Thanks.
BTW Unreality SF now has its own Facebook group. We had people asking for a place to discuss the reviews, features and interviews in the past, and while it's not directly on the site, we hope this group is an adequate place to do so.
article on the books' response to Trek XI
- Thread starter danjamesb
- Start date
Thanks.
BTW Unreality SF now has its own Facebook group. We had people asking for a place to discuss the reviews, features and interviews in the past, and while it's not directly on the site, we hope this group is an adequate place to do so.
And if you try Collins and Angus & Robertson - the only two in my area of about 150,000 people - you'd be lucky to find one between them, and it's the same in Melbourne. I looked just yesterday.
Dymocks has some, as does Borders, but the fact that two of the major chain stores in Australia are not stocking them does cut down the potential buyers, particularly the casual ones attracted by the new film, who wouldn't know which stores do have them.
In this time of looming recession, chain stores can either get ruthless and start undercutting each other, or they start developing specialties. Dymocks have always tended to support media tie-ins. Some other chains tend to be more snobby. No general bookstore wants shelves of dusty books.
I've actually heard A&R staff telling people, "I believe Dymocks specialize in that area", and vice versa.
Also keep in mind that almost every bookshop can do special orders these day, or can use their database to discover which other suburban store of the same chain is stocking supplies of a book. Your Collins and A&R stores may well sell ST novels to customers who request a copy be brought in for them, they just choose not to devote shelf space to them.
But you're concerned over the very casual browser. When I became an avid ST fan, following my first viewing of ST:TMP, I was on the phone, scouring "Starlog" and "Locus" - and roaming the entire city - seeking out anything Star Trek related. Not to mention going to the public library to check "Books in Print" and get a definitive list of the titles of everything Simon & Schuster was churning out under numerous imprints, and previous material from Bantam and Ballantine.
I have very little concern for fans who wander into bookshops, look at one shelf, then wander out again without asking questions.
Hopefully Simon & Schuster Australia's marketing person in Melbourne does a big push for the four upcoming JJ ST novels.
You have the right not to be concerned about them, but you have to realise that they are the typical book-buyers, and what you just described of your own past actions is very, very atypical.But you're concerned over the very casual browser. When I became an avid ST fan, following my first viewing of ST:TMP, I was on the phone, scouring "Starlog" and "Locus" - and roaming the entire city - seeking out anything Star Trek related. Not to mention going to the public library to check "Books in Print" and get a definitive list of the titles of everything Simon & Schuster was churning out under numerous imprints, and previous material from Bantam and Ballantine.
I have very little concern for fans who wander into bookshops, look at one shelf, then wander out again without asking questions.
Your experience is very different from that of the hipster guy I saw in a bookstore the other day who checked out a few of the TrekLit titles on the shelf before ultimately buying Greater Than the Sum. I guarantee you that guy would not have asked for that book if it weren't at that bookstore, let alone started roaming Winnipeg looking for ST titles, but I imagine Christopher is grateful for his purchase (and that of other casual shoppers).
If no one ever bought something they came across without setting out to find it, there'd be much less of a point in having storefronts.
More promotion is always a good thing.
I'm not slamming casual browsers, but none of us are in a position to help those who can't help themselves. You're talking to a librarian here; browsers are my business. But the mute browser is a difficult nut to crack.
Tempting the casual would-be book buyer is a matter for the S&S marketing people and the bookshop managers. A group of avid fans on the Internet can't do anything about matching casual browsers with ST novels, so it's pointless for us to feel concern for them.
Look, we could all agree to go to every shop and demand that they buy in all the latest ST novels, plus a smattering of older still in-print titles but, if all that does is cause most of the books to gather dust in bookshops, all we've proven is that ST doesn't sell. Obviously, ST books just don't race off the shelves the way they used to in the early 90s. Avid/completist ST readers have long-ago secured their most reliable source of fresh ST novels.
