Star Trek Reads discussion

Hi, I'm Andrea! Welcome to the Star Trek Reads group!

I'm a huge Star Trek novels fan. Though I've read a few over the last decade, it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I really go into them. Now I'm addicted!

I think my favourites so far are the Destiny series, the Voyager relaunch by Beyer, and DS9: Never-Ending Sacrifice.

Hello everyone! I'm Matthew.

I've been a Trek fan all my life, and have enjoyed the novels for most of it, as well. My favorites, though, are the DS9 Relaunch series and the new post-Destiny stories, especially Typhon Pact. Those are just simply amazing.

Hi!

It's been a long time since I've read a 'Star Trek' novel. The last one I read was 'Before Dishonor' and I was pretty disappointed with it. But I used to read them all the time growing up. I'm kinda looking to get back into them, but it seems pretty daunting with lots of crossovers and new series I'm not familiar with.

Hi Ben! A good place to jump back in is the Destiny series by David Mack, since it brings all of the series together in once place. It's my go-to for getting people hooked on Trek reads.

That's what I've been hearing from others, too. I bought the first one the other night, but I haven't started it yet; I'm just finishing up 'A Princess of Mars' but it'll be next on my list!

I also want to read the 'Department of Temporal Investigations' books. I love me some time travel.

Hi I'm Kathy.

I've been a life long Trekker. I enjoy the novels quite a bit but I go through phases of reading a lot of Trek and then reading lots of memoirs/urban fantasy/history books in between.

I've really enjoyed the new books that have come out lately. I got the new DTI book on the way and a new Typhon pact book (that was ordered accidentally through the evil of Amazon one-click).

Kathy wrote: "ordered accidentally through the evil of Amazon one-click). "

Could be worse. I once accidentally ordered my own book. I don't even know how I did it.

At least you support your work.

Not even. Went for the refund. ;)

Greetings!

Just reading the Star Trek Destiny books. On Book 3 and finding them to be great!

Hey…. only series I'm reading are the orignals… I know there are like a hundred of them or more but I highly suggest them if you haven't read them. To me they just bring you back to the simplicity of why Star Trek became a multi-billion dollar industry

Hey! I'm Kat. I am curently reading from the TNG and Enterprise series books. I was always a huge TNG fan, but never really got into the other series until recently. I have gone back and watched all Enterprise. I am going back now and watching DS9 for the first time since those folks will be at the Philly area con next year :) I still have not seen most of Voyager or TOS yet so not reading those books yet. Maybe I am a little OCD, but going in order with books and series shows is something that is usally important to me. Strange?

trust me… once you go TOS you'll never go back =P

It's nice when you can go in order of a books but I do have the tendency to just grab any book that catches my eye which often leads to jumping around in the timelines.

Glad to hear you are going to be watching some DS9 and getting geared up for next year's Philly area con.

Just wanted to give everyone a few group updates. :-)

- We've had a few new members join us in the last little while - welcome! Feel free to jump in wherever you like.

- I just started the discussion for the June 2012 read, Forgotten History. Feel free to contribute whenever you feel.

- Our July 2012 read is Typhon Pact: Plagues of Night, and our book on deck for August 2012 is Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn. Both by David R George III.

Hi, everybody, I'm Thaïs. :D

I see that most of you have been Star Trek fans all your lives. Well, I'm relatively new to the fandom. I only started watching the show (TNG) about 1 1/2 year ago. Now I'm on Voyager, but there's still lots more to cover.

As for ST novels, I'm even more of a beginner, with only a few TNG novels under my belt. However, it seems I've read enough to become addicted. It's slightly disquieting, because now I don't want to read anything else. :P

Wow, we now have over 20 members! That's awesome :-)

Welcome everyone!

Hi. Scott here. I grew up with TNG and original movies thanks to a dad who had grown up with TOS. Judith and Garfield Reeves Stevens wrote all my favorite star trek books. After a long time away I'd like to read some newer stuff. I've read a few relaunch but feel overwhelmed by all the story and character developments I've missed. Destiny is certainly on my list. I've been worried that the books have gotten more political and darker than the trek I loved though...

Hi all, I'm Becky.
I have been reading Star Trek since 1990 but have gotten behind. I look
Forward to reading discussions and such and catching up.
Currently trying to read the Typhon Pact but not really getting into it..
Will browse around some for suggestions.

