Where to begin...

[ChickenPug!]

I was standing in front of the Star Trek section of my favorite local used bookstore last night and suddenly became overwhelmed by the number of titles available. I'm a new fan that is looking to read some Star Trek books. I've read a few of the STNG books (enjoyed them). I was actually looking for the Destiny books but realized there maybe a few things I need to read first. I've seen the lists in the forum for what books leading up to Destiny but I have 2 questions.

1. For a new fan, does just jumping in feet first (what I do most of the time) and reading the first book of Destiny make sense? How lost will I be? Here and other places have given it great/good reviews but the same complaint keeps popping up: name dropping. For someone that is mainly (only) well versed in STNG, will I be able to follow?

2. My next question is broad (maybe to broad for a forum question), and I understand that it subjective but here it is: Are there some core novels in the Star Trek universe that need to be read to give me a good foundation in Star Trek Literature?

I think that is much more than two questions but any help would be appreciated.

 

[Sci]

I was standing in front of the Star Trek section of my favorite local used bookstore last night and suddenly became overwhelmed by the number of titles available. I'm a new fan that is looking to read some Star Trek books. I've read a few of the STNG books (enjoyed them). I was actually looking for the Destiny books but realized there maybe a few things I need to read first. I've seen the lists in the forum for what books leading up to Destiny but I have 2 questions.

1. For a new fan, does just jumping in feet first (what I do most of the time) and reading the first book of Destiny make sense? How lost will I be? Here and other places have given it great/good reviews but the same complaint keeps popping up: name dropping. For someone that is mainly (only) well versed in STNG, will I be able to follow?

2. My next question is broad (maybe to broad for a forum question), and I understand that it subjective but here it is: Are there some core novels in the Star Trek universe that need to be read to give me a good foundation in Star Trek Literature?

I think that is much more than two questions but any help would be appreciated.

Every novel is designed to be readable by anyone for the first time.

Having said that, if you're mainly versed in TNG, I have a selection of books that I would recommend that you start with -- not because you can't start with Destiny if you want, but because I think this will enhance your reading experience of Destiny:

1. Star Trek: A Time to Kill by David Mack
2. Star Trek: A Time to Heal by David Mack
3. Star Trek: A Time for War, A Time for Peace by Keith R.A. DeCandido

These three novels are the last three books of a larger miniseries called A Time to..., but you needn't have read any of the previous books to know what's going on. (I still haven't read any of the other Time to... books.) They're set shortly before Star Trek: Nemesis.

If you want, you can watch Star Trek: Nemesis after you read these three, because that's where it comes. But I wouldn't. It's just a bad movie.

After those three, continue with...

4. Titan: Taking Wing by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

The first book in the Star Trek: Titan series. The premise of that series is to show the voyages of the Federation starship Titan under Captain Riker, with its continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no person or split infinitive has gone before! Although Taking Wing actually starts out the series on Romulus in the post-Shinzon world because of NEM establishing that that was Riker's first mission.

After that, continue on to....

5. Star Trek: Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido.

The gem of modern TrekLit, IMO. It's about the first year in office for newly-elected Federation President Nanietta Bacco, and starts just after Titan: Taking Wing finishes. Great, great book.

Once you've gotten those five down, you have a choice. See, A Time to...'s job was to show how the changes in NEM came about, and to set up two series: Star Trek: Titan and the series of post-NEM TNG novels popularly known as the TNG Relaunch.

Those five are a great way to introduce yourself to the Trek world. If you want more detail on post-NEM life prior to Destiny, you can keep reading both TTN and the TNG Relaunch. In that case, I'd recommend the following novels:

Star Trek: Titan
- Orion's Hounds by Christopher L. Bennett. This is actually book 3 of Titan, but you don't need to read book 2, The Red King. (Taking Wing ends on a cliffhanger, but all you need to know to read Orion's Hounds is that they fixed it. )

Book 4 of TTN, Sword of Damocles, I haven't read yet. I can't tell you if it's good or not, but I can tell you that you can jump from Orion's Hounds to Destiny without being confused about what the Titan crew were up to in the meantime.

