The Stuff of Dreams cover

[King Daniel]

Relayer1 wrote:

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Yes, but they aren't in mainstream continuity. I'd like to see Kirk back properly...

IMO the Sharnerverse was close enough to the mainline continuity that it can be seen as part of it if one so chooses. They just never ever talk about him in the other books.

"The first rule of the Shatnerverse is..."

[zarkon]

King Daniel wrote:

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IMO the Sharnerverse was close enough to the mainline continuity that it can be seen as part of it if one so chooses. They just never ever talk about him in the other books.

"The first rule of the Shatnerverse is..."

Although I love "The Return" (and totally prefer it to what happened with the borg in treklit), I think quite a bit of what it does is incompatible with modern continuity, like the provenance of v'ger

[Jarvisimo]

I really liked the amount of non-humanoid borg in The Return, but it was a silly book: one that pandered to the idea that Kirk was the greatest man who ever lived in this fictional universe, who was the centre of what everything in Trek should be about. I don't really think Shatner was such a part of the composition of books - I don't know, does anyone know how much he played a part? was it like Stewart in the TNG movies and was actually creatively involved? - but it feels like the Reeves-Stevens certainly were making this a book about Shatner's view of his character. Sometimes - usually - people die in dismal ways. Let's not mythologise our fictional heroes, for once, but let them die, in cold and barren manner.

[zarkon]

hey

the man says it himself

"I got a magnificent performance out of me, because I respected me so much!"

[Christopher]

Why in the world do we need Kirk back in the 24th century? If not for the Nexus, he would've most likely been dead by the TNG era anyway. And it's not like there's any dearth of 23rd-century fiction featuring the character.

King Daniel wrote:

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IMO the Sharnerverse was close enough to the mainline continuity that it can be seen as part of it if one so chooses. They just never ever talk about him in the other books.

You could perhaps make a (tenuous) case for that where the first two trilogies are concerned, but the Totality trilogy is incompatible with the main novel continuity in a number of respects: Bajor hasn't yet joined the Federation as of 2378, Titan's Romulan-aid mission lasts over a year, and Admiral Janeway is alive during the time frame when she was dead in the main novel continuity.

I think that initially the idea was to approach it as you suggest, to leave it ambiguous whether they could fit or not, but by the time of Totality the decision had been made just to let each series go its own way. And as zarkon says, The Return's version of the Borg and V'Ger has been retroactively contradicted by the main novelverse.

For that matter, the Shatnerverse version of the Mirror Universe's origin is incompatible with "In a Mirror, Darkly." The Shatnerverse version is that the MU began to form after First Contact, growing out of a human-Vulcan military alliance formed to defend against the Borg threat which Cochrane had learned of. IaMD established that history had already diverged much earlier than that -- the Empire had existed in some form for centuries, most classic literature other than Shakespeare was different, and Cochrane and his people slaughtered the Vulcans who made first contact.

[Tosk]

Christopher wrote:

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Maybe it's a preliminary cover and the final one will be rendered in more detail. The initial cover releases are often of preliminary art.

I'll bet it looks exactly the same when it comes out. They seem to be using this pic by Wiley Coyote...

http://trekmodeler.deviantart.com/ar...ight-209000814

[Therin of Andor]

Infern0 wrote:

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Yeah but Captain Kirk fell down a cliff and died...

"Bridge on the captain."

[Allyn Gibson]

Christopher wrote:

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Why in the world do we need Kirk back in the 24th century? If not for the Nexus, he would've most likely been dead by the TNG era anyway. And it's not like there's any dearth of 23rd-century fiction featuring the character.

I also question the format. If you're going to bring Kirk back into the 24th-century novel continuity, is an eBook novella really the best place to do that? The destruction of the Borg and the resurrection of Data merited entire trilogies; the return of Kirk, a character who is far more of a cultural touchstone than Data and the Borg combined, merits a footnote by comparison? From a marketing standpoint, returning Kirk in The Stuff of Dreams makes no sense at all.

[StewMc]

8of5 wrote:

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My niggle is the Enterprise looks a bit computer gamey to me.

Funny you should say that. Compare the Enterprise image on the cover to this image on deviantart. The image is of a model someone made for the old game Bridge Commander. Looks like exactly the same image with some contrast/colour changes...

EDIT: D'oh, never noticed Tosk's post! Looks like the port nacelle was cut off as its not quite as detailed as the rest of the ship.

[teacake]

Christopher wrote:

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Why in the world do we need Kirk back in the 24th century?

Because we LOVE HIM.

And it would be cool to see him in a new era.

[ATimson]

I wonder if the lighting reflected on the hull in the cover art was added by whoever assembled the cover, or if rather this is the original artist using his old model. (I suppose we'll find out if Pocket continues the practice of crediting the artist on the copyright page...)

[Skywalker]

Christopher wrote:

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Why in the world do we need Kirk back in the 24th century? If not for the Nexus, he would've most likely been dead by the TNG era anyway. And it's not like there's any dearth of 23rd-century fiction featuring the character.

People just don't know how to let go.

[Fer]

teacake wrote:

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Because we LOVE HIM.

And it would be cool to see him in a new era.

Oh, I love him just fine... in the 23rd century.

Nothing against Kirk, he's my hero and he's awesome and I love 'im to pieces, but he's already got, what, 7 books this year? (Counting JJ-Kirk, that is.) That's plenty. If I want stories of him in the 24th century, I'll read the Shatnerverse books.

Allyn Gibson wrote:

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I also question the format. If you're going to bring Kirk back into the 24th-century novel continuity, is an eBook novella really the best place to do that? The destruction of the Borg and the resurrection of Data merited entire trilogies; the return of Kirk, a character who is far more of a cultural touchstone than Data and the Borg combined, merits a footnote by comparison? From a marketing standpoint, returning Kirk in The Stuff of Dreams makes no sense at all.

This x 100. In fact, I'm rather hoping it's a fresh story about the Nexus that doesn't necessarily deal with the fact that characters we know exist in it. I really enjoyed the last TNG ebook because the format let it feel like an episode, so I'm rather hoping this one will be a nice, comfortable non-universe-changing episodic story.

[JD]

^I'm with you guys there. There is no way they wouldn't make a big deal out of Kirk's return. Even if they didn't say it out right, it would definitely be in a big event story, and leading up to it we'd hear all about how someone might be returning.

[Frontier]

I'm just amazed that such a great story point of possibilities as the Nexus isn't worthy of a trilogy like so many other big stories. Kirk return aside (I find that sooo unlikely) the "this could change so many characters" aspects of nexus experiences should warrant much more than an e-book. The fact that it's only getting such a release, with no apparent fan-fare, makes me really leary... not that I won't read it, just... I think something fishy is up.