Spoilers NO SPOILERS FOR CODA - A Lit-verse Grand Finale...What We Know (Spoilers for Entire Lit-verse)

What I'm saying is that's not all the annotations are about, though. For instance, no wiki article would have this, from the Summon the Thunder annotations:

 

Yeah, I guess I could see that. I was thinking of annotations a bit too old school I guess. Some of the old Bantam novels used to have footnotes, for instance, letting you know what episode a certain person, thing or idea was from.

What you noted reminds me of the acknowledgement sections of the current novels. I notice some authors will get pretty detailed there (I suppose that depends on the book as well, the more it follows from prior novels, the longer the section usually is, whereas a standalone novel is usually mostly thank you's to people).

 

David's right. My annotations are about more than just in-universe continuity points you could get in the book itself or on Memory Alpha. There's so much more to understanding a story than just how it connects to things within itself. In addition to talking about the creative process and explaining in-jokes and such, I like my annotations to be educational, to include links and discussion about the real scientific concepts, historical and cultural influences, and so forth that I draw on in my fiction.

 

Yeah, I think I misunderstood where we were going with annotations. I was on a Trekbbs break for about 2 or 3 weeks (for unrelated reasons) and I was playing catch-up yesterday and was a bit too cursory in reading prior comments.

I was literally thinking something like footnotes and I was thinking people were talking about things you could get by a quick Memory Alpha search.

My bad. I usually enjoy reading the acknowledgements myself because they like some have noted they include some useful information. And they even give you tidbits that help you figure out what you might want to look up on Memory Alpha (i.e. an author writes about something that sounds familiar but you can't recall, and in the acknowledgements they noted it was fromm such and such a book, so you know where to look in Memory Alpha/Beta if you want more details).

 

A speculative thought: Is Discovery (with it's incompatible version of Control etc) part of the novelverse, or the post-Temporal Apocalypse timeline?

 

It is always the default assumption of the tie-ins that they take place in the shows' universe, insofar as that's possible. That's their whole job and the reason they're called tie-ins. If there's a contradiction, the onus is on the tie-ins to either reconcile it or step aside.

I think that, within the context of the novel continuity, it's easy enough to rationalize DSC's Control as an offshoot or side project of Uraei that ran out of, err, control. The thing about a secret conspiracy behind the scenes is that you can rationalize it as being sneakily behind anything.

But of course, canon is canon and the books are just one speculative extrapolation beyond it. If you're reading the books and accepting the pretense of their "reality," then you can reconcile the shows with it. But if you're watching the shows, you're under no obligation to reconcile the books with them. There is no single objective "multiverse," there's just whatever fictitious conceit you choose to play along with while experiencing a given work of fiction, which can change from one context to another (e.g. Star Trek is real within the Trek universe but fictitious within the Stargate or Doctor Who universe).

 

^ I think the question asked is, since there is likely a definitive alternate universe concept involved in Coda (whether coexisting multiverse-like, or replacement), would the events of Discovery take place in the post-shift reality/Picard universe exclusively or would they be mutual.

 

There are already a number of novelverse tie-ins that have acknowledged elements of Discovery. For instance, in The Higher Frontier, I acknowledged Spock's dyslexia-like condition as established in DSC season 2, as well as featuring a Malachowski-class starship. In my upcoming TOS: Living Memory, I have a whole subplot arising out of the aftermath of the Klingon war in DSC season 1.

To date, the only irreconcilable contradictions between the novelverse and screen canon are post-Nemesis. So Lower Decks, Picard, Prodigy, DSC season 3-up. There are some bits about DSC S1-2 that require some continuity reassessments, but the same was true of ENT while it was on, and the novelverse adjusted to that. Maybe Strange New Worlds will have a more drastic impact, but that remains to be seen.

 

Oh, yeah, I've been dropping DISCO references into my more recent TOS novels as well, just for fun and because, well, I can never resist indulging in a little continuity porn. Lots of "new" STAR TREK races and history to play with.

 

Even Litverse books have already included Disco references, such as Available Light mentioning Georgiou as one of Starfleet's greats.

 

I consider my TOS novels very much a part of the "Litverse." There are plenty of interconnections between them and books in other eras, my own and others'.

 

Were you the one that said a fan once told you not to include any Discovery references in your novels and then you were like "note to self: include more Discovery references"

I mean, that's pretty ballsy for someone to say anyway. If I were an author and someone told me that, I probably would do the same just for spite, even if I hated Discovery.

I might make a request...like I'd like more post-TFF books--or a DS9 finale books (in case I never mentioned it ). But I'd never "tell" an author not to do something.

 

If you're just a fan, and there is something you don't want to see a writer include their work, the absolute worst thing you can do is tell them never to include it in their work. That pretty much guarantees it's be in their next book, show, movie, comic, or whatever.

 

This is an overgeneralization, but I think one difference between fans (at least certain types) and writers is that the fans think "I don't like that show/episode/character, so I'd rather not see more stories about them," while the writers think "I don't like that show/episode/character, so I'd better write a story that improves/redeems it." A writer is more likely to see a problem as something to be creatively solved than something to be ignored.

 

The Disco reference in Available Light was a direct response to someone who gave me an "ultimatum" that if I ever included such references, they would stop buying my books.

Because that's what I think of "ultimatums."

 

That might have been it. I remember one of you guys posted something along that line.

It's really kind of silly to be honest. I mean, if you don't like Discovery, you're probably not going to buy a Discovery novel. And any references in other non-Discovery novels are usually pretty minor at most. Certainly not something to get all in a huff about.

I can't see myself ever hating something so much that just a reference would make me not read something altogether.

I suppose some fans' egos are a little to big for their own good.

Personally I always like little links to other series, esp. in cases where it couldn't happen in the shows run since it was from a later show. After Enterprise came out I always liked when an original series novel would reference something from Enterprise. Captain Kirk thinking of how Captain Archer might have thought of something. We never got to see that on screen obviously so it was nice to see it at least in the literature. Ditto for Discovery.

 

As @Stevil2001 reminded me a while back, I've been doing this long enough that I got similar complaints the first time I made Enterprise references in a TOS novel.

 

Ok in that case. NEVER write a book about Captain Sulu set in the 24th century! Or I will never rebuy your books

 

Oh, yeah, that's right . And no one better ever write a book that takes place after TFF. Any author that did that would be put on my 'do not buy list'

 

If SNW contradicts something in TOS or TOS novels, would the authors consider editing the ebook versions?