No, completely unrelated.
TOS 80's Novel Continuity Read Through
- Thread starter Desert Kris
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No, completely unrelated.
Second Wave Books
After I've finished Time For Yesterday, Spock's World, Memory Prime and The Lost Years, some of these books below might be scattered in among the winding down period for the continuity. I've already read Prime Directive and Best Destiny, and so those and Final Frontier and Dreams of the Raven I might hold off on, and some of the books below will get priority for being totally new to me. Doctor's Orders I might hold off on a little, too, depends on how I feel as I read more of Duane's work (The Wounded Sky was great, ME, MA was a challenging struggle that is a little baffling).
The Abode of Life--As a story that gives Chain of a Attack a place to start from, I'm including it. This is going to sound superficial, but one factor in its favor it that it's a shorter book.
Black Fire--I added this to the list at the last second, but I'm half joking about this one. It's not in the original list for Days of Continuity Gone By, it's only draw is that I've read somewhere that the Enterprise gets damaged and upgraded, and is suggested to lead in the direction of TMP by establishing the Enterprise as halfway between the TOS incarnation and her movie configuration. This is a lower priority read, though; for the time being.
Corona--This one sounds like it's connected to the continuity by way of a number of easter eggs. I've also never read Greg Bear. It's kind of lower priority.
Uhura's Song--I gather this one includes reference to a character that appears in one of the mainline books, but this sounds like it's included for an easter egg. On the other hand, the reviews and positive commentary I've seen for it look overwhelmingly positive, so I curious about it's positive reception. On those grounds I've toyed with the possibility of including it in the main list in the OP.
Shadow Lord--This one sounds strange. Yet I'm hopeful it will be entertaining. I've put it in the second wave because it references Sulu's backstory from The Entropy Effect, so it reinforces a continuity point, yet like Uhura's Song it doesn't seem to have fed back in to the continuity, as far as I understand it. To offer another novel in comparison, Dwellers in the Crucible reinforces continuity by drawing inspiration from the John Ford Klingons and the Diane Duane Romulans, but Memory Beta indicates that characters introduced in Dwellers appear again in Strangers from the Sky and Music of the Spheres. The impression I get of Strangers is that it builds continuity, but also presents revisions (something about humanity's first contact, and where the Centaurus is in that regards). The continuity building and contradictions are part of the fun; having read Crisis on Centaurus, I want to see how subsequent authors re-define that world.
Chain of Attack--Yikes, this one is a challenge! I pulled it from the first line-up, to make the OP list manageable. Notice how I grouped that list into smaller chunks? That's also to make it manageable. Overall it's about 18 or so books to The Romulan Way, and an additional 5 more books to Spock's World. Those are books I want to get to a little sooner, and Chain of Attack (and the book before and after it) add a lot. To give another perspective, it wouldn't be exactly right to say that I read JM Dillard's Mindshadow just to meet the new security chief officer, Tomson...but it's not entirely wrong either. Poking my head in on the foreward to The Lost Years hints to me that Dillard will introduce other characters in the books between Mindshadow and The Lost Years, which will pay off when they are seen in The Lost Years. I don't have information that The Lost Years will mention Chain of Attack as part of those characters' experiences; I admit its a guess that Dillard is going to stick things simple on that front. On the other hand, the information I have does indicate that she does make use of other novelist's work, which is why the Dreadnought! and Battlestations! books are included, for the Rittenhouse scandal. And I read something hinted that The Lost Years draws some inspiration from Spock's World, but I don't know that for sure.
The Final Nexus--My thanks again to Christopher for information about the timing between Chain of Attack and this one, I'll try and make a point of keeping this one ready to go, for when I start reading Chain. That'll be fun, too, an occasion where publication order and the timeline match up.
