Why are The Janus Gate and Errand of Vengeance books titled Star Trek: The Original Series, but all other TOS books simply titled Star Trek?
http://www.geocities.com/therinofandor/TOScrew.html An extract: "The key to the six 2002 books was that they entwined the aired episodes and featured an ensemble cast of familiar faces: the 'lower deck' characters, red-shirts, semi-regulars and guest star crewmembers of TOS. ... My appearance matrix is "also current for: The Janus Gate, a trilogy by LA Graf; the Errand of Vengeance trilogy by Kevin Ryan; and two instalments of Ryan's sequel trilogy, Errand of Fury: Seeds of Rage and Demands of Honor." The first two trilogies' final manuscripts, as published, were deemed not so different to regular original series novels, so the subtitle was dropped.
These were planned to be the first of a new approach to the Star Trek books, which would focus more on the "lower decks" characters and what they were doing during and between episodes of the TV series. As originally planned, these books would not represent the entire TOS line, just part of it, so they were given a subtitle that would distinguish them from the other books. As it turned out, the books weren't highly distinguishable from other books (L.A. Graf often included a focus on the minor characters in other books, for example), and the "The Original Series" line was simply absorbed back into the regular books. The "Errand of Fury" trilogy, written by Kevin Ryan as a sequel to "Errand of Vengeance", was just given the regular "Star Trek" title. davidh
Which caught at least one lazy reviewer out who submitted a review of the story on the back cover rather than the one which appeared within the pages!! Paul
How did that happen in the first place, anyway? How did the back cover blurbs get so...utterly shash?
^ As I understand it, the cover copy was written at an early stage in the books' development, likely based on the outline(s). When the story/stories were changed substantially from what was originally proposed, the cover copy was not updated after the covers were already printed. Don't know about the "why" of that, but I'm pretty sure "Just to see if anyone notices" was ruled out as a possible motive early on.
The LA Graf team boasts in their "Voyages of Imagination" interview that they rarely feel compelled to stick by their pitch if the story wants to evolve differently during the writing. Obviously, for this trilogy, they deviated more than usual. It's risky, since the editor and/or vetting body (representing the license dispenser) might overrule what the author has spent all that time on. It also seems that, at some point between John Ordover first describing the "TOS reboot" line to us online, someone asked for these books not to be as "lower decks" as the original premise described.