Meanwhile, I'd recommend the following TNG Relaunch novels:

- Q & A by Keith R.A. DeCandido. Q shows up to bother Picard in a great little post-NEM novel. Q & A is actually the third book in the TNG Relaunch, after Death in Winter and Resistance, but I didn't read either of those and had no trouble getting into this one or into the series.

- Before Dishonor by Peter David. Book 4 of TNG Relaunch. WARNING: Many people disliked this novel. I thought it was okay, but not brilliant. But, it has some important character moments.

- Greater Than the Sum by Christopher L. Bennett. Book 5 of TNG Relaunch. Wonderful, wonderful novel and a great prelude to Destiny.

Anyway, those are the books I'd recommend reading before Destiny. You don't NEED to read any of them first, but I think that they'll all enhance your reading experience with Destiny and also give you a nice introduction to the world of Trek Lit. The numbered ones are the ones I'd definitely read; the dashed ones are ones I don't consider as essential.

 

[ChickenPug!]

First off, thanks for the reply and taking time to write this.

I was actually looking at the Time to series last night. I almost bought 1, I will take your advice though. If the first one ended up not holding my attention, I would not have continued with the other books.

I've been wondering about Titan. From your post to other things I've read online this seems right in my wheelhouse.

I've read nothing but bad reviews in regards to "Greater the Sum". But everything I seen mentions that it comes before Destiny, so I'm going to check it out.

This is a great start, thanks again for the advice, think I'm going to use it.

Looks like I have some good reading ahead in 2009

 

[Sci]

First off, thanks for the reply and taking time to write this.

I was actually looking at the Time to series last night. I almost bought 1, I will take your advice though. If the first one ended up not holding my attention, I would not have continued with the other books.

I tried to read book 1 of A Time to... and couldn't; it was awful. I have no opinion on Books 2 through 6 of ATT because I haven't even tried to read them. I started with Book 7, A Time to Kill, and that's where I'd recommend anyone wanting to jump into things start.

I've read nothing but bad reviews in regards to "Greater the Sum". But everything I seen mentions that it comes before Destiny, so I'm going to check it out.

I think most of the bad reviews I've seen of Great Than the Sum are predicated on the notion that GTtS is supposed to be an action novel where the Enterprise takes on a certain bad guy. But it's not -- it's supposed to be a novel about how the various people aboard the Enterprise finally come together as a unified crew. It's a story about family, in a way -- about people uniting for greater causes. The bad guys that the Enterprise is pursuing are actually besides the point.

As long as you keep that in mind as you read Greater Than the Sum, you'll probably enjoy it.

This is a great start, thanks again for the advice, think I'm going to use it.

No problem!

 

[Thrawn]

I 100% agree with SCI's post. Read those five books for SURE, and then you'll have the foundation that you need.

Of the dashed books, I'd personally recommend the two by Bennett (Orion's Hounds and Greater Than The Sum). I'm not the biggest fan of GTTS, but even if you don't read any of the other TNG-Relaunch books, it's a great summary of what's happened before and it'll get you up-to-date and ready to read destiny.

So if you read the 5 books he numbered, the 2 I just mentioned, and Destiny, that's 10 books of which every single one is pretty fantastic. That should take you a while, and I bet you'll love every second. It's surprising how good TrekLit is these days, really.

 

[Steve Roby]

2. My next question is broad (maybe to broad for a forum question), and I understand that it subjective but here it is: Are there some core novels in the Star Trek universe that need to be read to give me a good foundation in Star Trek Literature?

You've been given some good info already, so a few general comments:

If you're really interested, buy Jeff Ayers's book Voyages of Imagination. It's a year or two out of date now, but it's a treasure trove of information on all of the Star Trek prose fiction published up to 2006 or so.

Stick around here. You'll find that there's no consensus on anything. Plenty of people liked Greater Than the Sum just fine. Any book that seems to get consistently negative reviews will have passionate defenders here, and any book that seems to get consistently positive reviews will have its own just as passionate detractors. With a little luck and time, you'll get to know the regulars here and their tastes, so you can calibrate how likely you are to agree with certain reviews. You'll also notice which books keep getting mentioned, so you can develop a sense of which books are the core titles you want to be familiar with.

