Yeah, that was a very long time ago. As you might be able to see in my one hand, I do have two Star Trek novels, gifts from a forgotten Christmas.
Star Trek IV, is pretty much what you might have guessed it to be, a novel adaptation of the movie. Battlestations! was the second part to a two part series. The first book, Dreadnought, I didn't have nor picked up a copy over the years. Needless to say, I tried to get into the book as a stand alone story, but the only thing I remember is some wacky ship called the SS Banana Republic.
From the school library, I was borrowing these, most times returning them way over due. Although James Blish wrote adaptations of episodes from the Animated Series, I was replacing those cartoon characters with their real life counterparts with my imagination.
Here is where the odd book tried to take me off my chosen path. My first thought was this was a collection of fictional short stories based in the Star Trek universe. The reality, opinion pieces and speculative articles that were beyond my level of comprehension at the time.
Just a few short years after the top, first, opening picture was taken, The Next Generation come out and became the phenomenon that almost everyone was interested in, myself included. Once again, I dove into the novels, receiving them mostly as Christmas and Birthday gifts. Vendetta was one of two I remember to this day. A long and in depth story surrounding the use of the Doomsday Weapons from the Original Series against the Borg. Metamorphosis was a lengthy tale of the android Data becoming human and everything that he has to cope with, given his new condition.
Then, just like the comics of the same time period, the novels faded away from my interests. I can't even say, for certain, what the title of the last one I read was, or even what it was about. However, Star Trek in print wasn't totally out of my life, just taking on a slight twist in personality....
I can remember reading quite a few Trek novels during the 80's. Very few of them have stuck with me, a lot seemed to be female authors writing love letters to Spock. But there were some that were worth reading more than once.
ReplyDeleteThe one book involving the Original Series characters that stands out for me was The Romulan Way by Diane Duane. The reason why I remember it to this very day, it was beyond my scope of understanding at the time. The whole sociological explanation she laid out in the book, her vision of the Roumlans, was beyond my comprehension.
ReplyDeleteFor the Next Generation, Metamorphosis stands as memorable favorite. Data's journey through the human condition and the way Jean Lorrah wrote it all to be familiar and in an easily understood fashion, could have been an episode I would have watched.