy of the first book Sea of Troubles. If I like it, I'll continue with the series. Of the premises you described, I'd be most looking forward to the one with Riker's double Tom. I've always been curious what happened to him.

As you can tell most of these deal with what the Enterprise-E crew was doing during the fourth and fifth seasons of DS9, so if you haven't watched those yet and you want to, you might to wait because they might spoil the episodes.

I've not watched DS9 and won't have an opportunity to before I read these books. Is there any background I need to know? I believe Worf was assigned to DS9 during those seasons, but otherwise I'm clueless. I realize I could check Memory Alpha, but I'd be afraid of spoilers.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I've not watched DS9 and won't have an opportunity to before I read these books. Is there any background I need to know? I believe Worf was assigned to DS9 during those seasons, but otherwise I'm clueless.

Why not pick up "The Way of the Warrior " (1995), the DS9 episode novelization by Diane Carey, with its focus on Worf's arrival on the station?

 

[tomswift2002]

If you're looking for some recommendations, I would suggest reading the YA Starfleet Academy series. The books were written and targeted for an audience around 8 to 12 years old (think Hardy Boys age range), however it had a number of Trek authors from the "adult" series contribute as well.

The first three books were written by Peter David (Worf's First Adventure, Line of Fire & Survival) and are essentially pre-cursors to the TNG-spin-off, New Frontier. Then you also had John Vornholt write what is probably the most favorite book of that series, Capture The Flag which is a Geordi LaForge book. He also wrote "Crossfire" that teamed Laforge and Riker up and was really good as well. Michael Jan Friedman also contributed a coupe of books about Data at the Academy (written in the style of the Hardy Boys as MJF later said). Brad Ferguson also contributed The Haunted Starship that was another good Laforge story. Riker also crossed over to the Star Trek Voyager Starfleet Academy trilogy as well.

 

[JD]

I picked up a copy of the first book Sea of Troubles. If I like it, I'll continue with the series. Of the premises you described, I'd be most looking forward to the one with Riker's double Tom. I've always been curious what happened to him.

He does show up again eventually, but I don't want to say to much if you haven't watched DS9 yet.

I've not watched DS9 and won't have an opportunity to before I read these books. Is there any background I need to know? I believe Worf was assigned to DS9 during those seasons, but otherwise I'm clueless. I realize I could check Memory Alpha, but I'd be afraid of spoilers.

If you haven't watched DS9, then I would avoid the Slings & Arrows books until you've watched at least the 4th Season. Most of the books tie into the episodes and you'll get some pretty big spoilers if you read the books first. I think they probably explain things enough that if you want you could read them without the DS9 episodes, but if you plan on watching DS9 I would hold off.

 

[serdogthehound]

I don't think I'd ever noticed before, but the most acclaimed series-era TNG novels usually revisit TOS in some way:

Federation — Zefram Cochrane, the TOS crew

Federation is what Generationsshould have been for me(of course thanks to time traveling Romalan agents it doesn't fit with the current verision of history) it a must read and was seriously going to ask if it allowable to recomend. I think it might have been by first exposure to Trek lit with the Mark Lendard Audio Book (sadly it adapt and like most of that era poorly because his narration is great )