Timetrap--This one's a point of pride for me, I hope no one mind's me saying. A little bit of research on Memory Beta yielded this one, hiding; a "lost" 80's Continuity novel. A direct reference to Crisis on Centaurus, and I came across it around the time I was reading Crisis; I was really excited. Still, that's the only reference that ties it in, as far as I know, and it amounts to being an Easter egg. This one is kind of medium priority, I'm definitely interested in it, but I can wait for it a while. The story really does sound interesting to me, and it would be fun to compare to a TNG episode that is similar to it. The other main draw is curiosity; it seems like this one is open for debate in terms of when it's set chronologically; I haven't seen major consensus about if it is a story about Kirk's second Enterprise, the Enterprise-A. It will be fun to see if it defies my expectations, I'm hoping it is an Enterprise-A story (no reason in particular), but willing to be open minded and find the book suggest a different placement when I actually read it.
After I've finished Time For Yesterday, Spock's World, Memory Prime and The Lost Years, some of these books below might be scattered in among the winding down period for the continuity. I've already read Prime Directive and Best Destiny, and so those and Final Frontier and Dreams of the Raven I might hold off on, and some of the books below will get priority for being totally new to me. Doctor's Orders I might hold off on a little, too, depends on how I feel as I read more of Duane's work (The Wounded Sky was great, ME, MA was a challenging struggle that is a little baffling).
The Abode of Life--As a story that gives Chain of a Attack a place to start from, I'm including it. This is going to sound superficial, but one factor in its favor it that it's a shorter book.
Black Fire--I added this to the list at the last second, but I'm half joking about this one. It's not in the original list for Days of Continuity Gone By, it's only draw is that I've read somewhere that the Enterprise gets damaged and upgraded, and is suggested to lead in the direction of TMP by establishing the Enterprise as halfway between the TOS incarnation and her movie configuration. This is a lower priority read, though; for the time being.
Corona--This one sounds like it's connected to the continuity by way of a number of easter eggs. I've also never read Greg Bear. It's kind of lower priority.
Uhura's Song--I gather this one includes reference to a character that appears in one of the mainline books, but this sounds like it's included for an easter egg. On the other hand, the reviews and positive commentary I've seen for it look overwhelmingly positive, so I curious about it's positive reception. On those grounds I've toyed with the possibility of including it in the main list in the OP.
Shadow Lord--This one sounds strange. Yet I'm hopeful it will be entertaining. I've put it in the second wave because it references Sulu's backstory from The Entropy Effect, so it reinforces a continuity point, yet like Uhura's Song it doesn't seem to have fed back in to the continuity, as far as I understand it. To offer another novel in comparison, Dwellers in the Crucible reinforces continuity by drawing inspiration from the John Ford Klingons and the Diane Duane Romulans, but Memory Beta indicates that characters introduced in Dwellers appear again in Strangers from the Sky and Music of the Spheres. The impression I get of Strangers is that it builds continuity, but also presents revisions (something about humanity's first contact, and where the Centaurus is in that regards). The continuity building and contradictions are part of the fun; having read Crisis on Centaurus, I want to see how subsequent authors re-define that world.
Chain of Attack--Yikes, this one is a challenge! I pulled it from the first line-up, to make the OP list manageable. Notice how I grouped that list into smaller chunks? That's also to make it manageable. Overall it's about 18 or so books to The Romulan Way, and an additional 5 more books to Spock's World. Those are books I want to get to a little sooner, and Chain of Attack (and the book before and after it) add a lot. To give another perspective, it wouldn't be exactly right to say that I read JM Dillard's Mindshadow just to meet the new security chief officer, Tomson...but it's not entirely wrong either. Poking my head in on the foreward to The Lost Years hints to me that Dillard will introduce other characters in the books between Mindshadow and The Lost Years, which will pay off when they are seen in The Lost Years. I don't have information that The Lost Years will mention Chain of Attack as part of those characters' experiences; I admit its a guess that Dillard is going to stick things simple on that front. On the other hand, the information I have does indicate that she does make use of other novelist's work, which is why the Dreadnought! and Battlestations! books are included, for the Rittenhouse scandal. And I read something hinted that The Lost Years draws some inspiration from Spock's World, but I don't know that for sure.
