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 Did you know that Star Trek actually has quite the expansive Expanded Universe? In fact, its library of materials is actually substantially larger than that of Star Wars? There's one big difference though: the Star Wars EU actually has more good books. Not to say there are no good books in the Star Trek library, but...well...a lot of them are crrrap. It takes a lot of fine-tuning to try to find the good ones. Here's a list of a few of the different storylines: The Original Series, The Next Generation, et al - Essentially, it's the second 5 year mission of the original crew, TNG Crew, or stuff that happens between episodes that doesn't impact established continuity. Total mixed bag in terms of quality, there's a few here and there I like such as "The Great Starship Race" where the TOS crew takes part in, well, a bigass race with ships from across the galaxy. Section 31 - Everyone's favorite Secret Police and their adventures behind the scenes through the various series' eras. I have no idea as to it's general quality. New Frontier - A semi-original series about the USS Excalibur. Although I haven't read any of it yet, from most accounts, it's really not bad. There's certainly worse Star Trek stuff out there. The Captain's Table - One of my personal favorite series, The Captain's Table is a bar that exists outside space and time where various captains throughout Starfleet's history show up and tell a story from their point of view. One of the crazier ones involves Christopher Pike discovering a race of Space Whales and Space Squids...crazy, but fun. The Shatnerverse - There's no question as to this series quality. Essentially, after filming Star Trek Generations, Bill Shatner got depressed, then dreamed up this epic story in which Kirk comes back to life, and pitched it to Rick Berman who looked at him like he was a crazy person. So instead of a new series of Kirk movies, we got a series of books where Kirk is brought back from the dead, destroys the Borg homeworld, and tries to kill Picard a couple of times while hallucinating about Sarek. It's loving bonkers. So which books have you out there read? Which ones were good? Which were utter pulp? Which were so mind-fuckingly insane that you'd swear Shatner wrote them??
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Mar 12, 2014 08:59
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WHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY
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Mar 13, 2014 21:04
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Stravinsky posted:WHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY Shatner wanted to write about how he is better then everyother character, and sleep with all the female ones.
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Mar 13, 2014 21:08
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bobkatt013 posted:Shatner wanted to write about how he is better then everyother character, and sleep with all the female ones. There's a little more to it, to be honest...when the time came to film Kirk's death, he got really depressed for a period of time (the same thing happened to Nimoy during Wrath of Khan), and to cope he dreamed up the idea that it didn't have to be the end, and even pitched the idea to Rick Berman about it being the next movie. Berman turned it down, so the Shat decided "gently caress it, I'll do it myself."
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Mar 14, 2014 00:55
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Ensign_Ricky posted:New Frontier - A semi-original series about the USS Excalibur. Although I haven't read any of it yet, from most accounts, it's really not bad. There's certainly worse Star Trek stuff out there. This is the greatest published fanfiction there ever was, and I love Peter David for it. The Captain is the most Mary Sue ever, and that's including Shatner's Kirk novels. He is M'k'n'zy of Calhoun, the purple-eyed Warlord with a dashing facial scar who liberates his home planet before he's 20, makes a sworn enemy of Captain Jellico, bangs all the alien ladies, carries a sword, beats the Kobayashi Maru, adopts orphans, comes back from the dead at least twice I think, and cowboys around the galaxy while the Admirals sit at home shaking their fists at him. This series also has Greek gods, a race of hermaphrodites, Elves, cat-people, giant planet-eating space birds, and the most in-jokes that could ever possibly be crammed in.
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Mar 14, 2014 02:00
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MorgaineDax posted:This series also has Greek gods, a race of hermaphrodites, Elves, cat-people, giant planet-eating space birds, and the most in-jokes that could ever possibly be crammed in. So it's very TOS then?
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Mar 14, 2014 02:10
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Ensign_Ricky posted:So it's very TOS then? There is an incredible amount of references to TOS and TAS. I think one of the security chiefs is a Mugato, M'Ress and Arex from TAS, and the female first officer from The Cage are all fairly main characters.
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Mar 14, 2014 02:38
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Oh, and if you want to see what happens in the Shatnerverse without actually reading the book, I got ya covered.
