Future of Trek at Pocket Books

[JD]

Though at least a couple of authors managed to be sneaky.

Yep!

I think the first one I caught was when Kyle popped up in Marvel's run of post-TMP comics. That licensing contract supposedly restricted them to characters who'd been in TMP rather than TOS.

After Richard Arnold's steadfast efforts in stomping out several authors' ideas for callbacks, homages and Tuckerisms in the early 90s, it made a few of them determined to slip character cameos past RA. Peter David was particularly adept at it.

And very cool re Ensign Michael Howard!

So how did Peter David get away with the novel (I can't remember which it was) that featured the Kingon from the comics, and followed up on one of his story arcs? Was it just that the connections were subtle enough he was able to sneak them past, or was that before they had to stop connecting stuff?

 

[Brit]

Though at least a couple of aI think the first one I caught was when Kyle popped up in Marvel's run of post-TMP comics. That licensing contract supposedly restricted them to characters who'd been in TMP rather than TOS.

Kyle appeared in "The Wrath of Kahn."

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Kyle

 

[Therin of Andor]

So how did Peter David get away with the novel (I can't remember which it was) that featured the Kingon from the comics, and followed up on one of his story arcs? Was it just that the connections were subtle enough he was able to sneak them past, or was that before they had to stop connecting stuff?

"Strike Zone". I think Richard realized this was a kind-of sequel and that PAD was attempting a list of banned stuff in it, but PAD called little Moron (aka Bernie) "Ambassador Kobry" in this TNG storyline. There was little mentioned re his height (pun intended) and no mention of being an albino. Of course, those of us in the know realized that "Kobry" was a moniker made up of the names of Bernie's adoptive "parents": Konom and Bryce. The novel reveals that the aliens who caused trouble in the TOS movie era Series I comics were Cognoscenti. Other than those tenuous links, "Strike Zone" is essentially a standalone.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Kyle appeared in "The Wrath of Kahn."

Fully aware of that, but Marvel Comics were specifically told, contractually, not to use any TOS characters - unless they'd appeared, or been referenced in, ST:TMP. Marvel let their contract lapse just before ST II began production, DC Comics chose not to adapt ST II - and a comic adaptation of ST II didn't come until only very recently - from IDW.

 

[Christopher]

The novel reveals that the aliens who caused trouble in the TOS movie era Series I comics were Cognoscenti.

The name "Cognoscenti" was in fact used in those comics. It's just that the series was cancelled before we learned anything more about them than their name.

 

[Therin of Andor]

The name "Cognoscenti" was in fact used in those comics. It's just that the series was cancelled before we learned anything more about them than their name.

Yeah. I should have said, "The novel reveals more about the aliens who caused trouble in the TOS movie era Series I comics, the Cognoscenti."

 

[23skidoo]

• 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.

What was odd about that though is they originally weren't allowed to do that. When BBC Books took over the license the first few books directly contradicted the continuity of the Virgin series. But within, I don't know, a year or two or maybe less someone at BBC Books either went what the hell or the writers said nuts and we started to see Virgin references and characters appear in the BBC Books. First example that comes to mind is Lawrence Miles porting in Faction Paradox from one of the Virgin novels. But the point being BBC Books loosened things up eventually.


Pulling my tangent back to the original topic, rumors of X losing the licence to Y are always kicking around - and in fact BBC Books taking the licence away from Virgin for Doctor Who in 1996-97 and Pocket taking it from Bantam for Star Trek in 1980-81 are actually two pretty good precedents to cite that it can happen (not to mention DC suddenly losing its comics licence when Paramount signed a deal with Marvel back in the 90s). But if Pocket were to lose the licence to publish Star Trek we wouldn't be hearing about it via rumor on social media - you'd see it getting major coverage.



Alex

 

[Lonemagpie]

• 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.

What was odd about that though is they originally weren't allowed to do that. When BBC Books took over the license the first few books directly contradicted the continuity of the Virgin series. But within, I don't know, a year or two or maybe less someone at BBC Books either went what the hell or the writers said nuts and we started to see Virgin references and characters appear in the BBC Books. First example that comes to mind is Lawrence Miles porting in Faction Paradox from one of the Virgin novels. But the point being BBC Books loosened things up eventually.

You must be joking - it started in the very first book, The Eight Doctors, with Terrance referencing the events of (his Virgin NA) Blood Harvest! And the first PDA, Devil Goblins From Neptune (Topping and Day) references the Virgin MA Scales Of Injustice...

Lawrence was the one who wanted to establish that the two ranges were in different universes...

The very first BBC commissioning editor for the 8DAs and PDAs, Nuala Buffini, did seem to want that it would be a new clean slate, but by the time even the (four or six, I forget) books that she'd commissioned made it to the copyediting stage, under Steve Cole, and written by former Virgin authors, that idea had fallen by the wayside, really.

 

[Christopher]

I have to admit, part of the reason I drifted away from the New Adventures books is that they had too much continuity -- they became too mired in references to events from earlier books, and when I reached a point where I couldn't afford to buy every one, I missed some events and was somewhat lost when I managed to pick up the occasional later one. And I remember there was this arc of maybe five consecutive interconnected novels with an arc about history being altered (the only title I remember offhand is The Left-Handed Hummingbird, which I think was third in the arc), and I never managed to find the last two, so I never found out how it resolved.