Star Trek: Picard – Last Best Hope (2020) – Una McCormack

It has been a while since I slipped into a Star Trek novel. I’m still back on The Original Series, and the last one I read was 1995’s The Ashes of Eden, the first novel that introduced the Shatner-Verse version of Trek novels. But I was eager to see how the newer novels tied in…

Star Trek: The Lost Years (1989) – J.M. Dillard

So what happened to James T. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest after the close of their five year mission and before the events depicted in The Motion Picture? This week, I start to find out with the next instalment in the Pocket Books series. I think I have read this one before, as I…

Star Trek: Strangers from the Sky (1987) – Margaret Wander Bonanno

This week’s visit to the Book Shelf brings me the second Giant Star Trek novel from Pocket Books, and gives us a a different look at the first contact between Humans and Vulcans, a plot point that would later be visited in Star Trek: First Contact, though it could be argued that this book complements…

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1991) – The Drumhead, and Half a Life

Captain’s log: stardate 44769.2 Jonathan Frakes directs his third episode of the series, from a script by Jeri Taylor. This episode, a bottle show, first aired on 29 April, 1991. Trouble comes aboard the Enterprise when a Klingon exo-biologist, J’Ddan (Henry Woronicz) is being investigated by Riker (Frakes) and Troi (Marina Sirtis) for sabotage, and…

Anchors Aweigh (1945) – George Sidney

  Frank Sinatra joins Gene Kelly in this recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book following my screening of Singin’ in the Rain. The two crooners star as naval officers Clarence Doolittle (Sinatra) and Joseph Brady (Kelly). They arrive in Los Angeles, having been decorated for their service on a four…

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) – Gene Roddenberry

  I love my classic Trek, and since they aren’t making anymore of them, I decided that perhaps I’d check in with the Pocket Book series, and read, or in some cases, re-read some of these non-canon adventures of Kirk and Company. Pocket Books picked up the rights for Star Trek novels in 1979, with…

Star Wars: Aftermath (2015) – Chuck Wendig

  The Journey to The Force Awakens continues… we’ve had the first issue of the comic, and now comes the new novel, set in the newly established timeline, which sadly jettisoned some of the great stories that created the Expanded Universe that have been in place for over two decades. Aftermath picks up a few…

Magnum, p.i. (1982) – Almost Home and Heal Thyself

  Almost Home, the first episode up this week for Magnum (Tom Selleck) is a great one. Written by Alan Cassidy and Rob Gilmer this one had an original airdate of 9 December, 1982. While Higgins (John Hillerman) and Agatha (Gillian Dobb) are hard at work on a float for a parade, Thomas is hired…