What happened to "episode" books?

[Greg Cox]

But does anyone who isn't a hardcore fan worry about alternate timelines and continuities and such? And the basic idea of the characters are still the same. Kirk is the impulsive, sexy hero. Spock is cool and logical. McCoy is a grouchy humanist. Scotty worries about his engines. And I don't imagine the differences make much difference where most old Trek novels are concerned. If people want to visualize Chris Pine instead of Bill Shatner when they're reading THE ENTROPY EFFECT, where's the harm? It's not like the new Kirk is a completely different kind of guy.

When I reissued an old Avengers novel years ago, I deliberately put the characters in silhouette on the cover so that Emma Peel could be either Diana Rigg or Uma Thurman, depending on how old the reader was!

 

[Thrawn]

I'd just like to pop in and say that I find all the armchair quarterbacking of Pocket's business decisions and sales prospects with regards to the film to be kinda amusing.

Nothing in the world I love more than being proven wrong; it means I've become a smarter person. I do happen to know a fair amount about this, and have strong personal preferences besides, and that's all I'm posting. If I turn out to be completely ass-backwards on this stuff, I'll be the first to admit it.

It is true, though, that if one looks in the bookstores, one often sees huge displays of coffee table and making of books and all that other stuff for these hugely marketed films, so it does seem odd that Pocket isn't obviously doing so also. I never said they were idiots though; I'm sure they have their reasons. I just mentioned that it seemed odd and hypothesized that the reason was possibly because they had huge piles of already written books to use as promotional material.

Which I still think shouldn't necessitate changing covers, but that may be more personal preference than anything else.

 

[Greg Cox]

Indeed, and I, Robot was also reissued with Smith on the cover, and he plays a character not even in the book!

Seriously?


Yep, and it worked. The book sold like hotcakes and Asimov got hundreds of thousands of new readers who would have never read the book otherwise. And who knows? Maybe some of those readers went on to read more Asimov novels.

That's a good thing.

 

[Thrawn]

Thanks for your posts, Greg. Let me ask you this - do you think the difference in sales, if the books were reprinted with the new actors, would be all that big even if the insides were about the old ones?

Like, is there a big difference in the people that would think "I enjoyed this movie, so I'm going to buy anything that looks similar" and then not be bothered by the continuity problems, and the people that would think "I enjoyed this movie, so I'm going to buy anything with the same title", knowing that the continuity would be different?

It would appear that Pocket isn't doing reprints with new covers, so my suspicion would be that they're figuring the answer is "not really". Is that a mistaken assumption?


EDIT: Sorry, re-reading this, it sounds really confrontational; I'm sorry. I'm honestly curious, that's all, I promise!

 

[Greg Cox]

Obviously, this is a judgement call, and of course I haven't seen the new movie yet, so I don't know how much the new versions of the characters vary from the old ones, but I wonder how much of all this new movie backstory really matters as far as the average standalone Trek novel goes. If the book begins with Kirk and Spock beaming down to Omega Delta Seven and having an adventure, is the average reader even going to notice any discontinuities? It's not like Trek novels spend a lot of time describing the look of the bridge or the appearances of the actors. As long as the characters don't act too unlike the actors in the movie, I suspect that most readers would let any minor glitches slide.

I suspect it depends on the book to some degree, and how much it clashes with the new movie. I'd think twice before repackaging ENTERPRISE: THE FIRST ADVENTURE! Or maybe even my own EUGENICS WARS books.

And, needless to say, I can't speak for Pocket.

(Thrawn: Don't worry. You didn't sound confrontational at all. Hope I didn't sound too impatient with your concerns!)

 

[Thrawn]

Hm, yeah, fair enough. Though since the people at Pocket wouldn't have seen the movie themselves, I suppose it'd be difficult for them to make those judgment calls as well.

Maybe we'll see a bunch of them with the DVD release?

I do remember that they planned Destiny to capitalize on the movie hype, though, so it's clear they're thinking outside the TOS box, if nothing else.

 

[Christopher]

Honestly, this strikes me as overly pedantic, especially where marketing is concerned. In general, Kirk is Kirk, Spock is Spock, and a couple of minor changes to the continuity and casting don't matter. You put Sean Connery on the cover of GOLDFINGER in the sixties and Daniel Craig on any new editions. Sure, you're fudging things, but this is entertainment, not a medical journal. And the books aren't canon anyway, so who's to say which Kirk it is.

On the other hand, what if Pocket chose to do two parallel lines of books, one in the old continuity, one in the new one? In that case, the difference between the old cast and the new cast on the covers wouldn't be an arbitrary one from a marketing standpoint; presumably you'd want to use the movie cast on books set in the movie continuity and the original cast in books set in the original continuity, in order to differentiate the two lines.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

One thing I keep forgetting is that Mere Anarchy is positioned well to capitalize on the casual, new fan this spring. So, Pocket has that and Troublesome Minds to sell to new fans.

