STAR TREK: PICARD - ROGUE ELEMENTS by John Jackson Miller

The feline is out of the proverbial bag. Don't know if the copy and cover drop at TrekCentral was planned or not, but yes — Star Trek: Picard - Rogue Elements releases in August, and follows Santiago Cabrera's freighter captain Cristóbal Rios on an odyssey set years before the CBS All Access show.



Here's the solicitation copy:

“Starfleet was everything for Cristóbal Rios—until one horrible, inexplicable day when it all went wrong. Aimless and adrift, he grasps at a chance for a future as an independent freighter captain in an area betrayed by the Federation, the border region with the former Romulan Empire. His greatest desire: to be left alone.

But solitude isn’t in the cards for the captain of La Sirena, who falls into debt to a roving gang of hoodlums from a planet whose society is based on Prohibition-era Earth. Teamed against his will with Ledger, his conniving overseer, Rios begins an odyssey that brings him into conflict with outlaws and fortune seekers, with power brokers and relic hunters across the stars.

Exotic loves and locales await—as well as dangers galore—and Rios learns the hard way that good crewmembers are hard to find, even when you can create your own. And while his meeting with Jean-Luc Picard is years away, Rios finds himself drawing on the Starfleet legend’s experiences when he discovers a mystery that began on one of the galaxy’s most important days…"

Picard viewers met Rios, whose freighter La Sirena is crewed by his multiple holographic doppelgangers, later in his career; I begin his story earlier. It's a freewheeling odyssey into the territories made newly lawless following the Romulan disaster. Plus lots of familiar faces!

This was my "lockdown novel," and I specifically asked both to write about Rios — and also to write a book that would be FUN, something readers could really look forward to and would enjoy. Mission accomplished! We'll see you in August!

There's no copy at Amazon yet, but this link appears to be the preorder one. Ignore the page count listed there — it's boilerplate number, and the true figure is considerably larger.

Post-release update: I'm happy to answer questions in this thread, but please use the dedicated review thread for reviews. Better that way!

 

I was really hoping for a book fleshing out Rios' backstory. He was easily my favorite new character from Picard.

 

Great cover art. Spot is out of the proverbial bag indeed!

 

Cool, I'd been hoping for a Rios novel. Now we just need a Seven novel.

 

Iotians.

 

Ooo, Rios content!

 

I've been hoping we'd get a novel about Rios. I'm definitely looking forward to getting the next book in the Picard series.

 

Great idea! I really liked the character, and the actor did a terrific job with all the different versions of himself, especially in that one episode. Sounds like a really promising book.

 

Wooo! Can’t wait!!!

 

I think he might be the best actor in the show but he makes it all look so effortless that we don’t give him credit. His “default” Rios accent is not his natural voice.

 

I had occasion (as you might imagine) to study all his performances — and the various accents he employs. He's amazingly versatile -- and that's one reason I wanted to write the book.

There are characters that are difficult to write for even with multiple seasons to draw upon; Rios is the complete opposite.

 

I'm just making myself comfortable like that....

 

Can't wait since I 1) loved Die Standing and 2) greatly enjoyed the two Picard novels published so far.

[Also, it's nice to have pretty Star Trek hardbacks ;-) I know I'm weird but I think that even the typesetting is better in the Picard novels then in the TOS paperbacks.]

 

Really?

 

Based on this part of the publisher’s summary, it kinda sounds like it

“But solitude isn’t in the cards for the captain of La Sirena, who falls into debt to a roving gang of hoodlums from a planet whose society is based on Prohibition-era Earth.”

 

Looks like they didn't do anything with McCoy's communicator...

 

And their location as posited in the Stellar Cartography 2nd Edition, isn't that far from Klingon holdings and the Romulan successor states...

 

That means the holo squad, right? I'm not imagining things? We're gonna see more of the holo squad?

(I love those five hyper-competent idiots so, so much, and there are only so many times you can read the same stories over and over again, so any new addition (and with official backing, too) will be absolutely brilliant!)

 

I'd said before it was my longest novel, but I can confirm now that PICARD - ROGUE ELEMENTS will be north of 400 pages in hardcover. I use 'em all!

Also Robert Petkoff is aboard for the audiobook, which I'm dying to hear. Some characters talk to themselves; Rios takes it to a whole new level!

 

The problem is that the page number will be picked up by Goodreads and made the page number. The Librarians have no idea how to handle page numbers. They make the eBook page numbers the same as whatever very wrong page number the publishers put up. I've tried to ask for corrections, but they insist that because the publisher posted it, it's correct.