What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Authors?

[JD]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

I dont mind more story, just not the same story being copied. I really liked NJO's Star by Star and Knight Errant. Crosscurrent was good, and I can't wait for the sequel. There is a non-Big Three novel coming out about a holo-star that seems interesting.

There is a non-Big Three novel coming out about a holo-star that seems interesting.

Also a Palps book and Mandorla about Nomi Sunrider.

It seems like the only SW books worth reading lately have been the side stories away from the Solo/Skywalker family.

 

[ProwlAlpha]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

Honestly, I am kinda of burned out from the Big Three saving the galaxy every three minutes with the usual Imperial or Imperial-like and the side characters who think the Big Three don't know what they are doing.

 

[Thrawn]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

^ Actually no; his stories were in fact entirely cancelled. That year was scheduled to have his paperback trilogy and Greg Keyes's paperback duo; they just cancelled MJF's stuff.

I'm pretty sure Keyes was only writing one, so when MJF's got cancelled it got boosted to two. Net loss two books.

Oh you're right; sorry. Thanks for correcting me.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

Good ones.

Star Wars novels are total drek, and the writers seem to tell the same kind of stories all the time from what I hear, they don't have nearly the freedom ST writers have.

So how many have you read or are you just going on hear say?

I've tried to read six different books, by six different authors, set at different parts of the timeline (at the beginning of different series I think) and I was never able to finish them. I can't even remember which ones now, it was so long ago. They all without fail seemed to tell the same kind of story. The plots were just fluff and could have been a generic science fiction story. To me, the mark of a good franchise story is such that it has that stamp upon it, regardless of what the franchise is or who is writing it. The SW books I tried to read could have had the story transplanted into any space opera franchise and worked just as badly.

I'm not going on hear say.

I'll stick with Trek.

 

[Andy Mangels]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

There have been a few writers of Trek novels who have already written Star Wars novels-with mixed results.

Well, there's me.
http://www.andymangels.com/starwars.html

I wrote the first Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters.

Which led to me doing the Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction comic.

Which was then voted in a poll of 20,000 fans as the BEST single Star Wars comic EVER published.

Would love to return to Star Wars someday. Hell, would love to return to Star Trek someday.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

There have been a few writers of Trek novels who have already written Star Wars novels-with mixed results.

Well, there's me.
http://www.andymangels.com/starwars.html

I wrote the first Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters.

Which led to me doing the Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction comic.

Which was then voted in a poll of 20,000 fans as the BEST single Star Wars comic EVER published.

Would love to return to Star Wars someday. Hell, would love to return to Star Trek someday.

Andy, please don't take offense at this, but isn't life too short to hold a grudge against anyone, especially when one is a Star Trek fan? Bury the hatchet with Mike, or don't, and just pitch to the editor about stories you want to tell in the ST sandbox.

 

[Andy Mangels]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

Andy, please don't take offense at this, but isn't life too short to hold a grudge against anyone, especially when one is a Star Trek fan? Bury the hatchet with Mike, or don't, and just pitch to the editor about stories you want to tell in the ST sandbox.

Benny -

I'll say this as nicely as possible, though my immediate reaction is to be less pleasant.

There are many many things that go into selling/contracting a licensed book. And there are many many complexities to relationships between co-writers. And there have been many many changes in the last few years in the editorial realms, the Trek licensing realms, and publishing in general.

For you to imply that my not getting Star Trek jobs is in any way related to me choosing not to do so out of some petty grudge or with me choosing not to "bury the hatchet" is immensely offensive.

There are multiple writers here that used to write Trek that are no longer doing so, and who would love to return, and yet you bring my relationship with Mike into the equation as a way to attack my rather simple statement.

Congratulations: you have pretty much single-handedly won the "troll comment of the year" award.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

Andy, please don't take offense at this, but isn't life too short to hold a grudge against anyone, especially when one is a Star Trek fan? Bury the hatchet with Mike, or don't, and just pitch to the editor about stories you want to tell in the ST sandbox.

Benny -

I'll say this as nicely as possible, though my immediate reaction is to be less pleasant.

There are many many things that go into selling/contracting a licensed book. And there are many many complexities to relationships between co-writers. And there have been many many changes in the last few years in the editorial realms, the Trek licensing realms, and publishing in general.

For you to imply that my not getting Star Trek jobs is in any way related to me choosing not to do so out of some petty grudge or with me choosing not to "bury the hatchet" is immensely offensive.

There are multiple writers here that used to write Trek that are no longer doing so, and who would love to return, and yet you bring my relationship with Mike into the equation as a way to attack my rather simple statement.

Congratulations: you have pretty much single-handedly won the "troll comment of the year" award.

I wholeheartedly apologize for causing any offense, and it was certainly not intended, though I knew it might be taken as such, hence my caveat. I did not mean to imply or infer that your not getting Star Trek jobs was related to a petty grudge. My impression was that an author pitched to Pocket and was given a yay or nay, not that Pocket approached an author to write this or that (though I know it's happened in cases like the Destiny trilogy), so if you would love to pitch to Pocket, what's stopping you?

Forgive my ignorance in this area, but I would like to know why you aren't pitching these days. I think the ST sandbox is a little less rich without your viewpoint.

 

[Christopher]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

My impression was that an author pitched to Pocket and was given a yay or nay, not that Pocket approached an author to write this or that (though I know it's happened in cases like the Destiny trilogy)...

It happens both ways. In my case, Ex Machina and Watching the Clock were proposals I initiated, but most of my other books came about when an editor offered me a certain project they had in mind or invited me to pitch for a certain series.

 

[elaithin]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

BrotherBenny, it's just a hunch, but I don't think Andy Mangels really wants to talk about it publicly.

 

[Mysterion]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

Hell, would love to return to Star Trek someday.

