Shatnerverse (TOS/TNG): The Return by William Shatner (and the Reeves-Stevens) Review Thread
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(Copy of post I’ve shared on my Facebook page, GoodReads, etc.)
I had been wanting to dive back into reading the Star Trek novels again for a little while now. I already had read a few over the couple years, mostly the newer novels based on the television series currently being produced on CBS All Access/Paramount+, "Star Trek: Discovery" and "Star Trek: Picard".
But there are literally hundreds of Star Trek novels out there, from the first released soon after the original airing of the first "Star Trek" television series (Bantam Books' James Blish novel, Spock Must Die! (1970), plus the Blish written--along with his wife, J.A. Lawrence--short story length original series episode adaptations released as Star Trek (1) through Star Trek 12 from 1967-1977) through another twelve original novels published by Bantam between 1976 and 1981, and the several hundred Star Trek novels subsequently published by Simon & Schuster, most under their Pocket Books and Gallery Books imprints, starting with their novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and their first original Star Trek novel, The Entropy Effect (1981) on through to the present day, encompassing not only the original Star Trek series characters but every subsequent spin-off series--Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, etc.--and many sub-series created exclusively to appear in the novels (such as Star Trek: New Frontier, Star Trek: Corps of Engineers, Star Trek: Titan, and Star Trek: Vanguard).
My introduction to the Star Trek novels was those early 1980s Pocket Books original series novels and movie novelizations. I became hooked on them and instantly started collecting any and all Star Trek novels. I was always a very slow reader though (plus I was also a major comic book collector, which took up even more of my reading time) so most of the Star Trek novels I bought went straight in a box or on a book shelf to be read later (whenever that might be).
Flash forward to today and, while I stopped buying the books in paperback or hardback "hard copies" years ago, I still have all of the ones I bought up to 2011 or 2012 or so, plus I have access to just about every one released since then via the public library, and Simon and Schuster also has a monthly "$0.99 each" ebooks sale promotion every month on a selection of their Star Trek books from over the years (which I've been taking advantage of to either fill in the novels I don't already have but also to get ebook versions of the ones I do).
Now, this is a long, roundabout way to getting to my real point of this post. For someone wishing to get into reading Star Trek novels now (or back into reading them), it can be a rather daunting thing to do, to decide what to read and where to start.
The easy answer (it would seem) is to say, "Well, which version do you like best?" The original series (Kirk, Spock, etc.)? The Next Generation? Deep Space Nine? Voyager? The current shows?
But even if you approach it that way, there are many paths to take. If you prefer the original series, do you read them in the order they originally came out in, starting way back with the Bantam books or first of the Pocket Books original novels? You could, but they are all for the most part "episodic" (so you don't have to read them all in that particular order. Plus, it would take you forever to get to the more newly released novels.
There are similar things to consider with the other Star Trek lines of novels based on the other series.
Me, my mind typically works chronologically. So, whatever path I start upon, I typically want to proceed either in the order the novels first came out in or, oftentimes, the order the stories are supposed to have occurred in. That can become a major project (which, fortunately, many others already like to do, post "timelines" of things like the hundreds of Star Trek novels.
However, I still have to decide where to start. (I face a similar issue with jumping back into the hundreds of Star Wars tie-in novels.)
For the time being, I've decided to go with two or three simultaneous "paths". The first, to continue reading catching up on the "Discovery" and "Picard" (and, starting in 2023, "Strange New Worlds") novels that have been released thus far (which, relatively speaking, isn't that many).
Second, "Star Trek: Picard" put me instantly back into a "Next Generation" mood. That, plus my desire to finally start to read Pocket Books "litverse" (the more tightly connected continuation of the then completed Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager series and their characters, published mostly from 2001 to 2017, plus a three part finale/conclusion titled Coda released in fall 2021), made me decide to jump back into the "Next Generation" novels, but not all the way back to the earliest ones. I've decided to start with the novels that pick up right after the movie Star Trek Generations leaves off (meaning, more or less, the start of the "Enterprise-E" stories).
I plan to also come up with other avenues to take (such as the original series, but mostly likely starting where Star Trek: The Motion Picture leaves off. Another path would be where I last left off with the "Star Trek: Enterprise" novels. And then there are also a range of really interesting looking "Lost Years" novels that take place chronologically between the original series movies and the start of "The Next Generation". (The problem is that I can make all of these sorts of plans but A) I remain to this day a very slow reader, and B ) I have loads of non Star Trek related books I want to read, too!)
