Hi there, I've just watched the 4k director's edition of The Motion Picture and was wondering if there are many novels that explore the era from around this time up until the Wrath of Khan?
There are! Roughly chronologically: Shadow of the Machine is an eBook novella and deals with the emotional fallout of TMP for the characters but it contradicts the movie. MA link: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Machine Ex Machina is a TOS novel that acts as a sequel to TMP and to the TOS ep "The World Is Hollow". Memory Alpha link: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ex_Machina Forgotten History is set partially in the 2270s and the 2380s of the First Splinter timeline. MAS link: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Forgotten_History The Higher Frontier continues in the 2270s. It is a sequel to the TOS ep "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" MA link: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Higher_Frontier Living Memory is an Uhura-based story. Apart from who is dead and alive in her family, it gels nicely with her being a main character on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
There are plenty more. Memory Beta's timeline pages are a good place to start looking: https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/2273 https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/2274 https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/2275 https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/2276 https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/2277 https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/2278 https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/2279 https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/2280
Thanks for the callouts, Markonian, but I should add that Mere Anarchy Book 4: The Darkness Drops Again is also part of my post-TMP sequence, and Scott Pearson's e-novella The More Things Change shares continuity with my books.
There's also the New Earth series of novels (including the Gateways series Challenger based novel) that take place after TMP (though the years noted in the novels themselves have been revised to later in the 2270s because we now know TMP likely took place in 2273, or late 2272 at the earliest, instead of 2270 or 71 I think it was previously thought). There are also several standalone novels that take place after TMP, though not part of any larger continuity. But I highly recommend Christopher's post-TMP novels starting with Ex Machina, then his Mere Anarchy novella, The More Things Change, The Higher Frontier (I think my favorite of this continuity) and Living Memory (which has been partially contradicted by Strange New Worlds, though I think large parts can still fit). Christopher does a good job covering the TMP-TWOK era and even providing some backstory as to how Kirk became and Admiral again, with Spock's promotion and some of the changes we see between the two. Yet at the same time he doesn't monopolize the era. There's still plenty of room for other stories to exist in that era unrelated to his story.
You may also like To Reign in Hell by Greg Cox. The frame story is set after Star Trek II, but the main meat of it details Khan's time on Ceti Alpha V.
Well... I feel it's clear from the actual text of the books that they were always intended to take place closer to TWOK than TMP, or at least about midway between them; but for some strange reason, it seemed to be the policy at the time for the historian's notes to say that any post-TMP novel was "shortly after" TMP even when it clearly wasn't. The books themselves didn't mention calendar years, IIRC; rather, it was probably the wikis that extrapolated years for them based on that historian's note, and changed them when the Pocket Timeline clarified that they should be later.
Oh, I'd forgotten that. Strange, since it definitely seems like it's meant to come well after TMP. Don't they have Spock already a captain and Chekov about to leave for Reliant? I wonder if the date was tweaked in editing.
IIRC the 2272 date was of a flashback from the previous year, so the main story should take place in 2273. I wasn't around at the time, so obviously I can't speak to what the common perception of TMP's date was, but New Earth started prior to Q2's premiere, so 2270 as the end date of the five year mission was not yet canon. The third edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, which came out about a year prior to Wagon Train to the Stars, placed TMP in 2271, so the New Earth mission being planned in 2272 and starting properly in 2273 seems entirely possible.
It was common even before those works came out to assume that TOS took place in 2266-69; the Chronology and Encyclopedia were just adopting that popular theory, which obviously is based on just adding 300 years to the show's release date. But the Chronology version differed from the usual fan theories by having TOS be the last three years of the 5-year mission instead of the first three, thereby precluding the animated series and any of the novels or comics from taking place. Also, the Chronology's date for TMP never made sense even by its own assumptions. TMP was supposed to be at least two and a half years after the 5-year mission, per its explicit dialogue. If TOS ended in the latter half of 2269 as the Chronology assumed, then two and a half years after that would have to be at least early 2272. So the 2271 date was always a miscalculation. Again, though, the issue with New Earth has nothing to do with the calendar date of TMP. My point is that I seem to remember story details that put it closer to TWOK in terms of Spock's and Chekov's situations. Though checking the preview of Book 1 at Google Books just now doesn't support that recollection, so either it was revised at some point or I'm misremembering.
