Random spoilerific reasons to read Star Trek novels, with little to no context:
Ro/Quark is a thing
A Jem'Hadar joins DS9, tries to fit in but eventually snaps and tries to kill everybody
You learn the origins and final fate of the Borg
A thinly-veiled Dr. House clone joins the Voyager crew
Geordi briefly has 2 girlfriends at once (due to different writers not co-ordinating enough, but still)
There's a TOS book that's a musical
There are YA stories about Jake and Nog making mischief on DS9
YA stories about Worf, Geordi, Picard, Beverly, Kirk, Spock and McCoy at SFA
YA series about the Kelvinverse gang (including Gaila!) as cadets, taking on a drug problem at SFA and a very unique Borg scout in San Francisco
We very briefly meet the people who are to Q what the Q are to humanity
Janeway/Chakotay is a thing
Kirk's first mission in command of the Enterprise! Erm, at least twice.
Kirk was married between TOS and TMP
Her name was Lori
In the future, you have yearly marriage contracts that you either update or you don't and I think that's amazing
Trip didn't die! He faked his death to join Section 31 and go undercover as a Romulan
It's not great, tbh
The ENT books get better after the Romulan wars though, it's proper founding of the Federation stuff
We meet Jack Crusher (erm, the OG) when 4 timelines start overlapping and he's a bit unhinged
Teenage Kirk stole a car and his choice was go to jail or join Starfleet
What happened when Voyager got home? Seven broke up with Chakotay like 30 pages in
Kirk gets cloned, and his clone becomes the sub of an evil invincible super genius and its all very gay
George Kirk was Robert April's first officer on the first ever mission of the unnamed starship with the Naval Construction Contract 1701
Robert is a hard-core pacifist and has to turn command over to George whenever it's time to fire weapons
Data becomes fully human for a couple of days and it's really sweet
They never say "wristwatch" or "phone", it's always "wrist chrono" or "personal comm"
There are gays but they don't say that word because it's the 1990's and Rick Berman runs the franchise
Spock has a son in the past with Zarabeth
Everyone in the post-Nemesis era does spy missions all the time non stop, as if Starfleet has abandoned exploring the cosmos for doing Space Mission: Impossible
Bashir does it better than anyone else, he takes on Section 31 from the inside
Remember Control? It's from the novels, except the novels do it SO MUCH BETTER.
Remember how we never found out who Future Guy was? We do.
It's very underwhelming, nobody we know
We find out how the Romulans and Vulcans split
Surak was a Vulcan internet blogger
A Borg Cube eats Pluto
Janeway dies
Janeway gets better
At least one TOS book features a wizard
There's a Star Trek TOS/Here Come the Brides crossover novel
It had cameos from The Doctor (as in, Who), Han Solo, Starbuck and others
Whole book series about Section 31
Whole book series about the Department of Temporal Investigations
One time they do the Bill and Ted thing to escape confinement and it works
Wanna know how Riker and Troi met?
Wanna know what Picard got up to on the Stargazer?
Andorians have 4 sexes and it's very complicated
Data comes back from the dead as Data 2.0, and it was fresh and exciting because it happened long before ST: Picard did it twice.
Lal comes back too and we get father/daughter android stuff! They have a home and everything but keep having to save the universe
One time Mirror Seven is led around on a leash naked on Terok Nor
Geordi becomes captain of the USS Challenger, decides it's not for him because plot, and goes back to engineering on the Enterprise
Kirk is shot on the bridge and dies
Kirk gets better
They watch 3D holos of old Doctor Who episodes in the Enterprise rec room
The Enterprise also has an AI named Moira, which was Zora long before Zora
The TOS crew get together for one last mission. About three times.
There's a Perry Mason book except it's about Kirk's lawyer from that TOS episode
Data 2.0 owns and runs a massive gambling empire on Orion
Spock keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era
Scotty keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era
Bones keeps randomly showing up everywhere in the TNG era
You're on Tumblr so you already know about Killing Time
There's a guy named McKenzie Calhoun and he's a total badass and captains a ship of weirdos and misfits
Kirk comes back from the dead, saves the galaxy repeatedly, has an intersex child (who identifies as male) with a Romulan/Klingon hybrid
Kirk beats up Worf
Kirk's child has superpowers
Kirk's child saves the galaxy at age 6
The Kirk stuff is 100% ignored in the other novels
About 50% of the novels are ignored in the other 50%, and the ones that are meant to be in direct continuity with each other aren't always quite
Just like the TV shows and movies, then
Lwaxana Troi meets Q, and it goes as well as you'd expect
Someone tells Data, yes you idiot you had emotions all along and he's like, oh shit you're right
McCoy is left in command of the Enterprise as a joke by Kirk, who is then immediately kidnapped
Ro Laren is captain of Deep Space Nine
Picard/Beverly is a thing, they get married and have a child named Rene. No running away and raising your kid in secret here
Riker and Troi are married, serve on the Titan together with a bunch of adorable weirdos and have a daughter named Tasha
You get to watch all the 24th century characters die horribly in the end along with their entire universe. Holy fuck it's a bleak horror show. Personally, I love it. But if that's not your cup of tea I'd skip the Coda trilogy
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