TOS/TNG numbered novels
- Thread starter Smitty
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Crossroad (TOS #71) is one of the best Star Trek novels, full stop.
I can only speak for the TNG ones, but some of my personal favourites are by John Vornholt - #7 Masks and #23 War Drums.
I also enjoy the earlier ones - probably partly nostalgia, but also as a glimpse to the characters before the series truly solidified them - "Ghost Ship" (#1) and "The Children of Hamlin" (#3) are good in this regard, and "Survivors" (#4) gives a lot of interesting background to Tasha.
I'm not a massive fan of Peter David's writing style, but #18 Q In Law always got very good fan feedback back in the day.
I also enjoy the earlier ones - probably partly nostalgia, but also as a glimpse to the characters before the series truly solidified them - "Ghost Ship" (#1) and "The Children of Hamlin" (#3) are good in this regard, and "Survivors" (#4) gives a lot of interesting background to Tasha.
I'm not a massive fan of Peter David's writing style, but #18 Q In Law always got very good fan feedback back in the day.
Wow - I'm not sure I can pick my favorite from the numbered series. Just too many of them to consider, especially TOS.
But, the question made me wish that they would have kept the numbering system in place. It was far easier to keep track of which ones I had, which ones I needed to get and what the latest book was. Now, unfortunately, I sometimes fail to keep up with new releases and sometimes lose track of what I've already purchased. That may just be my mind growing more feeble with age (
), but the numbers made it nice and easy. Of course, there were always the unnumbered books and special series to keep up with even then.
But, the question made me wish that they would have kept the numbering system in place. It was far easier to keep track of which ones I had, which ones I needed to get and what the latest book was. Now, unfortunately, I sometimes fail to keep up with new releases and sometimes lose track of what I've already purchased. That may just be my mind growing more feeble with age (
), but the numbers made it nice and easy. Of course, there were always the unnumbered books and special series to keep up with even then.
Bolded books are not numbered, but of the numbered era.
TOS
Yesterday's Son
The Wounded Sky
The Final Reflection
Uhura's Song
Time for Yesterday (sequel to Yesterday's Son)
Spock's World
Doctor's Orders
The Great Starship Race
Sarek
The Patrian Transgression
Traitor Winds
Federation
First Frontier
My Brother's Keeper, Book One - Republic
My Brother's Keeper, Book Two - Constitution
My Brother's Keeper, Book Three - Enterprise
TNG
Strike Zone
Masks
A Rock and a Hard Place
Vendetta
Q-in-Law
Imzadi
Here There Be Dragons
Dark Mirror
Q-Squared
Blaze of Glory
The Last Stand
Dragon's Honor
Possession
Intellivore
The Q Continuum Book One Q-Space
The Q Continuum Book Two Q-Zone
The Q Continuum Book Three Q-Strike
Triangle: Imzadi II
Double Helix, Book Five Double or Nothing (although this is mostly a New Frontier book, though there are TNG elements)
Gemworld #1
Gemworld #2
Diplomatic Implausibility
Klingon
TOS
Yesterday's Son
The Wounded Sky
The Final Reflection
Uhura's Song
Time for Yesterday (sequel to Yesterday's Son)
Spock's World
Doctor's Orders
The Great Starship Race
Sarek
The Patrian Transgression
Traitor Winds
Federation
First Frontier
My Brother's Keeper, Book One - Republic
My Brother's Keeper, Book Two - Constitution
My Brother's Keeper, Book Three - Enterprise
TNG
Strike Zone
Masks
A Rock and a Hard Place
Vendetta
Q-in-Law
Imzadi
Here There Be Dragons
Dark Mirror
Q-Squared
Blaze of Glory
The Last Stand
Dragon's Honor
Possession
Intellivore
The Q Continuum Book One Q-Space
The Q Continuum Book Two Q-Zone
The Q Continuum Book Three Q-Strike
Triangle: Imzadi II
Double Helix, Book Five Double or Nothing (although this is mostly a New Frontier book, though there are TNG elements)
Gemworld #1
Gemworld #2
Diplomatic Implausibility
Klingon
They continued to publish Enterprise D novels and comics after Generations.
Maybe you could shelve them by publication order? That’s what I do.
I would have thought that the number TNG novels would have mostly kept current, maybe a season behind while the show was still running and the novels were being published alongside. They line up more nicely in number order. I've read some of @zarkon's bolded non-numbered books during the book era (Vendetta, Imzadi, Federation) which are terrific. I like Peter David's work.
