Once Upon A Geek – Star Trek Novels

ONCE UPON A STAR TREK NOVEL!      

Jon Wilson and The Irredeemable Shag find their joy discussing STAR TREK NOVELS! We chat about our first exposure to Trek books, why we love the novels, our favorite books, favorite eras & favorite authors, and then we spotlight Peter David’s novel VENDETTA! Finally, Shag covers YOUR listener feedback from the past few episodes!

  • 00:00:52 – Introductions
  • 00:06:25 – Our first exposure to Trek novels
  • 00:18:15 – What we love about Trek novels
  • 00:23:34 – Favorite eras/niches within Trek novels
  • 00:36:45 – Favorite Trek authors
  • 00:41:00 – Favorite Trek novels
  • 01:07:47 – Spotlight on STAR TREK: VENDETTA (non-spoilers)
  • 01:12:45 – Spotlight on STAR TREK: VENDETTA (Spoilers begin here)
  • 01:39:22 – Your listener feedback from the past few episodes
  • 02:06:45 – Sign off

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22 responses to “Once Upon A Geek – Star Trek Novels

  1. My fandom for Star Trek is not as deep as others. My in was Next Generation and the original cast films. Because of this, I never really dove into the novels with the exception of the New Frontier books. They happen to hit just as I was getting into Peter David as a writer, so it was, “I like Peter David. I like Star Trek. This seems like a good idea.”

    The one thing y’all didn’t mention (because it was almost 30 years ago, so that makes sense) is that the New Frontier novels launched as four novellas. This was a year after Stephen King released The Green Mile in the same format. It was trying to get back to a time when books came out that way (at least that’s why King did it) but it was a fun experience waiting for the next novella to drop. I’m assuming that it didn’t go anywhere for the publishers, and eventually they released all four novellas in a collected form and that seems to be the way they live now, but I always dug that they tried something different to launch the series.

    Great episode talking about something I like but am not into myself.

  2. I’ve only read a couple of the Star Trek novel that focus’s on Spock and on the history of vucalan and some of the Star Trek manga and the novel or the fist reboot movie . So I’ve not had lot of experience with the Star Trek novels my dad is big fan of Star Trek but only the tv shows . And the only Star Trek figure in the house is the super 7 one I bought recently of data as Sherlock Holmes . My three favorite characters in the Star Trek universe are data and Spock and data’s cat . Spot .

  3. Such a fun talk, so much in my wheelhouse.

    I started reading the Trek novels with the Blish adaptations as they were reprinted, with stunning Chris Achilléos covers, just as the BBC started a re-screening the TV show in ’83 (as detailed in my essay in Jim Beard’s excellent collection, Galloping Around the Cosmos: Memories of TV’s Wagon Train to the Stars from Today’s Grown-Up Kids). From there, it was THE ENTROPY EFFECT and that was it – I was hooked.

    Shag mentioned that there aren’t a lot of novels around Trek’s V and VI. As someone who subscribes to the theory that Kirk commanded 3, 5 year missions (the original series, Post TMP, prior to TWOK. and post TFF and prior to TUC), if you have a jonesing for this era, DC Comics second series has you covered. Novel wise, I can only think of THE RIFT (by Peter David,) THE FEARFUL SUMMONS (By Star Trek VI screenwriter, Denny Martin Flinn,) and Shatner’s, THE ASHES OF EDEN off the top of my head. Such an unmined era.

    Obviously, with so many books in the series, there were bound to be omissions. I recall greatly enjoying THE PANDORA PRINCIPLE by Caryolyn Clowes, centering on Saavik, THE WOUNDED SKY By Diane Duane, which later was (VERY loosely) adapted into TNG episode, WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE, THE GALACTIC WHIRLPOOL By David Gerrold, THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER By Peter David, VULCAN’S GLORY By D C Fontana, and LEGACY by M J Friedman, the latter 2 being Captain Pike novels, a era I am particularly fond of.