Welcome Scott and Becky!

Scott: the books are definitely a lot more meaty than they once were. There are still a few out there that are more on the fun side. If you like TNG maybe try Indistinguishable from Magic?

Becky: If you're looking for some suggestions, just let us know what you like. I'm sure someone can recommend something good.

Hi everyone,

I'm very new to Star Trek. And when I mean new, I mean I haven't really seen a lot of episodes (I think I can count the episodes I've seen on one hand).

Now before you all fall off your chair, I want to say that I really do want to get in the series! But I want to read the books first....

Now, I've been doing research for about 3 days now and I'm completely stumped on where to start. I really wanted to start with TNG, but the reviews are not very supportive with the first book in the series. I've been hearing the Destiny Trilogy is a good place to start, but some say it's confusing for first time readers. I've been skeptical reading TOS since a lot are written based on the episodes. Maybe Voyager? I just don't know.

So needless to say I'm stuck. I would love some suggestions because I want to be just as hooked as everyone else (including my sister, who started to get me interested).

Thanks,

Jackie

Most of the older books are standalone stories, you shouldn't have much trouble reading any of those. They don't need to be read in any order, even though many of them are numbered.

The Star Trek books aren't considered canon, like the Star Wars ones are, they don't follow on unless they're part of a series so you can pretty much start wherever you want.

If you haven't seen much of the series then you have an advantage when it comes to the novels because you won't have any preconceived ideas about the characters. I find that reading earlier novels, that were written during the making of the series when the characters were still developing, are harder to read because they sometimes don't seem quite right when you know the characters better.

You also have to like the style of the author of course. I find Peter David very good, and I liked all the Voyager books, but then I read them as they came out.

Louise wrote: "The Star Trek books aren't considered canon, like the Star Wars ones are, they don't follow on unless they're part of a series so you can pretty much start wherever you want.

If you haven't seen ..."

I was thinking about starting with Voyager. I hear it's a really good book series. I just started watching Star Trek TNG and am really liking it so far. Probably won't read their books, though. Voyager it is. :) Thank you!

Ben wrote: "Most of the older books are standalone stories, you shouldn't have much trouble reading any of those. They don't need to be read in any order, even though many of them are numbered."

Thanks!

The later books will spoil the tv shows too, whereas the earlier ones shouldn't. They also tend to be a bit more fun, and read more like the episodes, while the later ones are quite serious.

Hi, just joined this group...I'm a Star Trek fan too, hooray! Just started reading the books in the last couple of years - didn't realize there were hundreds of them, what a find eh?

I was slowly working my way through the Starfleet Year One series - When Picard first becomes a captain. But, I got off course and read a few random works by Shatner (Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large is pretty hilarious!)

Yay we're almost at 30 members! Welcome 'Bookworm' and everyone else who has joined us recently!

Hey everyone, I'm Dan. Huge Star Trek fan for about as long as I can remember. I'm currently writing for a Star Trek novel review blog. My goal is to read every ST novel put out by Pocket Books. Don't know if I'll succeed, but I'm working on it! I review all new releases and older novels in between. Check it out if you like, the address is on my profile.

Looking forward to some great discussions with you fine people!

Dan, I will check out your blog.
I tried starting a blog to track my journey through TNG. I 'inherited' the entire TNG series on VHS a couple of years ago and was attempting to write about each episode...however, our VCR broke, so I only managed to make it through twenty or so.

My name is Eddie and I was reading Star Trek since the 1970s I stayed faithful till the 90s and been trying to catch up since. There have been so many good ones... I agree on The Destiny Trilogy being a great read, fail in love with Vanguard series but if I had to pick one: The Prime Directive. With many close seconds.

Happy New Year everybody!

Hi all, my name is Bella and I'm a huge Star Trek fan. I haven't read any of the books but I bought my first one this week, so I will be diving headlong into the books pretty soon :)

Hi, my name is Eleanor. I grew up reading the TOS books (Diane Duane, Janet Kagan, John M Ford, and Barbara Hambly are my favourite ST authors) and I'm friends with Bella who made the previous post. I hadn't read any Trek in the last few years since TOS/Rihannsu: The Empty Chair, but I wanted to recommend stuff to Bella and went back and looked at it and I just got sucked into TOS The Lost Years by JM Dillard and ordered TOS Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno.

