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Simple enough question. What is your favorite Trek novel? And why?

My example:
Sorrows of Empire. A Mirror Universe novella that is being made into a full length novel in 2010. It features the rise of Spock from Commander of the Enterprise to Emperor. Its also a good book for showing how certain incidents in episodes differed than like the ones in TOS or the movies.

Also, Mirror Spock is just great watching as he calculates his way through the ambitions and madness of the Mirror Universe.

So, what's yours?

The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing by Michael A. Martin. It covers the first year of the Earth-Romulan War.
Spoiler

Star Trek New Frontier: Captain's Table: Once Burned.

During the first 6 New Frontier books there were repeated references to 'The Grissom Incident' that prompted Mackenzie Calhoun to leave starfleet. This book is the story of that incident, told in Calhoun's own word and is thus quite the tragedy. The crowning moment is the end where we find out just who he told this story to: The Captain of the Titanic. Calhoun figured he'd appreciate a good tragedy.

The Q Continuum trilogy, which I got as one book. It explained the galactic barrier, and acts almost as a counterpoint to "Tapestry", with Q's past being explored instead of Picards

Probably My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane.

Blaze of Glory by Simon Hawke. It's one of the few novels I've ever read that depicts a general life to the Federation where a rogueish pirate with a good engineer can be like a classic pirate, stealing an old hulk and getting it fixed up and capable of dicing with a real warship.
There's also another really enjoyable Star Trek novel I've read but for the life of me, I can't remember the title. It depicts a Prime Directive situation going horribly ary such that the Enterprise under Kirk is forced to initiate warp in the atmosphere of a planet, ostensibly killing it. The author did an incredible job of depicting the members of the original crew such that you can easily see why they and Kirk were legends.

The Romulan Way by Diane Duane and Peter Morwood: laced into a covert mission plot involving Dr. McCoy and a Federation deep-cover agent on Romulus is the history of the Romulan or Rihaansu people: from the time of the Sundering on Vulcan when those who did not want the pacifism of Surak undertook the journey out into space to find a new world for themselves, to the terrible cost in lives of that journey, to the history of wars and heroism on their new worlds, to the terrible misunderstanding that led to the 25 years of war between the Federation and the Romulan Empire; of S'task and the incident which led him to reject his mentor Surak and his singleminded vision to not only find a new world for his people but to forge a whole new culture in the hope of making a clean beginning —and how the legacy of that incident would be the key to the misunderstanding which resulted in the Earth/Romulan War. Rivals John Ford's The Final Reflection as one of the best ST-culture novels ever written.

Diane Duane's Rihaansu novels in general. She gives the Romulans real depth and character, fitting what we've seen before yet going beyond the usual stereotypes. They, along with Balance of Terror cemented the Romulans as my favourite Trek race. Dark Mirror is also excellent.

The Romulan War was certainly enjoyable. The use of starfighters was a disappointment, but a minor and relatively well-handled one. We also discover that a good way to disable an NX-class ship is to detonate a nuke in its face. The fighters can handle it then.

1st Place; TNG: Survivor. 3rd novel after the launch of the series.

It's all about Tasha Yar, and does an absolutely wonderful job of fleshing out her character.

2nd Place; Q-in-law: If only for the fact we get Lxoanna Troi with Q powers, beating the holy tar out of Q.

Ship-of-the-Line. Ostensibly a TNG novel about the first voyage of the E-E, but in practice half of it is mainly TOS, since Morgan Bateson (Kelsey Grammer's character from "Cause and Effect") and Scotty stealing the show. There's also a pretty decent B-plot that's a sequel to Chain of Command.

^I found it to be a bunch of wank, but it was a mileage-may-vary thing; the bit where Riker is schooled by Bateson about where certain materials used in the construction of the bridge was nice, but Riker was being a shithead up to that point.

I haven't read it since I was fourteen, but did really enjoy Garfield-Stevens vehicle Federation. Famous Trek figures from three time periods in a story interwined by the obsession of a madman. Again, a bunch of wank, but it felt at the time like a broad scope story.

One of the few novels I've read was Ghost Ship. It was a strange story from the very first days of TNG, a slow and ponderous exploration of the true horror of immortality, but it really etched itself into my mind. For a novel written before the characters were finalized it managed a great deal of depth.

Serafine666 wrote:There's also another really enjoyable Star Trek novel I've read but for the life of me, I can't remember the title. It depicts a Prime Directive situation going horribly ary such that the Enterprise under Kirk is forced to initiate warp in the atmosphere of a planet, ostensibly killing it. The author did an incredible job of depicting the members of the original crew such that you can easily see why they and Kirk were legends.

