Moving beyond the television shows

[Mjolnir2000]

As I've been working my way through the relaunch novels - mainly the 24th century stuff - I've noticed that on the whole, I tend to enjoy the stuff that focuses on characters and events that are original to the novels more than the stuff that's tied to the tv shows.

I will say that I think the references are a bit overdone at times - I don't need to know that Geordi was suddenly reminded a vaguely similar event that happened on the Enterprise-D fourteen years earlier - but even ignoring all the gratuitous continuity, I think I'm at the point where I've just seen so much of these characters that I'm getting less and less out of seeing more of them. Which isn't a critique on the writing - we've got some truly excellent authors carrying the universe forward - but all things being equal, I'd rather hear more about Ensign Torvig than Commander Tuvok, who I already got to see plenty of over seven years of Voyager.

So I'm curious what others think. If there are still prime universe novels being written in 10 years, do you want Picard to be commanding the Enterprise, or someone we haven't met yet? Already we have a lot of new, interesting characters, but could there ever be a point where the old characters fade into the background? Or is the connection they provide to canon too important? How far can the novel-verse go in treading new ground?

 

[Therin of Andor]

I recall Richard Arnold (who vetted tie-in manuscripts for Gene Roddenberry from ST IV till September 1991) being adamant that the tie-ins had to concentrate on the credited actors for each show in order to be appropriate TV tie-ins, and to an extent he is correct, because new people discover Star Trek novels, comics and games every day and they have every right to anticipate that licensed tie-ins will reflect the parent show. Roddenberry's major beef with Trek "war games" in the 70s (later called "roleplaying games", which was perhaps a more comfortable term for Trek) was that Trek's TV mission had to (seemingly) become more warlike than exploratory in order to make a game that was more playable by the accepted conventions of "war games".

Of course, as each TV series has concluded their onscreen adventures, the tie-ins do tend to start deviating from the stable of regular characters. But, interestingly enough, TOS novels set in the first 5YM still sell the best, and so we are still getting plenty of those. TNG, DS9 and VOY seem to have better sales for the post-series stories, and their casts have diversified (and were already larger than TOS), so that's what we get.

It's very often the law of supply and demand than some great plan. Future tie-in series and mini-series less tied to onscreen status quo owe their existence to the success (or failure) of previous "original" tie-ins.

I can't see a day where a TNG or VOY novel contains no canonical (onscreen) characters. The closest we got might have been DS9's "Andor: Paradigm", which featured only a very brief cameo by Nog, as two novel-only characters carried a whole story (set on a planet which barely rated a mention in the DS9 TV series), but this was an adventure which had been extensively set up by many post-DS9 series tie-in novels and comics.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I've read a few of the DS9 post-series books and really liked them, the new characters were interesting and diverse and brought new angles and stories to what is my favourite series. That being said I haven't gone beyond the Worlds of DS9 and attempted the first two Titan books, but didn't find them to my liking, they all seem to rely too heavily on the continuity of the other books. I've read up on what happens via Memory Beta and also some spoilers here, all of which doesn't entice me to start reading again (still can't get over the destruction of DS9!).

I'm not sure what would hook me enough to get me to pick up a new book. That being said, I do think Picard's time for retirement is fast approaching. I once had a thought about who I'd want to see take the centre seat, and I would like it to be an original character--my first impulse was to say an Unjoined Trill woman (who bares an uncanny resemblence to Dina Meyer ).

 

[Paul Weaver]

You can't have an Enterprise without a TV character in chair, be it Worf, Tom Paris, Sisko, Riker after becoming fed up with the Admiralty, the Doctor (as an ECH), or Morn (after the DS9 incident he let to join the academy, and talked his way to captaincy within 6 years)

The Enterprise is too important, and just isn't strong enough to carry the series with someone completely new at the top (Once Picard + Crusher leave, we've got Worf and Laforge left. Voyager, TOS and even Enterprise have done well to keep the family together. DS9 have sent people to the winds, but even they kept a TV character in charge).

