New 2017 titles and blurbs - DTI, McCormack DS9, and more!

Was it? I haven't looked at the Shore Leave line up but for the past several years theres been little to no news put out there. It will be awesome if we get a slew of announcements today or tomorrow.

 

There was a panel on the schedule yesterday, but I'm not sure if there were supposed to be announcements.

https://daytonward.wordpress.com/2017/07/07/my-shore-leave-39-schedule/

Upcoming Star Trek Books – 5pm-6pm – Belmont Room
Scott Pearson (M), David Mack, Christopher L. Bennett, Dayton Ward

A preview of forthcoming Star Trek novels from Simon & Schuster with some of their authors, as well as Trek-related titles from other publishers due out this fall and into 2018.

 

Christopher mentioned the panel on his blog the other day, and noted it would likely be "Recent and Upcoming releases" "because there aren’t that many upcoming books currently scheduled". https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2017/07/06/shore-leave-39-schedule/ so I doubt there will be anything much new discussed.

 

If they do a big announcement for a new book, most of the time they seem to be doing them on StarTrek.com now.

 

Just out of curiosity, did we ever learn for how long the license renewal by S&S was when they renewed the contract that was supposed to end in 2012 with what became Cold Equations?

 

^I have a vague recollection of one of the authors (I want to say Mack, but I'm not sure) mentioning that it is up for renewal this year. If that is the case, five years seems a reasonable number for a licensing contract.

 

I would find it odd if it wasn't renewed already, since Pockets has already invested in a tie-in novel for Discovery. With a new show coming, there's some added attention to TrekLit. And unless the sales are really bad, I think there's enough insentive for Pockets to invest a bit in the rights to publish TrekLit.

 

Moat of the cover releases seem to be on StarTrek.com, but normally memory beta will have info before then. Not sure what their sources are though.

 

Probably here and Defcon.

 

Licensing is a two-way street; CBS could decide to work with someone else (or someone else may give them a better offer).

 

Honestly I'm kind of hoping for a shakeup. Pocket just isn't doing as great a job as it used to. Tor or (more likely) Titan would probably do some amazing stuff. And with either of those options we could get either Marco or KRAD back in the mix. Which would be fantastic either way.

 

How so?

 

Even if Tor got the Trek license somehow, I don't see Marco wanting to return to it. I think he'd see that as going backward in his career. At least... well, it's not my place to speak for him, but I gather that he feels he's moved on, and he seems quite content with what he's doing now.

Although I'm pretty sure Keith would jump at the chance to work on Trek again. Perhaps literally, because he's quite athletic.

 

I tend to see the newest stuff on the S&S site before they make the announcements on StarTrek.com, so the MB editors might just be checking it periodically like I do.

Does Tor do tie-ins? I don't remember I ever seeing their name on any of the tie-ins I've seen.
I don't see a need for a change in publisher, while it might not be quite at the level it was in the early '00s I'm still pretty happy with what we've been getting. There's also a pretty good chance we'd end up losing the current continuity, and I'd hate to see that happen. I guess there's a chance it could continue, Star Wars novels changed publishers, and kept all of the previous publisher's stories in continuity.

 

Most recently The Librarians, though they've also done Earth: Final Conflict, Andromeda, Battlestar Galactica, and Terminator 3. (And possibly more, those are just the ones I've read.)

Technically it was the same publisher (Random House purchased Bantam shortly before the changeover). That also had the licensor pushing a "one-continuity" philosophy, which Trek doesn't have.

 

Also, at various points, Farscape, 24, Halo, Deadlands, Mortal Kombat, Freddy Krueger, Power Rangers, Zorro, and several individual movie novelizations over the years.

And I'm tempted to cite the CONAN novels, which we published for ages, including the novelization of the second movie.

 

Seems like there's enough of an author/editor overlap between the three companies (at least if you count past involvement with Trek) that keeping the current continuity going after a publisher change wouldn't be out of the question.

 

Wow, I guess I just missed the publisher on those than.

 

Tor also published the official WILLOW board game, way back when! (As far as I know, our only venture into game publishing.)

And this is where I point out that the Deadlands books (based on the role-playing game) are still a going concern. The next one, BONEYARD by Seanan McGuire, comes out this Fall, while the previous books were written by Jonathan Maberry and Trek writer Jeff Mariotte. (See how I brought us back to TrekLit.)

Full disclosure: I edit the Deadlands books for Tor.

 

A couple authors have been mentioning casually that it's currently license-renewal time for the past few months (Mack and at least one other, though I can't remember who). I'm not sure if things are going slowly, or they were anticipating a negotiation that's still impending and everything's status quo, or what. The only other time I heard about the license being negotiated was the CE making-of story, and that came out some time after the fact (though, presumably, it's been happening every five years or so since the '80s). Likewise, I don't remember if there was a similar slowdown in new-book announcements in 2012 while business was happening.