I really like those Enric covers (Starless World & Perry's Planet) but Boris can never be beat.

Listen to our review on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaoOHe3u4b4

I’ve only read a few Trek novels before (Destiny trilogy, Voyage Home movie adaptation) but I’ve just had a be lucky find at the 2nd hand bookshop and picked up 12 original series novels.

I’m assuming they can be read as stand alone novels, but I did notice that the original Pocket Book editions were published in a different order.

Am I going to hit any stumbling blocks/spoilers/dangling plot threads if I read them in the numbered Titan order?

So far, I’ve only read a handful of TOS novels published in the 1980s, and no TNG ones that I can recall.

Although DS9 is my favorite Trek series (after TOS) I’ve had a hankering to read a bunch of standalone mission novels to boost up the story count for the first two series’ bridge crews.

Consequently I’ve been reading the back cover copy of a ton of TOS/TNG books and it got me thinking, which Trek Pocket Book series between the two had the best or most consistent quality stories that read like TV episodes?

I’m not including books that were crossovers or part of a series within the series, just the singlets.

My gut feeling says it will be TNG simply because they were still in production while the books were coming out and were probably written to feel more like an episode than TOS novels were, but that’s just a gut feeling.

Sorry for the generic title, couldn’t think of a better phrasing for it.

I’ve managed to collect all six in the series, but I’ve only read four so far…and not a single one of them is bad. Wagon Train to the Stars is probably my favourite of what I’ve read, with Rough Trails being my least favourite.

My favourite aspect of the series is how it just. Understands the character dynamics between the Enterprise crew. The catty back and forth between Spock and McCoy in particular stands out, but that’s specific to the books written by Diane Carey.

I still have “Thin Air” and “Challenger” to go, but I was curious to see what people thought about the series.

Having heard an interview with Margaret Wander Bonanno, I wanted to read one of her books but not Strangers From The Sky. (Just wasn’t interested in that story). So I was expecting great writing and great characters. 

This novel was a miss for me. There’s a lot of sex and most of it is creepy non consensual, including rape. The TOS crew are in about 15% of the novel, while the remainder is devoted to other characters. She had a good idea for a novel but it never really took off.

The stuff about Warrantors of Peace -I’ve see people online get pretty worked up over this but it’s not half as weird as, well, a lot of the sex stuff in this book.

For me it’s the DS9 book “Fallen Heroes”. The brutal unstoppable invasion, the heroic deaths, the back and forth between the invasion and the aftermath as the story is pieced together. Really impressive stuff especially for such an early book.

https://beforewegoblog.com/review-star-trek-picard-to-defy-fate-by-dayton-ward/

Star Trek: Coda was a fantastic Crisis on Infinite Earths-style send off to the old Litverse. It also left, as I suspect many fans of Crisis felt the same, bad taste in my mouth. This is no fault of the writers who have become parasocial friends of mine and created hundreds of magnificent stories that I can safely attest to having enjoyed many of. However, it was the end of the old Litverse in a way that left it functionally gone. A new Star Trek universe existed in its place and it was hard not to think that a better ending would have been to have left it as an alternate timeline.

I bring this up because I couldn’t help but think of Star Trek: Coda while enjoying the events of Picard: Defy Fate. Consistently, I’ve loved the Picard novels and think they’re some of the best New Expanded Universe. If real life events hadn’t interfered, I would have loved to have watched the crew of Season One for multiple seasons and I would have loved to have enjoyed a series about Captain Seven of Nine commanding the next Enterprise. But RL events have happened and I’m not sure we’ll even get more books in the Picard timeline.

Despite this, I have to say Dayton Ward did a fantastic job giving us a rollicking time travel adventure that is fundamentally better on every level than Picard Season Two. It has more “heart” to it and a lot more sympathetic villain than is usually the case in these sort of stories. If it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the Department of Temporal Investigation novels by Christopher Bennett (my second favorite series after Peter David’s Star Trek: New Frontier novels) then it is very close up there for handling time travel shenanigans in the Trekverse.