    Like you, the newer stuff is a bit of a blind spot and my favoured era is TOS, largely because (Kelvin universe aside) we have a complete arc there. As someone who thinks stories should end, that we have end points for Kirk, Spock and to a lesser extent, McCoy and Scotty, means we can look at their entire stories. We still don’t know what ultimately happens to Sulu, Chekov and Uhura and maybe this is something SNW could address. It would have been lovely to see Nichelle Nichols appear on that show opposite Celia Rose Gooding but, sadly, that can never be. It’s not too late to get Takei or Koenig though.

    Overall, a great show. Maybe the comics next?

    Thanks

    Andy

  4. Fantastic episode. Here’s my iTunes review:
    ——-
    Once Upon A Geek is a joyfully nerdy treasure trove, where Shagg serves as the ultimate guide to all things geek-tastic. His irredeemably fine knack for positivity transforms every episode into a delightful adventure. Whether he’s exploring the latest TV hits, diving into comic lore, or celebrating sci-fi wonders, Shagg and his stellar guests make every discussion feel like a spirited gathering of kindred souls. If you crave a podcast that elevates your geek cred and leaves you grinning, look no further. Tune in and let the joy of nerdom sweep you away!

  5. The minute you announced this, I knew I was going to love this episode and Jon was the perfect choice here. I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

    Trek novels, for me, started sometime in the late 1980s. I saw The Voyage Home in theaters and then ordered Strange and Amazing Facts About Star Trek through the Scholastic Book Club as well as one of the “Which Way” books (which were an off-brand Choose Your Own Adventure that did a lot of licensed material). My first proper novel was, I think, “Bloodthirst”, which I got from the public library and probably chose because of the title.

    My public library had an outstanding sci-fi/fantasy paperback section. I can still picture the floor-to-ceiling bookcasess full of books from all sorts of movies and TV shows (Star Trek, Star Wars, Conan, Tarzan, etc.) and it was there that I read Spock’s World and Final Frontier as well as the novelization of The Motion Picture and a few more that I don’t remember.

    I got The Lost Years when it was released in hardcover in 1989. I don’t know how I managed to get it–I was 12 at the time–but it’s possible I used birthday money or just convinced my mom that a book was a good thing to get me on one of our many trips to the mall where she indulged me with a trip to Waldenbooks or B. Dalton after clothes shopping. I wound up buying the rest of the novels in that particular miniseries and actually read them well past the days I had stopped reading Trek novels on the regular (I can’t say why except that I was in college and was always swamped with reading for class). I remember reading the last Lost Years book as well as Prime Directive during the summer of 1997 when I was working the umbrella stand and four-wheel drive checkpoint at the beach.

    I picked up a few of the books a few years ago when I went into a local used bookstore and found five of the six original crew movie novelizations for about $2 each. I snapped those up and eventually hunted down the last one (which was the novelization of Wrath of Khan) via eBay, then decided to read a few others, including Greg Cox’s Eugenics Wars as well as many books that mentioned V’Ger in some way or another (thanks, Memory Beta). There weren’t many, but it was a fun reading project and I REALLY enjoyed the Eugenics Wars books.

    By the way, it wasn’t until this spring at a library sale that I discovered there are hardcover editions of the novelizations. I already owned all of them but saw the novels for III and V and at the price they were asking (just a few dollars), I had to grab them.

    Funny enough, I’ve only ever read books that featured the original crew and really love anything that takes place during the movies. I watched TNG and some of DS9 but never went beyond the screen with those. I might pick up a few of them if I come across them at a sale or may check out that Kindle sale Amazon has.

    Again, a great episode!

  6. I must have found Trek novels around 1983, I would guess. I’m sure of the numbered ones, I either owned or read most of the first 60 TOS and first 20 TNG at one point.

    Some of my favorites include: How Much for Just the Planet?, The Yesterday Saga (loved the coverage over on GMTST), Q-In-Law, some of the early hardbacks like the one you mentioned (Strangers from the Sky, Final Frontier, Spock’s World, etc), and some of the TNG ones like Q-Squared and Imzadi. By the early 90s, I stopped reading a lot of Trek, but would occasionally dive back in with the stuff that stood out to me, like the Greg Cox Eugenics Wars novels, and New Frontier. I think I followed New Frontier until about the same time you did Shag, around book 16 or 17? before I dropped off.

