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Cross-Section posted:Yeah, I personally stopped reading at Unity, and it sounds like I made the right choice there. After that, if you still want some DS9(-ish) literature, then the Vanguard books are the way to go. It actually continues a little bit more before the great editorial rug-sweep. Worlds of DS9 were actually a really cool examination of off-the-station politics, and then Warpath, Fearful Symmetry and the Soul Key form a kind of trilogy (heavily reliant on mirror universe stuff, so if you absolutely hated that in the show, you probably won't like these. Warpath is loving great if you like the Jem'hadar guy stationed in DS9 though.)
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May 3, 2014 22:30
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I actually gave Worlds of DS9 a shot (the Cardassia story, specifically), but Miles and Keiko's horticultural adventures weren't doing much for me. Might skip ahead to Warpath, though.
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May 4, 2014 04:26
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apophenium posted:You've read the New Frontier stuff, then? How were they? I have a couple of em I think. I really like them, but I like Peter David's stuff a lot. How you feel about his writing will greatly affect how you like them.
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May 4, 2014 18:05
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One Trek side series (well, two books thus far) I rather enjoyed is the Department of Temporal Investigations novels. Mostly non-series characters (based largely on the two guys who showed up for the DS9 Tribble episode), but they're reasonably interesting/amusing, and it does a remarkably nice job tying together all the large number of time travel Trek episodes into a coherent storyline. It's post-Destiny storyline in the Trek novel timeline so some spoilers there, but for the most part you don't need to have read anything else to follow it. A fairly decent look at time travel issues in general, and it's pretty funny seeing folks whose response to time travel/adventure stuff is "AHHHHH shut it off before you retcon the Federation into Space Nazis (again!)" rather than leaping into it.
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May 4, 2014 23:08
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Aw, kind of disappointing to hear the DS9 books went down a lovely path; I still remember watching the last episode as a teenager and letting all the possibilities for a movie race through my imagination. Will probably pick 'em up anyhow- I haven't really read any Trek books since high school, when I hoovered up pretty much anything TNG-related, most of them terrible. Can confirm that the Shatner novels are bonkers.
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May 7, 2014 07:01
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Are any of the books about the Klingon Empire any good? If I read any Star Trek book, I don't want it to be another, by-the-numbers book with all the same characters I've seen in a billion episodes, and I feel like that, and maybe New Frontier, would be the best bets.
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May 28, 2014 06:22
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Are any of the books about the Klingon Empire any good? If I read any Star Trek book, I don't want it to be another, by-the-numbers book with all the same characters I've seen in a billion episodes, and I feel like that, and maybe New Frontier, would be the best bets. I'd throw the first Vanguard book by David Mack into the mix. It's set in the TOS era but with a refreshing set of characters that could have never been on the show in the Sixties. I was surprised by that one.
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May 28, 2014 23:55
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Vanguard is a lot like the Star Wars EU's Thrawn trilogy, in that every time someone asks "what's a good EU book?" it's the first one everyone recommends. And rightly so, because it's really good.
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May 29, 2014 02:48
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Are the rest of the books in the series good? Are there any consistently good series?
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May 31, 2014 02:27
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Are the rest of the books in the series good? Are there any consistently good series? I thought New Frontier was consistently good. However, they're written by Peter David and from what I understand, there's a bunch of people who don't enjoy his writing.
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May 31, 2014 16:45
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I think The Captain's Table series is pretty good throughout, if only because I love the concept of a bar that exists outside of time and space.
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May 31, 2014 17:40
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Ensign_Ricky posted:I think The Captain's Table series is pretty good throughout, if only because I love the concept of a bar that exists outside of time and space. Agreed, with the caveat that it's not really a series in the traditional sense. The main location stays the same but the cast changes.
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May 31, 2014 18:05
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I was given the Q trilogy which describes how Q got his powers and how God from Star Trek V, the Gorgon from TOS, the murderous cloud from TOS and an insane powerul Q tried to take over the entire galaxy. Pretty cool.
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Jun 2, 2014 13:26
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Could you guys recommend a good DS9 book for a guy that isn't interested in buying a whole bunch of Trek books? Do they exist?
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Jun 3, 2014 06:57
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SouthLAnd posted:Could you guys recommend a good DS9 book for a guy that isn't interested in buying a whole bunch of Trek books? Do they exist? A Stitch in Time, written by none other than Garak, and The Lives of Dax. The Millennium Trilogy was also pretty neat at the time, a self contained action packed time travel story that fits somewhere in the sixth season of the show.
