ENT: To Brave the Storm by Michael A. Martin Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Jedi_Master]

Christopher wrote:

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I don't think that's an accurate assessment. It's not like those scenes were written and then cut out. There was going to be a trilogy, but economic and logistical factors beyond the author's and editor's control required them to reduce it to two books. The editor thus told the author that he only had one book to finish it, and presumably the author, with guidance and input from the editor, decided how to cut the outline down to fit in one book -- what to keep and what to skip -- and then wrote that book from the revised outline.

So if scenes are missing they are the CHOICE of the author. Understood. It is a shame that the author chose to not include some of the more compelling events in his reduced size novel. Those omissions made the novel feel like an outline and very, very rushed.

[Christopher]

Jedi_Master wrote:

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So if scenes are missing they are the CHOICE of the author. Understood.

Well, that's oversimplfying it. If you're required to sacrifice things due to factors beyond your control, and you get to choose which specific things you sacrifice, that's still only a limited amount of choice in the matter.

[Jedi_Master]

Christopher wrote:

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Well, that's oversimplfying it. If you're required to sacrifice things due to factors beyond your control, and you get to choose which specific things you sacrifice, that's still only a limited amount of choice in the matter.

I disagree. An author has a 600 page book. He is told to make it 400 pages. He did not choose to cut the book, but the parts he cuts ARE his choice.
Mr. Martin was told to pare down his trilogy (apparently) but the parts he eliminated or did not even write were his choice, and the decision of some fans to lay the blame for the uneven and hurried pace of his newest Trek novel at the feet of some nameless editor has (in my opinion) allowed the author to get away with a poor quality book.

[Christopher]

Well, I don't know. That presupposes there was a way to tell the story in the required length without leaving a lot of important things out, and there's no way of knowing if that's the case since we don't have access to an alternate reality in which the book was written differently.

I was required to keep The Struggle Within under 35,000 words, and people keep saying they wish it had been longer and more detailed, but I don't recall anyone blaming me for its shortness.

[MatthiasRussell]

^ That brings up a question. How do the authors get paid in the franchise? Is it by the book, by the word, or do the nature of your contracts vary? I would also imagine your rates are also somewhat dependant on how well your past books have sold.

[MatthiasRussell]

Christopher wrote:

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^The refit seen in the Ships of the Line calendar is just conjectural, Doug Drexler's attempt to rework the design into something closer to what he would've preferred if he hadn't had to answer to the producers' requirements. There's no reason to assume that the books would include it, though of course they could if they chose to.

But if the book is ambiguous on that count, then you could certainly imagine it as the refitted version in your own mind.

And the ending of this book doesn't exactly set the fate of the ship in stone. Who knows when or why that refit happened. In fact, the ENT novels don't mention an NX class past Endeavor (NX-06) but IFM mentions Intrepid (NX-07).

So I imagine the NX line wasn't shut down permanently during the war, just until it made economical sense to start the line again. Perhaps after the war, the Daedaluses were retired again and the NX line restarted. Perhaps with more time, the NXs were refit just as the Constitutions and Mirandas would be in the next century.

In a similar vein, wasn't the "Ship of the Line" picture of the crashed Columbia published before Destiny was written?

[Defcon]

MatthiasRussell wrote:

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^ That brings up a question. How do the authors get paid in the franchise? Is it by the book, by the word, or do the nature of your contracts vary? I would also imagine your rates are also somewhat dependant on how well your past books have sold.

IIRC they get an advance, and if the royalties they would have got ever exceed that advance they get royalties.

[Christopher]

^Right. We get contracted by the book (sometimes 2 or more books in one contract, depending), and are paid an advance on royalties, plus further royalties if we ever earn out the advance.

[DarKush]

Christopher wrote:

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^Right. We get contracted by the book (sometimes 2 or more books in one contract, depending), and are paid an advance on royalties, plus further royalties if we ever earn out the advance.

Interesting. What happens if you unfortunately don't out earn the advance? Do you have to pay it back? Is it possible to not earn out the advance?

[Defcon]

As far as I understand it, they can keep the advance no matter what, as long as they have fulfilled their contractual obligations. IIRC Christopher and the other authors of the canceled new timeline novels could keep their advance although not a single copy was printed/sold.

[Christopher]

That's right. The advance is ours to keep. But if we earn it out, if the total royalties we earn exceed the amount of the advance, then we get paid the additional royalties. (This very rarely happens with tie-in novels, since the royalties have to be shared with the franchise owner and so the author's percentage is lower.)

[Ronald Held]

Are there any more Enterprise books scheduled?

[ATimson]

Christopher wrote:

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That's right. The advance is ours to keep. But if we earn it out, if the total royalties we earn exceed the amount of the advance, then we get paid the additional royalties.

Christopher, you may not be able to answer this (well, actually, with your SCE stories you might), but when there's an omnibus of previously-existing material, do they usually give the author a new advance? Is it royalties-only? Or does it depend on the publisher/specific contract?

[Christopher]

^Actually the only royalties I've ever been paid to date are for the trade-paperback collections containing my e-books. So no, there's no new advance, but royalties are paid directly to the author rather than being counted against the advance on the e-book. I'm not sure why that is, though I'm sure not complaining. And I don't know how it might differ for other publishers.

[The Wormhole]

MatthiasRussell wrote:

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In a similar vein, wasn't the "Ship of the Line" picture of the crashed Columbia published before Destiny was written?

Yes. The image of the Columbia crash site was in the 2007 Ships of the Line calendar, meaning the image itself was likely done up in 2006. Destiny was published in 2008.

I believe it has been stated that Columbia's fate in Destiny was inspired by the SotL image.