 

[ChickenPug!]

I'm going to give GTTS a chance once I get to it. Action and Adventure is great but I don't need it all the time. I can deal with a book that sets up other stuff.

I'm constantly amazed by the greatness of the used bookstores here in Austin. I can pick all this stuff for cheap. Steve, I actually found a copy of voyages last night, think I'm going to pick it up even if it is a couple years out of date.

This is great I really am thankful for all this info!

 

[Marie1]

If you like action and adventure, have you considered trying the Deep Space Nine Relaunch? Twist of Faith = the first... five books in the series? And its only about 20$.
TNG characters come up, esp. in the first two books, the Avatar ones. For that matter... most of the TNG crew comes up, and you'll see O'Brien from time to time, and meet new and fascinating characters (since you're not familiar with DS9)... oh yeah, Ro comes up, but usually like her in the series.

 

[JD]

It's in no way essential, and it really has not major impact on the story of Destiny, but the DS9R does also introduce a couple of the characters that play a fairly big role in the Titan trilogy.
There are also alot of quick easter egg type references to characters and ships from other series in Destiny, so if anything they refer to makes you curious, just let us know and the posters here should be able to point twoards the series that that comes from. Most of these are just things like "X ship is fight the Borg in X part of space" so you really don't need to have any familiarity with these series.

 

[captcalhoun]

i for one, heartily recommend the entire 9-book A Time To series as a foundation for reading both the post-NEM TNG novels and Titan. You really get to know several of the characters more. i also recommend Resistance, Q&A, Before Dishonour and GTTS as well as Articles and the four Titan novels (alright, i think The Red King was weak, but it follows Taking Wing and I hate left being hanging...)

beyond TNG, i endorse New Frontier, the IKS Gorkon trilogy and Klingon Empire: A Burning House and the Corps of Engineers series from the 24th century and Vanguard from the 23rd for pure WIN and AWESOME...

 

[ChickenPug!]

i for one, heartily recommend the entire 9-book A Time To series as a foundation for reading both the post-NEM TNG novels and Titan. You really get to know several of the characters more. i also recommend Resistance, Q&A, Before Dishonour and GTTS as well as Articles and the four Titan novels (alright, i think The Red King was weak, but it follows Taking Wing and I hate left being hanging...)

beyond TNG, i endorse New Frontier, the IKS Gorkon trilogy and Klingon Empire: A Burning House and the Corps of Engineers series from the 24th century and Vanguard from the 23rd for pure WIN and AWESOME...

That is where the whole "Time to" series gets me. I know my personality and I like things complete. I'm for sure going to read the last 3. But eventually it will bug me that I did not read all of them and I'll go back read them.

I've looked at the DS9 as well, and it looks like I will love that as well. This is all great info, got some reading ahead.

 

[trekkerguy]

Star Trek The Next Generation: Q-Squared


'nuff said.

 

[JD]

i for one, heartily recommend the entire 9-book A Time To series as a foundation for reading both the post-NEM TNG novels and Titan. You really get to know several of the characters more. i also recommend Resistance, Q&A, Before Dishonour and GTTS as well as Articles and the four Titan novels (alright, i think The Red King was weak, but it follows Taking Wing and I hate left being hanging...)

beyond TNG, i endorse New Frontier, the IKS Gorkon trilogy and Klingon Empire: A Burning House and the Corps of Engineers series from the 24th century and Vanguard from the 23rd for pure WIN and AWESOME...

That is where the whole "Time to" series gets me. I know my personality and I like things complete. I'm for sure going to read the last 3. But eventually it will bug me that I did not read all of them and I'll go back read them.

I've looked at the DS9 as well, and it looks like I will love that as well. This is all great info, got some reading ahead.

