We’ve talked a lot about Star Trek in TV, movies, and animated form. But the truth is Star Trek has deep roots in other media as well. There are dozens of Star Trek comic books out there, even though I only really read the DC run other companies from Marvel to Gold Key have carried the license at various times. And then there are video games, toys, and all kinds of other stuff. But the big one after the TV shows and movies has to be the Star Trek Novels and books. While not nearly as big as it was used to be, there was a time when Pocketbooks, Bantam and Ballantine Star Trek books were HUGE. They ranged from novels written by respected authors to fanzines literally written by fans of the show. Yeah of course none of them were canon but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t enjoy them.
The list of them all could go on and on (it’s on Wikipedia if you don’t believe me). Today I want to go over some of the one’s I read…for good or bad. Because while some were damn good others were…silly. Now the problem I had with the novels in many cases was that the story just didn’t feel like it could be an episode. And that’s a big deal for me! Anyone can write a story and throw the names Kirk and Spock on the characters. If it doesn’t feel like the characters than it just isn’t going to work.
Here are some books I did read, and this is going to be a drop in the bucket of the amount of books out there but I only read so many. To be honest as I went through the list I found I remembered less than I realized. There are dozens of books covering not only the five series but new frontiers that were created just for the novels.
Yesterday’s Son
If you’re a fan of the animated episode “Yesteryear” and the classic episode “All Our Yesterday’s” then this the book for you. Written by A.C.Crispen and I don’t have much to say about it.
The Entropy Effect
This was one of the first books ever published. Now prepare for me to say this a lot, but good god was this was boring! At it’s core it’s a good idea, and I shamefully admit to stealing ideas from it, but that narrative just goes on and on. There is a scene where Kirk is killed which is described so specifically…yeah no need. Oh and of course Kirk is OK it was a rule for writers of these books that they couldn’t permanently kill of a main character. The story involves time lines and singularities…and was confusing. The author was Vonda McIntyre who wrote the novelizations of Star Trek II-IV and the book Enterprise:The First Adventure which I think I did read
Dreams of the Raven
This was a good book, though it was slow at parts. McCoy suffers a head injury and has lost twenty-five years of his memory. There’s some great character stuff in here and how McCoy gets his memory back is pretty clever. Though the scene where McCoy suffers the head injury is a bit graphic. I hate that about novels, they can never just say “he hit his head”, no we need every little detail of the his skull crashing into he ground. Ugh. Carmen Carter wrote other Trek books, including TNG’s “The Devil’s Heart”, but none I have read.
Memory Prime
I adored the title of this one, just like the way it sounds. This was written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens who have done other great books. They really get the Star Trek characters and their books are usually very good. Was this book good? Not sure, I think the title was the coolest part.
Double, Double
I swear I read this! Remember the Dr.Korby and the android Kirk from the episode “What are Little Girls Made Of”? This follows up on those events. This was written by Michael Jan Friedman who is another good author, for comic books and TV also, in fact I have a couple of his books on here. The one big one that is missing is the TNG book “Reunion” which I simply do not remember reading.
Prime Directive
Ok now we’re talking! I was surprised how much I liked this book. Even though it feels as far removed from a regular episode as you can get, it was still a lot of fun. Once again written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens it’s basically the story of the crew accused of violating the prime directive, being decommissioned, and then having to vindicate themselves. I flew through this book and enjoyed it.
Probe
What a great idea, explaining the backstory of that probe that caused so much havoc in Star Trek IV. Good lord was it boring.
Federation
Hell yes! As I noted Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens are two great authors, and nowhere is this more clear than this awesome book. How in the world do you do a crossover between the original series and the next generation? Well they found a way to do it which is clever and entertaining. Ever love a book so much you just can’t put it down? I loved every second of this book, and still have it. The only downside is that the main plot is focused on Zephram Cochran and of course Star Trek:First Contact makes this even less cannon than usual! But it’s totally worth the read.
First Frontier
No not the New Frontier books. This was a classic series story. These books would often taken a great idea and do nothing with them. One of the problem with books is the format is so drawn out, so that the original idea is filled with padding. The story? Kirk and Spock arrive at Earth to find it in the dinosaur era somehow. That sounded so cool! It was boring. Pretty sad when a Blue Beetle comic book did the story 100 times better. It’s so lame I couldn’t even find a decent photo of the cover!
The Ashes of Eden & The Return
William Shatner is many things, including an author. He wrote several series of books in and out of Star Trek. The first was a three part series detailing the death and return of James Kirk. Basically it’s the story of what happened to Kirk just prior to Generations and how Kirk comes back to life after the events of Star Trek:Generations. The cool thing about these books is that Shatner includes all the Star Trek universe, in fact in The Return not only is Picard fully involved but we get cameo from Deep Space Nine. Doesn’t hurt Shatner wrote these with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens who as I mentioned were great writers who really got Star Trek. What about the third volume in this series, The Avenger? Not sure if I did read it it wasn’t memorable. There were two other series, one set in the mirror universe, but I didn’t read any of those. Mostly because these novels, while fun, get so flat out ridiculous I lost all interest.
