Future of Trek at Pocket Books

[Nerys Myk]

Ever have a friend marry a girl that doesn't like you?

Still not making sense. Who or what do "you", "the friend" and "the friend's wife" represent in your analogy?

Still, what would be "improper" about an editor hiring an established Trek writer to write a Star Trek novel? Why would the publisher object? Now if the author has a reputation for missing deadlines or turning in substandard work, I could see them balking.

 

[Christopher]

Okay, let's be systematic about this. How many cases can we list for franchises whose book license has switched hands, and where authors from the first publisher have also worked for the second?

• Star Trek: Marshak & Culbreath wrote for both Bantam and Pocket (plus David Gerrold as a borderline case). Alan Dean Foster wrote for Ballantine and did a novelization (and a cancelled original novel) for Pocket, though that was at the request of the filmmakers.
• Star Wars: According to JD, "a lot of authors" moved from Spectra to Del Rey.
• Doctor Who: Multiple authors including Paul Cornell, Terrance Dicks, John Peel, Craig Hinton, and others have written for both Virgin and BBC Books, and have even been able to carry continuity elements forward from one publisher to the other.
• Babylon 5: Jeanne Cavelos wrote for both Dell and Del Rey, and again was able to carry continuity threads across (though with the approval/guidance of the series creator).
• Marvel Comics: Peter David has written novels for both Byron Preiss and Pocket Star; Keith R. A. DeCandido edited the Byron Preiss Marvel novels and wrote one of the Pocket Star novels.

(I'm not counting the V license's switch from Pinnacle to Tor, because the V novels from Tor were written under Pinnacle's contract; Tor published them after Pinnacle went under.)

I'm trying to think of cases where a novel license has changed hands and no writers have carried over. The one thing that occurs to me is Stargate SG-1; Ashley McConnell did several SG-1 novels for Roc, but hasn't done any of the Fandemonium novels. But then, that's a case where the earlier tie-ins weren't very successful or well-received. There's also the case of the Battlestar Galactica novelizations and original novels from Berkeley in the '70s-'80s versus the Richard Hatch relaunch from Byron Preiss in the '90s-'00s, with no authors in common; but that's a much bigger gap between licenses than usual, so it's hardly a typical case.

Of course, this is strictly hypothetical. I'm in no way suggesting that there's any validity to the rumors about Pocket losing the novel license. Like I said, I think some people heard about the calendar license changing hands and jumped to conclusions about the novels.

But if, hypothetically, the license ever did change hands at some future time, there's a lot more precedent for authors carrying over than for the alternative.

 

[Greg Cox]

Marvel Comics: Peter David has written novels for both Byron Preiss and Pocket Star; Keith R. A. DeCandido edited the Byron Preiss Marvel novels and wrote one of the Pocket Star novels.
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Marvel Comics: I wrote two Iron Man novels and an X-Men trilogy for Byron Preiss, Daredevil for NAL, and Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four for Pocket.

We're freelancers. We go where the work is.

 

[Yevetha]

Star Wars: According to JD, "a lot of authors" moved from Spectra to Del Rey.

It worked really well for them, SW still has incredibly consistent canon.

 

[xortex]

Things cut both ways. Different people have different ideas, beliefs and approaches about the Star Trek franchise itself, both business side wise and artistically. So with different people comes the need to prove different powers. Look no farther than at J.J. and nu Trek. New bosses can be crazy and throw everybody off the tree branch like Kong did over a whim.

 

[Yevetha]

What is you specific complaint?

 

[Christopher]

Is it possible (in the purely hypothetical scenario of the license changing hands) that the new publisher and editors might want to make a clean break and use all new writers? Sure, it's possible. Is it inevitable? Of course not. And the actual evidence (which is always better than supposition) shows that it doesn't happen often.

 

[xortex]

Complacency is bad but so is it's opposite.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Things cut both ways. Different people have different ideas, beliefs and approaches about the Star Trek franchise itself, both business side wise and artistically. So with different people comes the need to prove different powers. Look no farther than at J.J. and nu Trek. New bosses can be crazy and throw everybody off the tree branch like Kong did over a whim.

The "bosses" are CBS and Paramount. Both JJ and who ever has the license for TrekLit answers to them. JJ is just a hired hand. The Trek "offices" were closed and gathering dust when he moved in. There was no one to "throw off the branch". TrekLit, for the most part, exists on a separate branch anyway.

 

[xortex]

CBS and Paramount are de facto bosses. They could care less how it is handled as long as it makes a doller profit. They're in the tv and movie business, not publishers of literature. J.J. is an example of what happens when a new guy or publisher takes over - everything could change.

