A Guide to Star Trek: The Original Series Novels

[rachelmanija]

I notice that many people have gotten curious about the original series after seeing the movie. There are also some quite good novels, many by writers known for original sf/fantasy. Here's a brief, non-comprehensive guide:

The Spirit of Wonder

Diane Duane did the best job of capturing the joy I felt when watching the series. You want to serve on her Enterprise – and her Enterprise probably has a place for you. Her crew is full of aliens, and her stories are all about the longing to breathe in the air of a strange new world.

Spock’s World intersperses a mission to Vulcan with a series of heartbreaking vignettes from Vulcan’s history; the alternation of the intense emotional content of the historical chapters with the more contained emotions of legal trial in the main story works beautifully. Spock's World (Star Trek)

In The Wounded Sky, the main character is a female giant transparent spider physicist, and the story is about the ultimate in exploring strange new worlds, a journey both inward and outward. Poignant and beautiful. The Wounded Sky

Enterprise: The First Adventure, by Vonda N. McIntyre. An epic of alien contact, featuring nice roles for all the main characters (even Janice Rand, who is mentored by Uhura), plus backstage comedy via an interstellar circus (!) and a very angsty and interesting original Vulcan character. Her new crew realistically fails to mesh, then gradually bonds; her aliens and descriptions of zero-g are lovely. Star Trek Enterprise The First Adventure

John M. Ford, as always a category unto himself

The Final Reflection might as well be an original sf novel, as most of the characters are Klingons – and much more sophisticated and interesting Klingons than actually appeared on the show. A beautifully written and powerful story about power, politics, identity, and the costs and rewards of the choices we make. I can’t be more specific because I have no idea what was going on for a great deal of the story (let me know if you do!), but that’s true of most of Ford’s novels. The Final Reflection (Star Trek, No 16)

How Much For Just The Planet? A musical comedy. No, really. No, really. And it’s actually funny! It’s kind of a parody, but a very fond one. Kirk and the rest end up on a planet in which everyone acts like they’re in some old movie. Uhura lands in a film noir, and Kirk in a chorus line. There are hilarious film strips and an attack milkshake. Oh, just read it. How Much for Just the Planet? (Star Trek, No 36)

What if the Series Hadn't Been Totally Sexist?

My Enemy, My Ally, by Diane Duane. A Romulan woman commander develops a prickly friendship with Kirk when they’re forced to adventure together for reasons of political intrigue. Lots of convincing detail about Romulan culture. My Enemy, My Ally There are sequels that aren't quite as good.

The Entropy Effect, by Vonda N. McIntyre. Time travel, Angsty!Fencing!Sulu, cool alien characters, several cool original female characters, and a rather slashy Kirk/Spock relationship: what’s not to love? The Entropy Effect (Star Trek)

Uhura’s Song, by Janet Kagan. This is another one that’s almost an original sf novel. When a plague hits, the cure involves going on a quest with a bunch of catlike aliens on their home world. There’s an original female character whom a lot of people call a Mary Sue, but all I can say is that I only wish Mary Sue was usually portrayed as Buckaroo Banzai, Trickster Archetype. Sweet and fun. Uhura's Song (Star Trek No 21)

Crossroad, by Barbara Hambly. A remarkably dark and often darkly funny story involving Lovecraftian horrors in spaaaaace. Christine Chapel is a major character, and her (non) relationship with Spock is developed convincingly and poignantly. Crossroad (Star Trek, Book 71)

Not My First Choice, But Worthwhile

Star Trek, Log One, by Alan Dean Foster. Based on the animated series, this is nothing really special but nicely written.

The other novels by Barbara Hambly and Diane Duane are worth reading if you enjoy the series, as are Jean Lorrah’s. I note that Laurence Yep, Peter David, Joe Haldeman and Greg Bear all wrote novels for the original series; I don’t remember them, but they should be at least decent. I vaguely remember enjoying A. C. Crispin’s books.

Run Fast, Run Far

All the novels by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath are unreadable, though the “Phoenix” ones do have Kirk naked (and tortured) for most of the book. Avoid, even if that’s a selling point.

The Tears of the Singers, by Melinda Snodgrass. Oh God. Uhura meets a tousle-haired, temperamental asshole of a hot genius musician with a heart condition that will kill him if he gets excited. A planet of baby seal aliens are being clubbed to death by Klingons for the jewels they weep at the moment of death, only their song is holding the universe together. Kirk drafts the musician because he’s the only one who can translate the song, and he dies operatically in Uhura’s arms after saving the world. A baby seal alien spontaneously sheds a single perfect tear of woe, which Uhura makes into a necklace. The Tears of the Singers (Star Trek, No 19)

Did anyone read Spock, Messiah? Was it as dire as it sounds? SPOCK, MESSIAH! (Star Trek)

Comments

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

YAY! I was thinking I should write up info on some of my fave novels--and now I can linky to yoU!