So one of the actual numbered novels that I read, The Rift, is one that I really like. One that I've read more recently that shot right up to the top of the list is The Final Reflection. And even after an acceleration in reading the numbered books, it hasn't really been knocked off that slot, except for the ones I read years ago and feel nostalgic about. Uhura's Song gets recommended a lot, and is very highly rated on sites that have a lot of customer reviews (however I haven't read that one just yet).
So one of the actual numbered novels that I read, The Rift, is one that I really like. One that I've read more recently that shot right up to the top of the list is The Final Reflection. And even after an acceleration in reading the numbered books, it hasn't really been knocked off that slot, except for the ones I read years ago and feel nostalgic about. Uhura's Song gets recommended a lot, and is very highly rated on sites that have a lot of customer reviews (however I haven't read that one just yet).
I read this (well, listened to a three-decade-old reading-for-the-blind) just a week or two ago, for the first time ever. I was expecting to love it, based on reactions from fans.
I was frankly surprised by how much I DIDN’T love it. Didn’t even like it. Not even a little.
And I hated, hated, hated guest star Evan Wilson. Hated her. She was the manic pixie dream girl of my nightmares. She’s a trickster! Isn’t she totes adorbs? A better fencer than Hikaru, a better doctor than Bones, a better logician than Spock, and a better leader than Jim! And she’s cute as a button!
Did I mention I hated Evan?
On the other hand, I think I have seen this reaction to the book, too, particularly toward that guest charcter, lol. I guess the ratings on Amazon and Goodreads don't always pan out, and the same with personal recommendations between fans.
Yeah, that was usually the case with during-the-series novels, though sometimes the "season lag" would be longer than others. In particular, the DS9 novels didn't really venture into the last two seasons until the show was over, since they were just too serialized to keep up with.
I loved her. I think she illustrates that any trope can be done well. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a scene-stealing guest character; you could say Harry Mudd and Q are examples. In '60s-to-'80s TV, when even continuing dramas aspired to an anthology-like model, it was common to center an episode around an interesting guest character and their journey, with the main cast being more participants or catalysts in the guest star's story.
So a Mary Sue isn't any guest character who dominates the narrative -- just one who doesn't deserve to. The original "Mary Sue" story was a parody of stories that used the trope badly, ones where the guest character wasn't actually interesting or capable enough to be worthy of the role they were given. Stories that were just the author's fantasy of putting themselves in the story and thus don't make the case that anyone other than the author should care about the character.
For me, Evan Wilson actually is as interesting as the story says she is. She's fun and fascinating and multilayered, and the other characters listen to her because her insights into them are actually worthwhile. So for me, at least, she earns her central role. Besides, the novel is just as focused on the Sivaoans and their society, so Evan is just one of multiple original characters who dominate the story. I see Uhura's Song as a story that's mainly about the contact with the Sivaoans, with Evan as a catalyst within that process. And since the whole thing has sort of a mythic fantasy-quest feel to it, it seems appropriate that she's kind of a mysterious wizard figure. At least it does for me.
Then again, I read the book many times long before I ever heard the term "manic pixie dream girl," so my image of Evan isn't quite like that. I've always envisioned her as more mature and serenely upbeat, maybe something close to Jadzia Dax's personality. After all, she is based on the author's mother, isn't she? So I read her as having a degree of maturity and wisdom that doesn't seem to fit the "manic pixie" notion.
If she had bested one character at his/her speciality, I could live with that. But she was better than every single character at every single speciality. I didn’t mention each one, but I could with ease.
She may be a bit older than whoever’s the current Hollywood ingenue, but I felt like she fit the “manic pixie” trope to an annoying tee. And that doesn’t work for me. Different strokes and all that.
I know Kagan says Evan isn’t based on herself, which is the ONLY characteristic of a Mary Sue she lacks. That’s why I avoided calling her one.
She says Evan‘s based on her mother. To which I can only say “then may heaven help your father.”
She may be a bit older than whoever’s the current Hollywood ingenue, but I felt like she fit the “manic pixie” trope to an annoying tee. And that doesn’t work for me. Different strokes and all that.
I know Kagan says Evan isn’t based on herself, which is the ONLY characteristic of a Mary Sue she lacks. That’s why I avoided calling her one.
She says Evan‘s based on her mother. To which I can only say “then may heaven help your father.”
I wasn't keeping score. These are characters in a story. All that matters is if I find a character interesting and enjoyable to read about.
