Which Trek novels are in your personal headcanon?

[JonnyQuest037]

Just a question that popped into my head this evening: I'm assuming that, like me, you probably all have at least a few Trek novels or comics that are in your personal headcanon. Even if they don't strictly jibe with the official Trek continuity anymore, or sometimes even if it's a isolated bit in a larger work. Here are mine:

Novels
- Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (As far as I'm concerned, this is the history of Zefram Cochrane, not what we saw in First Contact)
- Vulcan's Glory by D.C. Fontana (I really like this backstory of Mr. Spock by one of the best TOS writers)
- The Final Reflection by John Ford (I find Ford's Klingon culture cooler than the TNG Klingons that came later)
- When it comes to an explanation for the new Klingons in the TOS movies, I prefer the backstory from Michael Jan Friedman's My Brother's Keeper trilogy to the one we saw on ENT.
- The Galactic Whirlpool by David Gerrold (Cool story by another TOS writer with harder science fiction than you usually find in Trek)
- Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno (The definitive Pike novel, IMO)
- Strangers From the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonanno (A very cool version of Human/Vulcan first contact)

Comics
- "Where It All Began..." Star Trek Annual #1 by Mike W. Barr & David Ross (My personal favorite version of Kirk's first mission on the Enterprise)
- Star Trek: Romulans by John Byrne (Byrne's version of the Klingon/Romulan alliance)
- Star Trek: Crew by John Byrne (The Starfleet career of Number One)
- "Strange New Worlds" by John Byrne ( A cool story of the aftermath of "Where No Man Has Gone Before")
- "Mister Chekov" Star Trek: New Visions #10 by John Byrne (A recent work that shows how Ensign Chekov first got the attention of Captain Kirk and became a bridge officer. Byrne's version of the Enterprise's "bowling alley" is terrific!)

What are your choices and why?

 

[ryan123450]

O dear. Literally hundreds and hundreds of stories. Basically the whole Litverse, but much else besides.

 

[Starbreaker]

When I think of TNG, I often think of Imzadi, Q-Squared, Kahless, and The Devil's Heart. Those two are way better than a third of the series ever was.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I don't really see Trek as a strict canon of "X happened but Y didn't because of Z" anymore, it's all just stories. Legends.

I had a lot of ideas about the way the Trekverse "should" be thanks to decades of novels and technical manuals, but as things were contradicted again and again I realised a good story that engages me in the moment is all that matters.

 

[Thrawn]

I don't really see Trek as a strict canon of "X happened but Y didn't because of Z" anymore, it's all just stories. Legends.

I had a lot of ideas about the way the Trekverse "should" be thanks to decades of novels and technical manuals, but as things were contradicted again and again I realised a good story that engages me in the moment is all that matters.

This.

 

[JD]

I definitely include all of the novelverse, and I haven't read all of them, but the I include the first DC comics TOS series in between the movies. Imzadi is the Riker/Troi backstory for me.

 

[roseake]

If I'm honest, I pick and edit everything I read. If I like an overall story, but not certain events, I ignore them. So my headcanon is probably an amalgamation of my favourite bits from all the books I've read, with a bit of my own re-jigging.

 

[stardream]

The Destiny Trilogy happened. That's the way it went down...same with Beyer's Voyager books (except for those parts with Cambridge and Seven.)

 

[JonnyQuest037]

If I'm honest, I pick and edit everything I read. If I like an overall story, but not certain events, I ignore them. So my headcanon is probably an amalgamation of my favourite bits from all the books I've read, with a bit of my own re-jigging.

Yes, this is pretty much my own philosophy, if that wasn't clear before.

 

[Thowra]

I love McCoy: Provenance of Shadows from the Crucible Trilogy. (I haven't read the last twin yet).

I love that it adds a new angle, without directly impacting on the actual universe. It had me really thinking about it for days after (I don't want to give away any spoilers).

 

[Thowra]

I can't edit...

I haven't read the last two, yet (not the last twin)

 

[Thrawn]

Well I loved Crucible: McCoy and found the others to be fairly disastrously bad, actually. My advice would be to leave your Crucible experience there!

 

[Danlav05]

The Ashes of Eden GN feels like a lost movie - great story, great visuals
The Return I love
Prime Directive
Can we count fan films? Continues, New Voyages/Phase II, Hidden Frontier, Intrepid in particular come to mind
Star Trek TNG/DS9 crossover comic by DC/Malibu FEELS like it could have been an episode
Assimilation2 (I love Doctor Who as well)

 

[Alwaystrekkin]

The Voyager novels since The Eternal Tide are definitely in my head and probably staying there, though perhaps I'm a little iffy with PFoL (not that it wasn't a good story but the entire premise is a bit unsettling for me). I also enjoy imagining (now) Captain Ro as head of DS9, and how she got to that point.

 

[Mage]

Unless it clashes with something that is actual canon, meaning what was on screen, it's all canon to me, even it one book clashes with another. Star Trek has already given us alternate universes/dimensions/whatnot, that it's all cool with me. As long as the story is good, I'm ok.

 

[Idran]

Why rule out the stuff that clashes with what's on screen, then? There's plenty of good pre-TNG stuff that doesn't work at all with TNG.

 

[Leto_II]

If I'm honest, I pick and edit everything I read. If I like an overall story, but not certain events, I ignore them. So my headcanon is probably an amalgamation of my favourite bits from all the books I've read, with a bit of my own re-jigging.

This, basically.

For example, with the Crucible trilogy (incompatible in certain places with the rest of the novelverse, but totally compatible in other places), I tend to cherry-pick the moments from the series that work with previously-established sources (such as the interstitial-bits overlapping with various TOS episodes, and pretty much all of the Enterprise-A stuff) and leave out the contradictory stuff (such as the completely-different version of the refitted Enterprise's post-V'Ger mission profile).

Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy those contradictory-bits often tremendously -- it's just that, in my personal timeline, some things can fit together, and some things can't. But even the contradictory stuff will always have a place on my bookshelf (and heart).

 

[TheUsualSuspect]

Like others have mentioned, I don't have a strict "headcanon" -- I tend to read the books that sound interesting or are by authors who I generally enjoy reading without worrying much about continuity questions. I follow most closely the DS9 relaunch (reading everything as it comes out) and the TNG relaunch (reading most of the books soon after publication).

Re: the Crucible trilogy -- I liked all three volumes, although Provence of Shadows is definitely the best of the three. I really liked DRGIII's take on the Enterprise's seven year (I think) mission to a remote, unexplored sector of space following TMP. One of my strongest wishes for Trek publishing would be some additional stories or novels relating events of that mission beyond what was sketched out in Crucible.

At the time Crucible was released, I was almost exclusively reading the DS9 relaunch books, so it was nice to get something completely different!

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Yeah, Provence of Shadows is definitely the best of the three Crucible novels, largely because it's the most original and the offers the most insight into its subject. But it's really hard to find fresh insight into Kirk and Spock at this point. I think the latter two novels were also rather handicapped by being based more on the movies than on TOS (I can see why DRGIII chose to do that, though - that's where the biggest gaps in their life stories are).

And as far as I'm concerned, the stuff about

Spoiler: Provence of Shadows characters

Natira and Tonia Barrows

in the novel is what happened. Such a clever bit of extrapolation!

 

[Lunarrius]

Is there a list of all numbered books (usually those with self contained stories), set before relaunch, that do not heavily contradict stuff in TV series and future/past books. So basically I am interested in reading earlier books that may fit into canon chronology without contradicting anything that has been established. Thank you.