Books like Star Trek — picked by fans

It’s been years since I read this book, but it still resonates in my mind. I was intrigued by this novel back then because it used Valeris as the main protagonist (Spock, while on the cover, only has some cameos).

Valeris, played by the wonderful Kim Cattrall, was one of the traitors trying to disrupt peace talks between the Klingons and the Federation in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Now it is seven years later, and the peace is still fragile. A new conspiracy is taking place, and Valeris, with the help of DS9 relaunch protagonist Elias Vaughan and Captain Sulu on the Excelsior, has to sort it out.

I still love the setting telling a sequel to one of the best Star Trek movies ever and I love this group of characters that are not of Kirk or Picard fame, but very interesting “supporting actors” that can… show more.

The scope of the multi-book project just blew me away the first time I heard about it. Telling the story of how the Federation came to be struck me as so ambitious that, as an author, I was in awe. I got the job of translating this book series into German, and I really loved the complexity of Bennetts' world(s) building.

The first book is set after the Romulan War and it follows the ex-crew of the NX-01 Enterprise – Archer, T’Pol, Reed, etc. – as they try to forge the future.

The book shows how difficult it is to unite peoples culturally, technologically, and militarily, to get new member worlds, and to deal with galactic neighbors that try to undermine the “new power” out of fear. A book that really made me think about interstate cooperation on Earth as well.

I loved Jadzia Dax in Deep Space Nine, and I was always fascinated by the Trill, a species in which some lucky few are selected to join as hosts with a symbiont creature that lives for several lifetimes and imbues the actual host with the talents and memories of all the previous hosts.

The TV show only scratched the surface of what that means psychologically and culturally, so I was really looking forward to reading this book. White did a lot of research on the Trill and then took the creepy premise of some kind of zombie Trill to really explore what it means to be Trill, to be joined or to be denied the joining by the almighty Symbiosis Commission.

A thrilling (and also empowering) Jadzia adventure.

Many Star Trek books are about dangers threatening a starship, a colony, or even a planet. “Hold my beer,” said Mack – and let the Borg, this mechanical hive-mind terror, invade the whole Alpha and Beta Quadrant of our galaxy.

Star Trek Destiny (a trilogy, but you can buy it as an omnibus edition) depicts a catastrophe on a scale that’s hardly imaginable. I can’t tell you how much I was on the edge of my seat when the first armada of Borg cubes arrived – with no intention of assimilating anyone at all!

Although there are world-breaking tragedies to be witnessed, the book is not all about fighting battles. It also delves into the origin of the Borg, and it concludes their overall story arc in a very “trekkie” way. I like that a lot!

This is, in my humble view, the best science fiction novel ever written. I have read it no less than ten times so far and intend to keep rereading it. What nowadays seems incredible is that it was written back in 1961, when most science fiction was still in its age of innocence, full of naïve assumptions about extraterrestrials and their malevolent ambitions.

It will be many years before the first ideas of benevolent aliens appear and even more before we fully realize Lem's wisdom from Solaris: there isn't going to be any First Contact because Others are neither bad nor good, but indifferent, as it is the planetary intelligent ocean on Solaris. We aren't still mature enough even for contacts with ourselves, let alone Others.

Philip Coppens is not afraid to take on even the weirdest of niches within the already weird realm of ufology and paleoarchaeology. He does so with an even keel and an unlimited curiosity. He doesn’t simply parrot what everyone around is saying, but he does examine their claims to see if they hold water. Like in most other aspects of life, there are grains of truth and bald-faced lies. Coppens attempts to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I am not frightened by Cthulhu, the tentacled monsters waiting in the depths of outer space or the ocean. I am mesmerized by them. Lovecraft, often labeled a horror writer, is one of the greatest literary fantasists. His imagination is boundless, and he is as adept at describing strange new environments as he is at evoking a sense of cosmic dread.

This classic novel combines Lovecraft’s signature monsters with an incredible dreamlike atmosphere that grips you and does not let you go. When you stand at the summit of the Mountains of Madness and glimpse what lies on the other side, you are torn between fear and fascination. For me, at least, fascination always wins.   

So you want to find aliens. But where to begin? Digging up microbial neighbors on Mars? Encountering big-brained, tentacled beings in flying saucers? Searching for far-flung habitable exoplanets?

This compilation of essays from astrobiologists, AI experts, psychologists, planetary geologists, and NASA scientists (plus more!) gives the alien-hunter a well-rounded, thoughtful start for their search.

Some of the essays will leave you laughing out loud; others will remind you how much we still have to learn about the universe. I came away feeling both smarter and smaller, and I enjoyed every minute of it. 

This nonfiction book takes a hard look at humanity’s various attempts to craft a universal language that might, just might, let us one day communicate with extraterrestrials.

What symbols could we use? What encoding? How would we start, and once we’ve started, what would we talk about?

These aren’t easy questions, and we probably still don’t have all the right answers, but I loved the way Oberhaus walked us through the work that has already been done and the directions that future work might take.

Need to design an alien species? If so, you won’t find a better resource than this one.

Kershenbaum does nothing less than attempt to identify universal principles governing all biological organisms and does a damned impressive job of it. Beginning with the question of whether the human concept of “evolution” would even exist on an alien world, he works his way up to detailed and insightful analyses of what types of life forms would likely evolve in different environments and how they might communicate and socialize.

This is pure brain food for any lover of science or science fiction, an intellectual exploration you won’t be able to put down. It’s in my top 10 list for books of any kind.