Trek Books that are just horrible -- new and old

[EnriqueH]

What can you guys tell me about Black Fire?

I've been intrigued with this book for several months and it just occurred to me to bring it up here now.

I read an article---don't ask me where, it was YEARS ago---and I seem to remember that it listed Black Fire as THEE worst Trek novel ever.

Now, I had read Black Fire around 1990 or so and I seemed to remember that it was entertaining, though I remember Spock having to go through a lot of turmoil physically.

What are your thoughts?

 

[starri]

Also, it came out within a few months of the conclusion of the first Typhon Pact arc, and despite the presence of Romulans in the story the words "Typhon Pact" do not appear in the text at all.

Well, they appear once.

Did they? Honestly, the entire thing may have well has been in a MyrU story for all the impact it had on TrekLit as a whole.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Also, it came out within a few months of the conclusion of the first Typhon Pact arc, and despite the presence of Romulans in the story the words "Typhon Pact" do not appear in the text at all.

Well, they appear once.

Did they? Honestly, the entire thing may have well has been in a MyrU story for all the impact it had on TrekLit as a whole.

It's mentioned that a trans-slipstream breakthrough for the Romulans would not only allow them to pull ahead of the Federation but also be secure in their leadership role within the Typhon Pact. I agree that it's odd that the Pact isn't mentioned other than this, although there's no reason why a member nation can't have a solo outing - the Breen had one in the first Cold Equations book.

For what it's worth, the events of Indistinguishable From Magic are directly referenced many times in Plagues of Night, by Sela, Nog, Spock, etc. That book even went out of its way to explain/retcon a mention in IFM of Proconsul Tomalak. The Poisoned Chalice and The Light Fantastic also both make reference to Indistinguishable From Magic.

I agree that it's certainly not a must-read entry in the meta-story, though. And I agree on the basic point that the Pact could have been mentioned a few times more. At least Praetor Kamemor's new government is featured quite deftly.

 

[Timewalker]

What can you guys tell me about Black Fire?

I've been intrigued with this book for several months and it just occurred to me to bring it up here now.

I read an article---don't ask me where, it was YEARS ago---and I seem to remember that it listed Black Fire as THEE worst Trek novel ever.

Now, I had read Black Fire around 1990 or so and I seemed to remember that it was entertaining, though I remember Spock having to go through a lot of turmoil physically.

What are your thoughts?

Personally, I loved Black Fire. It's a novel that started as fanfic, though, and was edited for professional publication. I have the original version in one of my print 'zines (haven't read it yet).

I had the pleasure of meeting Sonni Cooper at a science fiction convention in Calgary, back in the '80s, when she and Bjo Trimble were the Guests of Honor. She's a delightful lady, and so enthusiastic in her love for Star Trek.

 

[Stevil2001]

What can you guys tell me about Black Fire?

I've been intrigued with this book for several months and it just occurred to me to bring it up here now.

I read an article---don't ask me where, it was YEARS ago---and I seem to remember that it listed Black Fire as THEE worst Trek novel ever.

Now, I had read Black Fire around 1990 or so and I seemed to remember that it was entertaining, though I remember Spock having to go through a lot of turmoil physically.

What are your thoughts?

It is crazy, space pirate adventure with Spock. Prison planets, conspiracies, everything. I actually never bought it, but I think I checked it out from the library a dozen times when I was a kid.

I don't think I've reread it since adulthood, though, so I don't know how it holds up, but at the time it was AMAZING.

 

[Silvercrest]

I read Dyson Sphere, a sequel novel to the episode "Relics", and found it to be quite bizarre and pointless. I also tried Heart of the Sun by the same author (or co-author), George Zebrowski, and found it to be just plain pointless. I only tried each book one time though, a number of years ago. May have been too hasty. Anyone have opinions?

Also, there's a '70s-era book, World Without End by Joe Haldeman, that I never see referenced anywhere. It seemed like a ripoff of "For the World is Hollow..." and several other episodes. But I haven't seen it in easily 30 years and may be remembering wrong. Any opinions on this one?

