Favorite Star Trek Novel

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2002-12-03 01:27am

What's your favorite?

I'm still trying to decide.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2002-12-03 01:45am

A looonnngggg time ago, My Enemy My Ally by Dianne Duane. AWESOME story that has everything, space battles, boarding actions, intrigue, romance, Hortas and Romulan...oh my. It was a great novel and all the others pale before it. If you can get your hands on it I recommend you read it, IIRC correctly not a shred of technobabble and its the OS crew with Kirk and Co. Can you beat that!

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2002-12-03 01:58am

slightly untrue about the technobabble, but your right, it is by far the best Star Trek novel I have ever seen. The only other author who comes anywhere close is Peter David.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-12-03 02:21am

Diane Duane's first two novels My Enemy, My Ally and The Wounded Sky were my favourites; they often change places in my rankings depending upon what mood I'm in when I reread or reconsider either. She created wonderfully alien aliens, put together two really good plots, had great characters, and the whole idea of a Horta officer aboard the Enterprise was first class. Little details like the astronomy were icing on the cake. Her other novel about the Romulans The Romulan Way (with Peter Morewood) fashioned a lot of my ideas about the Romulans as much as John Ford's The Final Reflection did with Klingon culture until the TNG producers decided to impose their own idiot ideas of both socities on everybody.

John Ford's The Final Reflection and How Much For Just The Planet would rank high, but not above Joe Haldeman's two books, World Without End and Planet Of Judgement. Following up the rear would be James Blish's [/i]Spock Must Die,[/i] D.C. Fontana's Vulcan's Glory, David Gerrold's The Galactic Whirlpool, and Vonda McIntyre's The Entropy Effect.

Just about everything afterward is a waste of trees.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2002-12-03 03:03am

The rise and fall of Kahn Noonien Singh is good.

DocHorror · Post by **DocHorror** » 2002-12-03 02:30pm

I always enjoyed the real old novelisations of TOS by James Blish...

I also liked Perry's planet and the movie adaptions done by Vonda McIntyre(sp?)

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-03 02:49pm

Peter David's Q-In-Law was absolutely fantastic. He did more with the characters than the writers of TNG ever did, and he captured them brilliantly. The audio version of the novel is also very good.

greenmm · Post by **greenmm** » 2002-12-03 09:04pm

Patrick Degan wrote:Diane Duane's first two novels My Enemy, My Ally and The Wounded Sky were my favourites; they often change places in my rankings depending upon what mood I'm in when I reread or reconsider either. She created wonderfully alien aliens, put together two really good plots, had great characters, and the whole idea of a Horta officer aboard the Enterprise was first class. Little details like the astronomy were icing on the cake. Her other novel about the Romulans The Romulan Way (with Peter Morewood) fashioned a lot of my ideas about the Romulans as much as John Ford's The Final Reflection did with Klingon culture until the TNG producers decided to impose their own idiot ideas of both socities on everybody.

John Ford's The Final Reflection and How Much For Just The Planet would rank high, but not above Joe Haldeman's two books, World Without End and Planet Of Judgement. Following up the rear would be James Blish's [/i]Spock Must Die,[/i] D.C. Fontana's Vulcan's Glory, David Gerrold's The Galactic Whirlpool, and Vonda McIntyre's The Entropy Effect.

Just about everything afterward is a waste of trees.

Which is why I like that Pocket Books and Paramount remade Diane's 2 books into a "mini-series" with 2 newer novels to further delve into Ael's story.

Final Reflection is also a good one.

I also like Dreadnaught! and Battlestations!, just for the fact that they were the first to be not only from a first-person perspective, but from the perspective of someone who wasn't one of the major players.

Also, Spock's World is another excellent Diane Duane novel, as well as Vulcan Academy Murders and IDIC epidemic (which, BTW, had the first TOS era explanation as to why we saw non-wrinkled Klingons in TOS series but later Klingons were wrinkled -- different subspecies, with the wrinkled being "Imperial").

Lord Sauron-Tyranus-Vader · Post by **Lord Sauron-Tyranus-Vader** » 2002-12-03 09:51pm

Stravo wrote:A looonnngggg time ago, My Enemy My Ally by Dianne Duane. AWESOME story that has everything, space battles, boarding actions, intrigue, romance, Hortas and Romulan...oh my. It was a great novel and all the others pale before it. If you can get your hands on it I recommend you read it, IIRC correctly not a shred of technobabble and its the OS crew with Kirk and Co. Can you beat that!

No.
I read it and it is the best ST novel.
The others are loads o' crap.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-03 09:53pm

Hell YEah, I was going to mention that one too.

Post by **Kuja** » 2002-12-03 10:46pm

PROBE, a sequel to STIV, was a damn good book.

Evil Sadistic Bastard · Post by **Evil Sadistic Bastard** » 2002-12-03 10:47pm

I liked Vendetta, because the planet-killer was involved.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-12-03 11:24pm

DocHorror wrote:I always enjoyed the real old novelisations of TOS by James Blish...

I also liked Perry's Planet and the movie adaptions done by Vonda McIntyre(sp?)

The Blish novelisations were good; he was vary faithful to the scripts, or the draft versions he was able to get from Desilu at the time. I've had my collection of those since I was a lad.

Perry's Planet was a decent book, written by SF authour Joe Haldeman's brother Jack.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-12-03 11:28pm

greenmm wrote:I also like Dreadnaught! and Battlestations!, just for the fact that they were the first to be not only from a first-person perspective, but from the perspective of someone who wasn't one of the major players.

Yes... Diane Carey's two "Mary Sue" novels in the ST line. At least they were somewhat clever and nowhere near as obnoxiously fanwankish as Kathleen Sky's two books or the printed drivel of Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-12-04 12:45am

I rather liked Sarek, the sequel to ST:VI The Undiscovered Country.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2002-12-04 01:12am

[quote="Patrick Degan]
Yes... Diane Carey's two "Mary Sue" novels in the ST line. At least they were somewhat clever and nowhere near as obnoxiously fanwankish as Kathleen Sky's two books or the printed drivel of Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath.[/quote]

Holy crap, those two write the worst novels EVER. Every one of their novels has Spock losing control and kicking ass all over the place, and puts Kirk in a feminine, weak role.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2002-12-04 01:14am

My favorite of all time was "Yesterday's Son". The sequel was great as well.