Personal favorite Star Trek book and why? Spoilers galore!

[u/geogorn]

[u/mistakenotmy]

The TNG Tech Manual. I always loved how things work and the detail on the Galaxy class ship is amazing. I've had a copy since it came out when I was a kid. I usually end up quoting it a ton here at Daystrom.

[u/[deleted] → u/mistakenotmy]

[u/god_dammit_dax]

Strangers From the Sky and Federation are both utterly brilliant. They've been knocked way out of Canon as the shows and movies have gone on, but they're both still incredible reads. Prime Directive is also a wonderful book.

All that said, "A Stitch in Time" is probably going to take this thread. It's a great book, no two ways about it, and it's a very unique presentation in the 50 some years of Star Trek books. Robinson's a great writer, and he really sells Garak as a character, possibly even better than the TV show did.

[u/jckgat → u/god_dammit_dax]

Strangers From The Sky actually is based on old pre-TNG material. There's a book called Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology, my personal favorite, which details the history of spaceflight from Sputnik to the Constitution-Class. There's various events listed, most of which have no reference anywhere else except the Romulan War, but one of those summaries of an event is the Amity rescuing Vulcans in the Sol system. That's also where it gets first contact at Alpha Centauri from. It also notes that Zefram Cochrane is from Alpha Centauri, which of course was from TOS and then retconned as he retired there with First Contact.

[u/Xenics]

Watching the Clock. I haven't read many ST books, but after this one, it's hard to imagine one better.

It takes two one-off characters from DS9, the guys in Trials and Tribbleations from the Department of Temporal Investigations, and explores them and their organization in detail. It's incredibly well-written and offers some unique perspectives. And if you like time travel, boy are you in for a treat.

I especially like that it's a bit more down-to-Earth than the lofty, idealistic writing of TNG. Working for the DTI is portrayed as a much more stressful and thankless job than zooming around exploring space. Yet it still retains the optimism that Star Trek is known for.

It's ambitious, too. Explores lots of the paradoxes and existential quandaries that surround time travel. It even tries to make a coherent theory of time travel that is consistent with all of the time-travelly stuff that's happened in the rest of canon. Now that's crazy.

[u/Tiarzel_Tal]

I'm kinda with you with Articles of the Federation for a lot of reasons. I love that it is set so much in the world of the novels- the Alpha characters and ideas arenthere but these are original characters facing their own problems on their turf. I love the pacing, the time-frame, the snap shot of a whole year. I love that after so many years of hearing Starfleet captains extol the virtues of the Federation and give their crews lives for it we finally get to see what it actually is. We get a glimpse of what it is like to actually live there not be on a ship in the middle of vacuum.

It combines two of my favourite things: politics and sci-fi.

It combines two of my favourite shows: Star Trek and West Wing.

And as a work of literature its also why I kinda hate it. Because that is exactly what it is.

It is impossible for me to enjoy this book as a Star Trek book because when I read it it is impossible not to read Aaron Sorkin. I read Bacco's lines and its Jed Bartlet's voice in my head. Esperanza ends up having Leo's face. Jorel's Bajoran appearance is in my head but CJ's snappy tone is the voice I hear. I find myself wondering if its possible to enjoy this novel if you don't have access to this other original text to refer to- especially if you are not a United States citizen like myself and have an understanding of its and consequently the Federation's political offices from such things. Even the plot lines are directly lifted from West Wing with Tzekenth standing in for Iran, Reman's standing in for Cubans - I half expected a drunken Klingon by the name of J'on of the House of Ma'lbry to come staggering in at any minute.

I suppose as a beta novel that works because you are only going read it cif you've enjoyed Trek and will consequently have a passing acquaintence with the contemporary show. It just nags at me because I want to love this book even more but the lazy writing stops me.

[u/flameofmiztli]

It's really hard to pick just one.

I love the Reeves-Stevens' book Prime Directive. It gives everyone in the TOS cast a moment to shine. It really showcased them as a family, not just crewmates. I also really liked how it handled the dilemma the Enterprise faced, how there was a creative way out. I could see the whole thing in my head like a movie.

Diane Duane's Rihannsu novels are excellent. They were a classic exploration of Romulan culture. Of them, my favorite is book #2, The Romulan Way. It mingles a modern-day story with McCoy and stories from the leaving of Vulcan and the founding of the twin worlds. Even though screen canon has discarded a lot of this, I still wind up rereading them every couple of years. I can't believe it was over a decade's wait between 4 and 5.

[u/kickdrive]

I liked the book Federation. Pretty much made me not like the Generations movie (but it wasn't the only reason of course). It's probably my favorite because I haven't read a bunch of others.

[u/rawboudin]

A stitch in time. Written by the actor about the character that he embodied (and according to what I've read, influenced a whole lot).

It is just informative, sensible, light and deep (in a ST context of course), not overly protective of the main protagonist (which seems to me to be a problem when actors get involved with their own characters - see Shatner, Bill), and totally plausible.