The book was called 'Prime Directive'

tim31 wrote:^I found it to be a bunch of wank, but it was a mileage-may-vary thing; the bit where Riker is schooled by Bateson about where certain materials used in the construction of the bridge was nice, but Riker was being a shithead up to that point.

Ship Of The Line was a complete bunch of wank, also kinda of over uses the space is an ocean metaphor. The Bozeman apparently had massive clamps in place of tractor beams and police lights on the top.

It also tries to explain Picard's shift to an action hero-y captain between Generations and First Contact by having him take some lessons in Captaining from Kirk's Diaries in holo-novel form.

Home Is The Hunter. It was one of the first TOS books I read when I was a teenager just getting into sci-fi. In the book after an incident with the Klingons which gets broken up by an advanced alien Sulu, Chekov and Scotty are transported in to the past to take part in hopeless battles from their individual nations history, Sulu a battle in fudal Japan, Scotty to dark ages Scotland and Chekov to fight for the Red Army against the Nazi's in WW2.

I've got a couple on my list.

* The Rihannsu Saga: Not much to add to what's already been said except it's a damm shame the Romulans never got this kind of culture building on screen.

* I, Q: Picard and Data must join forces with Q to save the universe from an impending Armageddon. Peter David's humor and John deLancie's insight into his most famous character make for a great, funny book. The audiobook version's even funnier thanks to deLancie's reprisal of Q.

* The Lost Era -- The Art of the Impossible (2328 - 2346): Keith R.A. DeCandido takes a 30-second conversation from "The Way of the Warrior" regarding the Klingon-Cardassian Betreka Nebula Incident and turns it into an epic geo-political thriller that practically sets up TNG-era backstory.

* Tales of the Dominion War: My favorite of the anthologies with a couple of interesting expanded narratives on the Dominion conflict.

My favourite was probably the adaptation of the six episode Dominion War arc by Diane Carey. It gave the episodes a nice amount of depth that made it more interesting.

I also enjoyed the novelisations of Insurrection and Nemesis.

Gandalf wrote:My favourite was probably the adaptation of the six episode Dominion War arc by Diane Carey. It gave the episodes a nice amount of depth that made it more interesting.

Yeah, I always liked the books' take on Dukat during that time frame, that he knew damm well the Dominion was going to screw over Cardassia and was deliberately stalling on taking the minefield down so as to give the Cardassian military time to recover.

Trek to Madworld amused me greatly.

One of the few novels I've read was Ghost Ship. It was a strange story from the very first days of TNG, a slow and ponderous exploration of the true horror of immortality, but it really etched itself into my mind. For a novel written before the characters were finalized it managed a great deal of depth.

Hey, someone else read that. Yeah, I do like Diane Carey's work in general. Ghost Ship is quite rough around the edges seeing as how it's TNG #1, more interesting on an intellectual level than anything. The only parts I really remember are the beginning with the Soviet aircraft carrier circa 2010 get zapped, Troi freaking the fuck out several times, and Picard doing the sensory deprivation thing.

I know that Diane Carey is a talented writer because her Captain's Table entry made me LIKE Janeway. But she does massively overdo the "space = ocean" thing.

There was a book from very early on that gave the Klingons the same treatment that the Romulan Way did for the Romulans, but I cannot remember the title. I remember the Klingons being treated in a more sophisticated pre-TNG way. The book is set prior to TOS; there is a brief cameo of a very young Spock.

aieeegrunt wrote:There was a book from very early on that gave the Klingons the same treatment that the Romulan Way did for the Romulans, but I cannot remember the title. I remember the Klingons being treated in a more sophisticated pre-TNG way. The book is set prior to TOS; there is a brief cameo of a very young Spock.

I believe you're taking about The Final Reflection.

So JudgeKing, is Beneath the Raptor's Wing worth picking up? One of my greatest regrets over ENT was that I thought we would eventually see the conflict in later seasons and that by the time they planting seeds, it was too late.

Can I give an answer of "Too many to count" and leave it at that?

JME2 wrote:

aieeegrunt wrote:There was a book from very early on that gave the Klingons the same treatment that the Romulan Way did for the Romulans, but I cannot remember the title. I remember the Klingons being treated in a more sophisticated pre-TNG way. The book is set prior to TOS; there is a brief cameo of a very young Spock.

I believe you're taking about The Final Reflection.

So JudgeKing, is Beneath the Raptor's Wing worth picking up? One of my greatest regrets over ENT was that I thought we would eventually see the conflict in later seasons and that by the time they planting seeds, it was too late.

Yes, it is indeed worth picking up. It covers the first year of the war.

Thanks for the recommendation.