The average punter picking up a TNG book in 2017 without Picard at the helm may well accept Worf, or Tuvok. They wouldn't accept Vale or Calhoun.

 

[The Wormhole]

For reasons related to licensing and sales there's always going to be characters from the TV shows or movies in a Trek novel. Even the above mentioned Andor story in the Worlds of DS9 series was one of two stories in the same novel, and the other story in that novel starred Chief O'Brien and his family with Garak.

Granted, the novels do have a lot of leeway, and indeed I think The Seekers is a series which only features on character seen on screen, Captain Terrell. Other novel only series like New Frontier or SCE got around the on screen character requirements by loading their casts with guest stars from various TNG or DS9 episodes. So while the novels have given us some great original characters who rival some of TV show characters, we are still going to have someone from on screen for them to hang out with.

 

[Thrawn]

That's actually something I've never heard before, that for licensing reasons novels MUST have TV characters. Is that actually true, authors?

 

[Paul Weaver]

That's actually something I've never heard before, that for licensing reasons novels MUST have TV characters. Is that actually true, authors?

Conversely are there any books that we can think of that don't have a single character that was on screen? NF Has Sheby, Lefler and Selar. IKS Gorkon is probably the most tenuous with it's links.

There's a few mirror universe stories that don't have any TV characters on, and I think Ill Winds was only character's who mirrors had not been on TV (excluding TAS), but none of those books were a complete novel, and all the collections had TV characters.

Articles of the Federation had a few TV characters too, including the Doctor.

 

[zarkon]

That's actually something I've never heard before, that for licensing reasons novels MUST have TV characters. Is that actually true, authors?

Conversely are there any books that we can think of that don't have a single character that was on screen? NF Has Sheby, Lefler and Selar. IKS Gorkon is probably the most tenuous with it's links.

There's a few mirror universe stories that don't have any TV characters on, and I think Ill Winds was only character's who mirrors had not been on TV (excluding TAS), but none of those books were a complete novel, and all the collections had TV characters.

Articles of the Federation had a few TV characters too, including the Doctor.

Can't think of any offhand. Starfleet: Year One is probably the closest, I think the only tv characters in that was T'Pau and the real Bryce Shumar & crew.

Perhaps one of the vanguard books had no TV characters?

 

[Christopher]

That's actually something I've never heard before, that for licensing reasons novels MUST have TV characters. Is that actually true, authors?

Not as far as I know. As long as it's based on the universe and concepts, that should be enough. Using familiar characters is more about audience appeal.

 

[Idran]

That's actually something I've never heard before, that for licensing reasons novels MUST have TV characters. Is that actually true, authors?

Conversely are there any books that we can think of that don't have a single character that was on screen? NF Has Sheby, Lefler and Selar. IKS Gorkon is probably the most tenuous with it's links.

There's a few mirror universe stories that don't have any TV characters on, and I think Ill Winds was only character's who mirrors had not been on TV (excluding TAS), but none of those books were a complete novel, and all the collections had TV characters.

Articles of the Federation had a few TV characters too, including the Doctor.

Can't think of any offhand. Starfleet: Year One is probably the closest, I think the only tv characters in that was T'Pau and the real Bryce Shumar & crew.

Perhaps one of the vanguard books had no TV characters?

Once M'Benga left Vanguard, I don't think there were any up until the end, no; I can't think of any, at least.

 

[Thrawn]

Carol Marcus, yeah?

 

[Christopher]

^Well, Carol is exclusively a movie character, not a TV character. As is Clark Terrell. (And Admiral Nogura, sort of.) Perhaps "screen characters" is the term we should be using.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Conversely are there any books that we can think of that don't have a single character that was on screen? NF Has Sheby, Lefler and Selar. IKS Gorkon is probably the most tenuous with it's links.

But Gorkon did the same thing New Frontier did with guest characters. Klag, Leskit, Kurak, Toq, and of course Kurn/Rodek were all originally on-screen characters. I may even be forgetting some. I think Gorkon had more on-screen characters than NF, so I'm not sure what you mean by "more tenuous"?

