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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Star Trek
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I’d say your assumption that the writing is generally poor on tie-fiction is unfair and unfounded. If you like reading science fiction, particularly space opera, you’re missing out on some really great books.
Yes, there are some books that are clunkers, and some to-be-avoided tie-in writers, but at its best Star Trek novels are just straight up excellent science fiction.
I read extensively in the genre and I can’t say unequivocally that the quality in non-franchise science fiction is generally higher. There are regrettably a high number of unreadable but books in each crop of new and recommended Sci-fi offerings.
What I can say is that the ‘put all the toys back where you found them’ books written while shows are running are constrained by that. While it’s a genuine problem for some, books by DC Fontana, Diane Duane and Vonda McIntyre are all worth your time.
The post-Nemesis Relaunch novelverse provided a complex set of tales that were allowed to take 24th century characters and societies forward. It’s been overwritten by Picard, but there’s still a great deal of high quality content for those of us who are voracious readers. There are also some 23rd century books, including the Vanguard series, that have continued.
That’s entirely fair. I unfortunately have less time for personal reading than I used to, so I end up either being much choosier than I was when I was younger, or more often I go back to re-read ones I know I loved. It’s easier to fall asleep to those sometimes.
I will take a look at your suggestions. The last sf books I really enjoyed were the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. There’s not a lot of hard sf that centers on biology (as opposed to physics), but the author absolutely nailed it. I’m incredibly impressed with the premise and the story, but the science was correct while still being brilliant and innovative. Imagine a civilization of human-level intelligence giant spiders, but whose psychology and society are done as spiders, not humans in spider costumes. On the other hand, I tried Project Hail Mary by Martian author Andrew Weir, and the science was so bad that I made it only about a quarter of the way through before giving up. I don’t need all of my sf to be hard sf, but if you’re going to be writing hard sf you have to get the science at least plausible.
Anyway, I really liked Garak in the show and thought his arc was among the most interesting. This book, however canon-y it’s considered, answered a lot of questions that were raised or hinted at in the show with enough depth and resonance that I wonder how much he was able to draw on character notes and how much was coming out of his head-canon as a follow-on from just grokking the character so well.