I still own over 300 STAR TREK novels, crossing every series but ENTERPRISE, but I finally had to throw in the towel in 2000. At that point, too many editors-in-chief had allowed too many continuity errors no only with the shows, but with fellow novels. I know there was never an effort made to establish solid continuity from one novel to another but, if not, then what's the point?

I collected them up until around 1999. Read everyone one of them but now the've all pretty much faded from memory. Remember bits and pieces here and there. Specifically remember one that dealt with time travelling back into the old TV show "Here Come The Brides". What was the one about raptors becoming the predominant species of earth if the big asteroid hadn't hit. Some race of intelligent raptors go back in time to Earth's prehistoric era and prevent the asteroid from hitting, erasing Earth history. Kirk and crew travel back in time to set things right. Also remember the one with Data violating the Starfleet order about going to the planet of The Guardian of Forever and using the guardian to time travel.

Sorry man. To each his own and what-not, but this is about the saddest thing I ever read.

The one book I really really recommend is "A Stitch in Time" by Andrew Robinson, the actor who played Garak.

Care to explain? If virtually every novel has a major continuity error either with the show/movies, or with another ST novel, then none of them can be said to have "really happened". Therefore, they're a waste of my money and time, no matter how well written (and the majority of them are quite well done).

Oh, and rw2516, the one with the dinosaurs is FIRST FRONTIER.

I like to believe in a little thing called Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, perhaps you've heard of it?

I have actually been on a ST novel kick here lately for the past several weeks, and many of them have been ones like Enterprise:The First Adventure (Kirk, not Archer), Final Frontier (not the movie), The Final Reflection, Vulcan, Stranger's from the Sky, Federation, etc.

Yeah, they all contain errors to some degree, but they are such good stories set in the Trek universe that I can't bring myself to kick them to the curb.
To drag another franchise into this, "you will come to find that many of the truths we cling to depend on a certain point of view."

Sure it's sad to read Federation, and then see how poorly Generations and First Contact handled the two crew crossover and meeting Cochrane storylines in comparison, but it's still a very good story, and I just let myself believe the parts that aren't absolutely contradicted.

Or reading The Final Reflection, and seeing the rich, multilayered and textured Klingon culture he paints, instead of the rowdy Vikings we got on DS9 and TNG. Personally, I'll always believe in the komerax zha, the perpetual game.

Honestly, there's so many good books out there, you're only doing yourself a disservice in throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

From past threads, I think it safe to say that mgbfan doesn't like "shared world" or tv spinoff fiction or formulaic fantasies of any kind.

YMMV but IMNSHO it is not really a discussion worth getting into.

But if you are looking for something new, for some thought-provoking Space Opera of the highest order I would commend David Zindell's Neverness/Requiem for Homo Sapiens books.

I've been reading the Lost Era books, good stuff overall.

Has anyone read the books where Voyager is back on Earth? I'm a big Voyager fan, but haven't picked up any of those books.

My wallet believes otherwise.

Um, used?

It wouldn't take much to find a few reviews and pick up a couple of titles on half.com.

I still think you're missing out.

There might be a different title with that story, but I believe you could be referring to Peter David's Imzadi, where a future version of Riker wants to use the Guardian because he believes Troi was murdered and shouldn't have died years before, but Data refuses to help him. Riker succeeds in getting to the Guardian, and Data reluctantly follows to try and stop him.

I haven't read a Trek book in ages. I think what started the decline of interest for me was when they let someone other than Peter David write a novel featuring Q.

I stopped reading the Trek novels in the mid-90s when there was a string of books, all within a year with pretty much the same plot -- some combination of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty beam down to a planet only to mysteriously disappear, leaving Kirk/Spock/McCoy/Scotty in charge of the Enterprise when Klingons/Romulans show up to cause trouble. There were also several TNG novels around the same time that were pretty much the same, only with different combinations of characters ending up lost on the planet.

There are two Trek novels that stand out in my memory as standing above the others.

How Much for Just the Planet, by the late, great John M. Ford. A very, very weird comedy, including numerous Gilbert & Sullivan homages and parodies. I don't believe it's in print anymore -- it's extremely out of character for the Star Trek universe, and the folks at Pocket Books like to pretend it never existed.

Vendetta, by Peter David. The best story concerning the Borg ever told -- far superior to Star Trek: Die Hard -- er, First Contact. The idea for the book is that the Doomsday Machine from TOS was actually a prototype for a much larger weapon designed to destroy the Borg. Now someone's found the full-sized model and is going to use it, even if it means plowing through the Federation in the process. The best part is David was able to make the Borg scary while sticking to the original concept of a decentralized hive mind -- no vampy queen controlling everything. There's one really great scene where a Ferengi gets assimilated and tries to bargain with the Borg, only to learn that negotiations are irrelevant.

