What was the 1st Trek novel you ever read?
- Thread starter Procutus
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My Spock Must Die!, circa '73, was 95¢
Lord, I can't even remember what my first Trek book was. Probably either The Abode of Life or The Web of the Romulans.
Not sure. Pretty sure the first Trek book I owned was Planet X (TNG/X-Men crossover), which was bought for me at a garage sale, but I didn't read it until years later. It was either a novel with Q and Trelane in it jumping around trying to save and destroy the universe respectively or a DS9 novel that dealt with them trying to set up another station on the other side of the wormhole. Can't recall their names and I don't own them as they were from the library.
the one about Q and Trelane is "Q-Squared"
My first Trek Novel like a few others was Vendetta.
I brought it with either some Birthday or Christmas money from the WH Smiths in Bath and the only reason I bought it was because it had Picard, Guinun and a Borg on front even though I wasn't sure on the pronunciation of the actual title! I've read it a few times over the years and each time I've enjoyed reading it.
I brought it with either some Birthday or Christmas money from the WH Smiths in Bath and the only reason I bought it was because it had Picard, Guinun and a Borg on front even though I wasn't sure on the pronunciation of the actual title! I've read it a few times over the years and each time I've enjoyed reading it.
The former is indeed Q-Squared by Peter David; the latter is Bloodletter by K.W. Jeter.
The 1st book I read was the novelisation of The Undiscovered Country. After that I was hooked, but the 1st Original Novel was Chain Of Attack by Gene De Weese.
The Blish adaptations of the TOS stories.
^
Funny you should mention the original cover price on Spock, Messiah! I noticed on my copy a Hills sticker (a store now long defunct) and I paid $1.40 for it.
I think copy was only like 50 or 60 cents.
Kevin
The first edition/first printing I have of Spock, Messiah! (1976) has a cover price of $1.75 (US). No Canadian price is listed.
Spock Must Die! was 60¢ (1970). So paperback prices almost tripled between 1970 & 1976. Ouch!
I think the early Blish adaptions were priced at 60 cents as well. Can't confirm this since they're still packed away, but I seem to recall them being that cheap.
How times have changed!
My first printing of Blish's Star Trek (no number) is also fifty cents.
Some kiddie Next Gen book about Space Cadet Geordi on an underwater base, and (mostly rubbish) Star Wreck parody books.
The first ‘proper’ Trek novel I read was ‘The Price of the Phoenix’, when I was about 12-ish. The slightly gay undertones between Kirk and Spock (and Omne) were probably not the ideal starting point. The bit where Kirk cried because “The jungle had been beaten out of him” (or whatever it was) was spectacular in its rubbishness.
It was a while before I picked up another Trek novel, and for obvious reasons it was a Next Gen one, where the ship was slowly turning into mud (no idea what it was called). Everything’s a blur from then until now, but the first Trek book that had me thinking ‘this is really good!’ had Diane Duane’s name on the cover.
The first ‘proper’ Trek novel I read was ‘The Price of the Phoenix’, when I was about 12-ish. The slightly gay undertones between Kirk and Spock (and Omne) were probably not the ideal starting point. The bit where Kirk cried because “The jungle had been beaten out of him” (or whatever it was) was spectacular in its rubbishness.
It was a while before I picked up another Trek novel, and for obvious reasons it was a Next Gen one, where the ship was slowly turning into mud (no idea what it was called). Everything’s a blur from then until now, but the first Trek book that had me thinking ‘this is really good!’ had Diane Duane’s name on the cover.
Whoo, Atlantis Station! That was definitely one of my first.
Capture the Flag was the superior Geordi book, though.
Ohhh yeah, Capture the Flag was tremendous!
On the DS9 kids' books, I vote for Prisoners of Peace.
(Odd how that one and DS9 #6, Betrayal, have similar plotlines, though...I like to think of Betrayal as what "really" happened, and Prisoners of Peace as a more idealized thing that Jake wrote afterwards, where he kind of "fixed" the mistakes he made in Betrayal. One of the first things a 12-year-old Jake wrote, perhaps.
)
I never got into the DS9 YA books for some reason, aside from the Day of Honor tie-in.
I looked some of those old 1st edition Blish adaptations up a couple years ago and they were going for like a hundred US in good-very good condition. I've got them all, but they have dog-ears and wrinkled spines-from re-reading them as a kid over and over. Come to think of it-I've got 1st editions of the Logs too. And the first few novels through Entropy Effect. Anybody remember the titles of the 2 collections of short stories? New Voyages? Something like that. Really liked those...
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