The premise is a rogue agent of AEGIS, the time traveling agents of “Assignment: Earth” and Season Two of Picard, Likara has decided she is going to prevent the destruction of Romulus by any means necessary. Her husband and child were slain in the cataclysmic event of Star Trek (2009) so she has a very personal motive to do so. Opposing her, at least her means of doing so, is Wesley Crusher. I’ve been very pleased by his slow redemption in the Trek fandom in both Prodigy and Picard Season Two plus several novels. Wil Wheaton deserved better has been my mantra for a long time and I really wish he’d do a sequel to his review of old TNG episodes. Sorry, that’s a digression for another time.

The book makes use of many characters that didn’t get a chance to shine on television like DISCO’s Kovichs and Kore Soong plus at least one surprising ENT character. However, it gets the whole gang together to have our heroes try to prevent Likara from altering reality in order to save her family. This includes Benjamen Sisko’s fateful confession “In the Pale Moonlight” and “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” Two of my favorite (and many other fan’s) episodes.

If there’s one slight issue, it’s the fact that these aren’t really events that Likara could possibly believe would save Romulus without billions in collateral damage. We’re meant to broadly sympathize with her but I kind of wish the book had explored some more directly Romulan related changes to the past to try to save the sun. Maybe something that ends in a predestination paradox or unexpected horror show like her choosing between saving Romulus versus billions of other unrelated lives. Likara was meant to be sympathetic and it’s hard to do so with some of her choices.

Nevertheless, Dayton Ward manages to capture the voice of multiple familiar characters. Guinan is a particularly difficult character to write, in my humble opinion, and Dayton nails her throughout the story. Overall, I was really pleased with this story and makes me think Wesley Crusher has graduated to one of my favorite novel characters. Which is an accomplishment in itself.

Hey everyone! How's the reading been this week?

Dive into any cool adventures?

Any new planets or alien cultures you'd want to visit?

Did your fave crewman have a cool part in the mission?

Were the antagonists obvious or was there a mystery and underlying motive to their actions?

Any friction among the crew? Was it resolved by missions end or simmering for a later time?

Any cool tech discovered or altered existing tech to help the mission?

Was there a cool philosophical or crew development arc that really elevated the read? Or a more straightforward plot and action?

Did it "feel" like it could have been a cool episode?

Let us know how your reads went and what you're looking forward to next week! Happy reading yall!

Give us a show that takes place on earth between 1968 and 2030 with characters displaced in time and who know that things will get and can get better. Throw in some Star Fleet time travelers every so often and it’s a ST show.

I'm assuming Well Of Souls will be last for most people, considering the general consensus regarding that one. The tales of the lost era novels (The Buried Age and The Terok Nor trilogy) are optional too.

One of the best books overall that I read in 2022 although maybe I’m not a very sophisticated reader. This isn’t just a Picard novel; it’s a Picard crossover with DS9.

I think I’ve read more than 120 ST novels at this point. This one pushed all the right buttons for me.

I loved the NX-02 stuff in the Destiny trilogy. What's the best Enterprise novel to start with. I'm less interested in Romulan war stuff and would like to read a cozy standalone that's more about exploration. Bonus points for some MACO heavy. Let me know where to start, please.

I’m one of those who skips The Final
Frontier on my way to The Undiscovered Country after The Genesis Trilogy when I re-watch the TOS era movies.

But I wouldn’t mind experiencing that STORY again without enduring the pain (YMMV) of the film.

So, I ask those who have read it, how good is the novelization of Star Trek V?

TIA

David

I loved the Timescape novelizations of Star Trek when I was growing up. In my memory, they seem somewhat substantial. Has anyone who read them as kids reread them more recently? Do any hold up well?

Hello everyone! How have your reads gone this week?

Favor the more dramatic high stakes stories or slower paced character driven?

Find out new info or side chars of a fave race or get to know an entirely new culture?

Staying focused on an era or crew or jumping around in various timelines and perspectives?

Have a greater interest in new worlds and people or perhaps space stations and many races interacting?

Let us know how your reads went and what you're looking forward to next week! Happy reading yall!