I'll secod the recommendations for New Frontier, and Corps of Engineers, which was also called SCE originally before they switched the titiles.
Here are links to Memory Beta (the non-canon Star Trek wiki, which is a great resource for anyone interested in the books, comics, video games, and RPGs) for Klingon Empire which was called IKS Gorkon up untill the last book A Burning House, and Vanguard. Here are ones for Titan, and the DS9 Relaunch too. Oh, and where I said Titan trilogy in my last post, I meant Destiny.

 

[ChickenPug!]

Star Trek The Next Generation: Q-Squared


'nuff said.

Because I wasn't sure what to read before I wrote this post. I just picked up "The Q continuum" because it was familiar. It seems...okay so far. Not blown away but it satisfied my need to read something from ST for now.

 

[JD]

Just so you know, Q-Squared is completely seperate from the Q-Continuum trilogy. Q-Squared was TNG novel written by Peter David during the shows run, and focused on the E-D's encounters with Q and Trelane across 3(?) different parallel timelines.
The Q-Contiuum trilogy was written by Greg Cox during the movies, and explored Q's history, as he teamed up with Picard to deal with some sort of galactic threat. I haven't read those three, so that's pretty much all I know about those three.
But Q-Squared I have read, and it is AWSOME!

 

[Therin of Andor]

I've read nothing but bad reviews in regards to "Greater the Sum".

Huh? You've been looking in the wrong places!

 

[Ktrek]

Chickenpug - Since Sci was the very first person to respond and gives you a very good guideline I would just stick with what list he has given. Not that others have not made good comments or suggestions but I think Sci gave you all you really need to know at this point. If you stick with his recommendations you will find Destiny to be very enjoyable indeed. Listening to too many voices can often confuse and lead to frustration. My father aways taught me KISS (keep it simple stupid!). I have found his words to be profoundly insightful and helpful over the years.

Kevin

 

[ChickenPug!]

Chickenpug - Since Sci was the very first person to respond and gives you a very good guideline I would just stick with what list he has given. Not that others have not made good comments or suggestions but I think Sci gave you all you really need to know at this point. If you stick with his recommendations you will find Destiny to be very enjoyable indeed. Listening to too many voices can often confuse and lead to frustration. My father aways taught me KISS (keep it simple stupid!). I have found his words to be profoundly insightful and helpful over the years.

Kevin

Already heading that direction. But I appreciate all comments.

 

[LutherSloan]

Here is a quick timeline (in basic chronological order):

Leading up to Nemesis:

-Star Trek: A Time to Kill by David Mack
-Star Trek: A Time to Heal by David Mack
-Star Trek: A Time for War, A Time for Peace by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Post-Nemesis:

-Titan: Taking Wing by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels (introduces Riker and his new ship and crew)
-Star Trek: Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido (focuses on the Alpha Quadrant political situation post-Nemesis and post-A Time To...)
-Star Trek: TNG: Death in Winter by Michael Jan Friedman (first post-Nemesis TNG-only book, occurs while the Enterprise is still being repaired)
-Star Trek: TNG: Resistance by J.M. Dillard (first post-Nemesis mission of the Enterprise; introduces new crewmembers)
-Star Trek: TNG: Q&A by Keith R.A. DeCandido (Q story that ties up some loose ends from the TNG TV series)
-Star Trek: TNG: Before Dishonor by Peter David (maybe the most controversial Star Trek novel in recent memory, read it to find out why...)
-Star Trek: TNG: Greater Than The Sum by Christopher L. Bennett (most recent TNG-only novel; includes a prologue for the Destiny trilogy)

Destiny trilogy

-Star Trek Destiny: Gods of Night by David Mack
-Star Trek Destiny: Mere Mortals by David Mack
-Star Trek Destiny: Lost Souls by David Mack

 

[Thirishar]

I'm about to finish up the the DS9R books (currently on Worlds of DS9 Vol 3), and then I'm going to begin with the post-NEM books. I plan on reading all the TNG and the Titan books prior to Destiny, my only question is: what would the best order be? I know it probably doesn't matter all that much, and that, Chronologically, the TNG and TTN books probably overlap somewhat, but should I read all the TNG books first, then the TTN series, or vice versa, or should I mix them up somehow?