 

[starri]

For what it's worth, the events of Indistinguishable From Magic are directly referenced many times in Plagues of Night, by Sela, Nog, Spock, etc. That book even went out of its way to explain/retcon a mention in IFM of Proconsul Tomalak. The Poisoned Chalice and The Light Fantastic also both make reference to Indistinguishable From Magic.

Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong, because IfM is one of the few TrekLit books from the last ten or twelve years that I've had no desire to re-read, but I remember thinking the Sela we saw in The Fall seemed to be a completely different character.

 

[Masiral]

For what it's worth, the events of Indistinguishable From Magic are directly referenced many times in Plagues of Night, by Sela, Nog, Spock, etc. That book even went out of its way to explain/retcon a mention in IFM of Proconsul Tomalak. The Poisoned Chalice and The Light Fantastic also both make reference to Indistinguishable From Magic.

Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong, because IfM is one of the few TrekLit books from the last ten or twelve years that I've had no desire to re-read, but I remember thinking the Sela we saw in The Fall seemed to be a completely different character.

Sela doesn't appear in The Fall - did you mean another character or a different series?

 

[Christopher]

What can you guys tell me about Black Fire?

Depending on how much of a sense of humor you have about Star Trek, it's either the worst thing ever or the best thing ever. It's a wildly over-the-top exercise in fanfictiony excess, but it's just so insanely epic a roller-coaster ride that your life will be poorer if you never experience it.

I agree that it's odd that the Pact isn't mentioned other than this, although there's no reason why a member nation can't have a solo outing - the Breen had one in the first Cold Equations book.

Heck, four of the first five Typhon Pact tales were pretty much solo outings for their respective members. The idea behind the Pact was never to homogenize the six members into a uniform mass, but rather to provide a framework for stories fleshing out the individual member species, most of which were races that had gone undeveloped in the past. So it was always about the individual cultures at least as much as the gestalt.

I read Dyson Sphere, a sequel novel to the episode "Relics", and found it to be quite bizarre and pointless.

I did find the nonfiction essay at the end of Dyson Sphere to be rather fascinating.

Also, there's a '70s-era book, World Without End by Joe Haldeman, that I never see referenced anywhere. It seemed like a ripoff of "For the World is Hollow..." and several other episodes. But I haven't seen it in easily 30 years and may be remembering wrong. Any opinions on this one?

Hardly. The generation-ship concept existed in science fiction long before Star Trek used it, with notable examples being Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 story "Universe" and Brian Aldiss's 1958 novel Non-Stop. Haldeman, being himself an experienced and Hugo-winning SF prose author at the time he wrote his Trek novels for Bantam, was probably far more influenced by Heinlein than by "Hollow." (David Gerrold certainly was when he wrote his own generation-ship novel for Bantam, The Galactic Whirlpool.)

World Without End isn't as good as Haldeman's previous Trek novel Planet of Judgment. But it has its moments, including an interesting early take on Klingon culture.

 

[Silvercrest]

Also, there's a '70s-era book, World Without End by Joe Haldeman, that I never see referenced anywhere. It seemed like a ripoff of "For the World is Hollow..." and several other episodes.

Hardly. The generation-ship concept existed in science fiction long before Star Trek used it, with notable examples being Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 story "Universe" and Brian Aldiss's 1958 novel Non-Stop.

No argument, but I was referring more to Trek repeating itself than ripping off other s.f. Maybe I should have used the word "retread".

Anyway, that was the opinion of a cynical and worldly 14-year-old who hadn't encountered Haldeman before (or much other Trek lit). Take it for what it's worth, factoring in 30+ years of inflation.

 

[starri]

For what it's worth, the events of Indistinguishable From Magic are directly referenced many times in Plagues of Night, by Sela, Nog, Spock, etc. That book even went out of its way to explain/retcon a mention in IFM of Proconsul Tomalak. The Poisoned Chalice and The Light Fantastic also both make reference to Indistinguishable From Magic.

Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong, because IfM is one of the few TrekLit books from the last ten or twelve years that I've had no desire to re-read, but I remember thinking the Sela we saw in The Fall seemed to be a completely different character.