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Mar 15, 2014 04:08
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I have only read one Star Trek novel.  quote:
i.e.,  Basically, it's a giant rolling self-aware satire of everything Star Trek, in which Kirk and Company are sent to confront Klingons diplomatically on what essentially turns out to be the Musical Comedy Planet, and the whole thing ends a giant cream-pie fight. Apparently the author was in a dispute with Paramount over creative control and wrote this as a giant gently caress-you while technically staying within the allowed boundaries at all points. Although his prior work was highly regarded, He never wrote another novel in the universe after this. It's worth reading once just for the bizarrerie of it, but I don't plan on reading it twice. Still, if you're into that thing it's .. perhaps interesting is the best word. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 15, 2014 04:36
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Waitaminute...isn't that Christopher loving Lloyd??
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Mar 15, 2014 07:01
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Ensign_Ricky posted:Waitaminute...isn't that Christopher loving Lloyd?? Probably used him as a model, yeah. The book was released in 1987, so shortly after http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_III:_The_Search_for_Spock, hence http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Kruge . That character isn't actually in that book though from what I remember. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 15, 2014 07:21
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Probably used him as a model, yeah. The book was released in 1987, so shortly after http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek_III:_The_Search_for_Spock, hence http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Kruge . That character isn't actually in that book though from what I remember. Still, going to have to see if I can find a copy somehow if it can even come close to Shatnerverse levels of insanity.
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Mar 15, 2014 20:04
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You know, I like William Shatner, I really do. I have 3 of his albums (Seeking Major Tom is awesome and I will brook no argument) but holy god, rereading "The Return" is like nails in my brain. So much of this book makes no loving sense at all.
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Mar 19, 2014 09:06
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Ensign_Ricky posted:Waitaminute...isn't that Christopher loving Lloyd?? Look up "The Great Starship Race" and I'm pretty sure that's Lloyd as a Romulan.
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Mar 20, 2014 14:49
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Davros1 posted:Look up "The Great Starship Race" and I'm pretty sure that's Lloyd as a Romulan. I own that one. One of my favorites actually. I was just shocked that they just went ahead and used a shot of an established character.
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Mar 20, 2014 18:25
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About 5-6 years ago I bought a good 400 star trek novels of all different kinds on ebay for about $40 shipped. I have a box at my parents' house and a box at my place, and every so often I bust one out, mainly the TNG. They read super quick, like 90-120 minutes each, and I'd put the ~20-30 I've read so far at the level of mediocre episodes of the show. A good investment.
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Apr 4, 2014 18:53
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There's also the SCE books which were originally little serialized ebooks which I found fairly entertaining. You can pick up the omnibus editions on Kindle for fairly cheap.
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Apr 4, 2014 19:29
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Has anyone read the DS9 books? It's my favourite Star Trek show by far, but the summaries I've read of the relaunch novels sound loving stupid
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Apr 4, 2014 21:49
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TomWaitsForNoMan posted:Has anyone read the DS9 books? It's my favourite Star Trek show by far, but the summaries I've read of the relaunch novels sound loving stupid I haven't, except for the Garek novel by Andy Robinson (which is pretty good, I think), but I admit a certain curiosity regarding a alternate universe trilogy or something where Weyoun becomes the Kai of the Pah Wraiths or something.
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Apr 6, 2014 22:16
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TomWaitsForNoMan posted:Has anyone read the DS9 books? It's my favourite Star Trek show by far, but the summaries I've read of the relaunch novels sound loving stupid They're not terrible but due to some kind of management change at the publisher they kind of shifted their focus. They spent a long time post-TV expanding the world and then in the span of two books kind of reversed all the relationships they had built up. The series also took a bit of a hiatus and then when it came back some things were radically different without much explanation. Overall, they're above average if you enjoyed the show but individually, they're a bit hit or miss.
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Apr 14, 2014 15:06
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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. fake edit: Though I just recently read Hollow Men, a decent follow-up to "In the Pale Moonlight". Good bits of Sisko and Garak characterization, would fit right in with the rest of Season 6 or 7.
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Apr 14, 2014 17:29
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I was looking at the Vanguard books but I'm not really a fan of the TOS-era books. I'll probably wind up reading them when I've got nothing else to read.
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Apr 14, 2014 22:32
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Can we not do this? Thank you.
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Apr 14, 2014 23:13
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AllanGordon posted:Can we not do this? Thank you. Not do what, exactly?
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Apr 15, 2014 03:34
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AllanGordon posted:Can we not do this? Thank you. Discuss books in the book forum? 
