Question: how many TMP era stories?

[Warped9]

This query is prompted by something in a TOS forum thread.

Could anyone tell me how many novels are set in the TMP era and what they are?

I know about Ex Machina and that a few of the early books were murky in terms of setting, but beyond that I come up blank.

Anyone???

[zarkon]

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Me...onology:_2270s
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Me...onology:_2280s

[Christopher]

My version of the post-TMP continuity includes Ex Machina, Mere Anarchy: The Darkness Drops Again, and parts 2-3 of DTI: Forgotten History. It is compatible with or makes reference to The Covenant of the Crown and The Better Man by Howard Weinstein, The Kobayashi Maru by Julia Ecklar, and The Captain's Daughter by Peter David (which is mostly post-TUC but includes portions set in the pre- and post-TMP eras). So you can treat those as a more-or-less consistent post-TMP continuity if you like.

But there are a good number of other novels that offer different takes on the era -- usually ones that hew closer to TOS or TWOK and make little use of the specific elements of TMP.

[WarsTrek1993]

"Time For Yesterday" occurs after TMP, a month before TWOK, in fact.

[ryan123450]

Other post-TMP TOS material which has some connection to the Pocket Lit-verse includes:

Untold Voyages
Infection
Home is the Hunter
Firestorm
Ice Trap
Shell Game
Death Count
The Wounded Sky
The Rihannsu Saga
Doctor's Orders
Spock's World
Rules of Engagement
Deep Domain
The New Earth/Challenger Series
The Pandora Principle
Dwellers in the Crucible
Strangers From the Sky

[tomswift2002]

Isn't one of the Dax short stories set during the TMP era?

[Christopher]

tomswift2002 wrote:

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Isn't one of the Dax short stories set during the TMP era?

Closer to the TWOK era. The Audrid story is set mainly in 2266 with a frame in 2281, and the Torias story is set shortly before TWOK.

[TenLubak]

ryan123450 wrote:

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Other post-TMP TOS material which has some connection to the Pocket Lit-verse includes:

Untold Voyages
Infection
Home is the Hunter
Firestorm
Ice Trap
Shell Game
Death Count
The Wounded Sky
The Rihannsu Saga
Doctor's Orders
Spock's World
Rules of Engagement
Deep Domain
The New Earth/Challenger Series
The Pandora Principle
Dwellers in the Crucible
Strangers From the Sky

Alot of the covers for these are confusing as hell. Doctors Orders had McCoy in his TV show shirt.
Time for Yesterday has Spock in a Blue Wrath of Kahn movie jacket- ive only seen red ones.
Adobe of Life they had movie outfits on
Black Fire is post series i think because they talk about refitting the bridge with all new GREY consoles instead of the colored ones.

The TOS books even sometimes show TOS outfits and the movie starship Enterprise refit, or some other goofy combination. They used to confused me so much because of the covers as a child. Since i had only watched TOS movies I wanted Movie era books. I still want movie era books because theres not much in that time period. Everyone wants to cram every misstion into those first 5 years. Im pretty sure its not possible for Kirk and co to HAVE that many missions in the allotted time of 5 years. I mean it took months for spock to take the USS Enterprise back to get Kirk away from his Indian wife! He was decideding what to do to defelect that asteroid for months and there are over 100 missions in books that take place there, plus all the ones in the TV shows. So divide all that math and u can see. Not enought time. I dont even have to try to come up with the proper numbers to get an accurate answer of the average time of each mission in those first 5 years.
If u included the TV shows and missions of just the first 3 it would be even worse!

So that to me are the reasons why i like movie era books better! Plus the uniforms are cooler, and the ships look neater, and since its movie era it seems more important in my head!

[Christopher]

TenLubak wrote:

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Black Fire is post series i think because they talk about refitting the bridge with all new GREY consoles instead of the colored ones.

Well, post-series, but pre-TMP. I figure the book's references to a bridge refit and change of uniforms are meant to represent a transitional period between the series-era look and the TMP look.