I never really watched Voyager or Enterprise, but I have a lot of good memories of TOS, TNG, and DS9. And of course I saw the reboot.

Welcome Eddie, Bella, and Eleanor! :-)

Glad to hear you're a TOS fan Eleanor! The next few months are almost solid TOS releases, so you'll have lots of goodies to read.

Hi I am new, I work for Trek.fm as the book reviewer and co-host the Literary Treks podcast on the site, about books and comics. I love Trek books and have been reading them for years

Welcome Matthew! :-)

Seems we have quite a few Trek-lit bloggers around. I'll be giving your podcast a listen!

Andrea wrote: "Welcome Matthew! :-)

Seems we have quite a few Trek-lit bloggers around. I'll be giving your podcast a listen!"

Thank you! I hope you like it!

Ok, now onto the nerdy questions you can only ask other trekkies...

Who is your favourite Captain to read?

I only ask because I like reading about Kirk more than say Picard, yet, when I watch Star Trek I like Picard more than Kirk.
If asked in general who my fav captain was, I'd say Jean Luc!, then Janeway, then...maybe Kirk?

I'm not 100% sure why this is, maybe because all of the books I've read with Kirk have lots of action; shooting phasers and vulcan chopping people in the neck, that kinda thing. It's funny, I like reading books full of action but don't really enjoy similar movies or TV. I've been reading a lot of Westerns lately, which are sometimes just a bloodbath full of violence and death. But, I avoid watching things full of violence. Guess, seeing is different than imagining?

It's also strange that I would consider myself more like Picard, I love tea (not earl grey, yuck)...yet, feel very little connection to him when reading?

Anybody else find a similar disconnect?

No responses....I feel like my communicator badge is not working. I tapped it. I really did.

Probably just some intergalactic magnetic force interference or something :)

Bookworm wrote: "No responses....I feel like my communicator badge is not working. I tapped it. I really did.

Probably just some intergalactic magnetic force interference or something :)"

I'm going to move your question up a level so it's more visible :-)

I love reading about Dax so far. Then again she's always one of my favorites.

Now in the traditional vein of captains (and if you don't want to count the latest timeline with Destiny), I would say Picard is my favorite. I've enjoyed his character development and solid leadership.

I'm just reading my first book with Dax as captain! I only knew her from DS9, in the TV series!

I only joined this group yesterday. I've been a member of Goodreads for several years now but this is the first group I've joined.

I've been a fan of ST since the OS first came out on TV here in the UK. I only started reading ST books a few years ago when I became a member of BookMooch & found I could get books from all over the world that are not usually available in the shops here. Since then I must have read 100s of ST books from all the series.

Just lately I've been able to get some books from our local library that I'd not read before & didn't even know existed! Books like the Myriad Universes collection & ST Corps of Engineering! Just a few days ago I finished the first of these, (Echoes & Refractions), that I came across in the library. I found the Alternate Timelines rather disconcerting! I'd never read a book on alternate timelines before though I'd seen a few episodes in DS9.

I've just begun my 2nd book in the Myriad Universes collection "Infinity's Prism". I've already finished the 1st of the 3 books it contains!

Welcome David!

Glad to hear the Myriad Universes books are interesting. Though I haven't read any books from that series, I have read the first Mirror Universes book and enjoyed it.

I love the fact that libraries and used bookstores exist so that we can get those hard to find and out of print books. :-)

Thanks, Andrea! :) Thanks to book sharing sites like BookMooch I've been able to get hold of books I wouldn't have been able to get hold of otherwise!

I've registered all my books on here so you will be able to see all the ST books I've read as well as other SciFi books.

Hello everyone! I'm Carlissa.

I've been a Trek fan since TOS and have enjoyed all the series since then. I used to read the books all the time, but for some reason I stopped reading them a few years ago. I am now getting back into them and trying to catch up on all the books that I bought years ago but never read. I just finished reading the Voyager ebook Full Circle and I have started on it's sequel Unworthy.

Welcome Carlissa!

I have been really enjoying the Voyager reboot by Beyer. Full Circle was awesome and read like two books in one.

You should check out our podcast of Literary Treks where we talk to Beyer at trek.fm

Welcome, Carlissa. Hope you are enjoying your reading!