Which brings me to the book I just finished reading (and also the one I just started on). Both of these are actual "re-reads" for me. From 1995 to 2006, famed James T. Kirk actor, William Shatner, co-wrote (along with veteran Star Trek novelists Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, although I suspect that the majority of the actual writing was by the Reeves-Stevens), ten original Star Trek novels (three trilogies plus the first of what had been planned to have been a fourth).
These were unofficially dubbed the "Shatnerverse" series of novels due not only to Shatner's involvement but that they (starting with the second novel) center around his character, Captain Kirk's, being revived/resurrected once again in the "Next Generation" era post Star Trek Generations and having additional adventures in that era alongside Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D/E. The rest of the Pocket Books novels ignores these Shatnerverse novels, treating them as a separate continuity.
Back when the first three of the Shatner Star Trek novels came out in 1995-1997 (The Ashes of Eden, The Return, and Avenger), I read them all at that time. (I think that's it. I can't recall Shatner's second trilogy, one featuring the Mirror Universe, but it's possible I read at least the first of those, as well.)
As The Return (1996) begins with Captain Kirk's resurrection by the Borg (allied with a revenge bent Romulan commander out to destroy the Federation) immediately after the events of Star Trek Generations, it was the next of my post-Generations novels to read (or, in this case, re-read). (I skipped Shatner's first novel, The Ashes of Eden because that one takes place mostly just after Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the last of the original series movies. Shatner's version of the end of that particular era.)
Both times that I've read The Return, I have enjoyed it. A bit more the first time I read it, probably (back when I was in my early to mid twenties(!)), but I still enjoy it today, for the most part. Of course, it, like any older Star Trek novel, has to be read with an understanding of what had come out up to that point, and that a lot of stuff has since been released both on television and in the movies since then (not to mention all of the novels that have come out after this). Some aspects will always seem "off" in older books like this because of this, especially ones that heavily feature the Borg. Aspects of the Borg, as presented in The Return, while still entertaining, don't entirely "match up with" things we've learned about them since the writing of this book. (For instance, there is a "central node" on the Borg home planet that they hope to use to permanently sever the Borg "Collective" that's never mentioned anywhere else, but at the same time they never once mention the Borg Queen featured in Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Star Trek: Picard". That's because The Return and First Contact both came out in 1996, and, presumably, Shatner and the Reeves-Stevens were not given any inside information on the plot of the then in production movie.)
There is also the negative reaction some fans to the whole idea of resurrecting Kirk in the TNG era, and how Shatner (naturally) focuses largely on him (although there is also a lot of time with Picard, Riker, and the rest of the TNG characters, plus, in "The Return", Dr. Julian Bashir from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I don't mind it all that much, although I did feel at some points like Picard and Riker where written a bit out of character to make them foils for Kirk and Ambassador Spock (who, spoilers, along with the very aged Admiral Leonard H. McCoy, are in this book).
Technically speaking, this isn't really an Enterprise-E story because this is so soon after Generations. As the book begins, Kirk's body hasn't been moved from Veridian III to Earth yet (allowing it to be stolen) and the crashed saucer section of the Enterprise-D hasn't only begun to have been disassembled for removal (which makes for one of the more interesting scenes in the book, a night time attack by unknown assailants bombing the saucer section and the nearby Starfleet work camp). And, for most of the novel, the Next Generation characters are split up. Picard and Dr. Crusher on a covert anti-Borg related mission together. Riker and Troi on Veridian III. Worf, Data, and LaForge on leave, awaiting their next assignments. They do eventually all come together again, but not until over halfway through the book.
I enjoyed re-reading The Return, primarily because Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (a married couple who had written many Star Trek novels both prior to and after their involvement with the "Shatnerverse" books and who also served as writers on the latter seasons of "Star Trek: Enterprise") are really good writers.
My first inclination was to give The Return three stars, but then remembered that GoodReads goes as high as five stars. A three out of five stars seemed a bit low to me, so I went ahead and gave it four out of five stars.
I've already started reading the next book, Avenger, and after only a couple chapters I'm already liking how Picard and the Enterprise-E crew (yes, Avenger explicitly takes place after First Contact) are being written. (Avenger focuses on a galaxy wide plague with no cure that threatens the survival of the Federation.)
