Interesting... they've added a The Original Series subtitle. And it looks like a new direction for the cover design overall.
Love the cover, but still unsure about the book. What happened to the original description that had Kirk as an admiral regreting the dirction of his life?
Well, the DVDs have always been labeled "Star Trek: The Original Series" and even though TAS is jsut titled Star Trek, its DVD set is Star Trek: The Animated Series. Honestly, given Paramount/CBS seems to stamp subtitles on everything Trek, I was surprised Trek XI was just titled Star Trek with no subtitles at all.
Yeah, but the only time the books have followed that convention was during the brief experiment with the "lower decks" books forming a continuity overlapping the events of TOS, which produced the Janus Gate and Errand of Vengeance trilogies before it was abandoned. So it's an unexpected change. Although maybe it's a good idea, since there are so many other books now under the Star Trek label that aren't necessarily part of any specific TV series, so clarifying that something is TOS rather than some other part of the franchise is helpful. I wasn't surprised, since minimalist sequel titles seems to be an industry-wide trend these days. That's how we got Rambo instead of Rambo IV, Rocky Balboa instead of Rocky VI, The Final Destination instead of Final Destination IV, and Fast & Furious instead of The Fast and the Furious IV.
Maybe it's told in flashback? I was thinking the face shot on the cover looked rather TMP-Admiral Kirk than younger TOS Kirk.
My first thought was that they added the "TOS" subtitle to help audiences distinguish it from a hypothetical novel set in the continuity of Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness.
^That was my thought as well. If they ever do start doing books based on the JJAbrams movies set on the Entperise then I'm assuming they will probably just be Star Trek without any kind of secondary series title.
I'm hoping they make any and all nuTrek novels adopt awkward sentence names including the words "Star Trek" Seriously though, perhaps if there were to be any novels in the new continuity, the ones set around the first movie could be called Star Trek colon something something (as the aborted four were) and the ones set around or following up on events from the second movie be called Star Trek Into Darkness colon something something.
Ugh. That'd be like calling Dayton Ward's first novel Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: In the Name of Honor. Or calling mine Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Ex Machina. Whatever the punctuation, STID is still just one installment in the series called Star Trek. So books should use the series title, not treat each installment title as a separate series title.
Those admittedly sound awful, but Star Trek: First Contact: Something Something could work for a continuation or prequel to events in 2063, and Star Trek Generations: Something as a follow up to Kirk's return and death involving some other TOS survivors.
Maybe we can take a leaf from the old Hope/Crosby "Road" pictures: Star Trek to Risa. Star Trek to the Mirror Universe! Star Trek to the Planet That Time Forgot. (Hmm. That last one sounds kinda fun.)
That's never been necessary before. Conveying that sort of connection is what cover art, logo design, and blurbs are for.