2018 Releases

I'm sure inflation and how the Euro is comparing to other currencies has a bearing on prices. The average Trek MMPB here costs €11.00.

And I know there are some prolific German readers here, but German as a first language is spoken by under a third of people who speak English as a first language and their just might not be the readership levels to sustain the Cultcross line.

 

I guess that logic no longer applies, since it's usually a given that episodes will be "repeated" on home video and streaming. But it's actually become pretty common for the showrunners of a series to write the season premieres and finales themselves. You can usually tell who the showrunners are just by checking who wrote those two episodes. I guess that's because whole seasons are plotted out as arcs now, with the whole staff working under the direction of the showrunner(s), and the first and last episode of the arc are the anchors for the rest.

 

Yeah, this was about the 1970s/80s - things have definitely changed since then!

 

Yeah, not just the premieres and finales, but any major episode. If you see the showrunner's name as the writer, then you know there's a pretty good chance something significant will happen.

 

I can understand why '09 and Discovery have gone back to the TOS era, as that's where Trek began, but it wouldn't make sense to have another jump back to something that came before (ie 24th C). I agree on the jumping further into the future though.

 

That sounds expensive.

It isn't inferior.

Plus it's only been around, what 4 years? The old one had nearly 40 years to get where it is, it isn't going to compare.

 

Apologies. It's drastically inferior. The Stormtroopers are still the baddies for crying out loud!

 

I think it really is inferior because they haven't started any actual book series yet. It's all one-offs filling in gaps. The thing I loved about the old EU books was the long series - X-Wing, Zahn's books which all sort of made one big set of interconnected narratives, the NJO...

 

Though considering that they’re starting the EU fresh, that isn’t surprising - It’s like how the new Trek novels during the run of new episodes were isolated and self-contained so there’d be few contradictions. With the movies ongoing, particularly the Sequel Trilogy itself, they’re not locking themselves down at this point. Especially considering that they’re trying to make the new EU a unified whole, I doubt that they’re going to make any ongoing novel series AT LEAST until after Episode IX.

 

Right. Tie-ins are great for filling the void in a franchise that's no longer active. That's when they have the freedom to shape their own narrative and stand on their own. But tie-ins to an active franchise are secondary to it by their nature, required to follow its lead, and that makes them more limited. Like how the most memorable, most innovative and interconnected periods of Star Trek tie-in literature were in the '70s and '80s, between the animated series and TNG, and in the 2000s, between Voyager and Discovery. (Since Enterprise was in an earlier century, it didn't put limits on the 24th-century books. But it wasn't until ENT ended that the ENT novels were able to move beyond standalone books.) Or like how the post-series Buffy and Angel comics were able to advance the core narrative in ways the comics and novels during the series never could.

 

I saw this dramatically when I was writing THE 4400 novels. While the show was a going concern, it was a challenge to work a standalone novel into the show's serialized storylines. I remember the outline for the first book went through five or six revisions as it bounced back and forth between me and the licensor. After the show was canceled, I had a lot more freedom. I think the outline was approved in about twenty-four hours!

As for STAR WARS, it has to be remembered that one-offs are lot more attractive and less intimidating to the casual reader who may have only just got back into STAR WARS due to the new movies. "Ooh, a novel about Phasma!" is a lot more tempting to someone who just saw THE LAST JEDI than "Volume 16 of the Dark Jedi Rebels saga?"

 

Oh I understand why it's happening, don't get me wrong, I just think that regardless it does make an inferior product.

 

Well, I've quite liked the few modern-continuity Star Wars novels I've read. I'm actually a bigger fan of the new stuff (movies, shows, and books) than the older stuff.

 

Well they're doing that with the comics.

 

Star Wars currently has this little problem called The Last Jedi that makes the whole Rough Beasts of Empire controversy around here a few years back look like a firecracker!

(The most interesting aspect of the comparison being that the books eventually, it was only with Original Sin the last piece was got, built up a story that made sense of it all combined with a more positive resolution. I'm nowhere near as confident SW can pull that off due to film being far more high-profile.)

 

Ah man, I would have loved to have been there for that....

 

Depends on the reader, to some degree. A book that is less accessible to a reader who hasn't read the previous books is arguably inferior to that reader than a standalone with its own beginning, middle, and end.

I kinda resist the idea that serialized fiction is inherently inferior to standalones.

(Says the guy who mostly writes standalones. )

 

Neither standalone nor series storytelling is inferior to the other. They're just different options with their own strengths and weaknesses.

And as I said, tie-ins to an active series just have different needs than tie-ins to an inactive series. It's like evolution -- a trait that's a beneficial adaptation to one set of conditions can be a harmful adaptation to a different set of conditions. Serialization is a good adaptation for tie-ins to a moribund series, because the tie-ins become the sole means of continuing the story and there's nothing to get in their way. But it's a poorer adaptation for tie-ins to an active series, because the series itself is leading the development of the narrative and the tie-ins have to avoid clashing with it. So there is no absolute better or worse approach; it depends on the context.

 

Sorry; I came off as a bit strident. That whole post comes with a big "in my opinion" modifier. I like serialized fiction; I find I read shorter, standalone stories so quickly that they don't linger in memory much. I like big stories that I can sink into for a long time.

(As a result, perhaps unsurprisingly, I haven't read much of your work... I intend no disrespect; I have enjoyed what I have. The Eugenics Wars were a nice big story - I liked that project a lot!)

 

How exactly are you defining "less accessible"? Surely every novel should have a beginning, muddle, and end, and be understandable to anyone who hasn't read any other novels.

One of my own personal annoyances with Trek novels is the exposition many have to give, but I completely understand it being there.

By all means put as many references to other novels as you can, but not that are integral to the story being "accessible" by anyone.