—David Young
I had been wanting to dive back into reading the Star Trek novels again for a little while now. I already had read a few over the couple years, mostly the newer novels based on the television series currently being produced on CBS All Access/Paramount+, "Star Trek: Discovery" and "Star Trek: Picard".
But there are literally hundreds of Star Trek novels out there, from the first released soon after the original airing of the first "Star Trek" television series (Bantam Books' James Blish novel, Spock Must Die! (1970), plus the Blish written--along with his wife, J.A. Lawrence--short story length original series episode adaptations released as Star Trek (1) through Star Trek 12 from 1967-1977) through another twelve original novels published by Bantam between 1976 and 1981, and the several hundred Star Trek novels subsequently published by Simon & Schuster, most under their Pocket Books and Gallery Books imprints, starting with their novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and their first original Star Trek novel, The Entropy Effect (1981) on through to the present day, encompassing not only the original Star Trek series characters but every subsequent spin-off series--Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, etc.--and many sub-series created exclusively to appear in the novels (such as Star Trek: New Frontier, Star Trek: Corps of Engineers, Star Trek: Titan, and Star Trek: Vanguard).
My introduction to the Star Trek novels was those early 1980s Pocket Books original series novels and movie novelizations. I became hooked on them and instantly started collecting any and all Star Trek novels. I was always a very slow reader though (plus I was also a major comic book collector, which took up even more of my reading time) so most of the Star Trek novels I bought went straight in a box or on a book shelf to be read later (whenever that might be).
Flash forward to today and, while I stopped buying the books in paperback or hardback "hard copies" years ago, I still have all of the ones I bought up to 2011 or 2012 or so, plus I have access to just about every one released since then via the public library, and Simon and Schuster also has a monthly "$0.99 each" ebooks sale promotion every month on a selection of their Star Trek books from over the years (which I've been taking advantage of to either fill in the novels I don't already have but also to get ebook versions of the ones I do).
Now, this is a long, roundabout way to getting to my real point of this post. For someone wishing to get into reading Star Trek novels now (or back into reading them), it can be a rather daunting thing to do, to decide what to read and where to start.
The easy answer (it would seem) is to say, "Well, which version do you like best?" The original series (Kirk, Spock, etc.)? The Next Generation? Deep Space Nine? Voyager? The current shows?
But even if you approach it that way, there are many paths to take. If you prefer the original series, do you read them in the order they originally came out in, starting way back with the Bantam books or first of the Pocket Books original novels? You could, but they are all for the most part "episodic" (so you don't have to read them all in that particular order. Plus, it would take you forever to get to the more newly released novels.
There are similar things to consider with the other Star Trek lines of novels based on the other series.
Me, my mind typically works chronologically. So, whatever path I start upon, I typically want to proceed either in the order the novels first came out in or, oftentimes, the order the stories are supposed to have occurred in. That can become a major project (which, fortunately, many others already like to do, post "timelines" of things like the hundreds of Star Trek novels.
However, I still have to decide where to start. (I face a similar issue with jumping back into the hundreds of Star Wars tie-in novels.)
For the time being, I've decided to go with two or three simultaneous "paths". The first, to continue reading catching up on the "Discovery" and "Picard" (and, starting in 2023, "Strange New Worlds") novels that have been released thus far (which, relatively speaking, isn't that many).
Second, "Star Trek: Picard" put me instantly back into a "Next Generation" mood. That, plus my desire to finally start to read Pocket Books "litverse" (the more tightly connected continuation of the then completed Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager series and their characters, published mostly from 2001 to 2017, plus a three part finale/conclusion titled Coda released in fall 2021), made me decide to jump back into the "Next Generation" novels, but not all the way back to the earliest ones. I've decided to start with the novels that pick up right after the movie Star Trek Generations leaves off (meaning, more or less, the start of the "Enterprise-E" stories).
I plan to also come up with other avenues to take (such as the original series, but mostly likely starting where Star Trek: The Motion Picture leaves off. Another path would be where I last left off with the "Star Trek: Enterprise" novels. And then there are also a range of really interesting looking "Lost Years" novels that take place chronologically between the original series movies and the start of "The Next Generation". (The problem is that I can make all of these sorts of plans but A) I remain to this day a very slow reader, and B ) I have loads of non Star Trek related books I want to read, too!)