*hands you the internetz*

(Only one I'd add off the top of my head is the Hambly Trek/Here Come the Brides Crossover!) Do you know it?

*goes to linky linky link*

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I do, but since I was totally unfamiliar with Here Come The Brides, I had the vague sense of things going over my head. I know a lot of people love it.

I'd love to read your recs TOO, though.

[nestra.livejournal.com]

Ishmael! Awesome. I also remember liking her Trek novel "Ghostwalker", but it's been a while since I reread it.

[raanve]

I've only read one Trek 'novel' - the the novelisation of The Motion Picture, when I was in about fifth grade. After that, I didn't have much interest in reading Trek novels.

This list, though, makes me want to jump right in. This might make good airplane reading this week!

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

What's great about many of these is how the voices/visions of the writers, while not (in my mind) contradicting canon, build on it to develop a much richer characterization and universe (often, the stories focus more on exploration, not total military action, though there are some battles).

Diane Duane, especially, is my GODDESS!!!!!

*coffs and tiptoes away*

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I used to have vast numbers of Trek novels, numbers of which I lent to a friend out of state, and she later got divorced and the box vanished. *sob*

But I replaced my Hambly Trek novels, and some of the others.

I remember there was at least one with McCoy's daughter in it. The A.C. Crispin ones had a couple with a son for Spock--YESTERDAY'S SON, and I forget the title of the other.

Jean Lorrah's Trek books amuse me for having cameos by Blake's 7 characters.

[nestra.livejournal.com]

I remember there was at least one with McCoy's daughter in it.

"Crisis on Centaurus" has her.

The A.C. Crispin ones had a couple with a son for Spock--YESTERDAY'S SON, and I forget the title of the other.

"Time for Yesterday". I need to reread those.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I need to reacquire some of these! I purged my shelves when the early Pocket books were mostly all still in print, and were available in huge stacks at every secondhand bookstore-- I only kept about ten of my very favorites.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed the Peter David ones (and in fact I appear as an Admiral in Rock and a Hard Place, so maybe I'm just biased).

One of my absolute favorites was Barbara Hambly's Ishmael, which was Star Trek meets Here Come the Brides.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I put up a "Best Star Trek Novels" list on Amazon a long time ago. You can find it here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Best-Star-Trek-Novels/lm/2N5WZJEBRX4FY

[elmocho.livejournal.com]

Vonda N. McIntyre also did the novelizations to The Wrath of Khan and Search For Spock. They deal with far many more of the characters on Regulus I. The third-person-limited Ceti-eeled-Chekhov POV is pretty good, too.

[lferion]

I read 'Spock Messiah!' when it came out. I remember not making a whole lot of sense of it at the time. I didn't keep it when I was persuaded to cull the herd a couple of years ago.

Oh the other hand, Blish's 'Spock Must Die!' holds up remarkably well as a straight forward adventure tale that could very easily have been an actual TOS episode.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

The Tears of the Singers, by Melinda Snodgrass. Oh God. Uhura meets a tousle-haired, temperamental asshole of a hot genius musician with a heart condition that will kill him if he gets excited. A planet of baby seal aliens are being clubbed to death by Klingons for the jewels they weep at the moment of death, only their song is holding the universe together. Kirk drafts the musician because he’s the only one who can translate the song, and he dies operatically in Uhura’s arms after saving the world. A baby seal alien spontaneously sheds a single perfect tear of woe, which Uhura makes into a necklace.

I. REMEMBER. THAT. ONE.

[sorceressakemi.livejournal.com]

A planet of baby seal aliens are being clubbed to death by Klingons for the jewels they weep at the moment of death, only their song is holding the universe together.

That sounds remarkably like a major plot point of Joan D. Vinge's The Snow Queen.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was getting that too. Something tells me that TSQ is much, much better. Also, the mental images of TTotS are not only full of fluffy white baby harp seals, they also have lots of lens flares, rainbow prisms, and a death scene with a brilliant orange and pink sunset (Uhura holds him as he dies and the sun sets and a baby harp seal looks on and cries a single perfect tear and OH GOD LENS FLARE RAINBOWS EVERYWHERRRRREEEE). And possibly pastel unicorns.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

I also recommend Duane's My Enemy, My Ally- Kirk encounters a female Romulan commander (related to the one from TOS) who is every inch his equal.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Your recommendations are just about exactly the same as mine, except for Crossroad, which I haven't read. Nonetheless I have far too many comments.