The Final Nexus--My thanks again to Christopher for information about the timing between Chain of Attack and this one, I'll try and make a point of keeping this one ready to go, for when I start reading Chain. That'll be fun, too, an occasion where publication order and the timeline match up.
Timetrap--This one's a point of pride for me, I hope no one mind's me saying. A little bit of research on Memory Beta yielded this one, hiding; a "lost" 80's Continuity novel. A direct reference to Crisis on Centaurus, and I came across it around the time I was reading Crisis; I was really excited. Still, that's the only reference that ties it in, as far as I know, and it amounts to being an Easter egg. This one is kind of medium priority, I'm definitely interested in it, but I can wait for it a while. The story really does sound interesting to me, and it would be fun to compare to a TNG episode that is similar to it. The other main draw is curiosity; it seems like this one is open for debate in terms of when it's set chronologically; I haven't seen major consensus about if it is a story about Kirk's second Enterprise, the Enterprise-A. It will be fun to see if it defies my expectations, I'm hoping it is an Enterprise-A story (no reason in particular), but willing to be open minded and find the book suggest a different placement when I actually read it.
But longer than it needs to be. Every chapter begins with a really long-winded captain's log entry. After the first few reads (since I re-read the books often when there were so few), I realized I could just skip most of the log entries, or at least truncate them, without missing anything of value.
Yeah, its version of that transition doesn't really reconcile well with anything else. And it's crazy as hell overall. It's like someone's overblown, multi-part fanfic saga got compiled into one volume. But it's still kind of awesome.
It's not great, but it's got some interesting ideas. Plus some idiosyncratic interpretations of things, like saying that Spock is in his early 80s (which makes Amanda incredibly well-preserved). It's mainly a curiosity, the first novel by someone who went on to become a huge name in original science fiction.
No, I believe Snnanagfashtalli, the felinoid security officer from The Entropy Effect, plays a small but not insignificant role in the story. (She also appears in Time for Yesterday.)
Yes, it's a longtime favorite of mine.
It's conceptually problematical, but if you take it as its own thing, it's an interestingly unusual Trek novel.
Strangers from the Sky references the Spaceflight Chronology's version of events in which Earth's first contact with aliens was with the native humanoids of Alpha Centauri, but reveals that there was an earlier, secret contact with a Vulcan crew that landed on Earth (shades of "Carbon Creek"). Later on, in Spock's World, Duane referenced the events of Strangers, but retconned the earlier contact from the Alpha Centaurians to the Andorians.
Yes, definitely. The four Dillard novels have a developing continuity for their supporting security characters, so it's best to read them in order.
CoA is one of several non-Dillard books that mention Tomson as security chief, but I don't believe Dillard reciprocally mentioned any of them.
Black Fire's awesome.
Also, like Corona, it's by someone who acquired writing fame elsewhere-- Laurence Yep has written multiple Newbery Honor books. And one random Star Trek book.
It's definitely an Enterprise-A story, since there are bunch of references in the book to events that could have only taken place during the later movie-era (like to Kirk's new eyeglasses, following the older ones' pawning in TVH), as well as direct references to things like Kirk approaching his sixtieth birthday (in 2293), etc.
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Ha-ha, someone didn't do their homework apparently when they wrote the book
.Reading about those comments definitely makes me want to read those books again at some point. Once I'm done my Bantam books I'm definitely going to put those in my "to read at the camper" pile. Some of those I don't remember anything about like Black Fire and Timetrap (other than Kirk ends up 100 years in the future or something like that). Others I only have vague memories about like The Abode of Life or even the Entropy Effect. And I'd love to dig into Dreadnought! and Battlestations again. And since I originally read a number of those before TNG came out or very early on in the shows run, it'll be interesting to see some of the differences. And I even want to give Enterprise: The First Adventure another go, despite some of my criticisms on another thread. It'd be interesting to read in light of Star Trek (2009) and even other novels I've read since then that are close to that time like My Brother's Keeper: Enterprise.
