Trek Lit that passes the test of time...

[Nathan]

I wrote in another thread that I'm 45 and read probably 90% of the books that was published by S&S/Pocket Books. Or course I started when I was 16 so a lot of books my memory is foggy.

When I was in my late teens I read the Weis/Hickman book Dragons of Autumn Twilight (its a fantasy book, sorta like Dungeons and Dragons but a novel) and the subsequent books. As a teen, I thought the books were great.

I recently purchased the "annotated version" of book and ready to re-read it as some of the plot is foggy for me, but I remember liking the books.

I went on Goodreads just to read some reviews. I couldn't believe how many of them basically said, "When I was 16 this book rocked, as an adult, the book sucked, it targets teenage boys". Or course I am paraphrasing.

Got me to thinking that when I look through the numbered books or books that were published 10+ years ago, much of the time I think, "I sorta remember liking this book, but scanning the pages, it just feels like a one dimensional story, I'd never re-read this book, nor probably never buy it to begin with".

At any rate, I guess this for the older BBSers -- meaning the ones who can say, "Yeah, I read that book 5-10+ years ago and liked it but I would never read it today."

 

[borgboy]

I've been re-reading a lot of old Trek books lately.
Among my favorites of the older books are anything by Peter David - Imzadi, Q-in-law, Q Squared, New Frontier are stand out books, but I like everything he wrote.
The Shatner Trek novels - co written by Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens - are also really great. I'm reading Avenger now and it's really gripping and cinematic in scope.

 

[Nathan]

Borgboy, any old numbered books you recently flipped through and thought not worth a second read, but you enjoyed the first time around?

 

[trampledamage]

I don't remember the ones that I end up not liking as much. But Memory Prime I still think is great - that one I re-read every few years.

 

[JD]

I read Strangers From the Sky, Dark Mirror, and Spock's World in the last few years, and even though they don't line up with modern Trek canon, I still thought they were good.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

Avatar, Books I & II, both hold up extremely well for being over a decade old.

 

[Avro Arrow]

So aren't you really looking for examples of Trek Lit that don't pass the test of time? I thought that ones that "passed the test" would be ones that you liked when younger but still held up today?

For ones that do hold up: The Wounded Sky, The Final Reflection, and My Enemy, My Ally were awesome then, and are still awesome now.

Uhura's Song was awesome then. I haven't read it in ages... but I suspect it will probably hold up.

I remember really, really liking Black Fire when I was young. That's one I'm almost afraid of rereading, because I suspect it probably won't hold up at all...

 

[borgboy]

I re-read Uhura's Song several months back and still enjoyed it, and it's one I had remembered fondly from reading it the first time way way back, probably in elementary school.
I can't think of any that I've declined to re-read just from flipping thru. If I didn't think it would hold up I didn't keep it to re-read, and I think overall my first impressions of a book hold up.

 

[Bibliomike]

Strangers from the Sky holds up, as does The Wounded Sky - both mentioned above, but I wanted to voice my seconds! I also wrote an appreciation of The Entropy Effect a while back for the Trek.fm network; that book holds up extremely well (as do McIntyre's novelizations of ST II and III, frankly - especially III, which resolves a lot of plot holes from the film and gives us really, really rich characterizations all around).

 

[tomswift2002]

Over the past few year's I've been going through the Voyager line, and I've found #'s 1 - 8 have held up really well, especially "The Escape", "The Murdered Sun" and "Cybersong".