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Your first Trek novel?

My first book was Web of the Romulans, more than half a lifetime ago.

When I bought it I was under the impression that it was a novelization of The Tholian Web, one of my favorite episodes back then. The cover blurb mentioned a lovesick Enterprise computer, which I remembered happening in Tomorrow Is Yesterday ("Computed, dear."), so that confused the heck out of me.

Imagine my surprise finding out it was an original novel.
 
I believe that was Bloodletter by K. W. Jeter, which I'm pretty sure was only the second original DS9 novel.

Yep, good book. I liked the idea of doing something on the other side of the wormhole.

I wish Jeter had written more ST books. There was this, Warped and a comic. Anyone know what he's up to now? Last book I can find he published was in 2000.
 
Unfortunatly, while Bloodletter was pretty good, Jeter's other DS9 stories have been less so. Warped is a book I tried reading three different times, and never got past page 100. The comic N-Vector, has a just alright story with horrible art.

The best thing about N-Vector to me was that it is the only post- What You Leave Behind story that utized the the "half-crew" that was left after the show ended, before the Bowers and the Vaughns and the Shars started to show up (while still being a part of that continuity). Nothing against those characters, as I like all of them, but it was cool to see those "left behind" do their thing.
 
yeah, that style of art doesn't do anything for me and detracted from the story. and yeah, the use of the "half crew" before everyone showed up was one of the things i liked about the story.

i haven't read warped in a long time but i remember liking it a lot more than most people. i'm not sure i like it as much as allyn gibson who has talked about it in his blog. he says if you've read philip k. dick you'll get more out of warped. i keep meaning to do that but haven't yet.
 
My first Star Trek-novel was TNG's Dragon's Honor. That was back in 1997, half a year before I had went to Crossville, Tennessee (USA) for a year. Only knowing school-English back then, I hadn't been able to fully understand the novel.

Now, ten years later, I still have that novel. But for some reason, I can never get past the first fifty pages. Is it just me or do other have the same problem too?
 
My first Trek book was either Badlands (book one), I Am Spock or Ashes of Eden. Whichever one it was clearly has an effect because after these three I was hooked and haven't looked back.

I'm going to regret this I'm sure but who/what is this Blish person? :cardie:

Ta,
 
^ James Blish is a very well-regarded science fiction author who was hired in 1966 to write short-story adaptations of Star Trek episodes. One a year were published in 1967, 1968, 1969, and 1971, but in 1972 four were published, then going back to one a year for 1973-1975. By that time, Blish was in failing health (he died in 1975), and his wife J.A. Lawrence helped him with the writing. The final volume (by that time all save the two Mudd episodes had been adapted) was published in 1977 and credited to both Blish and Lawrence, and Lawrence then did a Harry Mudd book that adapted both "Mudd's Women" and "I, Mudd," and also had a new Mudd novella.
 
hmmm I've never been a big fan of adaptations but then again I didn't think I'd like the S.C.E books so who knows.

I'll see if I can find one of his books, can say I've ever seen any tho.

Thank you,
 
Pretty much the only way you could find something like these is either online or a used bookstore.
 
Well that pretty much limits me to online .... this is the UK, Trek books are put on the last third of the bottom shelf in the back where the light doesn't work, seriously they make you feel like your buying a dirty mag and that their are going to put me in the town centre and stone me or something.

If anyone knows of a good online book shop (not Amazon .. long story) let me know.

Thanks,
 
^ or check your local library. I remember my local library carried these books.
Sorry, Rosalind, British libraries suck when it comes to Trek books.

By-product, try www.fantasycentre.biz. They carry a modest collection of star trek books, all second hand and in pretty good condition. I've been in the shop a few times and always left with a grin on my face.

You might also try eBay. Some good stuff shows up occasionally.
 
yeah, that style of art doesn't do anything for me and detracted from the story. and yeah, the use of the "half crew" before everyone showed up was one of the things i liked about the story.

i haven't read warped in a long time but i remember liking it a lot more than most people. i'm not sure i like it as much as allyn gibson who has talked about it in his blog. he says if you've read philip k. dick you'll get more out of warped. i keep meaning to do that but haven't yet.

Interesting.

I am one of the rare few who enjoyed Warped, even though I don't really remember much of it. (For the record, I remember liking Bloodletter better.)

I'm also a big Phillip K. Dick fan. :)

I have heard Jeter's work compared to Phillip Dick's in the past. (He even wrote a sequel to Blade Runner / Androids... that was pretty decent and tried to tie the two together.)

I've heard him called Phillip Dick's protege. I am not sure if there was a mentorship relationship there or if it is just because of their similarity in style.
 
Boy I'm not sure if I can remember...it was either between the novelization of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country that I can remember reading at the back of the bus with my mom on the way back from doing errands with her in downtown Vancouver or Imazdi by Peter David that was bought for me as a Summer Camp going away present by my parents. I wanna say that ST: VI was my first followed by Imazdi..think they were published around the same time, 1991,92.
 
DorkBoy [TM];1566311 said:
I have heard Jeter's work compared to Phillip Dick's in the past. (He even wrote a sequel to Blade Runner / Androids... that was pretty decent and tried to tie the two together.)

I've heard him called Phillip Dick's protege. I am not sure if there was a mentorship relationship there or if it is just because of their similarity in style.

Jeter and Dick were friends. Wikipedia's entry on Jeter points out a few of the connections. Jeter's own work has definite PKD influences, but it's never an imitation of Dick's stuff; his SF ranges from gonzo pre-cyberpunk (Dr Adder) to straight up cyberpunk to steampunk to horror to satire. Not everything is great, but some of it really is, and he's worth investigating.

Incidentally, Jeter wrote three Blade Runner novels: The Edge of Human, Replicant Night, and Eye and Talon. I admire the effort Jeter made to reconcile Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but I'm not sure he really pulled it off. Definitely a valiant effort, though.

And one of these days I'm going to reread Warped, because I liked it at the time and the fact that it's so widely hated continues to baffle me.
 
Jeter wrote three Blade Runner novels: The Edge of Human, Replicant Night, and Eye and Talon.

I bought them all, despite hating "Warped", but I haven't been game to try them.

And one of these days I'm going to reread Warped, because I liked it at the time and the fact that it's so widely hated continues to baffle me.
I had no problem at all with "Bloodletter" at all. It was an interesting read from a new-to-Trek author.

I bought "Warped" in hardcover expecting my usual hardcover-ST-bliss type euphoria but... it was so... hard to keep turning the pages. I kept reading because I'd paid so much for the airfreighted reading experience and, well, because it was a Star Trek book, and I needed to be able to say I'd read everything.

I even made myself listen to Rene/Odo trying to do justice to the audio version, and I still hated it.

PS. But maybe not as much as Robert Sheckley's "The Laertian Gamble".
 
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Pretty sure mine was Joe Haldeman's Planet of Judgment. It had a number of sensible sf touches I wish could have been adopted by mainstream Trek--landing parties wearing body armor, Starfleet Academy being a planet--and an enjoyable shout-out to the Franz Joseph Tech Manual with the destroyer Lysander (iirc). (The threat species in the book, the Irapina, would later be referenced in one of the early Pocket novels, I think The Trellisane Confrontation.) In my opinion, it's also one of the stronger actual science fiction novels of the line.
 
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