Stargate Novels

[mindwarped]

We need a separate forum for each book like we have for each episode

[RamonaThePest]

I agree. I don't know why more fans aren't intereted in them. It's how I get my SG-1 fix.

[GermanAstra]

I agree. I don't know why more fans aren't intereted in them. It's how I get my SG-1 fix.

I used to love them and told all my friends to buy and read them, I really advertized them and I eagerly pre-ordered every book. But what I loved about them was that they used former fanfiction authors to write official books. There were so many little things in them that showed that the authors were fans and knew the characteres and relationships very well.

Thish totally changed once they started to use professional authors where I can't help getting the impression that they don't know their stuff just well, and just write any story with our characteres thrown into it. I have no idea why this change was made. Did we not buy enough books and they thought famous names would sell better? Have they sold better? Are there no good fanfiction authors left? I doubt it. There are so many great authors out there!

Well, I have stopped pre-ordering after I was disappointed in a few of the newer books (read: bored to Death), and got wary.

Plus, now I can't buy them anymore from Amazon anyway, only as e-book but I want a real book. I still have some pre-orders there but only get mails with "this book is not available". And no way am I paying shipping costs from America to Germany which would make the book twice as expensive while I could get it for free from German Amazon. Not if I have to be afraid to not like the book in the end. So I am still reading all the reviews here, but so far there has been no-one saying "you all need to read this book, it's awesome". It's always more like "I like it, it wasn't bad, but..." And that's not enough for me.

So... *shrugs*

Maybe we just have to accept that the fandom is dead for now and hope for someone to reinvent it in a few years. A fresh start.

[Thunderbird 2]

I used to love them and told all my friends to buy and read them, I really advertized them and I eagerly pre-ordered every book. But what I loved about them was that they used former fanfiction authors to write official books. There were so many little things in them that showed that the authors were fans and knew the characteres and relationships very well.

Thish totally changed once they started to use professional authors where I can't help getting the impression that they don't know their stuff just well, and just write any story with our characteres thrown into it. I have no idea why this change was made. Did we not buy enough books and they thought famous names would sell better? Have they sold better? Are there no good fanfiction authors left? I doubt it. There are so many great authors out there!

I suspect that the truth here is one of those "official authors" complained that using unofficial writers was unfair to those within the profession. Alternatively, it may simply be the case that the publisher may have tightened up the rules themselves. There is no way to know.
Doubtless though, someone outside a series or concept can never write its characters as well as someone who has invested in those same characters. No matter how good they are.

[Artie]

Being a pro author and being a fanfic author aren't necessarily exclusive. There are quite a few published authors who also write fanfic under another name, and quite a few who write Stargate.

[RamonaThePest]

I used to love them and told all my friends to buy and read them, I really advertized them and I eagerly pre-ordered every book. But what I loved about them was that they used former fanfiction authors to write official books. There were so many little things in them that showed that the authors were fans and knew the characteres and relationships very well.

Thish totally changed once they started to use professional authors where I can't help getting the impression that they don't know their stuff just well, and just write any story with our characteres thrown into it. I have no idea why this change was made. Did we not buy enough books and they thought famous names would sell better? Have they sold better? Are there no good fanfiction authors left? I doubt it. There are so many great authors out there!

Well, I have stopped pre-ordering after I was disappointed in a few of the newer books (read: bored to Death), and got wary.

Plus, now I can't buy them anymore from Amazon anyway, only as e-book but I want a real book. I still have some pre-orders there but only get mails with "this book is not available". And no way am I paying shipping costs from America to Germany which would make the book twice as expensive while I could get it for free from German Amazon. Not if I have to be afraid to not like the book in the end. So I am still reading all the reviews here, but so far there has been no-one saying "you all need to read this book, it's awesome". It's always more like "I like it, it wasn't bad, but..." And that's not enough for me.

So... *shrugs*

Maybe we just have to accept that the fandom is dead for now and hope for someone to reinvent it in a few years. A fresh start.

I would say definitely read
Matter of Honor
Cost of Honor
Survival of the Fittest
Alliances
Hydra (a lot of people don't like this book because it is complicated but It's a great read IMO)

[bookwormjules]

I would say definitely read
Matter of Honor
Cost of Honor
Survival of the Fittest
Alliances
Hydra (a lot of people don't like this book because it is complicated but It's a great read IMO)

Couldn't agree more with you about Matter of Honor and Cost of Honor. I haven't read the other three, but the high recommendation has me interested, especially Hydra - I like complicated. What are your thoughts on Barque of Heave, I'm about to start it, but I may switch it for Hydra for my next SG1 read.

[RamonaThePest]

I read Barque sooo long ago that I can't remember it. (That doesn't mean it's not a good book, but I've developed some short-term memory issues but I woud remember if I didn't like it.) As to Hydra, the very first page through me for a loop as Tea'lc called Jack "Colonel O'Neill" and as we all know, Teal'c has never called Jack anything but "O'Neill" when addressing him directly. I thought "Oh boy, another author that doesn't know the characters." BUT, it turns out there is a really good reason for the seemingly OOC dialogue. It's not a book you can sit down for a week and then pick it back up as you must remain conscious of certain things in order to keep track of everything. So if you don't have the time to invest in Hydra right now, them read Barque first. But if you have the time - go for it! I loved it.

