Top 10 Star Trek Novels?

[Manisphere]

I really need to read Stitch in Time. It seems to be popping up on a lot of these lists.

I was just thinking that. I don't see Federation on many lists. I finished it last weekend. Wow.

 

[casey]

I've owned Federation since it was first released but have yet to read it. I actually started it last week but got sidetracked by Open Secrets.. Maybe after that I'll finally get to it .

 

[Rackon]

I will give you a baker's dozen of my favorites and then some:

Strangers From The Sky
Prime Directive
Dwellers In The Crucible
Vanguard: Harbinger
Vanguard: Reap The Whirlwind
Sarek
Serpents Among The Ruins
Doctors Orders
Crucible: McCoy
Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages (Omnibus)
Ishmael
The Pandora Principle
Burning Dreams

If you, like me, particularly enjoy tales of everyone's favorite Vulcan, I recommend the following additional books about Spock: Yesterday's Son and its sequel Time For Yesterday; Spock's World; Vulcan's Forge; Vulcan's Heart; Vulcan's Glory (Vulcan sex -yes!). While I loved Crucible/McCoy, I was disappointed in the Crucible/Spock book, and would only recommend it with reservations. I haven't read the third volume yet.

As you can see, I lean decidedly toward TOS, and delight in all things Spock/Vulcan. I was around back in the days of TOS, so I read many of the older volumes when they came out. I have a lot of catching up to do.

On my "need to read" list of mroe recent books or in my "re-read" pile of books to revisit:

Troublesome Minds (looking forward to this)
Vanguard: Open Secrets
Federation
Catalyst Of Sorrows
The Captain's Daughter
The Entropy Effect
The Wounded Sky
The Rings of Tautee
Vulcan's Soul Trilogy

...and many others.

 

[Corran Horn]

My 10...no particular order:


Final Frontier
The Art of the Impossible
Serpents Among the Ruins
The Great Starship Race
Federation
Vendetta
Crucible: McCoy
Vanguard: Harbinger
Dark Mirror
The Sundered

 

[JD]

3. TOS: Crucible (book 1 and 2 are absolutely fabulous, I'm going through book 3 atm and enjoying it so far)
- A burning house

A Burning House
Ex Machina

Crucible book 1..McCoy
Immortal Coil

I really do need to get reading these books. I can't even count the number of times I've seen these four (6?) pop up on these lists.

 

[Harvey]

Can't recall ten books off the top of my head, but A Stitch in Time, Ex Machina, and
Diplomatic Implausibility are good ones.

 

[Sci]

My favorites....

* TOS: Spock's World by Diane Duane
* Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido
* Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind by David Mack
* Destiny: Lost Souls by David Mack
* TOS: Crucible: McCoy: Provenance of Shadows by David R. George III
* TOS: Strangers From the Sky by Margaret Bonano Wander
* TNG: Vendetta/TNG: Q-Squared by Peter David (tie)
* TOS: The Captain's Daughter by Peter David
* S.C.E.: Wildfire by David Mack
* DS9: A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson

 

[UncleRogi]

As I sit here reading these glowing reviews, I ask myself:
What better vindication can a writer have?
A big "THANKS" to all you folk that continue
telling us stories.
May it never end

 

[Greg Cox]

I surprised THE FINAL REFLECTION by John Ford isn't showing up on more lists. That's one of the classics.

 

[Thrawn]

I've been reading a ton of Treklit over the past year and a half, and writing little mini-reviews of them for myself. I started up again after not reading any Treklit for a good 4 or 5 years, so I'm sure there were other books I loved a lot before that (which I plan on getting around to eventually again) but I read so much that it's hard to remember clearly. These are the books I've rated at a 10/10 or 9.5/10 from my last year and a half:

1) Destiny trilogy. (Yes, it really is my favorite, honestly and without any hyperbole. I love big stories with huge casts with surprising creative choices...I love epics. This is the most epic thing Trek has ever done, and it is most certainly my favorite. I've already read it twice. You'll notice a lot of other books on this list are pretty epic too.)
2) TNG: Vendetta
3) Articles Of The Federation
4) NF: Once Burned
5) VGD: Reap The Whirlwind
6) TNG: The Buried Age
7) TTN: Over A Torrent Sea
8) TOS: Ex Machina
9) NF: Opening arc (first four books feel like one story to me)
10) TTN: Sword Of Damocles (when is Geoff going to write his second book? I keep waiting...)

So, um, it would appear I'm a pretty big fan of David Mack, PAD, and Christopher L. Bennett.

 

[Corran Horn]

I'd throw Once Burned on my list too. 10 is just too few spots!