And again: "Mary Sue" does not mean any guest character who overshadows the protagonists. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a guest character dominating a story, not in the episodic storytelling mode that was routine in TOS's era and well into the '80s. A Mary Sue is a badly done example of that type of guest character -- one that the author claims is amazingly gifted or charming without actually showing it in the storytelling, or who only succeeds at being better than the leads because the leads are written out of character and dumbed down (like in Vulcan! where Spock is irrationally fixated on an incorrect theory so that Tremain can outsmart him and prove him wrong). For me, Evan's intelligence, ability, and charm are convincingly demonstrated in the text, and the other characters aren't diminished in the process -- if anything, Evan's in-depth talks with the main characters give us new and interesting insights into them.
Well, that's my point. You were already aware of that trope when you read the book, so it informed how you perceived the character. I never heard of the trope until decades after I read the book, so my mental image of Evan Wilson was not informed by it the way yours was. Age has nothing to do with it; I'm saying I didn't imagine her personality as being like that.
Then I guess it’s a good thing I never called Evan a “Mary Sue,” and, in fact, went to great pains not to.
Thanks for straw-manning me.
Sorry, you’re wrong here. I read the text, found the character super-annoying, and then cast about thinking why. That the “manic pixie dream girl” trope fit what I thought of the character didn’t “inform” my opinion of her. Rather, it was a handy label for how I felt the character was presented. That’s a very, very different thing. I didn’t start out looking for a MPDG, instead, I spent time looking for a name for how the character was presented.
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Sorry -- most of the time I see criticism of Evan, it's in terms of her being a "Mary Sue," so I projected that onto it. But to be fair, your criticism that she's better than the main characters at everything is one of the classic defining traits of a Mary Sue.
Also, labels aside, my point is that just being really good at stuff doesn't invalidate her as a character. There's no reason why it should. There's nothing wrong with guest characters being central to a story in an episodic series, and there's nothing wrong with central characters in a story being impressive, gifted people. Heck, that's where spinoffs come from.
I'm not saying it was conscious. I'm saying that the way we perceive characters in fiction is shaped by our past experience. The "dream girl" trope is one that exists in a lot of modern fiction, and thus you've been exposed to such characters enough that maybe you were unconsciously reminded of them. Back in the '80s when the book came out, though, that wasn't as widespread a media trope as it is today.
Anyway, I'm not talking about "right and wrong." It's natural for different readers to interpret a work of fiction in different ways; there's no right or wrong involved. So I'm not trying to argue, just trying to understand why you and I interpreted the character so differently. I can see why you read the character that way, now that you mention it. But I didn't.
When I first read it (as a wee child) she didn't bother me, but reading it again as an adult I had the same reaction - but I love the rest of the story, so I just winced and ignored the Evan parts.
I might do that for some and move the E stories after Generations. There’s a few just from looking at the cover I’m not sure of. Doesn’t help when they just say Enterprise.
I suppose I could just go to memory beta and use their stardates.
Reading "Uhura's Song", as a fan who actually had met Bjo Trimble several times, I was utterly convinced that the sprightly, clever, diminutive Dr Evan Wilson was based on Bjo. I think, IIRC, that Evan even had the freckles that Bjo drew on her self-caricatures when autographing books for fans.
When I wrote to Janet Kagan, she said, no, she'd never met Bjo, and that Evan was based on Kagan's own mother. (EDIT: Ah, I see it's already been covered.)
When it comes to recommendations, the numbered novels that still stand out for me would have to be "The Entropy Effect", "Yesterday's Son", "The Wounded Sky", "Uhura's Song" and "How Much for Just the Planet?" for TOS and "Strike Zone", "Survivors", "A Rock and a Hard Place" and one that lots of people detested, "Red Sector" for TNG.
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You know, now that you mention it, Jadzia's relationship with Worf (and, for that matter, Julian's crush on her) have some MPDG elements; beautiful young woman who is nevertheless uncommonly wise and worldly, who can "teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." Bashir was more hoping she'd be his MPDG (though you get a lot of additional subtext with the genetic engineering backstory, beyond his surface "awkward yet horny bookworm" persona of the first couple seasons, which give shading to why he'd fixate on Dax out of all the women in his life), but she just went for it with Worf. Since they were on a TV show (which she left before it was over), the Jadzia/Worf storyline wasn't a straight MPDG happy ending with Jadzia fixing all of Worf's problems with himself and not having her own stuff going on (something much easier to get away with in one movie and not six seasons of TV), but I never realized that was applicable their relationship dynamic before.
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