Which brings me to the book I just finished reading (and also the one I just started on). Both of these are actual "re-reads" for me. From 1995 to 2006, famed James T. Kirk actor, William Shatner, co-wrote (along with veteran Star Trek novelists Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, although I suspect that the majority of the actual writing was by the Reeves-Stevens), ten original Star Trek novels (three trilogies plus the first of what had been planned to have been a fourth).
These were unofficially dubbed the "Shatnerverse" series of novels due not only to Shatner's involvement but that they (starting with the second novel) center around his character, Captain Kirk's, being revived/resurrected once again in the "Next Generation" era post Star Trek Generations and having additional adventures in that era alongside Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D/E. The rest of the Pocket Books novels ignores these Shatnerverse novels, treating them as a separate continuity.
Back when the first three of the Shatner Star Trek novels came out in 1995-1997 (The Ashes of Eden, The Return, and Avenger), I read them all at that time. (I think that's it. I can't recall Shatner's second trilogy, one featuring the Mirror Universe, but it's possible I read at least the first of those, as well.)
As The Return (1996) begins with Captain Kirk's resurrection by the Borg (allied with a revenge bent Romulan commander out to destroy the Federation) immediately after the events of Star Trek Generations, it was the next of my post-Generations novels to read (or, in this case, re-read). (I skipped Shatner's first novel, The Ashes of Eden because that one takes place mostly just after Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the last of the original series movies. Shatner's version of the end of that particular era.)
Both times that I've read The Return, I have enjoyed it. A bit more the first time I read it, probably (back when I was in my early to mid twenties(!)), but I still enjoy it today, for the most part. Of course, it, like any older Star Trek novel, has to be read with an understanding of what had come out up to that point, and that a lot of stuff has since been released both on television and in the movies since then (not to mention all of the novels that have come out after this). Some aspects will always seem "off" in older books like this because of this, especially ones that heavily feature the Borg. Aspects of the Borg, as presented in The Return, while still entertaining, don't entirely "match up with" things we've learned about them since the writing of this book. (For instance, there is a "central node" on the Borg home planet that they hope to use to permanently sever the Borg "Collective" that's never mentioned anywhere else, but at the same time they never once mention the Borg Queen featured in Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Star Trek: Picard". That's because The Return and First Contact both came out in 1996, and, presumably, Shatner and the Reeves-Stevens were not given any inside information on the plot of the then in production movie.)
There is also the negative reaction some fans to the whole idea of resurrecting Kirk in the TNG era, and how Shatner (naturally) focuses largely on him (although there is also a lot of time with Picard, Riker, and the rest of the TNG characters, plus, in "The Return", Dr. Julian Bashir from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I don't mind it all that much, although I did feel at some points like Picard and Riker where written a bit out of character to make them foils for Kirk and Ambassador Spock (who, spoilers, along with the very aged Admiral Leonard H. McCoy, are in this book).
Technically speaking, this isn't really an Enterprise-E story because this is so soon after Generations. As the book begins, Kirk's body hasn't been moved from Veridian III to Earth yet (allowing it to be stolen) and the crashed saucer section of the Enterprise-D hasn't only begun to have been disassembled for removal (which makes for one of the more interesting scenes in the book, a night time attack by unknown assailants bombing the saucer section and the nearby Starfleet work camp). And, for most of the novel, the Next Generation characters are split up. Picard and Dr. Crusher on a covert anti-Borg related mission together. Riker and Troi on Veridian III. Worf, Data, and LaForge on leave, awaiting their next assignments. They do eventually all come together again, but not until over halfway through the book.
I enjoyed re-reading The Return, primarily because Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (a married couple who had written many Star Trek novels both prior to and after their involvement with the "Shatnerverse" books and who also served as writers on the latter seasons of "Star Trek: Enterprise") are really good writers.
My first inclination was to give The Return three stars, but then remembered that GoodReads goes as high as five stars. A three out of five stars seemed a bit low to me, so I went ahead and gave it four out of five stars.
I've already started reading the next book, Avenger, and after only a couple chapters I'm already liking how Picard and the Enterprise-E crew (yes, Avenger explicitly takes place after First Contact) are being written. (Avenger focuses on a galaxy wide plague with no cure that threatens the survival of the Federation.)
—David Young
When I was in my late teens or early twenties, I read and loved The Return (and the whole OTT Shatnerverse). I re-read it a few years ago and thought it was really stupid. It made me afraid to re-read and ruin any more wonderful memories!