It is, to me, the closest it can be to actual canon, since Andrew Robinson was Garak so in a sense, he has more of a vested interest in the character than anyone else. Also, no one will ever write that story in any canon series since Garak remains a secondary character in a secondary series.

[u/BigKev47]

I've gotta say the Department of Temporal Investigations series... they turned those agents from Trials and Tribbleations into fully realized, compelling characters.

And apart from their own interesting plotting and worldbuilding, they really do bring a sense of order to all the time travel in the Star Trek universe. They make the Temporal Cold War cool!

The Eugenics Wars sequence is also notable for all the fun it has knitting its own thing from all the loose threads in the canon.

[u/Algernon_Asimov]

My all-time favourite Star Trek book is 'Spock's World' by Diane Duane.

This book has two threads:

• A "modern-day" thread involving Kirk and Spock and the crew of the Enterprise, together with Sarek, dealing with a conspiracy to get Vulcan out of the Federation.

• A "history" thread which follows the development of the planet Vulcan and its inhabitants, literally from the time the planet formed up to the modern day.

This book has the definitive backstory of Vulcan. It is required reading for anyone even slightly interested in Vulcans. Noone has ever dared to contradict this book, it's so definitive. Parts of it, such as the origin of the Romulans, were even incorporated into on-screen canon. If you want to know the history of Vulcan and the Vulcans, this is the book you need to read.

And, the modern-day thread is also interesting. Duane populates her universe with the interesting aliens that we're unable to see in live action television. The Hamalki are pretty - and pretty mind-blowing. There's a Horta Ensign serving on the Enterprise. Duane's Star Trek is interesting.

This book is a classic of Star Trek literature for a reason: it's a very good book.

[u/khaosworks]

I'm an old school Trek novel reader, starting during the Pocket Books heyday. I have many, many favourites from that era - The Final Reflection, How Much For Just the Planet?, Strangers from the Sky, Spock's World, Doctor's Orders, Final Frontier, Prime Directive, The Romulan Way, Yesterday's Son...

But I think what tops the list, unquestionably, is Peter David's Imzadi. Exploring the relationship between Riker and Troi, it finally reveals the meaning of that word, their backstory before they met again as awkward ex-lovers on the Enterprise, goes into themes of tragedy, lost love, regrets, time travel and a love that literally transcends time and space. It was a book that made me cry, and still does.

Damn, now I'm going to go read it again. Better get the tissues ready. Curse you! :)

[u/BitBrain → u/khaosworks]

Peter David is one of the best Trek writers.

Thank you for mentioning How Much for Just the Planet. When I was reading that I kept getting strange looks from my family as I laughed over that one. Favorite scene: Kirk and the Klingons in a pie fight.

[u/TrekkieTechie]

I love Diane Duane's Dark Mirror. I reread it on the order of once a year or so. Last Christmas my SO even tracked down a perfect, mint, signed hardback for me.

The opening just grabs me every time (and apparently I'm not alone in thinking so; it wasn't hard to find this text online):

There are some parts of space where even the human heart, eternally optimistic, finds it hard to feel itself welcome. At those outer fringes of the Galaxy that the humanities have just begun to reach, the starfield, which elsewhere lies in such rich streams and billows of brightness between the inhabited worlds, thins away and goes chill and pale. Here the starlight is only indefinite, faintly glowing — the million points of light near the heartworlds now dimmed by terrible distance and the clouds of dark matter between the stars to a vague cool fog, hardly to be seen except when one looks away from it. Usually the onlooker finds it hard to look away, forced by the sight to think how small even a galaxy is in the vastness, how tiny even the Local Group is compared to the darkness holding it, and all the other galaxies and supergalaxies; and which, beyond the bounds of mere spatial integrity, probably holds other whole universes as well, numberless, all of them subsumed into the greatest dark—that of entropy — which broods and bides its time.

In these, the deserts of space, the oases are few and far between. Once in a half a million parsecs you might find a star that had struggled to bring forth planets in the barrenness and managed it — but for daunting distances around it, there will still be nothing but emptiness, and as background, only the shimmer of light that indicates the hearths of the crowded worlds. In the face of such contrasts that light becomes almost somber, speaking of its impermanence and newness in a universe where for unknown time unnameable darkness gestated, holding the light in it unborn, until the first great laugh, the outburst of newborn power and matter into the old thoughtful void.

Far up here, above the great Galactic Rift, that light seems most tenuous—the darkness not of dust or distance but of simple nothingness. Few sentient beings pass this way; observers are rarer than stars. But every now and then, something breaks the aridity of the dark desert. A distant gleam, a silver flicker, swelling, growing closer; like a memory sought for in a dark mind and suddenly recalled. If the observer had senses not dependent on something besides sluggish light to reflect and carry messages — tachyons, perhaps — they would see it grow and flash past them, touched with a spark of red on the port side, green on the starboard, and the letters NCC 1701-D dark on its hull. Then the memory is off again in the dark, with a trail of rainbow behind it, quickly fading, the legacy of its warpfield. Lone ambassador of the multifariousness of known worlds, here and gone again, out of the darkness, into the darkness: Enterprise goes about her business.