Another excellent Gene DeWeese story BTW is Engines of Destiny (which I believe was his last novel before passing away)--which depicts Scotty trying to save Captain Kirk before he disappears from the Enterprise-B in Generations (but after he saves the ship of course because he does not want to change history...except....well you'll have to read the story someday to find out). It doesn't fit with your first, or even your 2nd batch I would say, but I'd put it in a future batch when you've gotten through everything you want to read first--maybe with the Vulcans Soul trilogy I mentioned before (for no reason other than it doesn't really fit with your first 2 batches--VS and EoD have nothing to do with each other). It's an excellent story and doesn't really link up with any other stories other than Generations and ....well you'll see. It does make you question would you really try to stop JFK's assassination?, that sort of thing.
Ha-ha, someone didn't do their homework apparently when they wrote the book
Well, Bear remembered that Vulcans are long-lived, and he presumably extrapolated that if they live twice or so as long as humans, then a Vulcan played by a mid-30s actor might be in his 70s or 80s. So he did that much of his homework, at least. He just didn't think every ramification through. In his defense, I didn't realize the Amanda issue for at least a few years after I first read the book.
Ha-ha, yeah, I was just kidding. I know myself I sometimes don't think things through. Or I let plot holes slide if it's a good story otherwise. And sometimes I just think of bizarre things that no one else does or even cares about like why is the navigation deflector tan in some scenes of TMP and blue in others (and TWOK since they reuse some of the scenes). WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Yeah, things like that. But Khan being whiter in TWOK, nah.
That's awesome DesertKris! So what exactly is the reference to Crisis on Centaurus? The events of the book, or some specific detail? I'd love to be able to add that reference to my site and add that book to the "Original Lit-verse" list.
When we did the "Lit-verse Based TOS Chronology" thread, I think the collective conclusion was that Timetrap took place on the Enterprise-A. I ended up placing it between The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier. The Pocket Books Timeliners placed it in the post-TMP time period. I searched back threw the early conversations from the years leading up to the publication of Voyages of the Imagination, but couldn't find anything about the original reasoning for that. Which leads me to believe that it was given that placement for its' original publication in Adventures in Time and Space like 20 years ago, but was never reconsidered.
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New Athens is the key. The entry in Memory Beta links both Crisis and Timetrap. A Google search revealed in Google books a scene where Spock is discussing information in a database that mentions the New Athens incident, in Time trap's text.
That’s a great find! I’ll add that to my info!
I'm sort of excited for Desert Kris, he's starting a journey I think he'll have a lot of fun with, esp. if he hasn't read some of these books (I'm not sure how many he's read in the distant past maybe).
Sort of got me looking forward to making some time to read some of them again myself. Like the Guardian of Forever it's like taking a look at the past
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Sort of got me looking forward to making some time to read some of them again myself. Like the Guardian of Forever it's like taking a look at the past
.Physically it may look like a short book, however, it contains about the same length of story as the later 90's novels. The reason for this is its small print. Quite a few of the early Pocket novels look short on the outside, but on the inside the text is printed at about an 8 or 9 font size, whereas the later books from the 90's had fonts around 12.
It's definitely worthwhile, I like the idea that the Kirk's crew completed the five-year mission, with a little bit of time before it, and a few years after. I like a generous interpretation, allowing for Kirk to have a good run in the original set up, before his career path takes some different turns and loops.
I've never read any of the L.A. Graf novels, but I'm certainly game to try a few. If they are of the 90's era of continuity-lite, where I can throw in any number of other TOS novels that aren't tied in to the continuity focused on in this thread, I'll happily include The Covenant of the Crown in among other transitional books already mentioned. Deep Domain will be my introduction to his writing/storytelling, unless I get very far along in the DC Vol 1 and 2 reading that's running alongside these books.