It suffered a bit in my eyes, rereading it now, but I still enjoyed it for the most part (as you can tell from my review). It has a few questionable moments, sure, but it still beats out my previous recent read, Ship of the Line!
—David Young
Not outstanding but pretty close to that, above average though very above. A lot of fun elements and overall, definitely has most of what you would want in an epic crossover. Of course self-serving to Shatner but that's to be expected. You get more of the Borg AND the Romulans, Kirk in a new romance situation (with a character with elements from both popular original series Romulan episodes), Picard also being a great hero including dealing against the Borg, all three of the Big Three reuniting and playing good roles (especially deflating the Kirk/Picard/Spock treason suspicions and making the V'Ger connection plausible), visiting Deep Space Nine and Bashir and having a Defiant-type ship, visiting the Borg world for a climax, really satisfying return and last adventure for Kirk (though I wasn't and still am not interested in him somehow still surviving and still having more adventures) and follow-up to Generations and not really too inconsistent with, even fine lead in to First Contact.
I appreciated the Shatner Reeves Stevens books. I still regard Generations as a steaming pile of offal and anything allowing that to be finessed away was OK by me.
In reality they weren't great - someone earlier said they were a bit dumb, and that's not wrong. Kirk could have been brought back better...more believably, the adventures a little more considered. Overall it could have been more impressive.
In reality they weren't great - someone earlier said they were a bit dumb, and that's not wrong. Kirk could have been brought back better...more believably, the adventures a little more considered. Overall it could have been more impressive.
I do like The Return and the rest of the Shatnerverse quite a lot, but I remember being disappointed that its quality is not on a par with one the the Reeves-Stevens' previous novel Prime Directive. I remember reading that and feeling that it was one of the best Trek books I'd ever read, and The Return wasn't a patch on that.
This was one of the dumbest books I'd ever read until I read more of the Shatnerverse. Disgusting. It's like if someone paid a publisher an obscene amount of money to print a random novella off of fanfiction.net.
I loved them. Still salty the series ended on a book that was intended to start a trilogy and then never did.
(Ashes of Eden was unironically a good book though.)
I loved them. Still salty the series ended on a book that was intended to start a trilogy and then never did.
(Ashes of Eden was unironically a good book though.)
Honestly, this is better than its reputation. However, it's not a great Trek book, and it's obvious from reading it. But honestly, I like it a lot, and count it in my head-canon, but with caveats (the Worf-Bashir parts can't have happened with them, really). As a teenage, I loved that this reads exactly as I'd have loved Generations to have been: a movie with TNG and Kirk/Spock in prominent roles. I especially love Spock's arc in this, and I like Picard's arc as well.
Overall, I like to consider it part of an unofficial "Borg trilogy" with Generations, this and First Contact, with the latter being the Borg reacting vengefully to the destruction of the Central Node in this one.
Overall, I like to consider it part of an unofficial "Borg trilogy" with Generations, this and First Contact, with the latter being the Borg reacting vengefully to the destruction of the Central Node in this one.
Most books from the last twenty years are canonically moot because of Picard. Doesn't mean they're not good reads.
I just love the twist in the book where Spock is scanned by the Borg and let go, witnessed by Picard and Beverly. Such an awesome moment, would've been quite interesting to see on film.
I have fond memories of reading it when I was younger, but I expect I'd find it outlandish if I read it for the first time today. One thing that always stuck with me was the idea of non-humanoid Borg drones, including the dog Borg and the multi-segmented drone.
I really enjoyed The Return (though Ashes of Eden was my favorite of the Shatner books). I still like the idea of the Central Node, and I liked how Shatner, etc. tied together the various Trek incarnations. I don't know how well The Return would hold up in light of what Trek did with the Borg from First Contact on, but it was a fun book at the time, and a nice way to "correct" the "mistake" of killing off Kirk much like the ENT novels did with Trip.
"The Return" is pure candy-coated 1990s pants-crapping insanity. It's like Star Trek's version of a Michael Bay film via William Shatner. I mean, is there anything more 90s than an all-black Defiant? And then there's the idea that the Borg homeworld has a convenient self-destruct lever.
Was that the one they renamed 'Enterprise'?
Heh, that reminds that I sometimes compared it to an episode of Transformers...the one where the Quintessons (Borg) revive Optimus Prime (Kirk) to use him in a plot against the Autobots (Federation) and Rodimus Prime (Picard).
https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Dark_Awakening_(episode)
