Urghh, finished writing this just as I realised this is a necro'd thread from December. Oh well, hope this is still of use.
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Trimmed this to my top TNG books. Can't help on voyager, I've never bothered reading VOY books because they're based on a third rate show whose characters I can't stand.
I'll begin with my absolute favourite TNG book - Federation, by Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens. It spans three eras(one of them of course being TNG's era) and focuses on Zefram Cochrane(based on his TOS appearance, First Contact hadn't come out at this point). It feels like the kind of epic "The Motion Picture" tried and failed to be.
Masks by John Vornholt
Away mission on a human colony which eschewed modern technology and cut itself off from earth and ended up going back to a sort of feudal system - but with an interesting twist guided by some of the original colonists. The thing I like most about this book is how well the world and its people is put together. Characterisation(mostly picard) can be a bit off since this was a very early novel.
Peter David books:
Peter David books can sometimes be a rollercoaster of belly-laughs inducing jokes and puns to incredibly intense and serious situations, and...I love him for that.
Q-Squared
- An incredibly intelligently written book that weaves together alternate dimensions into a very interesting story.
Imzadi
- Tells us how Troi & Riker met. Don't really want to say much else other then that it's really, really good.
A Rock and a Hard Place
- Delves a bit into Riker's past as he goes on leave to help a friend. The other half of the story is his replacement, who is the star of this story. Don't want to go into him as that's the best part of the book, but it's interesting to note that elements of the replacement first officer seems somewhat like a prototype for a character he would write a few years later, for what is now close to a twenty book trek series called "New Frontiers".
Diane Duane books:
First off I should say that I feel Diane Duane is the most consistently brilliant star trek author. Most of her books are based in the TOS era, but she's written two TNG books which are both corkers.
Dark Mirror - deals with the mirror universe, written before ds9 went back to it so expect gaping discontinuity - as with Federation, I enjoyed the authors version a lot more then what would later transpire.
Intellivore - feels like a mystery where the crew are slowly trying to find a creeping horror. the tension in this book amps up very well through to the conclusion. A really good trek book that I feel sometimes gets a bit overlooked.