    As for Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens books – while I was thrilled that they added to Enterprise Season 4, because I knew they’d bring quality, their novel writing just never worked for me. They honestly just bored me. I’m sorry, but luckily for them, I know I’m in the minority.

  7. So many great Trek novels. Like Jon said, these are stories that are in and around the stories we already know, either fleshing out stuff that we never knew we wanted (Q Squared) or just going off and doing their own thing (The Rift).

    One interesting area is the novelizations of the movies. When Tom and I did that original cast movie project on Pop Culture Affidavit many moons ago really helped to to appreciate more things in the movies. I had already read the TMP novelization, but the others really opened by eyes on the others. Yes, even (in my opinion) the worst of the 6, The Voyage Home. I found that the STORY is really good, it was just how it was handled in the film (mainly any drama being undercut by the score) that put me off. Filling in those holes, like what Sybok’s back story was, makes the overall tapestry that much better.

  8. That’s cool I didn’t know there any books about McCoy . I’ve made list of Star Trek novel to look into focusing on the some ones you mentioned
    Spock’s world , Star Trek final frontier and its sequel
    Novel best Destiny my question has any and read the books the Vulcan academy murders and the next generation novel gosht ship there on my list and well and the Any thoughts on the novel hunters prey ?

    1. A novel focusing on McCoy that comes to mind is Shadows on the Sun. It’s been a while but iirc it has him reuniting with his ex-wife and daughter. It also explains why, when he accidentally injects himself with that drug in the TOS episode “City on the Edge of Forever”, his paranoia has him yelling about “ASSASSINS!”

  9. I first started reading Star Trek novels thanks to Columbia House’s Science-Fiction Book Club, so I have a bunch of the early Pocket Books in non-pocket hardcover format. Titles like Yesterday’s Son (which Shag and I covered on Gimme That Star Trek), The Wounded Sky, My Enemy My Ally, and others. Later in life, I read the first 30-40 TNG books and a few DS9 and Voyager (and more TOS), LIKE Vendetta and Q-Squared. Peter David was a fave, of course, and even his numbered books were pretty cool – Q-in-Law had Q face off against Lwaxana Troi, A Rock and a Hard Place is the template for Chain of Command, etc.

    Yes, Shag, finish Federation. You don’t need TOS knowledge because all you need is in the book. Colonel Green is in The Savage Curtain, sure, but he’s a one-liner “fascist from TOS past, but our future, the end”. He was a name and not much else.

    In latter-day books, I read the first few books of a few franchises – DS9 Phase II, Titan, Shatner’s Kirk – but only got further in New Frontier (again, Shag and I talked about this on GTST) and more recently, because they are so short, but fun, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers ebooks.

    As part of my Star Trek reviews on the ol’ blog, after I covered every single episode of everything (ongoing again, I do realize), I did all the comics (up through a certain date, about a year into IDW’s Kelvin timeline series, I think), and more occasionally read or re-read books from across the lines – here are some links:

    http://siskoid.blogspot.com/search/label/ST%20novels%3A%20TOS
    http://siskoid.blogspot.com/search/label/ST%20novels%3A%20TNG
    http://siskoid.blogspot.com/search/label/ST%20novels%3A%20DS9
    http://siskoid.blogspot.com/search/label/ST%20novels%3A%20The%20Shat
    http://siskoid.blogspot.com/search/label/ST%20novels%3A%20S.C.E.
    http://siskoid.blogspot.com/search/label/ST%20novels%3A%20Titan

  10. My favorite star trek book is pawns and symbols. Though in some ways it’s probably clouded by me actually knowing the author and havingbeen a friend of mine before havingr ead it. One of the main things she did from money she made from the publication of the book was get a full size portrait of Kang painted that she had hanging on her front sitting room. She use to own an old Victorian style house in Athens Ohio. With the book she originally planed to have the TOS people in it even less. She wanted to be purely an in universe book exploring the Klingon Empire but the publishers made her hin essence have as much as there is of the TOS characters.

