r/trekbooks

I just finished this book today while on my last day of vacation.

The Enterprise is on a mission in a nebula and they sent away teams to different regions of a planet for research. The away teams are suddenly attacked and impressed into service with a race that has been at war for centuries.

The story was exciting and definitely a page-turner. I always enjoy reading stories with Pike, Una and Spock. Although this book falls under the Discovery series, there are just few mentions about that particular series. I definitely recommend this one. Enjoy!

This morning I finished Burning Dreams, the final entry in the Strange New Worlds/Captain Pike reading list. And what a final entry! This book reminded me a lot of what Mosaic was for Captain Janeway. It follows Pike's life from childhood to death, and while some of it is retconned by Strange New Worlds, it truly dives deep into what made Pike the man we only briefly saw in the original pilot episode. Definitely one of the best Trek books I've read so far--kudos to Margaret Wander Bonanno!

4.8 stars out of 5.

Read this trilogy when it first came out back in what, 2000? And thanks to this subreddit, I got curious and have been revisiting some of my old favorites. Got it Friday, and have already finished book one. It's still just as good. I consider Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens the gold standard for Trek writers, as they really nail the dialogue of our favorite characters, and it just feels like you're watching an episode.

For anyone who hasn't read this or hasn't read it in a while, I can't recommend it enough!

Last night I finished reading The Captain's Table #6: Where Sea Meets Sky as part of the Strange New Worlds/Captain Pike reading list. This book was... different. The framing story in The Captain's Table bar was fine, but the flashback story was a bit more bonkers than I would like. Bioengineered carnivorous space whales with lasers and warp drives really pushed the limits. I did like that the crew was able to explore previously uncharted regions of space, but too much of the book was just jumping from one star system to the next to take sensor readings. Thankfully there were enough action sequences to keep me moving forward. Oh, and the ending was so abrupt. Definitely not in my top tier of ST books I've read so far.

3 out 5 stars

I'm looking forward to reading them. 🖖

I finished reading Star Trek: Burning Dreams yesterday. Written by Margaret Wander Bonnano, it was published in 2006. Trying to avoid any spoilers in this braindump, I can say that Burning Dreams does an absolutely fantastic job of providing characterization to Pike, Vina and even the Talosians.

Many Star Trek novels build on passing comments to create a plot from, but Burning Dreams - written long before Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Anson Mount or Pike's Peak - obviously is building on a skeleton of what are almost exclusively passing comments from The Cage and The Menagerie. Nonetheless, Bonnano does this magnificently, weaving a compelling picture of Pike's childhood, a little snippet of human colony life (something I personally find particularly interesting in the Star Trek universe), and Pike's career in Starfleet - pretty much from beginning to end.

All the while, the discontinuous narrative (part flashback, part flashback within a flashback, occasionally part dream) Bonnano takes us through creates an atmosphere of unreality, the existential uncertainty that Pike is living in for years after his experiences on Talos. While we as the reader are uncertain what's going on right alongside him, damn if it isn't compelling - it's one of the big reasons I ended up tearing through the book in just two days. This sense of unreality also stays just on the right side of the little dance between absurdity and horror throughout the whole book, particularly in one little moment where Pike confesses something to Spock in a tense situation that leaves Spock genuinely wondering about Pike's sanity - but ultimately brings the two of them closer together, cementing Spock's unwavering loyalty to Pike.

Vina is also the beneficiary of surprisingly vivid characterization, coming across believably as someone who's been through years of tragedy, illusions and despair - and has come out the other side simply tired of the despair and wanting to make the best of whatever life she can have. Her background is fleshed out, making her much more a whole person than the few minutes she had on screen through Susan Oliver could do. Her half-bitter observation of how the Talosians' illusions of her at wildly different ages affect how people interact with her and skew her own self-image is particularly poignant. The story centers on Pike, however, and his longing for her years after leaving her behind, first with curiosity, then with near-obsession, is the most poignant bit of all.

The introduction of a wholly original race, the Kan'ess, is a pleasant surprise fairly late in the story. They are almost unique among Star Trek races that I can think of - and Pike's response to them, first horror, then remembering his first contact responsibilities, plays well with the rest of the story.

The biggest surprise of all, however, is the Talosians. Through Pike and Vina, we are given what is probably the deepest portrayal of Talosian society in all of Trekdom - compelling, sad and hopeful, all at once. And - I note as I happen to be reading this book during pride month - their gender fluidity is up-front, unapologetic, and respectfully portrayed.

I'm not sure how much more I can say. I'm a big fan of Anson Mount's portrayal of Pike, but I wish he'd been given something closer to this book to work from, which I think would have made it even better. If you have a chance, give it a read.