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Jun 3, 2014 11:20
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I hadn't heard of the millennium trilogy. I might just have to pick that one up. The first Trek book I read was The Return when I was 15 or 16. It also happens to be the last.
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Jun 4, 2014 01:46
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I have an very large collection of TOS and TNG books, with a smattering of DS9 and Voyager tossed in. Sarek, by A.C. Crispin, was a good read, and fleshed out background between Sarek, Amanda, and gave viewpoints to what effected Spock's early life. In a way I'm ashamed to admit I enjoyed TOS: First Frontier, where Kirk, Spock, McCoy go back with some poor redshirts and fight dinosaurs and Klingons. Weird but strangely entertaining. As hope and vasoline said, A Stitch in Time is a good book from DS9, you don't need to do much other than have an inkling of the series to enjoy it, no other books needed. The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition is short, funny, skips most of the rules, but gives a hint at how horribly greedy the Ferengi are. This weekend I picked up a TNG/X-Men cross over at the used bookstore, I have another book to finish so it sits on my shelf mocking me. I'm both amused and horrified that it exists at all and the guys at the comic store I went to after were very jealous. Hello Towel I might be able to add to your Pocket Books collection if you're interested, many of the the books I have are from that publisher.
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Jun 9, 2014 22:40
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Still stumbling through the Vanguard series, Reap the Whirlwind this time. It feels really directionless. A lot of characters and plotlines are being juggled around, leaving the main thrust of the series kind of on hold every so often. Some chapters a lot of cool stuff is revealed, but then there's a few chapters in a row where characters do things that feel incredibly distanced from the Shedai/Tholian sequence. Hoping it'll start to coalesce some and at least have a decent climax. Granted, there are still 4 or so more books (+novellas and poo poo) so I certainly don't expect any meaningful conclusions to be made.
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Jul 15, 2014 07:24
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Any halfway decent voyager books
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Jul 15, 2014 08:10
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apophenium posted:Still stumbling through the Vanguard series, Reap the Whirlwind this time. It feels really directionless. A lot of characters and plotlines are being juggled around, leaving the main thrust of the series kind of on hold every so often. Some chapters a lot of cool stuff is revealed, but then there's a few chapters in a row where characters do things that feel incredibly distanced from the Shedai/Tholian sequence. Hoping it'll start to coalesce some and at least have a decent climax. Granted, there are still 4 or so more books (+novellas and poo poo) so I certainly don't expect any meaningful conclusions to be made. I'm in the same boat as you and feel just about the same. I'm also on Reap the Whirlwind and I've had to put it down several times due to boredom. I find it odd because I've enjoyed every other Trek book that I've read by David Mack.
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Jul 22, 2014 21:48
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Wrapped up Reap the Whirlwind last night. It ended up partially redeeming itself in the last 50 pages. Some really cool stuff happened which has me slightly more interested in continuing the series.
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Jul 28, 2014 04:02
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apophenium posted:Wrapped up Reap the Whirlwind last night. It ended up partially redeeming itself in the last 50 pages. Some really cool stuff happened which has me slightly more interested in continuing the series. It's like we're the same person. Already on book 4.
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Jul 29, 2014 21:23
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I did a book report on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendetta_(Star_Trek) in the 4th grade. The teacher told my mom she didn't know wtf I was talking about so she just gave me an A because I was obviously reading at a level way ahead of my class. It deals with the origin story of Guinan's race and was pretty good. One of my favorite TNG books was one of the first ones, Masks by John Vornholt. The crew get stranded on a planet with medieval level technology where your rank and/or job in society is determined by the mask you wear. The higher the rank the fewer masks there are and the supreme mask hasn't been seen in years. You can also kill people and take their mask.
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Aug 1, 2014 04:30
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D-Pad posted:One of my favorite TNG books was one of the first ones, Masks by John Vornholt. The crew get stranded on a planet with medieval level technology where your rank and/or job in society is determined by the mask you wear. The higher the rank the fewer masks there are and the supreme mask hasn't been seen in years. You can also kill people and take their mask. I loved that book, for the ridiculous amount of detail he went into describing the masks and why the culture wears them. God, how many were there? Peddler's Mask, Thunder Mask, Wisdom Mask, Ambassador Mask, Herbalist's Mask, etc. It's crazy how much of that book I can remember years later. Also it's kinda funny looking back at it now, because it was written so early in the series that not everyone is written in character. Picard having crazy tent sex with the the warrior Queen of the planet while Worf and Troi just make awkward small-talk around the fire probably wouldn't show up later in the series.