    1. Yeah I use to shoot bow and arrow at her house, about once a month a group of us would do medieval recipe cooking at her house. Weirdly the painting was basically the only thing in the house that was Star Trek related. Partly the only reason I know as much as I even do about her connection to the book is because I was one of the only people who recognized that the person in the painting was a klingon and not supposed to be some medieval person. My copy of the book she gave me. It’s not signed because I could never get myself to ask considering. And now unfortunately she died about 2 years ago so it never will be but honestly I know she would’ve felt uncomfortable with that type of thing which is why it’s a pseudonym on the book so I never would’ve asked.

  11. My first Star Trek Books – My Dad was a voracious reader. When he was stationed with us and not somewhere overseas, he would buy us books and comics that he thought we would like. I remember him giving my bother and me a bunch of Star Trek books. The Phoenix Novels. I’m guessing at their names – Fate of the Phoenix and Price of the Phoenix. One or two volumes of Best of Trek. All I remember about those was that one of them had an episode guide for Star Trek: The Animated Series. I also had two volumes of Star Trek short stories. Plus, one or two of the books that retold seven or eight episodes of TOS. I don’t remember which one of the two series those were.

    I’ve read or listened to at least 100 Star Trek books since then. I’ve been visually disabled for over a decade and a half. The strangest part of being a visually disabled Star Trek fan is that I’ve listened to audiobooks for series I’ve never seen.

    Star Trek: SCE was my favorite series. I read about 3/4 of the series before I lost the ability to read. I wish this series was available in audio. Since SCE wasn’t tied to an existing show, they were able to do things that would have been much harder to do in a television series.

    My favorite books:

    Doctor’s Orders by Diane Duane. Kirk gets tired of McCoy always telling him how to do his job, so Kirk gives McCoy the con during a peaceful away mission. The away mission becomes a disaster and McCoy has to step up and lead the Enterprise. Thankfully, I have this on audio.

    Wildfire Books 1 & 2 by David Mack. This is part of the SCE series. If you read a bunch of the books before and after then these are phenomenal books. I won’t describe these two books because I don’t want to spoil anything.

    I have to second Jon’s recommendation of McCoy. It’s been at least 20 years since I read it and I still remember more of it than any other Star Trek book I’ve read. If I had this on audio, I’d probably have ranked this #1.

    Last but defiantly not least – Una McCormack’s Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope. I HATED this book when I read it. It is the most dystopian Star Trek book I’ve read. Everyone is broken. Star Fleet is horrible and the Romulans are worse. It is a book about a disaster that changes everything. I listed to it during early 2020. The pandemic hit and so much of the behavior I hated in this book played out before my eyes. I’m not sure there has been any work of fiction that I’ve thought about more than this book.

    My Star Trek Book Wish – My only sources for Star Trek are Audible and BARD (The Blind and Reading Disabled audiobook library). So, I don’t have the ability to listen to most Star Trek books. A few times a year, Star Wars rereleased old novel in print and audio. I wish Star Trek would do the same. I’d buy every one of them.

  12. I highly recommend anything by Christopher L. Bennett. And not just because he turned me into a crewmember on the refit Enterprise in Higher Frontier.

    David R. George III is another of my more recent favorite authors.

    My all-time Top 5:

    1. Deep Space Nine #23: The 34th Rule by David R. George III and Armin Shimerman
    2. Imzadi by Peter David
    3. Crucible Trilogy by David R. George III
    4. Federation by the Reeves-Stevenses
    5. Vendetta by David
    5. The Buried Age by Chris Bennett
    5. TWOK, TSFS, TVH by Vonda McIntyre
    5. Q-Squared by David
    5. Q-in-Law by David
    5. Yesterday’s Son by A.C. Crispin
    5. Strangers from the Sky by Bonnano
    5. Spock’s World by Diane Duane

    1
  13. Impressive podcast, most impressive. I have a fondness for many of these books. The weirdly, one of my favorites being the three prongs Kirk story you know this probably fits in no continuity other than the William Shatner verse. They’re still kind of fun. How mentioned a few I enjoyed especially about Kirk’s dad and that the narrative device was Kirk coming to terms with Edith’s death while listening to the old logs over when his father was a first officer

    I also liked a lot of the deep, space 9 Ones. Kira and Benjamin Cisco being to my favorite characters in the Star Trek.

