Spoilers NO SPOILERS FOR CODA - A Lit-verse Grand Finale...What We Know (Spoilers for Entire Lit-verse)
- Thread starter ryan123450
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Die Sitting.
I'm more optimistic. I don't see the need for a "grand finale". "Enterprise" can sail on being set, as it is, prior to any previous or current series in the "Trekverse". DS9 could be "disentangled" from ongoing productions. Certainly Voyager could be as well, given the events of the most recent novel in that series. If it's possible to keep books coming without stepping on the toes of current productions, why wouldn't they do it? Money not being made is money being lost. Hey, that could be a Rule of Acquisition.
As mentioned before, trying to fit them into a schedule of eight books a year, given half the slots are already taken up with at least one book each for TOS, Disco, Picard and SNW. And with the Kelvin Timeline now an option for novels, and with 2021 returning to TV series era TNG and DS9 novels, well, where does a Litverse novel even fit in that schedule. And now that Star Trek has a presence on TV and a surge of new fans coming in, there's very legitimate marketing logic in releasing more stand alone novels that anyone can jump in and enjoy that aren't connected to a twenty year novel continuity. After all, Star Wars had plans of rebooting their novel continuity for similar reasons even before Disney bought the franchise.
Die Hard
True, but books set in earlier series could serve to drive DVD sales.
How do you figure? Books cater to a smaller audience than the DVDs. It's confirmed the books are only read by 1% of fandom. While I'm not sure the exact statistic of who buys DVDs, I'm pretty certain it's significantly higher than 1%.
The books are a supplementary aid to the show, a means to get fans of the show to read books. They are not a means to hook viewers to the show. Doing so would be the literal definition of the tail wagging the dog, and Star Trek most definitely is not a franchise where that happens.
Yeah, I have to agree. It starts on screen. Then a few select fans go on to read the novels. I doubt you'll get many people that will say, 'hey, I just read a great Deep Space Nine book, now I want to see the show'. It's more like 'I really enjoyed watching Deep Space Nine and want more, so I'll read some of the books'.
Really, the only way I'd see them continuing litverse novels is if S&S feels there's enough interest in continuing litverse novels to make it worth their while. If they feel there's still money to be made there, then maybe there's a chance. And Beyer's last Voyager novel may have given us a potential storyline to still tie it to the existing Picard universe. Perhaps, in a way being such a small percentage of the overall Star Trek fanbase could work in our favor in that regard. The question would be how much of that 1% are interested enough in the litverse to continuing buying those novels?
But even still, unless they go back to printing 12 novels a year again it's not going to be like the 'old days.' I wouldn't anticipate it being more than 1 or 2 a year at most.
BTW, I'd still love to see a DS9 finale. You know...just sayin
I am sorry to inform you, but DVDs are, if not moribund, then a medium that is a complete shadow of its old self.
It may be rare, but it's not impossible. I got into the books first, and that led me to get into the television show.
Interesting, but I suspect that's very much the exception to the rule. Much as we enjoy reading (and writing) the books, tie-in novels exist as extensions of the shows and movies. The shows sell the books, not the other way around, regardless of whether you're talking Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Buffy, Supernatural, etc.
I haven’t read to loose the earth yet but on the topic of possible time travel related things that could play into this I don’t think we’ve found out what it is that Taurik knows from the Armageddon’s Arrow yet do we?
If we never find out we can just assume it actually wasnt very interesting.
Or we can assume he might have some idea how the galaxy will change?
I actually forgot about that.
It'd be interesting to see an author tie all that together. There's a couple of story threads that could make for a good book that ties all that together somehow--and what's even more interesting is some of those plot elements came out long before Picard was even announced so it would be quite fascinating to see them being used in some fashion to tie the litverse universe to Picard.
Oh, I don't deny that that's typically the case, which is why you don't see new Buffy or Quantum Leap novels, but since when has Trek been typical? The first books were "novelizations" of the actual episodes. Had that ever happened before (or since)? Not to mention the Photonovels. (On second thought, let's not mention the Photonovels.) The first proper ST novel (Spock Must Die) came out after the show had left the airwaves. Then the movies and subsequent series each created lore (not to be confused with creating Lore) that cross-pollinated throughout the franchise as a whole. Had that ever happened before? Without that effect we could never have seen such great efforts as "Federation" or your own "Eugenics War" series. My point is the ST litverse has always been unique and I, for one, would hate to see that uniqueness destroyed in favor of the sort of cookie-cutter, essentially meaningless, put the toys back in the box the way you found them, works (however good they might be individually) which characterize your typical tie-in books. Just one fan's thought process.
Between 1973 and 1991, all but four Doctor Who stories were novelised by Target. The first novel not to be based on an existing episode, Timewyrm: Genesys, was released in 1991 as well.
More importantly, the first three Who novelisations came out in 64/65, prior to Trek, and in the 50s there had been novelisations of Journey into Space.
And long before that, one of Conan Doyle's Holmes stories was based on a stage play, so arguably that was a novelisation...
Oh, novelizations and tie-in books date back to the silent film era at least, not to mention radio dramas like THE LONE RANGER and THE GREEN HORNET. As a kid, I confess I always preferred tie-in books that featured new, original stories, like the GET SMART and DARK SHADOWS novels, to books that merely adapted TV episodes I'd already seen before.
And, at the risk of showing my age, I like to think there's still something to be said for old-fashioned "standalone" tie-in books of the sort I grew up reading (and still basically write) along with the sort of interconnected media "universes" that are currently in vogue.
Note I said "along with," not "instead of." I like to think there's still room for both approaches.
A few years back, I actually did a presentation at the Library of Congress (!) on the history of novelizations and tie-in books and, yes, the further back I looked, the more I found. And indeed it seems that "novelizations" of popular stage plays predated movie novelizations. Meanwhile, many of the first "movie novelizations" were originally serialized in magazines and newspapers before being reprinted in book form.
It's a long and hallowed tradition.
And, at the risk of showing my age, I like to think there's still something to be said for old-fashioned "standalone" tie-in books of the sort I grew up reading (and still basically write) along with the sort of interconnected media "universes" that are currently in vogue.
Note I said "along with," not "instead of." I like to think there's still room for both approaches.
A few years back, I actually did a presentation at the Library of Congress (!) on the history of novelizations and tie-in books and, yes, the further back I looked, the more I found. And indeed it seems that "novelizations" of popular stage plays predated movie novelizations. Meanwhile, many of the first "movie novelizations" were originally serialized in magazines and newspapers before being reprinted in book form.
It's a long and hallowed tradition.
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