 

[Idran]

Carol Marcus, yeah?

^Well, Carol is exclusively a movie character, not a TV character. As is Clark Terrell. (And Admiral Nogura, sort of.) Perhaps "screen characters" is the term we should be using.

Er...yes, that's exactly what I meant. Certainly not just forgetting about Marcus and Terrell. Yeah, that's the ticket.

(Whoops; my mistake, there. )

 

[Stevil2001]

No screen character appears in Andor: Paradigm, as I recall. It was definitely the first instance of that; not sure if it was the last. (And, of course, it's not a whole book, at least not in the States).

 

[Idran]

No screen character appears in Andor: Paradigm, as I recall. It was definitely the first instance of that; not sure if it was the last. (And, of course, it's not a whole book, at least not in the States).

Therin actually mentioned that one earlier in the thread; Nog was in there in a very brief cameo right near the start.

 

[Kertrats47]

What about the Star Trek: Challenger entry in the Gateways crossover series, Chainmail by Diane Carey?

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

The fourth Seekers novel probably won't include any canon characters, presuming that Terrell doesn't pop-in to say, "Hello."

 

[Therin of Andor]

That's actually something I've never heard before, that for licensing reasons novels MUST have TV characters.

It was most definitely Richard Arnold's stance (and therefore Gene Roddenberry's) and I think, in order for a Trek tie-in to be a defendable tie-in to a particular TV-copyright entity, it needs to be recognisably of the parent entity. In 1989, RA was insisting that Pocket and DC concentrated on "the big seven" (for TOS) and "the big eight" (for TNG).

IIRC, adding a book-within-a-book premise for "The Final Reflection" and "Strangers from the Sky" were at the Star Trek Office's request. More recently, a similar bookend story with Kirk and Chekov was provided for the third Khan retrospective book, otherwise set wholly on Ceti Alpha V.

But arguably, the Enterprise, DS9 and Voyager are also "characters", which give some tie-ins some leeway to stretch the premise. Also, using established TV races might also be sufficient, hence Spock or T'Pol might not have to appear in bookend stories for a tale about ancient Vulcan history, but they usually would, and Nog barely appears in "Andor: Paradigm" but lots of Andorians do.

 

[Christopher]

That's actually something I've never heard before, that for licensing reasons novels MUST have TV characters.

It was most definitely Richard Arnold's stance (and therefore Gene Roddenberry's) and I think, in order for a Trek tie-in to be a defendable tie-in to a particular TV-copyright entity, it needs to be recognisably of the parent entity. In 1989, RA was insisting that Pocket and DC concentrated on "the big seven" (for TOS) and "the big eight" (for TNG).

Yeah, but that's a different question than the one we're discussing. At the time, all Trek tie-ins were still set aboard Kirk's or Picard's Enterprise and included the TV cast, so that part was a given. Arnold's beef was with those that, in his opinion, concentrated on guest characters while relegating the core cast to the background. (Which created a problem for the writers, particularly the comics writers, since guest characters were the only ones who could grow and change and have story arcs, given the need for the core cast's status quo to stay unchanged.) The possibility of a Trek tie-in without any screen characters at all wasn't even in anyone's sights at the time, so it's not something that Arnold's rules specifically addressed -- any more than, say, a present-day law about transporting contraband across state lines specifically addresses transporting it to Mars. You could claim that it's implicit in the rules, but that doesn't really reflect their intent, because it's a situation that never occurred to their framers.

As for the requests to include familiar-character frames in books like To Reign in Hell, as I said, I think that's more about sales than legal requirements. A book that has familiar Trek characters is likely to sell more copies than one that doesn't. It's not about whether you're legally required to include Trek characters in order to call it Trek. As far as I know, there's no legal reason that I couldn't do a Trek tie-in story that had no familiar screen characters at all. It just wouldn't be a good idea from a marketing perspective.