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Star Trek books from my past!
Apr. 27th, 2012 11:54 am4/5 - My parents came to visit and brought me a whole buncha books from my room, thus starting me on an orgy of rereading... starting with all the Star Trek books, for some reason. Note that I totally revert back to my 12-year-old self when reading these books, so the fact that I seriously and unconditionally love them all does not actually mean they're any good, necessarily. I mean, they might be! But I cannot tell.
ST:TNG Strike Zone (Peter David) - Still the best ST:TNG novel I've ever read, although honestly that doesn't mean a whole lot (I think I read the first ten or so, as well as David's other work). It's better, I think, than David's other ST:TNG work, which veers into the maudlin; this is still simply funny with only an edge of seriousness, which is more his forte, and with an awesomely hilarious climax that, well, is kind of something I wish the show itself had done. Also, my family is really into the "if you prepare hard enough bad things will never happen to you" philosophy, and rereading, I suddenly remembered this was the first book I ever read that just came out and said, "No, that's a dumb philosophy," and that stayed with me even though I had completely forgotten that this was the book it came from. As a result, when I read it now, I give it a pass on Bechdel test failure, a general fail on portraying Troi, and what I imagine are probably a whole host of other things were I able to actually look at this book with a rational eye instead of a twelve-year-old eye.
ST:TOS Ishmael (Barbara Hambly) - Spock gets thrown back to 1800's Here Come the Brides. Hambly is a good writer, and I like this book very much, and the overall writing is probably stronger than the other two books here, but the only bit that really imprinted on me was the part where the woman doctor calls out everyone else (except Spock, who thinks it's normal) for thinking it's weird that a woman is a doctor.
ST:TOS The Pandora Principle (Carolyn Clowes) - Spock, for all practical purposes, adopts Saavik. I've seen people who both love this book (the camp I'm in) and people who think it's totally awful. I can see the awful side, I guess. The main plotline is sort of hilariously Rube-Goldberg (it hinges on the assumption that a starship, finding a strange box, will then... take it back to Earth before opening it? What?) and rather iffy-science at that; Spock is a total Gary Stu who's smart and patient and understanding and kind and a really great dad, all-around; Saavik, although I haven't watched the films in years, is I suspect out of character for the person portrayed in the film. And yet the writing is crisp and with that lovely edge of humor to it that livens the whole thing; and Saavik is, if not the actual character in the movies, personable and interesting both as a child and a woman (my favorite bit is where child-Saavik informs another little kid that it isn't logical to eat its own fingers, it would be more logical to eat someone else's!), and I can't help it, as an adolescent I totally imprinted, like a little bird, on Spock as the ideal dad who never gets mad or impatient. And it passes Bechdel easily. And it's got some lovely original characters. One of my favorite Star Trek books ever, and I wish I knew what had happened to Carolyn Clowes, because I'd surely buy any other book she wrote.
ST:TNG Strike Zone (Peter David) - Still the best ST:TNG novel I've ever read, although honestly that doesn't mean a whole lot (I think I read the first ten or so, as well as David's other work). It's better, I think, than David's other ST:TNG work, which veers into the maudlin; this is still simply funny with only an edge of seriousness, which is more his forte, and with an awesomely hilarious climax that, well, is kind of something I wish the show itself had done. Also, my family is really into the "if you prepare hard enough bad things will never happen to you" philosophy, and rereading, I suddenly remembered this was the first book I ever read that just came out and said, "No, that's a dumb philosophy," and that stayed with me even though I had completely forgotten that this was the book it came from. As a result, when I read it now, I give it a pass on Bechdel test failure, a general fail on portraying Troi, and what I imagine are probably a whole host of other things were I able to actually look at this book with a rational eye instead of a twelve-year-old eye.
ST:TOS Ishmael (Barbara Hambly) - Spock gets thrown back to 1800's Here Come the Brides. Hambly is a good writer, and I like this book very much, and the overall writing is probably stronger than the other two books here, but the only bit that really imprinted on me was the part where the woman doctor calls out everyone else (except Spock, who thinks it's normal) for thinking it's weird that a woman is a doctor.
ST:TOS The Pandora Principle (Carolyn Clowes) - Spock, for all practical purposes, adopts Saavik. I've seen people who both love this book (the camp I'm in) and people who think it's totally awful. I can see the awful side, I guess. The main plotline is sort of hilariously Rube-Goldberg (it hinges on the assumption that a starship, finding a strange box, will then... take it back to Earth before opening it? What?) and rather iffy-science at that; Spock is a total Gary Stu who's smart and patient and understanding and kind and a really great dad, all-around; Saavik, although I haven't watched the films in years, is I suspect out of character for the person portrayed in the film. And yet the writing is crisp and with that lovely edge of humor to it that livens the whole thing; and Saavik is, if not the actual character in the movies, personable and interesting both as a child and a woman (my favorite bit is where child-Saavik informs another little kid that it isn't logical to eat its own fingers, it would be more logical to eat someone else's!), and I can't help it, as an adolescent I totally imprinted, like a little bird, on Spock as the ideal dad who never gets mad or impatient. And it passes Bechdel easily. And it's got some lovely original characters. One of my favorite Star Trek books ever, and I wish I knew what had happened to Carolyn Clowes, because I'd surely buy any other book she wrote.
