2008 books
19) D.W. "Prof" Smith, Captain Proton: Defender of the Earth, 1999
Just occasionally Star Trek: Voyager would rise to unexpected heights, one of its best episodes being 'Bride of Chaotica' which focussed on Tom Paris's interest in 20th Century pulp SF. Dean Wesley Smith's original non-Trek novel is fettered with the usual skiffy tropes: evil galactic empires, ray guns and a talking giant spider from outer space, played tongue-in-cheek but with none of the science fictional self-referencing that Robert Sheckley or Harry Harrison would have indulged in. The physical book itself is also good: a well-produced facsimile of a pulp SF mag with 2-column type, a typical letters page in which the editor cheerily bats away pedantic teenage nerds, and a few space-filling written-before-breakfast short stories, one of which starts brilliantly.