It doesn't matter if every bookshop in Sydney stocks ST novels, I already have my regular supplier (and a permanent order for one-of-each-new-title to be put aside for me), so I can't be supporting any of the other shops.
In any case, many general bookshops around here did get in multiple copies of all the recent ST titles, and they've sold quite well. Simon & Schuster Australia seemed to have supported the movie well. But not every chain is going to be convinced that their clientele wants ST novels in large quantities.
Nice deep article.
Although its unlikely, can the authors reveal any more about the upcoming neo-Trek books?
There are comments from the three announced authors in the next issue of STM, alongside with some tantalising hints about the Typhon Pact novels... although since that won't be out for a bit, the news may well get out earlier.
P
I agree that Pocket missed the boat with the STXI novels, that the general public will have long forgotten the movie by the time the books arrive, and they’ll only sell to the die-hards that are still buying the TNG/DS9/VOY/whatever books.
I find it strange that STXI had such a cool prequel comic tie-in, yet the novels were left in the cold. A USS Kelvin novel would have been the perfect set-up for the film– all the writer would need to have seen is the first 10 minutes of the movie, been handed those little character bios from Intel’s site (or rather whatever notes begat them) and locked in a room for six months. What do we know about the Kelvin crew (other than George and Winona Kirk from Best Destiny)? It would have made Captain Robau’s death and George Kirk’s sacrifice all the more meaningful when we all finally got to see the film.
To give the poor guy more time they could have him the scene before the FX were done. Show the guy a pic of the USS Iowa concept art on the way out the door. All it would have taken was writer + basic knowledge of Star Trek + opening scene of movie.
It’d have had PREQUEL TO THE HIT MOVIE in huge red letters across the top of the cover. Ended with the Kelvin getting orders to divert to the Hobus system to investigate a “lightning storm in space”…
Even though a Kelvin novel is inevitable for the next year or two, it would have been so much more special (and probably financially successful) before the film arrived.
Yep, sitting here at my keyboard (and in retrospect) it looks so simple…and such a wasted opportunity. Let’s hope they’re on the ball when Star Trek XII: The Re-Wrath of Khan arrives in 2011.
I find it strange that STXI had such a cool prequel comic tie-in, yet the novels were left in the cold. A USS Kelvin novel would have been the perfect set-up for the film– all the writer would need to have seen is the first 10 minutes of the movie, been handed those little character bios from Intel’s site (or rather whatever notes begat them) and locked in a room for six months. What do we know about the Kelvin crew (other than George and Winona Kirk from Best Destiny)? It would have made Captain Robau’s death and George Kirk’s sacrifice all the more meaningful when we all finally got to see the film.
To give the poor guy more time they could have him the scene before the FX were done. Show the guy a pic of the USS Iowa concept art on the way out the door. All it would have taken was writer + basic knowledge of Star Trek + opening scene of movie.
It’d have had PREQUEL TO THE HIT MOVIE in huge red letters across the top of the cover. Ended with the Kelvin getting orders to divert to the Hobus system to investigate a “lightning storm in space”…
Even though a Kelvin novel is inevitable for the next year or two, it would have been so much more special (and probably financially successful) before the film arrived.
Yep, sitting here at my keyboard (and in retrospect) it looks so simple…and such a wasted opportunity. Let’s hope they’re on the ball when Star Trek XII: The Re-Wrath of Khan arrives in 2011.
^But what you're proposing there could only have happened if the filmmakers had been willing to share that information with the authors. As Keith said in the article, security on the movie was extraordinarily tight. So you're wrong to say "Pocket missed the boat," because Pocket couldn't do anything without the cooperation of the filmmakers. These are new people in charge of the franchise with their own way of doing things, and for their own reasons, they preferred to keep security on the film as tight as possible. Therefore, the only tie-in project that came out before the film, Countdown, was one that was generated internally at Bad Robot -- plotted by the screenwriters and scripted by Bad Robot employees. Those of us on the outside had to wait until the movie came out to get the kind of information we'd need to do tie-ins. And that meant there was simply no opportunity to get any kind of novel tie-ins published in time for the movie's release.