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Aug 2, 2014 22:58
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MorgaineDax posted:Also it's kinda funny looking back at it now, because it was written so early in the series that not everyone is written in character.
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Aug 3, 2014 03:34
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Well, the Vanguard series has gone full goofball as of the end of book four. There were some pretty good moments along the way, mostly in the back half again. The first hundred pages or so was spent reestablishing the characters and their motivations and all the plot threads from the previous books. Oppressively tedious. Nevertheless, the mystery of the Taurus Reach is still tantalizing enough to propel me through the rest. The epilogue featured a twist that was so appallingly cornball I am anxious to crack open the next book just to see what David Mack does with the mess Dayton Ward left him. It's kind of disheartening to see this series is one of the more well received of the Star Trek books. While not entirely unpleasant, there are a lot of eye-rolling moments. Maybe its an issue of having to constrain oneself to a well established universe. The sci-fi stuff I've enjoyed immensely have all been unique creations. Oh well. There are still 5 more books in the series; perhaps they'll win me over.
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Aug 15, 2014 04:18
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Great idea for a thread. Star Trek was a huge part of my childhood, and I read several novels back in the '90s that I remember as being very good. Having grown up a lot since then, I cannot guarantee their quality today. Anyway, here is a list of a few that I can remember liking: Federation Probe Prime Directive The Kobayashi Maru The Return / The Avenger
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Sep 4, 2014 17:17
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Pioneer42 posted:Great idea for a thread. Star Trek was a huge part of my childhood, and I read several novels back in the '90s that I remember as being very good. Having grown up a lot since then, I cannot guarantee their quality today. Anyway, here is a list of a few that I can remember liking: Dude, I loving love Bill Shatner, but holy god stay away from the Shatnerverse. That way lies madness. And Zombie-Kirk sex scenes. But mostly madness.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:36
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I liked The Return  Though I knew enough to stop there.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:47
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hope and vaseline posted:I liked The Return Believe me, I first read it in high school and thought it was loving awesome. Then I started to reread it this year and went 
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Sep 14, 2014 20:23
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I'm pretty fond of some of the old TOS movie-era hardbacks, particularly Spock's World and Probe. Spock's World is completely contradicted by most of the material that came afterward, particularly "First Contact" and basically all of "Enterprise". It's split between alternating chapters of a post-STV plot to get Vulcan to secede from the Federation and a general history of the Vulcan people. Pretty well written, but I always thought that Diane Duane was one of the better writers to tackle the Trek novels. Probe is a sequel to "The Voyage Home", set sometime before "Undiscovered Country". It expands on what the probe is and what it was doing trying to communicate with the whales. There's also some Romulan political/diplomatic shenanigans too. Apparently there's some fuss with the original author, Margaret Wander Bonanno, having her manuscript almost entirely rewritten without her knowledge and the editors refusing to remove her name because reasons. Story from her POV here. Her original book was called "Music of the Spheres" and can be found with some digging, but I really liked the released one better.
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Sep 15, 2014 02:36
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The Vanguard series definitely has a middle to late drag but thst last book is so good. Makes it worth it IMO.
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Sep 16, 2014 02:43
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Throb Robinson posted:The Vanguard series definitely has a middle to late drag but thst last book is so good. Makes it worth it IMO. This is actually really soothing to hear. I'm about to start Precipice tonight. Did you read the collection of novellas as well? Declassified?
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Sep 17, 2014 01:25
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apophenium posted:This is actually really soothing to hear. I'm about to start Precipice tonight. Did you read the collection of novellas as well? Declassified? If you skip Declassified, you're going to miss a fairly important plot point in What Judgements Come. The book explains what you missed, but when I first came across it, I initially thought I missed a book. I stopped reading that book and went back and read Declassified and it made more sense.
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Sep 24, 2014 20:37
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Holy crap Precipice was so far and above the prior Vanguard books it's not even funny. Aside from an unfortunate use of the 'damsel in distress' trope, I was quite enthralled. A lot less to do with Vanguard politics and more surreptitious missions on/around alien planets. There's hope for this thing, yet!
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Oct 9, 2014 05:12
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