Ha, I'm going to have to read that. It's out of print, but there's plenty of $0.01 copies on Amazon to be had.

Dude, the point is, I don't feel as comfortable with blatant continuity flaws as you, so even a nickel would be too much. I cannot enjoy ST books anymore becasue they have no coherency with one another. If you still can, then rooty-toot-toot for you. It sucks for me (I used to love collecting ST books) but, hey, at least that's freed up my money to go to my DVD collection.

I was getting ready to post this exact same thing. This was a great book.

I think you may have missed the reason I found it sad.

I think I get it now, though, which makes me wonder why you're even bothering with this thread...

Hey, I go slumming book-wise every now and again. But the day I complain about what couldn't "really" have happened in a Star Trek novel because something else happened in a different Star Trek novel, well go right ahead and shoot me in the head. Star Trek books are fluff. You're taking them WAY too seriously.

No, the ones who come up with elaborate "infinite diversity in infinite combinations", alternate realities theories are the ones taking them way too seriously.

Hold the phone there bub, that's pushing "personal attack" in my book. I'm not coming up with any theories, or multiple branching timelines, I mean, do a quick google and you'll find them. I've run across them, but given up on them pretty quickly.

All I ever said was that there's too many books that are just well written yarns to casually dismiss them. I'm reading one now called Black Fire, set right around the time of the Enterprise refit (as seen in ST TMP), and it involves Spock and Scotty being held by aliens for months, and Spock being arrested as a traitor, and these crazy hairy aliens trying to take over the universe, and well it's not really *that* good, but it's certainly better than most of the "canon" Voyager and Enterprise, and even some of the shakier TNG or DS9 eps.

Or, I just re-read Vendetta for the bajillionth time. A little research on the web will reveal that this novel almost wasn't released because it mixed TOS and TNG, and was about "vengeance", something that didn't occur in the politically correct TNG era. Basically the planet-killer that Kirk was forced to destroy was actually somebody's prototype to fight the Borg, and now somebody's found the final beta and is raising nine kinds of H E double-hockeysticks across the galaxy with it. And she's Guinan's stepsister.

It doesn't *quite* fit with the established TNG, though it would with just a little squeezing. Is that really so hard to force yourself to do, for the benefit of a hella good Borg story?


And one other thing. I just finished reading Great Expectations and this sonovagun is loaded with continuity errors. But because it's a "classic", it's given a pass. Now I don't want anybody flaming me for comparing Dickens to Trek, because I know they're lightyears apart (narf!), but the point remains that you can't little thing like details get in the way. Hell, it certainly didn't stop Rick Berman.

Personal attack? Really. Because I make a fair (even if you disagree with it) criticism of your behavior? Well, share the love, buddy, 'cuz mgbfan drew first blood on me...

Man i didn't know the book talk forum ever got this heated!

I'm totally going to have to start reading this forum more often now.

I read a few Trek books back in the day, but abandoned them when I learned they weren't canonical with the series -- and that the TV/movie writers felt no obligation to stick with anything that was established in the books.

Which is actually kind of a shame because the stories in the books tended to be more interesting than what made it to film. (Like the aforementioned planet-killer vs. Borg. And "Federation" was better than "First Contact.")

The only science fiction franchise that even attempts to keep the novels and comics within show continuity is Babylon 5, and even then they've been sort of hit or miss. (Something like eleven of the eighteen novels are considered canon, and maybe twelve of the fourteen comic books.)

Well, Star Trek novels have tried very hard to at least stay with TV canon. Not always successfully, but they have at least tried. The problem has been with the books contradicting each other. However, Pocket Books editor Marco Palmieri has tried very hard to get authors talking to each other and working on more continuity between novels. So...if you stopped reading about 2000 you stopped too soon. In my opinion the best Star Trek books ever written have come out in the last five years. The Deep Space Nine relaunch books are as good of tales as have ever been told by anyone. The Voyager post series novels are not as good as I think they could be but are still fun reads. The Shatner books you could pass on without missing much but the two new series Star Trek: Vanguard and IKS Gorkon are well worth a visit. Peter David's New Frontier series is always a lot of fun too. Anyway, I think Star Trek books currently have a lot to offer fans of the TV show. Great stories, well written, with lots of entertainment value for the buck. Just my personal opinion of course.

Kevin

Are some of these new good ST book from TOS? Most of the books i enjoyed reading were OS stories.