Sela doesn't appear in The Fall - did you mean another character or a different series?

I think I had put Plagues of Night and Raise the Dawn into the wrong event in my head.

I'm not doing too well with this.

 

[Lonemagpie]

My biggest problem with it was that it seemed like two separate novels that were grafted together

It was!

 

[Reanok]

I read Black Fire recently and I liked the book.

 

[flandry84]

Dark passions...[/U][/
Some sort of weird Lezdom slash fiction that you would have to wonder just how it got published...
Though TBH,a lot of the mirror universe stuff was more than a little dodgy.

 

[borgboy]

Dark passions...[/U][/
Some sort of weird Lezdom slash fiction that you would have to wonder just how it got published...
Though TBH,a lot of the mirror universe stuff was more than a little dodgy.

I really enjoyed Dark Passions. I find it a fun trashy read. It's got issues in how the women and gay/bisexuality is treated, but it's true to the spirit of the DS9 Mirror Universe. I am a sucker for alternate universe stories and seeing variations on familiar characters so I'm the target marker for a book like that.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Dark passions...[/U][/
Some sort of weird Lezdom slash fiction .

*runs to Amazon*

 

[Markonian]

I am a sucker for alternate universe stories and seeing variations on familiar characters so I'm the target marker for a book like that.

Yeah, me too. But... I don't understand why? Give me a your normal Enterprise and I think, cool. Put some flashy yellow paint on it or slap an FSS prefix onto the hull and I'll be totally exhilarated. I love reading about the mirror and myriad universes, but I don't get why The Alternate is so appealing to me. I mean, the regular Trek universe is already alternate to ours. Human psychology is beyond me. Anyway, bring on more Myriad Universes!

I enjoyed Dark Passions but the gamebreaker was that the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance was depicted as too benign to ring true. That's like Nazi Germany and Soviet Union coming together and pulling off a near-utopia for its citizens (not the slaves, though). OTOH, it's heartening to read that at least one mirror Janeway enjoyed a happy end.

 

[rfmcdpei]

For what it's worth, the events of Indistinguishable From Magic are directly referenced many times in Plagues of Night, by Sela, Nog, Spock, etc. That book even went out of its way to explain/retcon a mention in IFM of Proconsul Tomalak. The Poisoned Chalice and The Light Fantastic also both make reference to Indistinguishable From Magic.

Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong, because IfM is one of the few TrekLit books from the last ten or twelve years that I've had no desire to re-read, but I remember thinking the Sela we saw in The Fall seemed to be a completely different character.

It all cohered for me, actually. Both McIntee and George showed Sela as a powerful woman who was also tormented by her mixed Romulan-human heritage and her relationship with her dead mother, McIntee's depiction of her turmoil leading directly to the anti-Federation moves depicted in George. Praetor Kamemor's final dialogue with Sela as she was sitting in her sell, diagnosing her self-hatred as her reason for her incredibly risky actions, was on the nose.

 

[JoeZhang]

Picard going on a secret rescuemission, while playing holo-programs in which he's worshipping Kirk.

That wasn't the bit that bothered me the most. The rescue mission made Picard come into contact with Gul Madred, the Cardassian who tortured him in 'Chains of Command'. This could have been handled well- could have been amazing. It wasn't. It was badly handled, badly written, out of character, disrespectful to the work of the original TNG episode creators, and disrespectful to anyone with even a passing knowledge of Star Trek (a group to which the author clearly does not belong).

Plus it was so badly researched, she thought that Chains of Command happened before Picard was turned into a borg.

 

[James Swallow]

It all cohered for me, actually. Both Swallow and George showed Sela as a powerful woman who was also tormented by her mixed Romulan-human heritage and her relationship with her dead mother, Swallow's depiction of her turmoil leading directly to the anti-Federation moves depicted in George. Praetor Kamemor's final dialogue with Sela as she was sitting in her sell, diagnosing her self-hatred as her reason for her incredibly risky actions, was on the nose.

I think you're confusing me with Dave McIntee. I've never written Trek fiction with Sela as a main character.