The author described things so vividly that i could see it happening. Yet the descriptions aren't bogged down and boring the way the descriptions were in Oceans of Dust. In Oceans of Dust, pages were devoted to describing caves, ships, caverns and after trying to picture what the author is talking about, I gave up and moved on with no clear picture of the goa'uld ship our heroes were trapped in, or the tomb the archeologists had discovered, etc. Not that the entire book is bad, I just thought those types of descriptions were lacking.

[hedwig]

I really enjoyed "Barque of Heaven". The team must survive 13(?) tests on 13 different planets in order to be able to return home. I did start to feel like maybe 13 tests was a bit too many by the time I finished the book, but overall, I really liked it.

I also enjoyed "Oceans of Dust". I didn't mind all the descriptions of the various ships and places the team was in, partly because I seem to be able to visualize many of the scenes fairly easily. And if I couldn't I'd just skip right past them and continue reading.

Another quite good book is "City of the Gods". "Roswell" is also highly recommended.

The only ones I can really say I don't recommend were "The Power Behind the Throne" and "Valhalla".

[RamonaThePest]

Hedwig, I'd forgotten all the tests in Barque. I'm reading Hearts Desire but Your post makes me want to reread Barque of Heaven. One good thing about memory problems, it'll be like reading. new book! lol

[Artie]

I really enjoyed "Barque of Heaven". The team must survive 13(?) tests on 13 different planets in order to be able to return home. I did start to feel like maybe 13 tests was a bit too many by the time I finished the book, but overall, I really liked it.

I also enjoyed "Oceans of Dust". I didn't mind all the descriptions of the various ships and places the team was in, partly because I seem to be able to visualize many of the scenes fairly easily. And if I couldn't I'd just skip right past them and continue reading.

Another quite good book is "City of the Gods". "Roswell" is also highly recommended.

The only ones I can really say I don't recommend were "The Power Behind the Throne" and "Valhalla".

Seconding your recs -- I'd also add that I enjoyed Four Dragons, Sunrise, and Heart's Desire.

[GermanAstra]

I would say definitely read
Matter of Honor
Cost of Honor
Survival of the Fittest
Alliances
Hydra (a lot of people don't like this book because it is complicated but It's a great read IMO)

Thank you - I read them all and also enjoyed them all. You picked all my favouritest. Those are the books that I consider the good old times! Also Barque of Heaven definitely belongs to this list.

Valhalla on the other hand was the absolute low point, I also didn't enjoy Relativity or Roswell and still haven't made it through Power behind the throne, but when I read this thread I am not the only one with that problem. Four Dragons was actually way back to the old times and not bad, it again had many little things which I had missed, and I have yet to read Sunrise which was the last one I bought, as after that one Amazon.de only sent me e-mails with "this book is not yet available" for the past years. While I actually would LOVE to read the one by Sabine C. Bauer, I loved all her other books (Mirror Mirror is the only Atlantis-book I ever read). But I really don't understand why I have to pay so much money, so it becomes twice as expensive, just to let this one send to me from America. So I hoped to get it at ebay one day or something.

[bookwormjules]

I really enjoyed Roswell as I'm a big Mitchell fan. My low point in the SG1 books was Do No Harm. Some if the harder to find stargaze books are cheap in electronic form. I much prefer the real book, but the bulk of the collection for stargate books is ebook form. They're to hard to find otherwise.

[Artie]

I really enjoyed Roswell as I'm a big Mitchell fan. My low point in the SG1 books was Do No Harm. Some if the harder to find stargaze books are cheap in electronic form. I much prefer the real book, but the bulk of the collection for stargate books is ebook form. They're to hard to find otherwise.

Yeah, a bunch of them are out of print and the paper editions are really expensive used. But the ebooks are cheap and a lot easier to get.

[RamonaThePest]

Thank you - I read them all and also enjoyed them all. You picked all my favouritest. Those are the books that I consider the good old times! Also Barque of Heaven definitely belongs to this list.

Valhalla on the other hand was the absolute low point, I also didn't enjoy Relativity or Roswell and still haven't made it through Power behind the throne, but when I read this thread I am not the only one with that problem. Four Dragons was actually way back to the old times and not bad, it again had many little things which I had missed, and I have yet to read Sunrise which was the last one I bought, as after that one Amazon.de only sent me e-mails with "this book is not yet available" for the past years. While I actually would LOVE to read the one by Sabine C. Bauer, I loved all her other books (Mirror Mirror is the only Atlantis-book I ever read). But I really don't understand why I have to pay so much money, so it becomes twice as expensive, just to let this one send to me from America. So I hoped to get it at ebay one day or something.

You mention American Amazon and how expensive shipping is - why haven't you tried Amazon UK? I'm assuming that would be cheaper shipping?

I am very disappointed with Fandemonium. It started out so promising. I've read here where readers write to them with no response. In the early days, Sally Malcolm, herself, would respond. The last response I got from her was to my complaint about the book Valhalla. Her tone seemed annoyed at my criticism of the book. (I can understand that but I had hoped my complaint would make them aware of how we true fans feel about books by authors that don't really know the characters.) I wish they would hire fans to beta the transcripts - shoot, there are some of us who would do it or free!