    I even liked the Q versus Spock ones. I remember getting a few for like five dollars well it was eight total, because at that point comics are getting a ridiculously expensive and I can get a whole novel for that price well a novel or two. So I didn’t quite collect everything but I found enough I enjoyed, there were also some pretty good Like the Imzadi two story story. Which had Riker and Diana

    Finally realizing how much they love each other. And then having to stop Thomas Ryker from causing international incident well space incident so yeah a lot of these novels were pretty cool. Can’t wait till next podcast.

  14. I grew up seeing Star Trek paperbacks on the bookshelves of my parents and sister. This was the early-mid 1980s, so they all starred Kirk and crew. They were a bit above my reading level/interest but the titles fascinated me: The Wounded Sky. The Vulcan Academy Murders. Dreadnought. Battlestations. How Much For Just the Planet? The Entropy Effect. The Covenant of the Crown. Spock Must Die! They also had the novelizations of movies 1-6, which I was really interested in because of all the added scenes and context the movies didn’t have.

    My mom came home from the thrift store with a set of Star Trek Logs 1-9, the adaptations of the animated series by Alan Dean Foster. I remember having a blast reading these. I was fascinated by characters like Lt. Arex and Lt. M’Ress who weren’t in the TV show. My mom also got me a copy of The Pandora Principle signed by the author when she visited our local Waldenbooks.

    High school, college, and my 20s were my Star Trek book reading heyday. I had Federation (who could resist a Kirk/Picard crossover?) and the William Shatner novels like The Return, Avenger, and Spectre. I went to the library and checked out all the New Frontier books, since I was a fan of Peter David’s writing from his work on Spider-Man and X-factor comics, as well as some of his other Star Trek novels like Vendetta (I remember enjoying that one a ton) and Q-Squared. I also would go to the library and find those hardcover “milestone” books like Imzadi, Imzadi II: Triangle, and Sarek. One of those that I tried that I remember not enjoying was Probe. I remember going into that one very intrigued by its promise to reveal the origins of the Whale Probe from Star Trek IV. I don’t remember much about it, but I definitely came away with the impression some things should remain mysterious and not get explained. The probe was awe-inspiring in its power as well as its mystery. I also remember falling off the New Frontier books after a while, iirc they were introducing yet another mysterious nigh-invincible alien race bent on conquest…I was done with that kind of concept after all the Borg stuff.

    In more recent years, I’ve read the Destiny Trilogy as well as the Lost Years books and the Typhon Pact books. I’ve enjoyed a lot of the latter because of the inclusion of seldom-featured alien races like the Gorn, Tholians, Temarians, Andorians, Tellarians, and Tzenkithi, as well as the intriguing concepts of the Ferengi and Cardassians joining forces with the Federation like the Klingons had. Unfortunately, those books fell off for me too when they killed off Worf’s love interest and Enterprise security chief Lt. Cloudhurry. Really, hasn’t the poor guy been through enough, losing his first love Kheylr and his second love Jadzia Dax? Wayyy too much to pile on one character, it gets tiresome. Similarly, I followed the Voyager “Full Circle” novels for a time until the constant death and destruction got to me there, too. I guess in my older years I have less patience for that kind of thing, or it’s really hitting differently.

    Great podcast, it brought back a lot of memories, and makes me want to read or reread a lot of these!

    I can’t really point to many Star Trek authors I like more than others….

  15. For Strange New World books, look no farther than John Jackson Miller’s The High Country. It is fantastic. Such a fun read. It has a couple fun tie-ins to things from other shows and if you like SNW, I think this book does about the best job I’ve seen of an author capturing the voice of the individual characters. I love Trek books but I frequently don’t hear the TV characters when I’m reading.

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