 

[BillJ]

Honestly, this strikes me as overly pedantic, especially where marketing is concerned. In general, Kirk is Kirk, Spock is Spock, and a couple of minor changes to the continuity and casting don't matter. You put Sean Connery on the cover of GOLDFINGER in the sixties and Daniel Craig on any new editions. Sure, you're fudging things, but this is entertainment, not a medical journal. And the books aren't canon anyway, so who's to say which Kirk it is.

On the other hand, what if Pocket chose to do two parallel lines of books, one in the old continuity, one in the new one? In that case, the difference between the old cast and the new cast on the covers wouldn't be an arbitrary one from a marketing standpoint; presumably you'd want to use the movie cast on books set in the movie continuity and the original cast in books set in the original continuity, in order to differentiate the two lines.

Do you think two distinct 'Star Trek' series could survive using essentially the same characters and settings?

Hm, yeah, fair enough. Though since the people at Pocket wouldn't have seen the movie themselves, I suppose it'd be difficult for them to make those judgment calls as well.

Maybe we'll see a bunch of them with the DVD release?

I do remember that they planned Destiny to capitalize on the movie hype, though, so it's clear they're thinking outside the TOS box, if nothing else.

I'm still not sure how 'Destiny' was suppose to capitalize on the new movie. Other than the words 'Star Trek' in the title it had absolutely nothing to do story-wise with 'The Original Series'.

 

[Thrawn]

^ Probably for much the same reason Deep Space Nine was intended to capitalize on The Next Generation's hype. It's all Star Trek.


And to answer your earlier question - yes, I think they could, because I think the characters will be sufficiently different. Though I suppose we'll see.

 

[Christopher]

Do you think two distinct 'Star Trek' series could survive using essentially the same characters and settings?

Marvel's Ultimate Universe has been successfully published alongside its original universe for over eight years, even though both universes deal with essentially the same characters and settings. DC had a long, successful, award-winning run of comics in the Batman: The Animated Series continuity alongside its original-universe Batman comics, and did the same with Superman and Justice League. So there's precedent.

I'm still not sure how 'Destiny' was suppose to capitalize on the new movie. Other than the words 'Star Trek' in the title it had absolutely nothing to do story-wise with 'The Original Series'.

The words Star Trek in the title are enough. Everything with that name can potentially get a bump in attention from the movie. People who've seen the movie and come into a bookstore looking for the novelization might notice, "Hey, there's other stuff here called Star Trek, I wonder what that's about?"

 

[William Leisner]

As I recall it, Destiny wasn't so much intended to "capitalize" on the movie as to "be as completely separate as possible" from it. There's a reason it encompasses elements from the 22nd century, and the 24th, but not the 23rd.

 

[BillJ]

^ Probably for much the same reason Deep Space Nine was intended to capitalize on The Next Generation's hype. It's all Star Trek.


And to answer your earlier question - yes, I think they could, because I think the characters will be sufficiently different. Though I suppose we'll see.

But 'Deep Space Nine' at least took some familiar trappings along. It wasn't completely unrecognizable to the fans of 'The Next Generation'. I'm not sure what you could pitch in the back cover description of 'Destiny' that would make a casual movie goer think these books were related to 'Star Trek: The Movie', other than the words 'Star Trek'.

 

[BillJ]

Do you think two distinct 'Star Trek' series could survive using essentially the same characters and settings?

Marvel's Ultimate Universe has been successfully published alongside its original universe for over eight years, even though both universes deal with essentially the same characters and settings. DC had a long, successful, award-winning run of comics in the Batman: The Animated Series continuity alongside its original-universe Batman comics, and did the same with Superman and Justice League. So there's precedent.

I'm still not sure how 'Destiny' was suppose to capitalize on the new movie. Other than the words 'Star Trek' in the title it had absolutely nothing to do story-wise with 'The Original Series'.

The words Star Trek in the title are enough. Everything with that name can potentially get a bump in attention from the movie. People who've seen the movie and come into a bookstore looking for the novelization might notice, "Hey, there's other stuff here called Star Trek, I wonder what that's about?"

Point taken about the comics. Never really thought about those. Do we have any novel series that set the same precedent?

 

[Christopher]

As I recall it, Destiny wasn't so much intended to "capitalize" on the movie as to "be as completely separate as possible" from it. There's a reason it encompasses elements from the 22nd century, and the 24th, but not the 23rd.

Storywise, yes, but in marketing terms, it was conceived as a big event to tie into the (originally scheduled) release date of the movie. We're talking about capitalizing on the publicity and sales potential, not on the plot.

 

[Trek Survivor]

I miss the numbered series, but more out of nostalgia than anything else.

 

[Dr. M'benga]

I'm already starting to mentally treat nuTrek as just another series (only on the big screen). It's like a direct TOS spinoff. And books from the other series all coexist peacefully. I don't see this being any different. The art featuring the new cast will differentiate them enough but Pocket could probably begin rebranding TOS books as just that - Star Trek: The Original Series.

As for numbering, I wish they'd do that on the relaunch books. Sure, I could check the publication dates on every single one of them but it's a hell of a lot easier just scanning the spines. Of course, in all the bookstores I've been in lately they're down to maybe a dozen or so ST books, so it's becoming less of an issue. I remember the days when ST always had an entire unit to itself. *Old fart rant over*