Motorcycle

meirl

OCELOT… A Roberts Space Industries inspired destroyer built by me in Starfield

Gasser

MERCEDES BENZ

Help I forgor💀

The Rock v Medusa [OC]

SPACE

whyDoTheyAlwaysComeToMe

Olympic Gold Medalist Serena Williams and her husband

AIRPLANE

Star Wars Book Sale: 15 books for $1.99 each!

Amazon is having a doozy of a Star Wars sale, with a ton of books for just a penny under $2.

ENGINE

Caroline Munro (1970s)

Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams

SEXY

Sólheimajökull glacier, South Iceland [5051×6314] [OC]

Scarlett Johansson

JAGUAR

TRACTOR

Dafne Keen

Pennsylvania sunrise [3000×2000][OC]

ALBUMS

Eartha Kitt drinking honey before a performance [1958]

The offer

CAMPING ADVENTURE

MOVIE

THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY

White Bikini Beauty

Sydney Sweeney

VETTE

TUCKER

Steamrunner Class

Alison Brie

OUCH

Margot Robbie

Teyonah Parris – Monica Rambeau/Captain Marvel/Photon(Wandavision, 2021 and The Marvels, 2023)

A quick animation of the USS Typhoon returing to Earth [MY VFX]

Stone Guardians, Rialto Beach, Washington 2025 [OC] [1200×600]

Alison Brie

Red Sonja #9 (Cover E Sapphire Nova Cosplay Variant)

TrekLit Connection: Star Trek Lit-Verse Reading Guide

TrekLit Connections is a series of columns from authors, artists, fans, and publishers in which I give them space to tell you in their own words why they’re so deeply involved in TrekLit, . My goal is be able to have at least one of these up a month and would love to hear from you if you’d like to talk about your own TrekLit Connections, find the FAQ page on how to contact!

This time we’re hearing from Ryan Williams, author of the fantastic Star Trek reading guide that you’ve likely run into if you’ve done even a moment’s research into which order to read the relaunch books in. He has a novel Patreon that I’m sure he’d love for you to check out.

My earliest Star Trek memory dates back to 1987, seeing an advertisement for the premiere of The Next Generation on TV. At four years old, I knew this news would excite my dad. As the show aired after my bedtime, I rarely watched TNG for years but could hear my dad watching it in the next room every Sunday night, lying in bed, wishing I could stay up to join him.

In the early ’90s, my lifelong fandom was cemented by three events: watching the original series movies repeatedly on cable, finally watching TNG episodes recorded with our new VCR, and most impactfully, collecting Star Trek Micro Machines starting in 1993. Those little ships sparked my ten-year-old imagination, making Star Trek the focus of my life through the rest of the decade. I spent countless hours drawing ship diagrams, updating handwritten portions of the Star Trek Encyclopedia and Chronology with each episode’s new lore, and covering my walls with expansive hand-drawn galaxy maps.

For years Star Trek was my hobby, the world I could escape to when the struggles of being a young teen, and the pains of middle school were just more than I wanted to deal with. We’ve all been there. Having something to lose myself in during those challenging years left Star Trek imprinted on my heart for life. Honestly Star Trek became so important to me that when our local UPN affiliate transitioned to the WB, causing me to miss three years of Voyager’s first run, I sunk into quite a depression.

Having studied at the feet of the Okudas for most of the decade, I had never delved into the novels, as they were NON-CANON!, a seemingly dirty word. On occasion I would flip through an interesting looking Trek book from the library like I was delving into something forbidden, never allowing myself to really read it, like some sinful knowledge would taint my pure view of Trek canon. But as Trek’s onscreen presence waned in the early 2000s, and the novels gained fame for continuing the stories of Picard, Sisko, and Janeway beyond the series, I gave in. I read A Stitch in Time, and the rest was history. What began as a plan to read a few DS9 stories back in 2004, just to see what happened after the series ended, led to me still not having completed reading the ever expanding list of all those interconnected novels more than twenty years later.

