Discovery prequel novel: Desperate Hours
- Thread starter WebLurker
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So, uh... I went to Amazon's web site this morning to purchase the Kindle eBook version. Except that it's no longer listed. 
The Kindle eBook version that is, not the book itself.
The Kindle eBook version that is, not the book itself.
Here you go:So, uh... I went to Amazon's web site this morning to purchase the Kindle eBook version. Except that it's no longer listed.
https://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Di...348&sr=8-2&keywords=star+trek+desperate+hours
For some reason it has it's own separate listing instead of being grouped with the print.
Strange. Thanks!
@David Mack,
Ben forgetting to do this for months now. Anyways, I read the Desperate Hours novel and liked it overall. Regardless of how well the show fits into the franchise, I think that "seeing" the DSC and TOS ships and tech in the same scenes helped make it feel like they were part of the same world.
I did notice that there were a few things borrowed from the older novels. For example, the Pahkwa-thanh and Choblik aliens invented for the Titan series were mentioned, Burnham's Andorian predecessor had a name that followed the conventions of the DS9 relaunch novels (and subsequent books), and "Number One"'s real name and backstory were the same ones from the Legacies trilogy.
I was curious what the story was behind the novel Easter eggs.
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Ben forgetting to do this for months now. Anyways, I read the Desperate Hours novel and liked it overall. Regardless of how well the show fits into the franchise, I think that "seeing" the DSC and TOS ships and tech in the same scenes helped make it feel like they were part of the same world.
I did notice that there were a few things borrowed from the older novels. For example, the Pahkwa-thanh and Choblik aliens invented for the Titan series were mentioned, Burnham's Andorian predecessor had a name that followed the conventions of the DS9 relaunch novels (and subsequent books), and "Number One"'s real name and backstory were the same ones from the Legacies trilogy.
I was curious what the story was behind the novel Easter eggs.
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No real story, per se. I was asked to merge the Discovery characters with those of The Original Series, and after conferring with my editors, we decided to also make the Discovery novel align as closely as we could with the existing Star Trek literary continuity based on the canonical Prime Timeline. Respecting the ongoing literary continuity was part of that.
However, none of that becomes canon as a result; as always, the show remains free to go its own way, and it might, at any point, establish facts that contradict the creative directions we chose to pursue in the novels or comics.
Honestly, I always assumed that the Choblik were a relatively recent contact as of Titan, which is why we hadn't seen them in Starfleet before. So I'm a little surprised to hear that they're referenced in a book set in the 2250s. Although I don't think that assumption on my part ever made it into print.
Well, we've never seen Kelpiens in the TNG era, but I assume they're still there. And the Choblik are only mentioned; it's never said that any yet belong to Starfleet. Maybe Pike's XO was part of the first contact with their world.
With the Kelpiens, there's a built-in explanation for why we see so few of them: They're timid by nature, so Saru must be pretty exceptional to be willing to join Starfleet. Though since the Choblik are small forest herbivores, I suppose they could have a deerlike timidity of their own and need a few generations after first contact to develop an interest in exploration.
The last 30 years of evolution in the Star Wars franchise suggests that, yeah, it pretty much is.
Well, it probably WILL be non-canon if and when the show does something to contradict it. Just sayin.
It is already non-canon because it’s a novel.
In the case of Star Wars, you're dealing with a near-total reboot (that's happening to borrow elements of the old non-canon stuff for current canon) that's following an era where some creative teams used one set of rules for canon (the tie-ins used everything), and others used another (George Lucas never really treated anything outside his movies as authoritative, borrowed elements and tie-in projects he was consulted on or worked on notwithstanding).
That's a pretty messy state of affairs (one that the Disney reboot fixed by streamlining things into a new, cross-media canon).
No offense to anyone involved with either the TV show or the books based on it, but I do feel like they've kinda talked out of both sides of their mouth on that (that sounds rude, but I really got mixed messages on the subject).
They out right said the book was non-canon at Vegas this year, but it was as accurate to the show as possible when it was written.
Star Trek novels have always been non canon, period. Heck, even Gene Roddenberry’s own Star Trek: The Motion Picture Novelization is not canon (thank goodness)!
Talked out of both sides of their mouth? Pocket Books and its editors and authors have always been adamant that there is no such thing as a canon Star Trek novel. Even back in the day when people at Paramount tried touting Jeri Taylor's Star Trek novels as canon, Pocket denied it. There's never been mixed messages on this matter. There is no such thing as a canon Star Trek novel, and there never has.
The only thing that has caused confusion for some people is the fact that David Mack did have access to the set, and writer's guide and interacted with the show's writing staff and even offered input on some aspects of scripts (it's because of him Michael Burnham's title became "Specialist"). Most of this was just done in the interest of avoiding "early days weirdness" that plagues tie-in material written when the authors don't have any on-screen material to go on, not an effort to make anything canon. David Mack himself has said the novel is not canon countless times, including this very thread.
There has never been any cause to believe a Star Trek novel to be canon, and that will not be changing anytime in the near future.
Okay, let's just say that if (since?) the novels were not intended to be canon, I kinda feel that the initial marketing for them missed the mark in clarifying that. I mean, an interview with David Mack was the first time that I'd heard anything about them not "counting," which is not what I was getting from the other initial interviews about how the books would expand fan's knowledge of the TV show's world (if not canon, they don't really work that way, IMHO).
I don't know why that wasn't clarified in the first place (thought to be self-explanatory, it got inadvertently dropped, saying it's not canonical would've affected fan reception, whatever the reason), but I think that might've been helpful, since the original announcement gave me a different understanding of how the this tie-in series works than what seem to be the intent, a way of looking at it that I've not really able to shake off, even now.
(Not laying the blame game on anyone here, nor saying that the tie-ins have been bad onto themselves.)
I don't know why that wasn't clarified in the first place (thought to be self-explanatory, it got inadvertently dropped, saying it's not canonical would've affected fan reception, whatever the reason), but I think that might've been helpful, since the original announcement gave me a different understanding of how the this tie-in series works than what seem to be the intent, a way of looking at it that I've not really able to shake off, even now.
(Not laying the blame game on anyone here, nor saying that the tie-ins have been bad onto themselves.)
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No, the marketing was perfectly clear. It's just that fandom persistently and infuriatingly fails to understand the fundamental fact that the most fundamental definition of "canon" is "the stuff that isn't tie-ins." Tie-ins are not canon by default. That should always be assumed to be the normal, expected case. The marketing never said these books were canon, so there was no reason to assume they were. No one should ever, ever expect tie-ins to be canon, so unless it's explicitly stated that they are canon, then they are not.
The books expand knowledge of the show's world because the person who wrote the books was talking to the people who wrote the show, and thus the book is able to express ideas that are part of the show's writers' thinking but that they didn't have room to put in the actual show. Sure, yes, the makers of the show could contradict those things in the future, but one thing canon obsessives never understand is that canon itself can be contradicted just as easily, as when DS9 ignored basically everything TNG's "The Host" established about the Trill, or when Dallas retconned an entire season into a dream. That's why canon vs. not-canon doesn't really matter. All fiction can be rewritten. No fiction is any more "real" than any other fiction. "Canon" is nothing more than an attribution of the authorship of the fiction, whether it comes from the creators/owners or somebody else.
The marketing did nothing to indicate this novel would be canon, and I was never under the impression that it would have been in any case. Some fans leapt to the wrong conclusions based on the unprecedented level of coordination with the show's writing staff, not realizing that that coordination does not mean the same thing as being canon.
What is there to clarify? Star Trek novels are never canon and have never been canon, and at this point, actually saying so would be stating the obvious, like saying rain is wet.
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