And a lot of us readers would love to see that happen.

 

[neogothboy74]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

I'd like a Star Wars book with at least 1 gay or lesbian character. Perhaps there has been one and I missed it. I've read about 200 Star Wars books and I never encountered a LGBT character...which annoyed me. I enjoyed the prequel era to the post Jedi era as most of what I read there felt like...I don't know. The empire or some form of it always coming back and then our heroes again winning got old really fast for me. It also undercut 'Return of the Jedi' as the big finish for me, if that makes any sense. I mean, if you watch all of Star Wars...all of it, then the expanded version of Jedi actually features elements of all of it. To then follow that up with retread after retread...blah.


I can't stand Mara Jade because her retcon appearance in the films is OBVIOUSLY not there. The New Jedi Order was the only post series story that I really enjoyed all that much...perhaps because characters were allowed to die....yet I can't help thinking that more of them should be dead by now or that they should simply not be in the new stories...it feels tired after so many books about them.

The prequel era, or The Clone Wars era at least, has become my favorite era of Star Wars...and I know many, many SW fans probably think I'm crazy for that...but I like knowing that this section of the story has a pretty definitive ending - I mean...most of the characters I like die in Episode III. I hear fans argue over which trilogy is the best, with a clear majority claiming the original is superior but for me...my trilogy is Attack of the Clones, The Clone Wars (Micro Series / Current Series - which I finally watched and I love it) & Revenge of the Sith. As a kid I loved Luke and Han and the others, but as an adult I don't find I care much about them at all. I actually care more about the clones.

But back to the point. LGBT characters. Just 1 or 2.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

One that (1) isn't boring, (2) doesn't jump around more than even Marshak & Culbreath's "Phoenix" ST novels, (3) doesn't set the whole milieu up for yet another bloodbath (did Palpatine's reign of terror REALLY start out as an altruistic attempt to prepare Galactic civilization for an invasion of their Force-sensitive equivalent to the Borg and the Founders?), and (4) did I mention NOT BORING?

 

[Darth Duck]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

But back to the point. LGBT characters. Just 1 or 2.

Goran Beviin and Medrit Vasur.

 

[Andy Mangels]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

But back to the point. LGBT characters. Just 1 or 2.

Goran Beviin and Medrit Vasur.

Interestingly enough, these characters came about because of comments I made on a licensed writer's list about writing gay characters in Trek, and Karen Traviss took me up on a challenge to add some diversity to the Star Wars world as well.

Amusingly, a Lucasfilm employee ran into me at Comic-Con a few days ago and noted their almost complete lack of GLBT characters. They also had a crack about there being only one black person in Star Wars as well, a reference to Lando (even though there was more racial diversity showcased in casting and characters later, there was a lot of controversy at the time). It wasn't any editorial edict I ever heard, and in fact, an approved West End Games Boba Fett/Jodo Kast prequel story I was writing at one point before things got complicated there, would have introduced a lesbian couple. The problem is that there's not a lot of sex in Star Wars, and writers don't/didn't push romance of any kind overly much (in my experience).

 

[Andy Mangels]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

My impression was that an author pitched to Pocket and was given a yay or nay, not that Pocket approached an author to write this or that (though I know it's happened in cases like the Destiny trilogy)...

It happens both ways. In my case, Ex Machina and Watching the Clock were proposals I initiated, but most of my other books came about when an editor offered me a certain project they had in mind or invited me to pitch for a certain series.

Almost every one of the projects Mike and I did for Pocket was editorially-requested/assigned. Marco was quite well-known for mapping out trajectories. Sometimes it would be as simple as "I need you to do the Sulu/Klingons Three/Albino story" and other times it would be "Here's Mission: Gamma and the 73 plot threads we need to deal with."

In a few cases, we were just assigned a project and could pitch whatever story we liked; this was what we did mostly with Margaret on Enterprise (with the exception of TGTMD). But the basic assignment was still based on the editor approaching us to write the project/pitch it.

I believe that our CoE stories for KRAD were pitches without having an assignment first.

We had pitched a variety of stories to Marco and Margaret that were not part of the "plans," and even laid out some big connecting threads as far back as Rogue for a cross-over hardcover that would have seen the ultimate fate of several major crews vs. the machinations of Section 31. Unfortunately, those plans never came to be.

As for comics, our Wildstorm story was an assignment for an "era" short story, and at Marvel, we were able to pitch almost whatever we wanted. The amount of material we had in process at Marvel for the future was immense when the line folded. Multiple mini-series, a completed special and a plotted sequel, a new ongoing series, a Voyager fill-in, more Unlimited stories...

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

It looks like I had it completely backwards then, for the most part.

BTW, I've had surgery to remove my foot from my mouth and they tried to make my mouth smaller so it wouldn't happen again.

I would love to see you write the end of Section 31, that would be great.

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

It really varies. Sometimes it's as vague as "I need a Voyager outline by Thursday," and sometimes the editor will have a very specific idea of what they're looking for. "Can you do Mirror Universe Picard as a rogue treasure hunter, teaming up with Mirror Soong to find the Mirror Borg . . . and can I have it by July?"

 

[Lonemagpie]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

Haven't had a novel editorially generated (anywhere, not just in Trek) but Reservoir Ferengi started with Marco asking "would you like to do the Ferengi/Greed story for Seven Deadly Sins?"

 

[Greg Cox]

Re: What kind of Star Wars book would you like to see from Trek Author

Haven't had a novel editorially generated (anywhere, not just in Trek) but Reservoir Ferengi started with Marco asking "would you like to do the Ferengi/Greed story for Seven Deadly Sins?"

Likewise, Margaret asked for 20,000 words about the Pakleds and "Sloth."

True confession: I quickly recycled an old VOYAGER pitch I had sitting around . . . .