Discovery prequel novel: Desperate Hours

[WebLurker]

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.

I have tried backtracking the sources where I had read the original interviews in question. Either I'm misremembering what I read or I was reading different sources, given that my memories are not matching that much with the printed word. It's also possible that I subconsciously blended them with in my mind with Star Wars, which uses a similar model of coordinating the tie-ins with the movies except that non-movie installments are also canonical.

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.

Fair point, but I guess that putting in a source that's not considered to be part of the "official" account (and adds ideas from the author) makes it a curiosity at best. Kind of the old writer's adage if it's off-screen (off-page, off-panel, whatever), it doesn't count.

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.

Huh.

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.

Okay, good for you.

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.

As the IP owners maintain the right to say what is considered canon and not canon, it was possible that things would change (e.g. pre-and post-Disney Star Wars). (I also recall that weird thing where the Kelvin Timeline movie makers were basically saying that they thought the video game and comics based on their movies were canon -- never minding the irreconcilable continuity errors in them -- but they didn't quite feel they could proclaim that due to tradition. So, it wouldn't've been the first time that the Powers That Be considering upending the old rule.)

Look, I really don't want to get into a fight over this. What is what is. Some of us are just trying to catch up.

 

[Christopher]

I have tried backtracking the sources where I had read the original interviews in question. Either I'm misremembering what I read or I was reading different sources, given that my memories are not matching that much with the printed word. It's also possible that I subconsciously blended them with in my mind with Star Wars, which uses a similar model of coordinating the tie-ins with the movies except that non-movie installments are also canonical.

Which is very, very rare and hard to do, and should never be seen as the default expectation. Remember, the old Extended Universe was initially supposed to be "canonical," but George Lucas himself never considered it to be and freely contradicted it so that it had to keep retconning itself anyway, and eventually it got wholly decanonized. Tie-ins are never going to be as canonical as the original work -- at best, they're nominal canon until the primary canon decides to contradict them. Although, of course, primary canons contradict themselves from time to time too.

As a general rule, remember what I said before -- "canon" isn't about something being "real," because none of it is real. It's just an attribution of authorship. The canon is the set of stories told by the creators of the original work (or their inheritors, for a long-running franchise). What gives it internal consistency is that it's the work of a single person or set of people. The tie-ins that are effectively canonical are the ones that are written or plotted by the creators of the canon themselves -- for instance, the Babylon 5 novels and comics that J. Michael Straczynski outlined himself, the Buffy and Angel comics that Joss Whedon "produced," or the Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra comics plotted by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. In the case of Disney Star Wars, they've got the Story Group which works with all the different creators in an attempt to keep everything canonical. It's an ambitious effort, but with such a huge assortment of different works from different creators, it's got to be a huge challenge, and in the long term I don't expect it to succeed any more than the Extended Universe did. Eventually some inconsistencies are going to crop up, and some tie-in stories will probably be set aside or retconned away because they get in the way of future movie plans. Any ongoing series is a work in progress subject to adjustments.

Fair point, but I guess that putting in a source that's not considered to be part of the "official" account (and adds ideas from the author) makes it a curiosity at best. Kind of the old writer's adage if it's off-screen (off-page, off-panel, whatever), it doesn't count.

But that's not meant to be a value judgment. It's not saying you have to close your mind to ideas outside the canon or refuse to listen to them. The canon is no more "real" than anything else -- it's just stories people made up. And knowing some of the ideas they made up that they didn't manage to get into the show is interesting. That's all that matters, whether it's interesting, and whether it can inform your experience of the fiction. The fact that it might be contradicted by some future installment doesn't mean it can't contribute to that experience in the here and now.