Or at the very least at about the halfway point between TMP and TWOK. Chekov is still on the Enterprise at the start of the series and somewhere around the middle to end of the series he transfers to the Reliant. I don't recall if New Earth has him immediately as a first officer or is it more similar to your story where he eventually moves to first officer. I don't recall if it mentions Spock's promotion at all. But yes, definitely Chekov moving on is in the series and he's not in the final 2 or 3 books. But I agree, New Earth definitely does not feel like soon after TMP. A couple years at least. And IIRC New Earth takes place over a period of about a year at least. I always thought New Earth can still exist in the Ex Machina timeline at least to some extent. Obviously some details differ, but the basic story could probably still exist in that timeline. Some other post-TMP novels too. Of course there being 10+ years between TMP and TWOK helps. A lot of room for stories. I still remember in my early years of being a Trekkie I thought TWOK was literally about 2 years post TMP since that's what it was in real time. When TSFS came around and they were talking about decommissioning the Enterprise I was thinking, damn, Starfleet must have resources to waste. They just did a massive refit of the ship 2 years ago and they're already sending it to the trash heap, LOL.
I believe the dated flashback above also mentions the new red uniforms are coming down the line, and Kirk requests the Enterprise gets them early so they can get out of the TMP duds rather than have to wear them for the whole colonization mission and not change over until they come back. Not that that narrows it down any, especially since DSC and LDS have conclusively shown it's SOP to have very diverse uniforms around the fleet.
Okay, that's what I must've been thinking of. That and the uniform thing David cgc mentioned while I was composing this post.
I wasn’t part of the group at the time, but I know from talking to the others and from looking back at the old discussion archives that the Timeliners agonized over the idea of placing the New Earth series in the late 2270s for the Pocket Books Timeline published in Voyages of Imagination. The specific date and the historians note didn’t seem to match the “feel” of the story, obviously. And though the idea was controversial, they ended up deciding the “flow” of the 2270s made more sense if they had the New Earth mission later, ignoring the specific chronoclues in favor of the “spirit” of the story’s time setting. We’ve had quite a few similar somewhat controversial discussions in recent years about various other issues. I sure wish/hope we’ll eventually find an outlet for the project’s updated publication someday.
I'm not sure why they decided at the time to say New Earth was within a year or two after TMP, especially since the story 'felt' more like it belonged at the midpoint between TMP and TWOK at the very least, if not closer to TWOK. It seems a lot of post-TMP novels take place 'soon after' TMP. I think it's pretty accepted that there is about 10 or so years between the two movies. Why not scatter them about? Christopher's post-TMP novels seem to be one of the few that takes us further into that era and closer to TWOK. New Earth would seem to fit better later as well. Personally I think an era that could use some more novels is the era between TFF and TUC. There are only a few novels that take place during that period and that's about a 6 or 7 year gap. I would love to see Christopher continue his Ex Machina continuity beyond TFF at some point (not that I'm throwing out any hints )
Per the official chronology, it's 12 years, since they put TWOK in 2385, 18 years after "Space Seed" instead of the stated 15, for some strange reason that even Mike Okuda no longer remembers (I asked him). My best guess is so that TFF would be 20 years after "Balance of Terror" to be consistent with the stated age of Nimbus III, though why they chose to fudge TWOK's date instead of that date is a mystery. And despite the tendency of the historian's notes to insist on everything being "shortly after" TMP, there are a fair number of books that take place later. IIRC, the L.A. Graf post-TMP novels starting with Ice Trap take place about 8 years after Chekov joined the crew, which would be 2275. And there are several novels set closer to TWOK, with Cadet Saavik being a character, like Dwellers in the Crucible and The Pandora Principle. Time for Yesterday is also in that period, though without Saavik, IIRC.