So let’s get into Next Generation with one of the best books I’ve ever read…
Imzadi
This was one of the best books I have ever read. Peter David really gets the Star Trek characters and lore, and this book truly felt like an episode. Or maybe a movie (why wasn’t thing made into a movie??). I even had the audio book, anyone remember books on tape? God I’m old. Anyway, the story involves a Riker from the future coming back in time to save Troi from a disastrous fate. The framing device shows us that backstory of Riker and Troi’s romance before they ended up on the Enterprise. And the stuff with future Riker is just fantastic. I think i liked Federation a little more, but at very least it’s either that or Imazdi which are my favorite Star Trek book. This book is just excellent. The sequel? Not so much. I am a huge Peter David fan though maybe more for his comic books…but that’s another story.
Q-Squared
Peter David wrote this one as well. Alas….I fear my friend Les may not be happy with me, but I did not enjoy this book. It was an attempt to bring Trelane in as a member of the Q, but it was a confusing mess for me. Something about three time lines and…I don’t know. Though to be fair, I heard this on an audio tape and never read the actual book. I may have to rectify that. I also never read Q-IN-Law but I hear it’s pretty good.
Ship of the Line
I love Diane Carey but man this one didn’t work. It tried really, really hard. But there is to much goofy stuff here. For instance, Picard spends half the book talking to a holographic James Kirk for inspiration. That’s dumb. The crew of the Enterprise-D are saved in a way that is far fetched at best. That’s dumb. And it rips off lines from Star Trek:Nemesis. That’s lazy and dumb. Finally it gives us an antagonist more than half way through and then rushes to the ending. When all you an remember about a book are the dumb things, there is only one word for that. Dumb. Oh man, she wrote First Frontier too! Maybe I don’t love her as much as I thought.
Crossover
I actually forgot all about this one, but I did read and yes it was good. I honestly don’t remember much about it, sorry to say. It basically involves Picard rescuing Spock with some help from McCoy and Scotty. Yeah I need to re-read this one.
Relics
One area I haven’t really mentioned yet are the novelizations of the episodes and movies. This is one that i remember reading. In order to flesh the story out for a novel they added a subplot about a nervous young lieutenant on the Enterprise. The subplot is boring and I hated it. But they also added details to Scotty’s experience on the Enterprise-D, including the scene with Troi that didn’t make the episode, and I did enjoy that. These novelizations are like seeing deleted scenes for a movie and wishing they had been put in.
Dark Mirror
Before DS9 made this stories irrelevant, this was the TNG foray into the mirror universe. And it was completely boring. Diane Duane wrote this and I don’t think she gets the characters as well as others like Peter David. Yeah I know she has written some major books like “Spock’s World” and “Doctors Orders” which if I didn’t read then I want to, but this one didn’t work for me.
Star Trek-TNG/X-men:Planet X
I just felt I had to mention this one though if I read it I don’t remember a thing about it.
Genesis Wave:Book One
This was another that sounded really interesting. It expounded on the Genesis device from the Wrath of Khan era, but it was done with Next Generation characters. I bought it for a plane trip and I tried, but I just couldn’t stick with it. John Vornholt is a fine author but this did nothing for me, and I didn’t even check put parts two and three.
I read the novelization to All Good Things…
and it was pretty good. While there were extra scenes of course it also felt padded out too. Stuff we just didn’t need though I guess it didn’t hurt any. Oh by the way, Hello again Michael Jan Friedman.
In fact there is only one time I read a novelization and though it actually improved on the episode,,,,
Trials and Tribble-ations
I didn’t read many if any at all of the Ds9 books. But I did read this adaptation of the classic crossover episode, and it was a great book! It really went beyond the episode and made the crossover ten times better. For obvious reasons, we only got DS9’s side of events in the episode. So here we get Kirk’s also. We get the events of the original episode and the events of the DS9 episode nicely put together. It was awesome! And hey, Diane Carey wrote this one. Maybe I do love her after all?
So what about Voyager? I did check out the book which talked about what happened after Voyager came home, but beyond that I don’t remember reading any. With one exception which while it counts as a Classic Series book it could be considered a Voyager book also
No Time Like The Past
Some may remember my one article on a book regarding Star Trek:No Time Like the Past. The idea was to bring James Kirk and Seven of Nine together. What?? Well to be honest, it worked and was a good story.The characters felt like the characters and the interactions made sense. I really liked it….until that cop out ending that totally ruined it! Greg Cox wrote this and is a good writer, including three part series on the Q continuum and a three part series on Khan that I am sure some will expect me to mention.
I read it and…didn’t care for it. I do like the spin they put on the Eugenics Wars so they could have still happened in 1996 even though clearly it never did.
Invasion! series
Books are a good place to do something impossible on TV. Crossover’s!! There were several involving some or all of the TV series, and the only one I remember being interested in was called Invasion! I really don’t remember if I picked these up but it got my attention at least.
Enterprise? Please!
There are also dozens of fan written stories but that’s another article my friends. Finally, what about the New Frontier novels? Nope never got into them either.
Are there more? Oh my yes. I’d be here all day if I listed them all. In fact going over the list I realize there are one or two I may go back and find. But I managed to keep this to 20 and will keep it there. Feel free to search there are some damn good ones out there. If I neglected one that you enjoyed, comment and let me know.
Of course novels aren’t the end. There are reference books, calendars, picture books, and comic books. Hmmm…comic books. Problem is I’ve only read DC for the most part. Guess we’ll dive into that next time.
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