 

[Thrawn]

I should note I haven't read a bunch of the books that show up a lot in this thread. I loved the DS9 relaunch but it's been a while; recently, I've only read Fearful Symmetry. Haven't read any NF past Restoration, or Crucible, Open Secrets, A Stitch In Time, Immortal Coil, Q-Squared, just about any old TOS books (except Federation, which was awesome), The Lost Era, etc etc.

 

[Paris]

I should note I haven't read a bunch of the books that show up a lot in this thread. I loved the DS9 relaunch but it's been a while; recently, I've only read Fearful Symmetry. Haven't read any NF past Restoration, or Crucible, Open Secrets, A Stitch In Time, Immortal Coil, Q-Squared, just about any old TOS books (except Federation, which was awesome), The Lost Era, etc etc.

The Lost Era is quite good, but so is New Frontier. You could consider checking out the intervening 7 books . Was there a particular reason you didn't continue with it beyond that point?

 

[JD]

I've only read the first three TLE books, and IMO they are some of the best books I've ever read. I like the NF books too, but no where near as much.

 

[Thrawn]

I should note I haven't read a bunch of the books that show up a lot in this thread. I loved the DS9 relaunch but it's been a while; recently, I've only read Fearful Symmetry. Haven't read any NF past Restoration, or Crucible, Open Secrets, A Stitch In Time, Immortal Coil, Q-Squared, just about any old TOS books (except Federation, which was awesome), The Lost Era, etc etc.

The Lost Era is quite good, but so is New Frontier. You could consider checking out the intervening 7 books . Was there a particular reason you didn't continue with it beyond that point?

No, I've read most of it before, just a really long time ago. This time through TrekLit I'm keeping summaries and reviews as I go, so I don't forget what I thought about each book. I'm being kind of insanely completist; I'm in the middle of re-reading New Earth at the moment, then comes Avatar and Section 31, then comes Gateways, then I'll finish the rest of NF and DS9-R. Then I'll get around to more of the standalones, like Lost Era, Crucible, etc.

From that list, the only ones I've never read at all are Crucible, Open Secrets, and the old TOS books. I remember generally liking Lost Era and loving most of the NF books after Gateways, in contrast to most people here, but not well enough to rank them with confidence. It doesn't help that the NF books tend to be incredibly fast reads, and so I don't spend much time on them and they evaporate from my memory similarly rapidly. I've even read After The Fall twice, and couldn't even begin to tell you what happened in it.

 

[Captrek]

Does anyone remember those 2 old pre-TMP books---
"The Price of the Pheonix" & "The Fate of the Pheonix"?

Yup. Read those when I was a kid. Liked them. First two books of a trilogy that was never completed.

I heard somewhere — and I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this story — that Marshak and Culbreath wrote the third book, and there was a lot of K/S in it, which upset the publisher. The publisher demanded changes which the authors refused to make, and so the book was never published.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Marshak and Culbreath wrote the third book, and there was a lot of K/S in it, which upset the publisher. The publisher demanded changes which the authors refused to make, and so the book was never published.

It's my understanding that "missing chapters" of their Bantam Books' "Phoenix" novels (and Pocket Books' "The Prometheus Design" and "Triangle") were available on the K/S fanzine blackmarket. But I'm pretty sure there was never a third Phoenix title written for commercial release. Bantam Books had stopped commissioning by then.

The unpublished Marshak/Culbreath book was non fictional: "Mr. Spock's Guide to the Planet Vulcan", and it was scheduled by both Bantam and Pocket at various times. They were also supposed to be working on a Nichelle Nichols book, "Uhura!", aka "The Uhura Connection".

 

[Harvey]

Since Greg Cox showed up, I might as well add all three of his Khan books to my list (The Eugenics Wars I and II & To Reign in Hell). Those books weave together a coherent universe outside of so many different and dissonant Trek threads, and they're damned entertaining! The only Star Trek (fiction) books I have bought and continue to own in hardcover.

 

[ialfan]

Of what I've read:

Destiny Trilogy
Imzadi
The Good That Men Do
Myriad Universes #1
Myriad Universes #2
Orion's Hounds
Crucible: McCoy
Avatar
Kobayashi Maru
Full Circle

 

[Therin of Andor]

Always hard to do with new novels shunting out older ones. Let me see...

"Andor: Paradigm" (in "Worlds of DS9, Book 1")
"Ex Machina"
"Captain's Table: New Frontier: Once Burned"
"Crucible: McCoy"
"New Frontier: Stone and Anvil"
"Final Frontier"
"TNG: Immortal Coil"
"Uhura's Song"
"Strangers From the Sky"
"DS9: Avatar" duology.