 

[Nerys Myk]

CBS and Paramount are de facto bosses. They could care less how it is handled as long as it makes a doller profit. They're in the tv and movie business, not publishers of literature. J.J. is an example of what happens when a new guy or publisher takes over - everything could change.

Sorry, but who ever holds the license for TrekLit is not going to be able to make the sort of changes JJ did. There is a different relationship/dynamic at work. They're going to build off established Trek not reboot it, just as they always have. The editors and publishers don't have the same carte blanche as film makers or show runners. TrekLit is the tail. TrekTV/Movie is the dog.

Though TrekLit, is the only game in town for the Prime universe. right now. So they have more "freedom" than they did a few years ago.

 

[Christopher]

Well, it is true that if the license changed hands, the new publisher might not wish to continue the Pocket continuity. They'd still have to stay consistent with onscreen canon, of course, but they wouldn't necessarily carry forward things like the Titan novel crew, the Borg invasion, the Typhon Pact, the Bacco presidency, etc. Look at all the different Trek comics publishers over the years -- they've often shared writers and artists, but none of them has carried forward the continuity of its predecessors. A new publisher might feel it was better to start fresh for the benefit of new readers.

Then again, even if the license did change hands, the books would probably still have mostly the same audience as before. And as I mentioned before, there were continuity ties between the consecutive licensed novel lines of Doctor Who and Babylon 5. And while different comics licensees haven't referenced each other, more than one has tied into Pocket's long-established and influential line. So maybe a new publisher would be willing to keep the novel continuity more or less intact. Who knows? It's all pure speculation anyway.

 

[xortex]

It is still unclear if CBS and Paramount are going to liscence Pocket even to proceed with the J.J. verse tie in novels which is an important last string yet to be pulled or not by the higher powers that be, namely those in direct charge of leading and continuing the franchise's overall artistic and business direction which might be the whole reason CBS or Paramount would even consider changing publishers in the first place if they had.

 

[Nerys Myk]

They already published a series of YA novels set in the new continuity.

 

[xortex]

How did they do? Even that question is not Something CBS or Paramount would be interested in but rather the general direction of the franchise. Like a six year old they can do things just because they can. It may not even be about money. There might be a hint of integrity floating around there however wrong or misguided it may be to some. I.e. they don't need a reason to do what they want to do, they just do it. Nobody has a crystal ball and even things written in stone can be changed as we've seen with Trek '09. Especially since the literary line doesn't concern them all that much.

 

[Nerys Myk]

How did they do? Even that question is not Something CBS or Paramount would be interested in but rather the general direction of the franchise. Like a six year old they can do things just because they can. It may not even be about money. There might be a hint of integrity floating around there however wrong or misguided it may be to some. I.e. they don't need a reason to do what they want to do, they just do it. Nobody has a crystal ball and even things written in stone can be changed as we've seen with Trek '09. Especially since the literary line doesn't concern them all that much.

Do you ever make posts with out ill informed insults directed towards people you don't know, doing jobs you don't understand, in industries you know little about?

Pocket Books,CBS and Paramount are businesses. Star Trek is a brand name. The decisions they make are guided by making money/profit and providing entertainment. Believe it or not "art" can be produced under those constraints.

They also want to protect the brand. (And the brand has had its ups and downs.) So they have a vested interest in controlling what's out there with the Star Trek brand on it. I'm confidant they "care".

Finally, its fiction. Its mutable and always has been. Nothing of what we see or read was ever written in stone. ST09 is hardly the first "game changer" in Star Trek and it won't be the last.

 

[ATimson]

And the actual evidence (which is always better than supposition) shows that it doesn't happen often.

True, though I have to wonder how much of that is simply because tie-in licenses don't change hands all that often - usually the line dies instead.

 

[Christopher]

And the actual evidence (which is always better than supposition) shows that it doesn't happen often.

True, though I have to wonder how much of that is simply because tie-in licenses don't change hands all that often - usually the line dies instead.

I don't think that invalidates the data, since the licenses that do change hands tend to be for the most popular and robust genre franchises, including Star Wars, Doctor Who, and of course Star Trek itself the previous time it changed hands. Granted, the data set is too small to be statistically conclusive, but the examples we do have fall into the same category as the hypothetical situation we're discussing, so I think that makes them applicable.

 

[Therin of Andor]

CBS and Paramount are de facto bosses. They could care less how it is handled as long as it makes a doller profit.

Incorrect. They care very much. Consistency, respect for the canon, and aiming high were goals of Paula Block when she oversaw Star Trek for CBS Consumer Products, and John Van Citters and his team haven't allowed standards of the tie-ins to decline.

 

[xortex]

The way they know a standard is declining is if it's not making enough money. Other than that the standards are in the hands of the publisher, Pocket books. They can't possibly know what they are doing or not doing to improve the standards, artistically or otherwise.