Saw some posts and comments from a while back about the Trek books and decided to give them a try. Starting out with “Q-Squared” because it was on sale for $1.99 and I figured a Q-centric story would be a fun entry point. I am now kind of regretting that frugal decision.
It follows multiple parallel realities (called “tracks” in the book) with Q and Trelane central to the plots, so my usual casual reading style of a chapter each evening is not working out well because I just cannot keep up.
The only saving grace is that I’ve at least read “A Stitch in Time” so I know not all Trek books are this confusing. Probably going to have to just power through this one and not let it ruin the medium. It’s not that it’s a bad story, just hard to follow.
I’ve also been jumping into the novelverse recently; my grandfather had a friend who was trying to offload his late wife’s Trek collection, and I ended up the recipient.
I started with the second Department of Temporal Investigations book, then used this chart to decide where to properly begin. Even though I heard some grievances about it, I chose the DS9: Avatar books; it all made fun enough reading for before bed.
Unfortunately, my collection has a bunch of weird gaps, so now that I’ve finished those, I have to look for the next book, Section 31: Abyss (Little relation to the now-infamous film), at a used book store in my area.
Very nice and…way more detailed than I would have imagined. I don’t even see the book I’m currently reading in that chart. I did find “Destiny” in there (recommended here twice) and it has the indicator for “good starting point” even though several others lead into it. So if I needed a third reason to buy that set, there it is.
Luckily (YMMV) I’ve come to appreciate ebooks so it’s just a matter of finding ones that don’t have DRM and putting in my credit card.
Are you against DRM for technical limitations or convenience? I do it for convenience and started writing down before choosing what to buy, but even some short trilogies have mixed DRM and no DRM. I mostly use Kobo for buying but I have no strings attached.
The main thing that personally drives me nuts about DRM is as a Linux user, many streaming services will only give you 480p or even 360p video even though you’re paying for more. With that bullcrap, combined with buggy streaming services, the high seas is sometimes literally a better experience than streaming. Then the hippy moral stuff gets involved:
Although of course, if I can buy it used on Blu-Ray at a local business (Zia and Bookmans are probably the two best places to do it in my area), I’ll do that instead, and just rip the Blu-Rays; it funds places I like while still being (more) legal (than just straight up pirating).
(Granted, I’m a bit of a hypocrite, as I don’t pirate that much. I’m still on Paramount+ for now because my parents still pay for it, but we’re so focused on Star Trek that my idea to just get the Blu-Rays and DVDs is tempting them to get off.)
Both technical limitations, convenience, and moral objections to DRM (if it has to phone home or I can’t use it how I want, I won’t buy it). I have a Kobo but prefer to have a clean epub for whatever I buy so I feel like I actually own it.
The online shop I bought “Q-Squared” from has most of them DRM free, including all 3 of the Destiny books. Not sure how deep the DRM-free well is, but spot checking it shows most of the ones I looked at were clean. Worst comes to worse, I’ll do like I did when I still bought ebooks from Amazon and buy the DRM’d version and high-seas a clean copy.
Where do you buy them from?
I’m considering buying this one next
https://www.ebooks.com/en-co/book/211126328/pliable-truths/dayton-ward/
What does “EPUB (encrypted)” mean?
Also it’s much much more expensive than Kobo. 16 AUD with included taxes is 10.60 USD. This book is 13usd and I bet I need to add taxes.
Also Kobo had is 69% off= 5aud.
EPUB (encrypted) means you have to use their reader app or maybe Adobe Digital Editions or some other walled-garden horseshit to read it. It seems to be up to either the author or the publisher on whether to offer it DRM-free. I haven’t found much rhyme or reason, but it looks like the ones from Simon and Schuster are available without DRM about 5 years after it’s been published.
I only buy DRM-free since I like to read on multiple devices (Kobo, Phone, or CalibreWeb in a browser in a pinch) and get tired of jailbreaking them myself. I’d gladly pay more for DRM free than not be able to read it without asking for permission every time or being locked to specific reader apps.
