Destiny trilogy - speculations

[Trent Roman]

EDIT: In reply to tenmei.

While I'm not an S&S employee so can't really speak to their practices, I would theorize that the internal catalogue is laid out that way because it communicates better than a simple list of titles and authors. Most people are visual, they respond--and remember--better when there's imagery, and a blurb they can attach to the book gives a vague impression of what the book is actually about beyond the title, which can also be useful. It doesn't matter that it's inaccurate, because those who receiving the listings are aware that it's a work in progress, that somebody elsewhere in the company is changing these things even as they read it, and they're mentally prepared to substitute whatever they've already seen with fresher information when it becomes available. The point of such catalogues is to offer an impression of upcoming titles, what you should roughly be expecting to come down the line, not hard data since a lot of it isn't pinned down yet. When such pictures and blurbs get leaked to us, it's our fault if we ignore the preliminary, temporary and mutable nature of the listing and take them as gospel truth.

Allyn Gibson wrote:

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But who would S&S's sales force be selling the book to? That would be distributors and retailers. It's disingenuous of Dave to say that the catalog isn't meant for retailers, when it's the very tool that S&S uses to sell retailers on buying Pocket's product.

Hm. You've got me there. Obviously I don't know enough about the way this all works.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

[danjamesb]

tenmei wrote:

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I really don't get the point about why you'd put out something so innacurate - even just as an internal thing. What's the point? What do they gain from putting up a cover that doesn't match the book and a description that doesn't match the book either?

Well, quite.

Which is why I refuse to believe the descriptions are as inaccurate as is being suggested.

The exact wording may have changed since those descriptions were released, but the plots described can't be that different from the finished books.

[JD]

I'm not an S&S employee in any for but from the catalouges I've read on the internet, they don't really seem to be that inaccurate, but they are very very rough. They usually seem to just cover the very baisic idea of the book, without really going into alot depth about the plot.

[BrotherBenny]

Has anyone noticed an interesting link.

Ensign Ezri Tigan was the assistant counsellor on the USS Destiny, before she was introduced to us on Deep Space Nine, and now she's a Captain in a trilogy of the same title?

[stupidname]

I've often read on this board people maintain that trek books are capable of standing alone, so this might seem like a redundant question... but am i going to be able to pick up destiny and understand it given that i haven't read anything since Avatar?

[JD]

Well, like you even said, the authors always try to make it so people who haven't read any of the books can still pick up a new book and understand it fine. But we do know that there are several books that are out, or will be soon, that tie into the events of Destiny.
These books are:
Titan: Sword of Damocles
TNG: Before Dishonor and TNG: Greater Than the Sum
maybe ENT: Kobayashi Maru
And Before Dishonor in turn builds off of the previous two TNG novels Resistance and Q & A.
Like I said before, you shouldn't need to read any of these books, but it would probably add to the Destiny experience if you've read the stuff before it.

[captcalhoun]

but then, if you're going to read "Sword of Damocles", you ought to read the first three TTN books, and the A Time To series...

but you don't HAVE to...

[Trent Roman]

stupidname wrote:

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I've often read on this board people maintain that trek books are capable of standing alone, so this might seem like a redundant question... but am i going to be able to pick up destiny and understand it given that i haven't read anything since Avatar?

I'd be incredibly surprised if you couldn't. High-profile 'event' books like this are usually seen as good 'jumping-on points'. I have every confidence that Mack will give you all the data you need.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

[LightningStorm]

JD wrote:

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And Before Dishonor in turn builds off of the previous two TNG novels Resistance and Q & A.

I beg to differ on a very small thing here. Beyond grabbing the few new people's names it's pretty clear from reading Before Dishonor, that Before Dishonor was written with no knowledge of the events in Q&A.

[JD]

Yeah, I figured I would include since it goes between the other two, and builds off of Resistance.

[David Mack]

Xeris wrote:

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Has anyone noticed an interesting link.

Ensign Ezri Tigan was the assistant counsellor on the USS Destiny, before she was introduced to us on Deep Space Nine, and now she's a Captain in a trilogy of the same title?

It's actually just an amusing coincidence, and one that I didn't even notice myself until it came up while I was a writing a scene for book two of the trilogy.

[Reanok]

Reading the about the news about this series I can't wait to read them. I really like the covers for the first 2 books.

[David Mack]

Because I offered up a fair amount of information about the Destiny trilogy at the Shore Leave convention this weekend, I'll repeat some of it here, for those of you who couldn't be there.

I'll put most of it in spoiler code; when posting your replies, please do likewise, to prevent accidentally spoiling things for other fans.

Ezri Dax will hold the rank and position of captain aboard the U.S.S. Aventine. She will have attained this position in such a seemingly brief time since her switch to the command track as the consequence of a battlefield promotion.

As Keith DeCandido posted elsewhere, the ships of the Vesta class are named for the seven hills of ancient Rome. Vesta was the Roman goddess of the hearth and home. There is no direct link between the class name and the names of the ships; the theme, if any, is merely one of names related to ancient Rome. I did not name the other ships of the class, however; Keith does, in A Singular Destiny.

At the request of editor Marco Palmieri, I borrowed only selected characters from the post-TV Deep Space Nine books.

Samaritan "Sam" Bowers will come aboard the Aventine as Captain Dax's first officer. Dr. Simon Tarses will serve as her CMO. Mikaela Leishman, now a lieutenant, will transfer from the Defiant to be the Aventine's chief engineer.

We will hear mention of Shar, but won't see him. No other DS9 characters will be part of the Destiny trilogy, and the specific resolution of several ongoing DS9 storylines will in no way be revealed or spoiled by the trilogy.

We will see at the very least cameos from every other 24th-century incarnation of TrekLit in the trilogy. Ships and characters from New Frontier, Corps of Engineers, I.K.S. Gorkon/Klingon Empire, and Voyager will play their parts in the tale.

For those of you who are fans of Keith DeCandido's novel Articles of the Federation, rest assured: President Bacco and her administration will play a significant role in the trilogy (not so much in book one, but definitely in books two and three).

Yes, the Borg are in it. But this is not just another "battle with the Borg" book. If it were, I would not have spent nearly 18 months of my life working on it.

Let me put it this way, and then I'll say no more on the subject until after all three books are out: We have, up until now, never seen an actual Borg invasion.

Picard's first encounter with the Borg at System J-25? An incident. The Battle of Wolf 359? Incident. The Collective's two failed sorties against Earth (in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2," and the Battle of Sector 001 in First Contact)? Incidents.

You've never seen a bona fide Borg invasion….

This is as much detail as I'm willing to share publicly at this stage, so I'm not likely to answer any followup questions, except with maddeningly vague statements. Just FYI.

[DarkHorizon]

David Mack wrote:

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Because I offered up a fair amount of information about the Destiny trilogy at the Shore Leave convention this weekend, I'll repeat some of it here, for those of you who couldn't be there.

All I can say is: why isn't it October, damnit!

[tenmei]

Oooh, Ezri's command crew looks interesting!