For myself, if a Star Trek novel is consistent with existing canon, I count it as part of my personal version of the continuity. If some new episode or movie comes along that contradicts it, then I remove it from my personal continuity. It's as simple as that. My personal continuity is always changing and adapting to new information. It has been for decades, and it always will. And I don't mind that. Having to reinvent my view of Trek continuity from time to time is more creatively engaging than just having it be a fixed, ossified thing. And if I take a book out of continuity, I don't throw it away, because continuity isn't about quality. It's just about classification. I can still read and enjoy books that I don't count as consistent with the canon continuity, because they're still enjoyable books. Keeping track of what's consistent with what is just a matter of organization, not a judgment of worth. Some books I count as part of the same timeline as the shows and movies; some books I count as events in alternate timelines; some books I just count as works of fiction.

 

[The Wormhole]

(I also recall that weird thing where the Kelvin Timeline movie makers were basically saying that they thought the video game and comics based on their movies were canon -- never minding the irreconcilable continuity errors in them -- but they didn't quite feel they could proclaim that due to tradition. So, it wouldn't've been the first time that the Powers That Be considering upending the old rule.)

No, no, that's not right at all. Orci did technically say the Kelvin timeline comics were canon, but that was in the infamous Trekmovie interview where he was goaded and manipulated into saying they were canon. When he did say it, it was more something like "you want to hear me say comics are canon? Fine. 'Comics are canon.' Now, moving on..."

He recanted the statement a day later, the line about "I can't decide what is or isn't canon" comes from that recanting, basically damage control so that people wouldn't think the comics were canon. Of course, everyone began thinking that anyway.

In the case of Disney Star Wars, they've got the Story Group which works with all the different creators in an attempt to keep everything canonical. It's an ambitious effort, but with such a huge assortment of different works from different creators, it's got to be a huge challenge, and in the long term I don't expect it to succeed any more than the Extended Universe did. Eventually some inconsistencies are going to crop up, and some tie-in stories will probably be set aside or retconned away because they get in the way of future movie plans. Any ongoing series is a work in progress subject to adjustments.

We're already starting to see contradictions popping up on screen with the tie-ins. Most notably in The Last Jedi, which shows Rey and Poe meeting for what is apparently the first time, despite the fact they had already met each other in either the novelization or comic adaptation of The Force Awakens.

 

[Tuskin38]

We're already starting to see contradictions popping up on screen with the tie-ins. Most notably in The Last Jedi, which shows Rey and Poe meeting for what is apparently the first time, despite the fact they had already met each other in either the novelization or comic adaptation of The Force Awakens.

Just to add to this, Pablo from the LucasFilm Story Group has said adaptations are never 100% accurate because they're usually written while the movie is still in production, or the author has their own spin. He compared the novels/comics of a movie to that of a history book, while the movies are like witnessing the actual events.

 

[The Wormhole]

Just to add to this, Pablo from the LucasFilm Story Group has said adaptations are never 100% accurate because they're usually written while the movie is still in production, or the author has their own spin. He compared the novels/comics of a movie to that of a history book, while the movies are like witnessing the actual events.

Yes, but that was in reference to why there are differences between a novelization and the movie it's based on. In the example I cited, we have a movie contradicting a novelization written two years prior to its release. It should have been easy for the Story Group reading TLJ's script to notice, oh hey, this happened in TFA's novelization.

IMO, it would have been silly for them to have gone with the novelization anyway, since the majority of the audience wouldn't have been aware that Rey and Poe meeting prior to the scene in TLJ, and so if they see the two of them already familiar to each other, most people would have raised the question "when did they meet each other?" But it does go to show that despite the aims of the Story Group, we are seeing some contradictions popping up anyway.

 

[Christopher]

No, no, that's not right at all. Orci did technically say the Kelvin timeline comics were canon, but that was in the infamous Trekmovie interview where he was goaded and manipulated into saying they were canon. When he did say it, it was more something like "you want to hear me say comics are canon? Fine. 'Comics are canon.' Now, moving on..."

Exactly. The interviewer shamefully tried to force his own agenda onto his subject rather than letting Orci speak for himself, and finally Orci gave into his browbeating just to shut him up. As you say, he retracted it at the earliest opportunity.