I think I understand The Final Reflection reasonably well. (The Ford I really want an explanation for is "Fugue State.")

Spock, Messiah! is not as bad as it sounds, but that is not to say it is good; it sounds insanely awful and as I recall is only medium awful. Which is not a recommendation.

I agree with lferion that Blish's Spock Must Die! is pretty good. Blish also did short-story versions of all the original series episodes, much as Foster did for the animated series, but I don't recall that he added much to what's on the screen (it's been donkey's years since I read them).

As for Foster, I enjoyed the Log series, but I should note that after number six or seven the books are each one long story instead of three short ones: as far as I can tell he novelized single episodes by adding lots of original material. Which would be fine except that the original material is often not very good.

If one reads and enjoys My Enemy, My Ally and/or Spock's World, Duane's The Romulan Way is also worth reading, as it does for the Romulans what Spock's World does for the Vulcans. However, I would advise avoiding the trilogy which follows that: the first two books are good but the third really falls apart.

I haven't read the Haldeman books (one by Joe, one by Jack) in a long time but I recall them being decent - probably not better than that. The Bear I vaguely recall as not doing very much interesting with the Trek characters.

Finally, another book for the "run away!" category is Sonni Cooper's Black Fire, which is a lengthy exercise in Spockophilia. And if that description sounds appealing, let me assure you it really isn't. I mean, unless you are prepared to put up with a lot to see Spock become a space pirate with an earring and everything.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Yes! Someone else remembers the Spock-as-pirate one! It was one of the ones that reeked of fanfic, but not in the _good_ way.

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

I never realized that "Tears of the Singers" was such a blatant Tiptree knockoff. Losing something in the translation, though.

I vaguely remember reading "Spock, Messiah" and finding it pretty dire but enjoying it, but there wasn't much Trek fic out then and I was not picky.

A rather good Spock-centered one is "Black Fire" by Sonni Cooper. (At least I liked it, though it's not to be taken very seriously.)

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

Oh, and here it's also a Snow Queen knockoff ("Tears of the Singers"). I wonder if this is also a folkloristic motif, since it keeps reappearing (fluffy baby harp seals optional)?

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I had no idea Diane Duane wrote any of the novels! I suppose I should start checking them out.

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

They're really good, though I think she shouldn't have had Chekov born on the moon (not Russia). It's buying into the idea that nobody could really be a sincere patriot of an enemy nation. (It would have been more interesting to point out that Chekov is plainly Jewish.)

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

The babysealophilia sidetracked me from what I was originally going to write here, and it walked right out the door until now: I think a good nasty novel could be written about The Making of the "Phoenix" Novels. I imagine it as something like "Arsenic and Old Lace," though this might be exceedingly unfair to Marshak & Culbreath personally. But you just have to wonder what was going on in their minds.

Did you read the short story they wrote in which all the crew members (except Spock) change sex? "The Procrustean Petard."

[tavella.livejournal.com]

I read Spock, Messiah, but can't actually recall a thing about it. I don't think it was *dreadful*, at least not Price of the Phoenix dreadful.

Anyone remember _Black Fire_, the one with Spock as an intersteller pirate (complete with earring!)

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I remember it as being better written than some of the others available at the time, which could be why I overlooked its silliness (very evident on reflection). However canon Trek has done more than its share of dressing Spock up in outrageously out-of-character ways, perhaps in part to see if it sticks or if he stays...Spock. That was how I read it, though probably it wasn't meant that way.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

For me, the Rihannsu ARE the Romulans. The canon Romulans are...well, some guys with pointy ears onscreen.

I never quite forgave the franchise for not making Duane's Romulans canon from TNG on.

[mkellis.livejournal.com]

I vote Dwellers in the Crucible for Margaret Wander Bonanno for being both simultaneously boring (well to me when I was 14 or 15) and yet going taking an unusual approach and dealing alternate sexualities (via the Deltans) and a very obviously lesbian relationship between two of the hostages. And yes, one is a vulcan. (No on screen sex for them, but by the end of the book they were at least as dependent on one another as Kirk and Spock, if not moreso.)

If nothing else, it's stayed with me, along with Uhura's Song and most of the other titles above. When I purged my old Trek collection for space, I kept the Diane Duane novels, the Ford novels, and I think the Kagan. That's it.

