I don't know how many Star Trek fans are on the board but I thought I would start a thread to recommend some Star Trek books. Pocket Books has been publishing Star Trek books for almost 20 years and there are around 400 titles published by them to date. Many of the older stories are not very good quality reads and are more like pulp fiction. However, Pocket today has some very fine story writers that know how to write Star Trek. If you are a Deep Space Nine fan I would highly recommend the Deep Space Nine "relaunch" series starting with "Avatar" volumes 1 & 2. So far there are about 10 books in the relaunch and all are of excellent quality and actually better than the show. Another great series that is just starting is the "Lost Era" series. Only two books have been released so far in what will be a series of 6 that will cover the period in Star Trek history from "Star Trek VI" to the premiere of Star Trek The Next Generation. I might also add the Peter David "New Frontier" series which are all fun and great reads. Peter David has created his own ship and crew within the confines of the Star Trek universe. There will be a 12 volume Star Trek The Next Generation series starting in January of 2004 that looks to be good also.

If you like Star Trek and have never checked out the books you are missing some really great adventures that are even better than anything that ever has been on screen. I give kudos to Marco Palmieri the current editor for hiring so many very talented people in the last couple of years!

Ktrek

I enjoyed "Prime Directive" and anything by Peter David is usually pretty good. I've only read about a dozen though, and haven't read a new Star Trek book since the one Shatner wrote after Star Trek: Generations that revived the Kirk character (can't remember the name!)

That book was called "Ashes To Eden". If it's been that long since you have read a Trek book you should try some of the newest stories. They are really excellent! At least most of them are! In addition to the novels mentioned by me above I would also recommend an excellent Data story called "Immortal Coil" by Jeffery Lang. It's one of the very best and most fascinating Trek books of all time. Any Star Trek book writen by Keith R. A. DeCandio is worth a read also. Thanks for your post! :-)

Ktrek

I probably have 2-300 Star Trek books, including most of the original Bantam series, lots of Pocket books, and a chunk of non-fiction and books by cast members (bios, behind the scenes, and novels.) I haven't picked up many ST novels in the past year or so, though.

Prime Directive was very good. It was written by Judith Reeves Stevens and Garfield Reeves Stevens, who helped Shatner on his latest books. Memory Prime was not one of their bests, but again, they are in a league of their own, so it was still excellent.

I enjoyed most of the Captain's Table series and many others. ST books are really all I read aside from Cosmology and religious stuff.


Star Trek: Federation by the above authors is absolutely positively the best Trek book ever written. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Littlefuzzy, so do I! Haven't read anything in the last year or so, but always wonder if this collection would ever be worth something.

I second just about everything kvrdave said. Judith & Garfield Reeves Stevens are great, especially Federation. Peter David is also one of my personal favorites.

Some old school recommendations:

Enterprise (not the current series, an old Kirk/Spock novel)
Strangers from the Sky
Final Frontier (not the movie)

Almost reads like a trashy romance novel but I've re-read it more times than is healthy: Imzadi
(stay far, far away from the sequel)
Metamorphosis is an OK Data novel.

I used to collect the star trek books. I would buy them as soon as they came out. Not only did this get expensive but some of them weren't all that good. I kept my favorites and sold the rest. I think Peter David is the best writer for the ST:TNG series books. I thought Q-squared was excellent

Squidget,

If you are judging Star Trek books by the past then you really should buy some of the latest books and check them out. They are really very well written and good stories. Nothing like the cheap pulp novels of the past. Peter David is an excellent writer no doubt but even he has grown stagnant. Check out the J.G. Hertzler & Jeffery Lang's Deep Space Nine novels "The Left Hand of Destiny Vol. 1 & 2". You might be pleasantly suprised. Any of the new "Lost Era" books are sure to be winners with even the most casual fans.

Ktrek

I've never read any of the ones that Shatner wrote. Mainly because I read the backs of the first two and realized that every one would be about the Next Gen crew getting into trouble, and Kirk has to save them. My god, doesn't that show how much of a bitter wreck of a man Shatner is?

Add my voice to the ones praising Peter David's work, though.

Especdially Q-In-Law, which I believe is #14 in the TNG series of books (if not, then it's definitely between 11 and 19).

Set when Lwaxana Troi was still "in phase" (meaning she was looking for a mate and her sex drive was multiplied by about tenfold), and she meets Q. A meeting of two of the most popular supporting characters in the series, and Peter handled it perfectly.

