To Boldly Read What No One Has Read Before! The Star Trek Book Thread

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > To Boldly Read What No One Has Read Before! The Star Trek Book Thread

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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??

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 08:59

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 18:51

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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."

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 00:55

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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?

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 02:10

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

Oh, and if you want to see what happens in the Shatnerverse without actually reading the book, I got ya covered.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 04:08

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Waitaminute...isn't that Christopher loving Lloyd??

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 07:01

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 20:04

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 09:06

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2014 18:25

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2014 22:16

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

AllanGordon posted:

Can we not do this? Thank you.

Not do what, exactly?

# ¿ Apr 15, 2014 03:34

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 00:39

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 07:27

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

Yeah, I really got to get back to work on The Return soon. The only Shaterverse book I've ever read thank God.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 19:37

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

I swear Sulu invoked the Great Bird during TOS sometime, but I'll be damned if I can remember which ep.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2014 19:53

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 17:40

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

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:
The Return / The Avenger

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.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 04:36

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 18:51

Ensign_Ricky: Jan 4, 2008; Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn

_{or something...}

hope and vaseline posted:

I liked The Return

Though I knew enough to stop there.

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 :wtc:

# ¿ Sep 14, 2014 20:23

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