Trek Literature became the real continuation of those stories I so immersed myself in as a kid, the stories of Sisko, and Janeway, and Picard. The fight against the Borg, the exploration of the Delta Quadrant, the politics of the Federation and the Klingon Empire. And the story just got better because prose eliminated so many of the restrictions of live action TV. Janeway meeting Picard, Tuvok serving with Riker, the Enterprise crew teaming up with the heroes on Deep Space Nine. Anything was possible in the novels and the story never had to end. For twenty years, through narrative high points like the Destiny trilogy, the Typhon Pact, and Cold Equations, and even to low points like leaving us hanging with that damned Ascendants cliffhanger for more years than I could barely swallow, the pages kept turning and more and more adventures were always on the horizon for our heroes.

Until Picard. Returning onscreen to the 24th century was a thrilling prospect when it was announced, as that was “home.” Where we had all spent so much time. It had been almost twenty years since we had last left that time period onscreen, and seeing Patrick Stewart as Picard again was hard to argue with. But mostly I was disappointed, because I knew the novels would lose the freedom they had had during those decades, and that one way or another it would all be ruined going forward.

The 24th century novel line slowed to a crawl, and it looked like it would end with a whimper. Picard premiered, and I was actually thrilled. High on excitement the night of the premiere, and although it was a different Picard than “mine,” the father of Rene and husband of Beverly, I actually felt that the first episode was my favorite onscreen Star Trek production ever. The things I loved, though, were actually all the great things about Treklit. Moving those stories from the 90s forward, taking advantage of the huge universe and looking into some of those rarer nooks and crannies. Using the entire cast of characters that were available when appropriate. Picard meeting Seven of Nine! I’m hooked!

But by the end of the season, things hadn’t ended up staying at the highs they started out on. Discovery likewise was a huge disappointment to me, and gave me the perfect opportunity to jump ship on the modern series at the end of season two. The only show I continued with was Picard, and I absolutely loved season three, again because it felt like all the things I loved about Treklit. I never watched Lower Decks, Prodigy, or Strange New Worlds. I was very thankful for the Coda trilogy letting the Lit-verse go out on an (admittedly flawed) bang and not a whimper. But it has felt like a poor trade off to lose continuing the amazing story in the novels which I had been enjoying for twenty years, in exchange for one amazing season of tv and a bunch of stuff I didn’t even like.

But beyond just liking something on tv, even as an adult Star Trek has been my hobby, hugely affecting my time and creating friendships I never would have expected. Years spent on the TrekBBS somehow led to the creation of my website, which at this point I’ve spent far more hours than I can count working on and improving. I’m soon to complete a slow revamp of the entire thing, and then I have ideas on how to move forward in a post-Coda Treklit world. And my website led me to joining the Star Trek Timeliners group, which had created three iterations of the Pocket Books Star Trek Novel Timeline, last published in Voyages of Imagination in 2006. We’ve spent the last eight years slowly bringing the project back up to date, and improving it in ways that I’m excited for the world to someday see. Hopefully it will find its way back into being published again in some form eventually. Through these projects, Treklit has introduced me to quite a few people who I can truly call friends in real life and have made an impactful mark on me.

I first published an essay like this on my site in preparation for the Coda trilogy a few years ago, and at that time I titled it “Star Trek Comes To An End.” But despite what I said then, and even as more and more real world differences have separated Star Trek and I over the years, I have to admit that it will probably always hold a special place in my life and my heart. It was my world as a kid, and my comfort during difficult years, which left an indelible mark on me. And the years have proven that that accustomed emotional refuge, and that childhood love, is difficult to erase. So I’m thankful that I’ll never get around to reading every bit of Treklit (2,693 stories and counting!), and so there will always be more heroic adventures of Picard, Riker, Worf, Sisko, Janeway, and Seven. In my life, Star Trek in general, and Treklit in particular, will never come to an end.

Superman (2025) 4k Ultra HD Wallpaper

Y-Wing Wallpaper by me “Blender”

Michael Caine 1965

Featured Star Trek Starships for March 3, 2025

Sexual Freedom in the Digital Age: Role of Adult Content in Challenging Norms

Many facets of human life have been transformed by the digital age and sexuality is not an exception. Adult content has been more accessible, varied, and generally consumed than ever before as the internet has developed. Though this accessibility has sparked discussions on its social influence, it has also been very important in challenging traditional norms surrounding sexuality.  Adult material has helped to redefine how society views intimacy and enjoyment in the modern world by giving a forum for inquiry and self-expression. (more…)

Cyclist

Dory forgot something…

Milly Alcock

Bowtie