You need something to get you through the cold, dark days until you can finally Trek Into Darkness, but Star Trek novels are so much more than something to tide you over until the movie comes out. Here some reasons you should consider picking up a Star Trek novel.
1. So, how’d that work out?
If you’ve ever wondered about the aftermath of an Original Series episode, there’s probably a novel for that. If you don’t like that novel, there’s probably another one that answers the question a different way.
2. They hold the secret history of the 1980s.
And 70s. And 90s. And those other decades when they were published. If you want to see how people’s fears and hopes for the world have changed over time, pick up a range of Star Trek novels. Gene Roddenberry’s original plan for the series was to give people an optimistic vision of the future where the people of Earth could join hands with each other and with the universe and boldly go where no man has gone before. That has meant different things to different people, a number of whom recorded their visions (and thus, their feelings about events that were current to them) in Star Trek novels.
3. They hold the secret history of Star Trek fandom.
Where does the crew of the Enterprise go when they need information about the mysterious and obscure? In the television series, they turn to the ship’s computer, but it’s portable. It can’t possibly hold ALL the information about the mysteries of the universe and the unique and varied histories of trillions of people on billions of planets! For that, you need the archives of Memory Alpha, the actual database created by fans, referred to lovingly in more novels than I can count. In addition to celebrating this community effort, Star Trek novel writers routinely inserted themselves, their editors, their fellow writers and their fans into their work.
4. The Bechdel Test.
Female characters in the Original Series ranged from the neglected to the limited in scope. The female protagonist in any given Star Trek novel may be a Mary Sue, but unlike in the television series, she inhabits a universe with lots of other women, and they have conversations about music, medicine, dreams, careers, strategy, ambitions, engineering, and their assorted friends all the time. If this were just an exercise in political correctness, it wouldn’t matter, but there’s a reason why the Bechdel Test works—strong characters who have a lot to say are a vital part of compelling stories.
5. Aliens.
The people that you meet who are wearing a lot of makeup. Maybe they’re a funny color. Maybe they all have wigs. If the episode had a big budget, you might get both! The novels are completely unconstrained by these limitations. Cat-people, re-incarnating glass spiders, Hortas, sand-whales, flying monkeys, and a species that looks kind of like Irish setters all make appearances. Lots of appearances. Often as fully realized three-dimensional characters.
6. Detailed exploration of alien cultures.
Not only do they show up, these new aliens are interesting and pivotal characters with clearly explained motivations and cultural backgrounds. A 350-page novel gives a writer an opportunity to really dig into a culture. In the early-80s, John M. Ford gave the Klingons an amazingly detailed non-canonical backstory. Diane Duane did incredible work on Vulcans and Romulans. Most other writers were limited to species that did not appear in the Original Series. This didn’t stop them from creating new worlds and new civilizations of their own.
7. Suddenly, Chekov is interesting.
In the television series, Chekov was dropped on to the bridge in the second season to attract a certain demographic. His entire character in season two consists of a bizarre belief that Moscow is the center of both the universe and paradise, and an adrenaline surge that saved his life at significant cost to his dignity. In a good Chekov episode, he gets to canoodle with a girl we never see again. In the novels, he has useful expertise in a variety of contexts—not unlike in the 2009 Star Trek movie where he runs through the ship screaming “I can do this!”
8. All the decks.
It’s not just Chekov who is suddenly interesting. The Original Series used the bridge to tell viewers about who characters were and what they did. Novelists used the whole ship to shed light on the whole crew. The Enterprise has a range of facilities including gyms (with varying levels of gravity), pools, gardens, libraries, dining facilities, observation decks, performance spaces, and a crew that really loves Gilbert and Sullivan.
9. The crossovers.
Most Star Trek novels aren’t explicit crossovers with other science-fictional works. But who doesn’t wonder what would happen if all stories were set in the same universe? And if you wonder, why not throw some characters and ideas into the background and see if you can get away with it? Those novelists were a sly bunch and if you pay close attention to settings and characters they’re full of easter eggs that connect Star Trek to other works.
10. Spock really cares about your feelings.
Spock is either emotionless or stoic depending on your take. But he’s also chivalrous and thoughtful, and a really good listener. All that thoughtful listening is really validating when you’re worried that you won’t be taken seriously. Sometimes he even pronounces your concerns logical. I know, “you” aren’t in the book. Just let go a little and take on a Mary Sue, OK? Everyone else does it. It’ll feel good, I promise.
Ellen Cheeseman-Meyer teaches history and reads a lot.
I must have read a hundred assorted Star Trek books over the last thirty-five or so years, strting with James Blish when that was all there was. I still remember seeing Marshak and Culbreath’s “New Voyages,” and being thrilled there was something new.
Nowadays it’s my go-to for Pulp SF reading. I don’t read a lot of ST books any more, but they’re fun when I do.
I have tried reading one or two novels, but did not get very far.
It has led me to believe that I would very much rather see the Picard (and the others) work his (their) magic, rather than read about it.
I am willing to try. But, since there are so many novels, is there a good place to start? My idea of just picking up a book at random did not work for me.
It’s probably best to start with your favorite character and find a novel about them.
When all else fails, try John M. Ford. You can choose your mood – Final Reflection is serious, How Much for Just the Planet? is not.
Maheshkb, I’d recommend starting with Diane Duane. My Enemy, My Ally became the beginning of a five-book series, but it was originally a stand-alone novel; Spock’s World creates a very detailed history of Vulcan, intercutting with “present”-day drama about whether the planet will secede from the Federation; one of her first ones, which I can’t remember the name of (A Tear in the Sky? I think I’m making that up?…it’s the one with K’t’lk, the glass spider), is also very good, and it introduces some of the non-canonical characters she tends to re-use.