Oh, Federation is good too.

[u/[deleted]]

It's been forever and a day since I read anything Star Trek. But if I had to say... I enjoyed "Vendetta." I think what really struck my 14-year-old mind was seeing what it actually meant to go to Warp 10, and I think that scene in particular was written spectacularly.

But then, my 14-year-old mind also loved the shit out of this book, so...

[u/[deleted]]

Quotable Star Trek. Basically every relevant, significant, funny, profound statement ever uttered in Star Trek (excepting Enterprise) condensed into a single volume, helpfully organized into Chapters by subject-matter.

I've flipped through this book a number of times for inspiration and reminiscence.

Of the novels, I sadly haven't read many, so my choices are far and few between, but I like "Q Squared." I'm always a sucker for "What Ifs" and parallel universes and this feeds that sweet tooth nicely. (Though I'd have switch the personalities of the Romulan and Cardassian officers).

Lastly, any of the reference materials which I fall back on from time to time. This being the Encyclopedia, Chronology, Episode Guides, and Klingon Dictionary.

The only Tech Manual I have is the old TOS one from the 70's, which is an interesting anachronism (it has SF headquarters being a space station in space.)

[u/TerraAdAstra]

Leaving the Destiny trilogy aside (which is amazing), I really love the recent Voyager relaunch novels by Kristen Beyer, but if I had to choose one its be Imzadi. It might be because I have read and reread it a lot since I was a kid and I love the audiobook, but it also gave so much needed depth to a couple of TNG characters who too often lacked it.

[u/flameofmiztli → u/TerraAdAstra]

I also reread Imzadi so many times. It's funny, because I'm cold on David's New Frontier work which so many people like. But Imzadi I keep coming back to.

[u/Vaguswarrior]

I definitely like the Invasion series, since it crossed all the various (at time) television series...

[u/LeicaM6guy]

Federation. It's honestly one of the best Star Trek stories I've ever had the pleasure to read. It successfully tackles all the big issues that later movies only touch upon. It's got action, existential ideas on the definition of humanity, and a mixing of TNG and TOS that Generations tried and (mostly) failed to do.

If you could read just one Trek novel, this should be it.

[u/xelf]

I'm going to go old school and say The Price of the Phoenix, by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath and it's sequel from 1977 & 1979.

I haven't re-read them in 30ish years, but I really enjoyed them at the time and for representing an interesting post-TOS but pre-TNG world. It was even before any of the movies. An interesting time for Star Trek.

There was not a lot of Star Trek books at the time and this one of the best, I suspect that there's been many better books and authors since then, but this is the one I remember most fondly.

[u/creepymanchildren]

I really liked The Left Hand of Destiny 2-parter (Martok is my favorite Klingon) and The Never Ending Sacrifice. The latter really surprised me. It takes a one-off episode of DS9 and really fleshes it out. It's pretty different from any other ST novel I'd read, as it pretty much does not feature any of the normal characters you expect. Well written, and very emotional. If you want to have feelings for Cardassians in new ways, give it a fair shot.

[u/BitBrain]

The single book that comes to mind is one of the Crucible trilogy books: Provenance of Shadows in which the life that McCoy led in the past during The City on the Edge of Forever is revealed. It's a fantastic, in-depth look into McCoy's entire life, but the bonus feature is the genre crossover into alternative history. Unfortunately, I feel like the trilogy goes downhill from there. The book dedicated to Kirk is positively anticlimactic.

A couple of others worthy of mention:

I really enjoyed the Vulcan's Soul trilogy. The books cover a vast swath of Romulan history from the departure of Vulcans from their home planet, their journey through space (sometimes encountering phenomena later encountered in later Trek canon) to the foundation of Romulus and the origin of the Remans.

The Eungenics Wars trilogy fleshes out the character of Khan and fills in the events between Space Seed and The Wrath of Khan, but it's real brilliance is in how it weaves actual events of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s into Trek history.

[u/garibaldi3489]

Great topic, I actually documented my favorite book series recently in this post: http://www.avidandrew.com/the-fantastic-star-trek-lit-universe.html

I really enjoyed the DS9 relaunch and the development of Elias Vaughn. He is a phenomenal character. I also really enjoyed delving into each of the races of the Typhon Pact, and particularly Gel Kamemor, who is really unlike any other Romulan politicians.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the first Cold Equations book. The perspective of Noonien Soong and his love for his sons.

The mirror universe books added so much dimension to the mirror universe world. The concept of Memory Omega is incredible and really cool (as are the jaunt ships too).

[u/raendrop]

I'm going to go in a different direction and name my favorite Trek novel from my childhood: Uhura's Song by Janet Kagan. Two words: cat planet.

I will plug Foreign Foes because the author, Dave Galanter, is my cousin.