Part of the fun in the long term; once the 80's continuity is established in my head, will be to see how it changes to survive in new eras of storytelling.
In reference to The Abode of Life
I have to admit that I balked at the sight of the font size that I saw in The Entropy Effect, and came to much the same conclusion. Yet I think I read it faster anyway, because I somehow seem to read the same amount of pages in a day (mostly) no matter what the font size is.
Holy smokes, I love it when the books do a Captain's Log entry, but before each chapter just seems so unnecessary. I'll read 'em anyway, for the full effect.
That sounds amazingly awesome!
lolOh, that's even better. If I felt inclined, I could skim some parts from Entropy Effect to remind me, and upgrade Uhura's Song and read it before going in to Time For Yesterday, where she returns for the movie era.
I knew it was something along those lines. It'll be easier to keep those developments straight in my head when I've read through them. I keep telling myself "Reading is believing!"
That's very helpful, from the standpoint that I've been making a lot of guesswork. May all my guess be right...
I'm really happy that I'm far enough along to be fairly close to Enterprise: The First Adventure. From having attempted to read it before (at too young an age) I recognize elements that Vonda McIntyre has maintained throughout all her books so far. E: TFA's draw will be seeing those threads continue, but also it ties in with one of the motivators that got me started. Having lost the JJ Abrams novels, the 80's continuity can offer me an alternative version of TOS's "coming together for the first time" story, it's one of the more exciting ones to consider.
I have a copy, and I'll keep it in mind, thanks!
I'm really glad and excited that this was helpful!
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The Graf books Ice Trap, Death Count, Firestorm, and Traitor Winds (and the solo books by two of the authors under the pseudonym, The Kobayashi Maru by Julia Ecklar and Shell Game by Melissa Crandall) do feel like they have a sort of vague continuity, or at least that they go together. They're all post-TMP (except Traitor Winds, which is a Lost Years book), and they all focus a lot on Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov, giving them more development and focus than they usually get. Well, Kobayashi doesn't have any Uhura to speak of, but it does give us Academy flashbacks for Sulu and Chekov along with Kirk and Scott. I guess they can fit fairly well with Covenant, which is also post-TMP.
I didn’t ever pay too much attention to the exact (more likely inexact) chronology of those early books but I remember grouping some of those books that feature rogue Starfleet admirals into a loose arc.
Bloodthirst,Web of the Romulans,Dreadnought all seem to feature a plot against the romulans.
Bloodthirst,Web of the Romulans,Dreadnought all seem to feature a plot against the romulans.
Too many,I thought to be unrelated.
There was also the character of Admiral Androver Drake(cannot recall the book) who seemed to hint that he was the last of a secret cabal within Starfleet.I kinda linked it all together with the Rittenhouse business.
Badmiral...heh.
There was also the character of Admiral Androver Drake(cannot recall the book) who seemed to hint that he was the last of a secret cabal within Starfleet.I kinda linked it all together with the Rittenhouse business.
Badmiral...heh.
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Ah, I have Voyages of Imagination, and I've probably come across that before and didn't remember it. Kobayashi Maru is high on my post-80's continuity list, but I'm rooting for it as 80's continuity friendly; my comments about E: TFA above also apply to Kobayashi. The draw is to see how it might have happened in the Prime timeline (and to see if it's 80's continuity friendly as well). On one happy trip to a bookstore I found a box-set for the Lost Years novel, so those latter three stories are available for transitioning between older an newer continuity. Thanks for helping to contextualize the rest for me, I'll keep in eye out for them.
Too many,I thought to be unrelated.
There was also the character of Admiral Androver Drake(cannot recall the book) who seemed to hint that he was the last of a secret cabal within Starfleet.I kinda linked it all together with the Rittenhouse business.
Badmiral...heh.
I remember Androvar Drake, from Ashes of Eden.
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