Q-Squared was great as well. So was I, Q. - the collaboration between David and John DeLancie worked great, and left me hoping for another book.

Finally, Peter David's "New Frontier" series was awesome. A few minor characters from TNG, an old friend from the original series, and a lot of new characters.

Here is another vote for anything by Peter David. I have Imzadi II, but have not read it. does anyone like it?

Here is one of my alltime favorite books. I have reread it more than any other book. It is called "How much for Just the Planet" by John M Ford (I think). Absolutely hilarious Anyone else read that one?

Actually you might be suprised to know that Shatner's "Ashes To Eden" and especially "The Return" are two of the best, most adventurous, and imaginitive of all the Star Trek books. They are a little outside of the box and most fans call his books the "Shatnerverse". I don't know how much of the original story plots are his but Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens help him write the books and they are both very good prose writers. I would have to disagree with your statement he is a bitter man.

Imzadi II is not as good as the first one. In fact many fans were very disappointed.

As for "How Much Just For The Planet" it is one of those books you either love it or hate it! I found it quite funny as well!

Ktrek

I went through a period of ST books, and eventually I tired of them. Unfortunately, the bad/mediocre far outnumbered the good.

My favorite ST novel, by far, is Spock's World by Diane Duane.

They may be well-received, but do they follow the same path that most of his books do? Kirk is the center character, the Next Gen crew are all incompetent and he has to save them?

That's why I say he's bitter, and that's why he IS bitter. Shatner has a massive ego, and he can't stand the fact that despite being in the original series, there's another cast that's more popular than he is. No matter how well-written you think his books are, he still uses them to get a juvenile "revenge."

How much of his books does he actually write? I was under the impression they're mostly ghost written?

Eric,
That's one of those details we will not ever know for sure until he is dead. I think the role he plays is to provide the major plot story, arcs and twists and then any creative input as the Stevens' write the books. He doesn't hide the fact that the stories are not completely written by him unlike the Tek War series that he did try and take all the credit for. I doubt very seriously he has the prose skills to actually write a book from beginning to end by himself.

Ktrek

I haven't read too many Trek books but this one excellent. I remember being at lunch at work and laughing so hard/loud that co-workers were giving me concerned looks.

Read that one. Peter David along with Dianne Duane are among the best Trek authors. I thought Shatner's books were among the worst. Some of the older TOS books are excellent- don't pass them by just because they're 30yrs old. There was one I read about an alien race based on Earth Dinosaurs, which was excellent.

It's been a few years since I've picked up a Trek book- has there been any new standalone novels? I really hated all the crossovers they started to do. I think Sarek was the last Trek novel I read. Wasn't bad.

I've recently started re-reading Enterprise (Kirk's first mission on the Ent), and I'd forgotten how well the older books suck you into the world of Trek. The older novels like this were written with a true passion for the material, the back cover even has an endorsment from Roddenberry!

And I think I'm leaning more and more to the theory of multiple Klingon races that look different, because that's what's in this book and you just absolutely believe it.

Read Spock's world. You'll learn why their blood is green.

Wait, wrong franchise

Spock's World has a minor problem that you run into with several trek books (like Kahless, iirc). The story follows two lines and alternates chapters. Unfortunately, only one story line is worth a crop, so I end up just reading every other chapter.

I thought I might revive this thread I started. There are several really good Trek books that have been released of late. David R. George III has written a trilogy of books for the 40th anniversary of Star Trek called Crucible. There is one novel on each of the major characters, McCoy, Spock and Kirk. So far the only one released is McCoy but I believe Spock hits the shelves this month. I found McCoy to be extremely well written and fun. It uses the City on the Edge of Forever as a spring board for a very epic story.

Also of note is Margaret Wander Bonanno's Burning Dreams about Captain Pike.

For those folks who are clueless about where to start reading Trek books a book about the Trek novels has just been released called Voyages of Imagination by Jeff Ayers. It includes cover art and a synopsis of every Trek fiction book published to date along with insights by the various authors. It comes in at over 800 pages and should be a good reference for us Trek fans.

Kevin

I went through a 2 year period where all i read were the older TOS stories that i snagged by the bag load used at bookstores in my travels. I think i still have a box of about 20 to read sometime. I loved the old slightly more pulp stories.