And I would say that even if the novel is not considered canon, the way the actors (and I do not believe it was just Robinson who felt this way) chose to play the roles is valid as part of canon as long as it doesn’t actually violate anything continuitywise.
If I found out that James Doohan had played Scotty as if he were an alcoholic… well, I wouldn’t have personally seen it that way, but he notoriously loved booze, so sure. Scotty was an alcoholic.
There’s a whole episode where Scotty drank a Kevlan under the table, the Kevlans were shown to be basically supermen, so… I’m pretty sure it would take an alcoholic to do that.
Edit: Oh, and the TNG episode where he got mad because everyone drank synthahol…
Sure, but if, alternately, I found out that he played Scotty as if he wasn’t an alcoholic- that he could go for months between scotches, he just had an amazing tolerance for alcohol when he drank, fine. It still doesn’t affect continuity.