[nickyboy]

If I had my way Christopher would be signed to write at least one TMP era book a year. In fact, tell me who I have to bribe/intimidate/beg for this to happen!

[ryan123450]

TenLubak wrote:

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Alot of the covers for these are confusing as hell. Doctors Orders had McCoy in his TV show shirt.
Time for Yesterday has Spock in a Blue Wrath of Kahn movie jacket- ive only seen red ones.
Adobe of Life they had movie outfits on
Black Fire is post series i think because they talk about refitting the bridge with all new GREY consoles instead of the colored ones.

The TOS books even sometimes show TOS outfits and the movie starship Enterprise refit, or some other goofy combination. They used to confused me so much because of the covers as a child.

For a while there in the 80s some people assumed there was a second five year mission, before TMP. So you've got some variously interpreted combinations of when the uniforms changed and when the Enterprise was refit. Although even by that logic is seems stupid to have a refit Enterprise with TOS uniforms. The Enterprise obviously changed appearance during the refit that ended at the start of TMP.

A second 5 year mission between TOS and TMP would actually make alot of sense. The characters appearances would change at a rate closer to that of the actors, and all those 5 year mission stories would have 10 years to take place over. And not much happened in the decade between TMP and TWOK, the decade which would be cut in half by that chronology. Alas the makers of the Star Trek Chronology had to interpret everything strictly by the info in the shows/films. And now we are stuck with it forever.

[Christopher]

ryan123450 wrote:

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For a while there in the 80s some people assumed there was a second five year mission, before TMP. So you've got some variously interpreted combinations of when the uniforms changed and when the Enterprise was refit. Although even by that logic is seems stupid to have a refit Enterprise with TOS uniforms.

The decisions that shaped cover art weren't necessarily the same as those that shaped story content. Sometimes it may have been a matter of the cover artist only having limited photo references available, or not being familiar enough with the franchise to know they were from different eras. They didn't have the Internet at their beck and call to give them oodles of screencaps and Wiki articles.

Or it could've been for promotional reasons. Early on, the covers were given the look of TMP or TWOK in order to tie into the prominence of those movies, even if the stories inside were set in the series era. Later on, though, sometimes the reverse was done, with TOS-era covers put on movie-era novels (like The Better Man and Ice Trap), perhaps because TOS was more perennially popular. Although later covers got the era right more often, so maybe those were mistakes due to miscommunications or lack of proper reference.

[tomswift2002]

TenLubak wrote:

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Alot of the covers for these are confusing as hell. Doctors Orders had McCoy in his TV show shirt.
Time for Yesterday has Spock in a Blue Wrath of Kahn movie jacket- ive only seen red ones.
Adobe of Life they had movie outfits on
Black Fire is post series i think because they talk about refitting the bridge with all new GREY consoles instead of the colored ones.

Don't forget but The Abode Of Life had Kirk and Spock holding The Cage-era lasers on the cover which was really odd (I realize that Spock did handle a laser in The Cage, but Kirk was never in that pilot and when Kirk did show up in Where No Man Has Gone Before he never held a laser, instead he held that big heating coil-looking rifle---which would be cool to see on a cover someday!)

But also, what about The Entropy Effect and Sulu's late-1970's/early-1980's mustache and hairdo!

But with Time For Yesterday, your copy must be a misprint, since all the covers that I've seen for Time For Yesterday have Spock in the red TWOK coat.

[JD]

I found a cover for Yesterday's Son with Spock in a blue movie uniform on Memory Beta. I think that might be the one he was thinking of. It's an easy mistake to make since TFY was the sequel to YS.

[tomswift2002]

I see that, but at the same time I wonder if that was maybe a decision by the artist, since it's down below the white lines on the cover (and in the 99 cover, it is blacked-out all together), so I wonder if the artist maybe painted it blue just to go with the rest of the colors knowing that it might've been cut off at that point?