#shout out to mosaic for nicknaming kid kathryn as GOLDENBIRD which is lovely and galaxy brained thank u jeri taylor for my life

[baylardo]

Which Star Trek books would you recommend out of the ones you’ve read? Specifically voyager ones?

I meant to respond to this earlier lol WHOOPSIES MY B MY B.

I should firstly disclaim that I read these books from a content-creating standpoint and as such, would say that I have found merit to reading as many Voyager books as possible, regardless of what my personal opinions are on them. :) I think there's so much to gain from acquiring other people's takes on canon and semi-canon and you get to walk away with an opinion on it after having digested it haha. All of that to say I'm sorry if I'm a little GRAY on what I'd recommend.

Like honestly, The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway gets A LOT of flack (Rightfully so... U___U). But I still managed to find and take away a lot from that book that I wouldn't have without having at least INDULGED it with an open mind haha. You get a lot of little details about Janeway's life pre-Starfleet and as a cadet to a captain, good, pandery, and bad. I won't get into too many details but I'd honestly say that the portion of time in the book about her life at Starfleet Academy when she meets and works closely with Boothby is VERY INDULGENT for my taste on Janeway content, and I wouldn't put it past me to go back one day and reread it because I REALLY loved the UNINTENDED PARALLELS it reflected in Resolutions for me. And obviously establishes her fondness for Bootby. I say "unintended' because this book does not wrap its themes neatly AT ALL it feels very freestyle and improvised and I found myself wishing the author had written Janeway to have reflected on things that got established earlier in the novel when she's talking about her time on Voyager. It is also VERY plat. But on top of that too like, just the ideas it has about the Voyager crew post-Endgame are interesting as well, some are a little eyerolly to me, but I actually found myself FAVORING what this book decided to do with Tom and B'Elanna as opposed to the Beyer books! A LOT.

Mosaic and Pathways are both wonderful and light reads. (You can find free audiobooks for these on Youtube WINK WINK) Mosaic is very Janeway-centric with a B-plot that's a little honkshoomimimi and they try to tie it up with the Janeway stuff but it flops for me ngl. But if you look past that, I'd consider Mosaic to be the SUPERIOR Janeway backstory canon in a lot of ways. Which is sad for how short it is. But it's kinda admirable in achieving what it does. Pathways is about some of the crew members reflecting on their time pre-Delta Quadrant, some of the stories are better than others. I particularly loved the Chakotay one. Cutely a lot of them end with "And THAT'S how I met Captain Janeway," but it isn't consistent I WISH IT WAS HAHA. The Tom Paris one is BOTTOM TIER I HATE THAT I KNOW ABOUT IT IT HORRIBLE LOL. The B'Elanna one was cute in that it had her meeting Tom in the Maquis which is SADLY something that never got elaborated on in the show! Very squandered imo. Oh also hated the Neelix one, keep that boy vague I DON'T WANNA SEE IT. These book are also what the Kirsten Beyer book series draws on for reference which is great and easter egg-y and I LOVE IT.

Caretaker was pretty bottom tier for me lol. It's just the first two episodes in book form. (But it was a free audiobook on Youtube so I indulged) As someone who has trouble grasping what the EFF is going on in the first two eps, it was useful for me in that lens. But it's just mad boring and I'd hoped the book would milk internal dialogue of the characters a bit more and it DIDN'T.

The Voyager - Beyer book series I'd say have been funnnnn for the most part. (I'm like, around halfway through the series I think) There's a lot to be desired but I'd give them the benefit of the doubt of likely having to appeal to a Star Trek audience where more character-driven storytelling becomes more of a backburner priority RIP. What she DOES manage to achieve in the brief and spaced out increments of CHARACTER INTIMACY are pretty DELICIOUS. Not super important but the way she writes Miral in particular is SOOOOO SOFT AND CUTE. I know it ends the way I'd hoped the TV series would end so I'm really excited for that. :) And they're definitely worth the read. You're just having to juggle like what feels like way too large of an ensemble cast with characters you're simply NOT gonna care about and have a hard time remembering for a while. I'm not a big Trek fan so whenever it gets super lore dumpy or brings in things from other spinoffs I'm a little "Zzzzzzzzz I don't careeeeeee." Children of the Storm and Unworthy are both VERY HARD READS at least for me because MFW NO JANEWAY U___U </3 but shawty it makes her return that much more rewarding to suffer through Janeway-less Voyager material.

Other than that ummggggg I know I wanna read the Chakotay-centric books at some point. And there's also apparently a book where Phoebe's aboard Voyager to do a special painting and she ends up being a doppleganger Caretaker disguised as her and I REALLY wanna read that one. :)

HOPE THAT HELPS LOL <3333333333

#nothing made me astral project harder than having read the autobio and then like #reading kate mulgrew's born with teeth and how to forget #which establishes that she was nicknamed KITTEN as a kid #and the autobio author decided to do that in her book for janeway >____> and i just thought that was a really bold choice lmao #shout out to mosaic for nicknaming kid kathryn as GOLDENBIRD which is lovely and galaxy brained thank u jeri taylor for my life #Ask #Queerjaneway