cant read star trek novels

[logan_run]

I drifted away from star trek I tried recently reading a star trek novel by peter David written in 91 I just cant get into it and once I was a such a fan. anyone else go trough this??

 

[Danny McG]

I've read a few many years ago but, apart from the early ones based on episodes of TOS, there was way too much inconsistency with timelines and canon.
I nowadays tend to blank right past any I see on bookshelves

 

[dask]

The James Blish adaptations are pretty good.

 

[Anthoney]

I have the same sort of issue. I read at least a dozen Star Trek novels during the 80s. I'm a big Trekkie and always have been. These days I have a very hard time getting myself to read any Trek. The few times I've tried (within the last decade or so), I just can't get into it. That's also weird because I rarely start a book and don't finish it.

 

[BAYLOR]

I have the same sort of issue. I read at least a dozen Star Trek novels during the 80s. I'm a big Trekkie and always have been. These days I have a very hard time getting myself to read any Trek. The few times I've tried (within the last decade or so), I just can't get into it. That's also weird because I rarely start a book and don't finish it.

Ive read few over the years. The problem with these novels I that no matter how well written they are, there is no real suspense , and in the end the characters, are going to come out just fine in the end. Nothing is going to change.

 

[Extollager]

I was a kid, excited about it all right, when the first Star Trek novel came out, Blish's Spock Must Die! My notes on a rereading:

Blish, James. Spock Must Die! Published 1970. Read again 24-25 July 2015.

Another television tie-in: James Blish's Spock Must Die! from 1970 (Wikipedia says February 1970), which I'd have read as soon as I could get my hands on it. It appeared in 1970, so I will assume I read it then, 45 years ago. I don't remember when or how I parted company with my copy. So far it seems faithful to Star Trek and to owe something to Algis Budrys's haunting Rogue Moon, one of the sf novels/novellas that has most impressed me.

25 July: Having finished the novel, I’ll say the Budrys connection is even more pronounced, since part of the story’s resolution is the telepathic or “telempathic” bond between the original and the replicate – a key element of “Rogue Moon.”

Blish seems to have set himself to write a short novel that would be completely acceptable to Star Trek fans as a fast-paced space opera-type adventure featuring their favorite characters (although if anyone was a Chekov fan, that reader might be disappointed, and a bit in which Lt. Uhura expresses the hope that someone whom she may be tutoring in a language will be “‘cute’” didn’t ring true) – and to write a book that would be tolerable to science fiction fans – so there’s more technical stuff than you’d ever get in a television episode. There’s a struggle between the two Spocks in a realm of seething illusions, with Kirk wishing he could shoot the bad Spock with his phaser but unable to do so, that was like something out of the series. The story ends with the Organians quarantining the entire Klingon Empire.

 

[Bick]

The story ends with the Organians quarantining the entire Klingon Empire.

Crikey, Extollager, add in a spoiler at the end why don't you! I might have read this...

 

[Rodders]

I went through a big phase of reading Star Trek novels from Titan back in the nineties. I read maybe two, three hundred novels over a period of about two tears, but stopped reading them.

Personally, I found them very enjoyable and want to get back into them, but there’s just so much to read.

 

[Galactic Bus Driver]

Some of the best fiction I ever read was included in the Pocket Book TOS series, especially their early books. Ann Crispin's "Yesterday's Son," and "A Time for Yesterday" would have been great even had they not been based in the TOS universe. Of course, those books also produced some incredible stinkers. "The Vulcan Academy Murders" and "The IDIC Epidemic" by Jean Lorrah spring immediately to mind. I stopped reading the TOS books when it became obvious that formula had become more important that story telling (largely Pocket Book's fault) and formula alone is not enough.

 

[Vince W]

I read a lot of Star Trek novels in the 70s and 80s. Some of them were excellent and I read a couple of times. I really only like the TOS stories. There have been few good TNG books for me and I could never get through any of the arcs that included every series.

I have fond memories of those early books but I haven't read one in a long time.

 

[Rodders]

TOS was definitely my favourite books of the ST universe, although there were some (a few) TNG books that I enjoyed. I didn’t try any DS9 books.

Favourite Authors were probably Diane Duane, Peter David and Judith and Garfield Reeves Stevens.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

I used to read Star Trek all the time. Haven't been able to get back into reading them for years now. TOS was definitely my favorite for books. I found that a lot of characters from TNG just didn't translate that well into books. DS9 was 'meh' to me as a TV series, so as books they would have been a lost cause and I never even bothered with them (but for a few of the mini-series books with one book in each branch of Star Trek). Never really tried Voyager books. They just never held any interest for me. Well, other than the 'Cloak and Dagger' trilogy, but that was because it was about Romulans.

I actually just got rid of my Star Trek book collection.

 

[Cathbad]

I've read a few good ones (2, actually) and at least a dozen crappy ones.

 

[Danny McG]

I've read a few many years ago but, apart from the early ones based on episodes of TOS, there was way too much inconsistency with timelines and canon.
I nowadays tend to blank right past any I see on bookshelves

Recap on this, I may have got my facts wrong about not reading the books!
I have, within the last two years, read some of the omnibus Starfleet Corps of Engineering books and thoroughly enjoyed them.
I know they're not strictly Star Trek canon but good light reading

 

[monkeypooper]

Try Star Trek Corps of Engineers , i was the same read TNG as a youngster now just don't truck with them but then i read Grand Designs and enjoyed it

 

[Galactic Bus Driver]

Recap on this, I may have got my facts wrong about not reading the books!
I have, within the last two years, read some of the omnibus Starfleet Corps of Engineering books and thoroughly enjoyed them.
I know they're not strictly Star Trek canon but good light reading

Considering what Paramount and CBS have been doing to Star Trek canon lately, I'm not sure it matters any more.

 

[Cathbad]

*mumbles* canon shmanon

Discovery is very likely the best series of all the Star Trek shows. I don't care a single frig if it keeps up with 'canon' - just keep giving me the great acting, writing and visuals!!

 

[Cathbad]

Long ago, the creators/owners/whatevers put out a statement that NONE of the novels should be considered 'canon'.

Enterprise: The First Mission was a great read. Should I avoid great reads from the Star Trek universe because they're not 'canon'?*

Perhaps the 'canoneers' should pretend they're in the Star Trek universe reading fictional novels that incorporate 'real life' characters?

*Then again, most of the Star Trek novels are not great reads!

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

*Then again, most of the Star Trek novels are not great reads!

Lol. No, they won't be winning any awards for brilliance in literature . However, they are entertaining when all you want is a light, silly read.

 

[Cathbad]

Lol. No, they won't be winning any awards for brilliance in literature . However, they are entertaining when all you want is a light, silly read.

Exactly!