^I meant the filmmakers were at fault too, especially since the novels were bieng pushed in interviews as such a big inspiration.
I think it's safe to say that not having stuff out there other than the novelization to coincide with the film constituted a lost opportunity, but I don't think any one person or group of persons is responsible for that. It was a perfect storm of bad timing -- Pocket timed Destiny and Star Trek 101 to coincide with the original release date, which was later pushed back, and neither project could just be stored in warehouses for half a year; Pocket was unable to gain the insider access needed to do a making-of book or prequel or sequel novel; and book vendors were understandably unwilling to special order any special ST novels or printings because previous ones had bombed and left them with a lot of hard-to-sell merchandise that didn't earn them any money, thereby causing the idea of ordering more Trek books or sending out special reprints of old Trek books before the film proved to be a hit to be seen as not being worth the risk in this horrible economy.
^That about sums it up.
And despite the cleverness of getting books like "Ghost Ship" and "Peacekeepers" (TNG), and "The Seige" (VOY) out as early as they did, they aren't necessarily fondly remembered as excellent examples of ST tie-in novels, and are riddled with assumptions, errors, changed premises, etc.
People also complained bitterly about books like "The Entropy Effect", which featured TMP-inspired cover art despite being set during the TOS 5YM, and "Yesterday's Son", which had Spock wearing a blue rendition of a ST II uniform, thus "cashing in" on the ST movie of the day.
People also complained bitterly about books like "The Entropy Effect", which featured TMP-inspired cover art despite being set during the TOS 5YM, and "Yesterday's Son", which had Spock wearing a blue rendition of a ST II uniform, thus "cashing in" on the ST movie of the day.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
That works more in theory than in practice. Most all chain stores had a graded set of listings for what gets carried at what size store. For example, a really big WaldenBooks used to carry the R [required] titles and then all the ones on the list numbered 1 through 7 or 8 ... and the ratings went down to 35 or 40 altogether. So the options for carrying the lower numbers were extremely limited, ESPECIALLY for smaller stores.
Then again, a large store could reverse a trend as well ... I remember that at one point in the 80s, the first HAMMERS SLAMMERS was in the low 30s ... which basically meant no store in the chain should be carrying it. We kept a full face-out stack maintained for the next calendar year, and it shot up to REQUIRED, which shouldn't even have been possible. That store was pretty fantastic, though ... we were only supposed to carry the five most current trek novels, but instead we kept TWO endcaps full, and always turned them, the older Bantams (which we could stock up on from a local warehouse that had tons of OP stuff) and the Pockets.
Of course, that was back when 3million in yearly sales for a Mall store meant something.
The Siege was DS9, and I think it's pretty well-regarded to this day. Aside from some understandable irregularities about Molly O'Brien's age (which only reflected similar irregularities in canon), the only thing that would count as a significant error is that the Rio Grande, the indestructible runabout, is destroyed at the end.
Maybe you're thinking of The Escape, which was the first original VGR novel. Although I thought that one held together fairly well.
I accidentally typed VOY - it was late at night - but yeah, I was thinking about Molly, the runabout and a few other things I recall people complaining about. But the story itself is usually fondly remembered. (I was more worried about spelling "siege" correctly - it's one of those often-misspelled words).
IIRC, The early VOY novels often featured "Doc Zimmerman", based on the reference in the show's bible that the EMH would select that name within the early episodes of the series.
^ Yeah. And other weird little stuff too; it always bugged me that in the book they referred to the ship as "The Voyager", as in "let's get back to the Voyager", much like TNG had "let's get back to the Enterprise", but in the show they just said "Voyager", like "let's get back to Voyager".
Aren't I a nerd?
Aren't I a nerd?