Duane also convinced me all redshirts should be Horta, at which point the Redshirt Death Rate would suddenly drop through the floor.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Duane also convinced me all redshirts should be Horta, at which point the Redshirt Death Rate would suddenly drop through the floor.

Yes! She did such good things with using really interesting aliens not played by human actors.

And I don't know that I read Dwellers in the Crucible, and now kind of want to...

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Diane Duane does brilliant things. I love how the Rihannsu developed their culture basically on mailing-lists as they traveled-- that struck me as wonderfully making-fan-culture-at-the-time-in-the-story, but also plausible and cool.

...I really liked The Tears of the Singers. I was, um, eleven. Eleven-year-old-Gaudior had a thing for baby seals...

Now I'm wondering about my other favorite Star Trek novel at the time-- The Three-Minute Universe, by Barbara Paul. It featured Enterprise crew getting kidnapped by a race of aliens who repel all human senses (smell nauseating, you can see their organs through their skin, voices pierce human eardrums, acid burning touch, I don't think anyone found out how they taste). As I recall, it had some good Uhura bits. Anyone remember it/have thoughts on the quality?

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Rachel is entirely correct about the awfulness of the Marshak and Culbreath novels. However, I was reminded today that they edited two volumes of Star Trek: The New Voyages, which contained short stories by various writers with introductions by series cast members and others. The first volume has some fun stories, and none by Marshak and Culbreath (I think they have one in the second volume, which I can't remember if I read or not).

[madam-silvertip.livejournal.com]

They weren't stupid women, even if their original plotlines were tacky in execution at least. They were dealing with some serious issues in the "Phoenix" novels, though in an abysmally incompetent way, and had some sense of story. It's just the writing...and some of the je ne sais quoi (the first-aid kit in a spraycan; the naked tortured Kirk; the Vulcan angst...oh, one could go on).

So it's not surprising that they had some eye for other people's work. I remember some OK stuff in the second "New Voyages" (the one I read).

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

Tell me you've read the Diane Carey novels. Her and Diane Duane between them do Trek proud.

Thanks for the list! I am going to hit up my library for some of these I haven't read (and some I have read, like in middle school).

[maukatt.livejournal.com]

Wow, you just named all my favorite Trek novels from Back In The Day! Final Reflection is excellent; the cat-people one is one I'm especially fond of; and as for How Much For Just The Planet?, I was laughing so hard througout the entire book that I couldn't see the pages; it took me three times as long to read because of that. (I wonder if I'd enjoy them so much if I read them now, twenty years later... hmmm.....)

I haven't read Crossroads, or Tears of the Singers, but I've read all the rest you mentioned. Indeed, I own most of them... somewhere, in storage.... And yes, you've described them all perfectly. *g*

But as for those early books (Spock Must Die, Spock: Messiah; all of the Marshak/Culbreath books, including the D&S-tastic "Phoenix" novels; etc), I'll tell you why they sold, and why I and my fellow Trekkers/Trekkies bought them: they were the only original Trek material available! There were the TV episode novelizations, of both the live and the animated series, and there were the occasional collections of short stories, usually edited by Marshak/Culbreath, but that was it! When you were a devoted Trekker/ie back then, you were desperate for continuations of Trekdom. Anything that came out was not only eagerly snapped up, but was, if not treasured, at least read again and again.

It wasn't until the advent of those newer novelizations you've listed up there that the quality dramatically improved, and we could now be choosy. And because we could be choosy, quality continued to improve, and there was more to choose from.

Now, of course, those original novels are fun to read for "Horrify Your Friends And Neighbors!" purposes... kind of like John Ringo's "Paladin of Shadows" series.

("OH JOHN RINGO NO"!!!) (http://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html?thread=760769#t760769)

-LOL-

[naomikritzer]

I loved "Uhura's Song" and "My Enemy, My Ally." I was also quite fond of "The First Adventure," "Ishmael," "The Romulan Way," and (of course) "How Much for Just the Planet," which was the one ST novel I held on to when I sold or donated the rest of my (embarrassingly extensive) collection.

I tracked down "Kobayashi Maru" for Molly after we saw the reboot movie, and she liked it a lot. (I remembered it as decent; it turns out that none of the ST characters took that test in quite the conventional way. Scotty McGyvers his way out of the unwinnable situation or something like that, and -- my favorite option -- Sulu refuses to answer the distress call, saying that even if it's a legit call and not a trap, it's not worth potentially starting a war for a slim chance of saving a handful of people. Everyone tells their personal story to the others while on a dead and drifting shuttlecraft, or something like that.)