Another one that I have fond memories of is Janet Kagan’s Uhura’s Song, although Evan Wilson is rather Mary-Sueish…but in a bearable way.
Diane Duane is definitely my first recommendation, though.
Diane Duane wrote one of my favorite TOS novels: Doctor’s Orders. Other favorites: Michael Jan Friedman’s Double, Double, Carmen Carter’s Dreams of the Raven, and (most importantly), the Reeves-Stevens’ Prime Directive.
I’ve read pretty much every Star Trek novel written, at least once. when I was a kid I devoured all of the TOS and early TNG books my grandfather collected. I had to take a big break, for about 10 years, because the level of awfulness they started to attain was breathtaking. You got the desperate sense that they’d run out of ideas with the TOS novels, and the TNG novelizations were almost entirely horrible, just reading like bad episodes.
BUT… These days, the writing is amazingly better, and having mini-series’ with Deep Space 9 and TNG helps a lot. Even not counting today’s books, there were some real bright spots in the past, too.
My suggestions:
The entire Deep Space 9 “Relaunch” series, especially if you were a fan of the show. Yes, a couple of the books are a little cumbersome, but read as a SERIES, it’s a great way to continue from the show.
The entire “A Time To….” TNG series, as well as “A Death in Winter,” which deals with the fallout from Nemesis, and introduces a bunch of new crewmembers now that Riker, Troi, Data etc have all gone. Some dark stuff, too.
The Star Trek: Destiny series, which deals with the final, massive Borg invasion. It may seem like the “same old tired Borg stories” but it really isn’t, as the novels are much, much darker than even First Contact was, but they help to bring back some of the badassedness of the Borg that was lost with Voyager.
As for old stuff….
I loved the Section 31 books. A 4-book series, each from TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager, dealing with Section 31. Great stuff.
The best TOS writing is, for me, the Reeves-Stevens books. The Prime Directive, as well as the whole Lost Years saga, detailing the time between the original Enterprise mission and their second 5 year mission, is great stuff.
Standalone novels…. I liked Enterprise, it was fun.
As I said above, most of the early, TV-show-era TNG novels were just awful. The later ones were better though, especially the Stargazer series…. The two that stand out for me are Immortal Coil, and Dyson Sphere, because they both make an effort to explore big sci-fi ideas, instead of just being another “episode.”
I used to read Star Trek novels all the time. Not so much anymore though, I found it to hard to keep track of the stories going on.
Avenger305 – I think trying to keep track of the stories in most of the TOS novels is counterproductive. There are some series within the bunch, but the mostly don’t relate to each other. Unless two books are by the same author or advertised as connected, you pretty much have to let the information from each book go – they each stand alone, as cappilary branches of a fictional multiverse.
Sybylla@@.-@:
The Duane novel you’re thinking of is The Wounded Sky.
maheshkb@2:
I’ll agree that the Duane novels are a pretty good entry point into the Trek canon. Most of her TOS titles have been mentioned here, but there’s also Dark Mirror, which explores the evolution of the “Mirrror, Mirror” universe in the TNG era — and takes a much-different tack than that we eventually see in (a) onscreen DS9 and (b) the line of novels and anthologies spun off from the DS9 episode(s).
Other authors to look for in the earliest part of the Pocket TOS era are A. C. Crispin (Yesterday’s Son and others) and Howard Weinstein (The Covenant of the Crown and others). I also liked Diane Carey’s “Piper” novels (Dreadnought! and Battlestations!), though I know many readers count Piper as having major “Mary Sue” qualities.
From what might be called the “middle period” (when the books began to draw on continuity from the TOS feature films), see particularly Carolyn Clowes’ The Pandora Principle (essentially an origin story for Saavik, on which many subsequent writers have drawn) and Peter David’s The Captain’s Daughter (Sulu being the captain in question).
Vulcan’s Forge by Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz more or less marks the point at which the Pocket novel program began paying serious attention to overall continuity — but it’s also (IMO) among the very best novels in the entire history of the line. Sherman and Shwartz produced several additional novels (some of which provide a mirror-perspective of sorts on aspects of Duane’s Spock’s World and The Romulan Way).
Shifting focus to TNG: aside from the above-mentioned Dark Mirror, the one writer I’d consistently recommend in the earlier part of the line is Peter David (notably his Q-related books).
I am not as well read in the post-TNG novels as in the earlier ones, but I can make a few suggestions, mostly by mentioning extended “side series”. Peter David’s New Frontier series is never less than fascinating, though there are aspects of it that may make traditionalist fans grind their teeth — the humor is sometimes baroque, and there are some fairly spectacular characterization twists as the series evolves. The Starfleet Corps of Engineers series (originally e-published, subsequently collected in a series of print omnibus volumes) is less provocative, but the writing and plotting are consistently solid.
And I’ll close with three single-title recommendations: Articles of the Federation by Keith R. A. DeCandido — quite properly characterized as an excellent “West Wing” riff set in the modern Trek universe; Far Beyond the Stars, in which Steven Barnes novelizes one of the most unusual episodes of DS9; and A Stitch in Time, a post-DS9 book focusing on the Cardassian character Garak, written by portrayer Andrew Robinson.
I have to say that my favorite Star Trek novel is the Kobayashi Maru; Chekov’s story is awesome, and Scotty does some impressive damage there..
A close second would be DS9’s ‘Fallen Heros’..