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Apr 15, 2014 04:04
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Jedi posted:I was looking at the Vanguard books but I'm not really a fan of the TOS-era books. I'll probably wind up reading them when I've got nothing else to read. this is loving sad
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Apr 15, 2014 04:11
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AllanGordon posted:this is loving sad It's loving terrible that people choose to read what they enjoy.
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Apr 15, 2014 17:15
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Yyyyeah, AllanGordon, I don't see you butting into the Star Wars EU thread to comment about how sad it is, so kindly gently caress off.
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Apr 16, 2014 00:39
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Ensign_Ricky posted:Yyyyeah, AllanGordon, I don't see you butting into the Star Wars EU thread to comment about how sad it is, so kindly gently caress off. I think he took offense to my lack of interest in the TOS era. It's not an uncommon reaction among Trek fans.
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Apr 16, 2014 04:51
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Jedi posted:I think he took offense to my lack of interest in the TOS era. It's not an uncommon reaction among Trek fans. If so, I apologize.
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Apr 16, 2014 07:27
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I've been trying for the last few years to collect as many of the TOS novels published by Pocket Books as I can. I've actually had How Much for Just the Planet? on my bookshelf for a long time; I didn't know it was that batshit. I'll have to pull it down and read it soon. My copy of Vulcan's Forge has a bunch of pages ripped out from the middle of it, so I've never finished it either. Hello Towel fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 17:25
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Oh boy I'm glad there's a thread for these now. I've enjoyed the few Trek books I've read, but I've yet to be really wowed. Just recently began the Vanguard series. Harbinger was a decent romp, but I couldn't help but want more from all of the characters. Everyone just felt kind of flat, except, maybe ironically, the Vulcan T'Prynn. There's still a lot of room for the cast to grow, so here's hoping. I have a ton of the paperbacks on my bookshelf, but I'm more interested in reading some of the recent stuff. 12 new Star Trek books a year is pretty cool, even if it means a higher amount of chaff to wade through. One of the more recent ones had Kirk team up with Seven of Nine in a bizarre twist of time and space and I'm positive Kirk puts the moves on her. It can't be worse than the Shatnerverse books though, can it?
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Apr 22, 2014 07:32
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apophenium posted:One of the more recent ones had Kirk team up with Seven of Nine in a bizarre twist of time and space and I'm positive Kirk puts the moves on her. It can't be worse than the Shatnerverse books though, can it? I was thinking of picking that one up, but I assumed that given it was Kirk and Seven, it would be as bad as the Shatnerverse. Then again, nothing could be as bad as those.
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Apr 22, 2014 16:59
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Yeah, I really got to get back to work on The Return soon. The only Shaterverse book I've ever read thank God.
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Apr 22, 2014 19:37
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A character in Summon the Thunder (Vanguard #2) just rather shamelessly referenced the Great Bird of the Galaxy aka Gene Roddenberry. Other than that I'm enjoying the pacing. A lot more intrigue this time around, with different races playing a bigger role. The Klingons and Romulans are represented, as well as various minor races like the Orions, etc. The books do a good job showing more things than the shows could feasibly do, like less humanoid aliens, bigger battles, things like that.
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Apr 30, 2014 06:12
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31g0YE61PLQ
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Apr 30, 2014 07:21
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Okay so this goes a little deeper than I thought. Peter David established The Great Bird of the Galaxy as an actual space deity in one of his books. So the thing in Vanguard #2 is just a callback to that, not a Gene reference. Still pretty eyeroll worthy.
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Apr 30, 2014 15:17
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I swear Sulu invoked the Great Bird during TOS sometime, but I'll be damned if I can remember which ep.
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Apr 30, 2014 19:53
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apophenium posted:A character in Summon the Thunder (Vanguard #2) just rather shamelessly referenced the Great Bird of the Galaxy The Great Bird of the Galaxy pops up quite a bit in the New Frontier novels by Peter David. While it may be a wink to Roddenberry, it's very much an in-universe thing.
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Apr 30, 2014 22:53
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Jedi posted:The Great Bird of the Galaxy pops up quite a bit in the New Frontier novels by Peter David. While it may be a wink to Roddenberry, it's very much an in-universe thing. You've read the New Frontier stuff, then? How were they? I have a couple of em I think.
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May 1, 2014 01:01
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