2018 Releases

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by aventinelover, Jul 29, 2017.

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  1. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    For whatever it's worth, the infamous bowling alley was located below the shuttlebay hanger (i.e. two levels below the shuttlebay proper) in Franz Joseph's original blueprints, and at the top of the engineering hull roughly above engineering (imagine the noise!) in the Haynes Enterprise manual cutaway.
     
  2. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Oh, yeah definitely. Wal-Marts are huge, and at times it feels like half our stock doesn't actually match what's in the system.
    If Titan is actually doing these reprints could that have been part of what slowed down Pocket renewing their contract for new books? Or would it be totally separate from that?
     
  3. DrCorby

    DrCorby Captain Captain

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    If I remember correctly, in Franz Joseph's Technical Manual, the "starliner" craft that could be carried by the tug class starship had bowling alleys, along with many other amenities for the passengers. I guess bowling is a thing in the 23rd century...
     
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  4. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Made a huge comeback after World War III . . . :)
     
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  5. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    So now there's a John Eaves Trek art book being published later this year from Titan (thread). Okay, as non-fiction and a behind the scenes book this is sort of Titan's turf anyway. But one can't help but notice, with this, the Prometheus translations possible TOS reprints this year and David Goodman writing a Spock autobiography that will presumably be published next year, Titan is looking to get into the Trek book business in a serious way, while there hasn't been a damn peep from Pocket Books since the third Disco novel was announced.

    Yeah, I know, contract negotiations are secret and delicate, but at this point the activity at the Titan camp is becoming too noticeable and too difficult to ignore, while the silence from the Pocket Books camp is starting to become deafening.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2018
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  6. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, I will admit, I kind of had the same thought when I saw Titan was publishing the Eaves book.
     
  7. Brefugee

    Brefugee No longer living the Irish dream. Premium Member

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    So is Wal-Mart trustworthy with what stock it does and does not have then?
     
  8. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    No, and now I see your point.
     
  9. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    That's a reach. Titan Books has been publishing Trek reprints in the UK market for over 30 years, so there's nothing new there. They've been doing nonfiction art books since 2009, and they published David Goodman's first "in-universe nonfiction" book in 2013. So none of that is anything new either. The only thing on your list that's new is the Prometheus translations, and I think Titan only got those because Pocket declined them. Titan doesn't have to "get into" the Trek book business; they've been there quite a while already.
     
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  10. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Still, there is noticeably more Star Trek activity from Titan at the moment than there is from Pocket Books. Maybe there isn't a smoking gun yet, but theories that something is going on are a bit more logical sounding than typical tinfoil hat fare tends to be.
     
  11. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    But any active publisher is, by definition, going to have more activity than an inactive publisher, so that's kind of a tautological observation. There's more Star Trek activity from IDW and Modiphius too, but that doesn't mean they're also gunning for Pocket's license. Titan, like those other publishers, offers different categories of tie-ins than Pocket does.

    Besides, simultaneity doesn't prove causality, especially in a business as sluggish as publishing, where cause and effect can be separated by months or years. Also, there's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes in business that the public never hears about. So it's a fallacy to assume that the thing you can see must be the cause. The cause could be something you've never even heard of. It could be something that isn't even about Star Trek, that's about some bigger business concern at Simon & Schuster. Remember when Marco Palmieri was fired in 2009? That had absolutely nothing to do with his work on Star Trek or anything connected to the franchise at all. It was a consequence of the global economic crash and the financial losses that required S&S to slash employees companywide. Star Trek is just one small facet of what S&S does, so there are a lot of things totally unrelated to Star Trek that might potentially affect the process of S&S's various license renewals.

    Of course I'm just speculating -- I have no specific knowledge of what the cause of the delay might be. But that's exactly why I'm not going to latch onto something just because it happens to be in my line of sight.
     
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  12. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    For me it's just the fact that they seem to be suddenly publishing more Trek than they have in the past.
     
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  13. David Weller

    David Weller Commander Red Shirt

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    Business opportunity.

    Seeing that there’s going to be a break in new Trek novels for the next year or so Titan are looking to pick up some income by being more active in the areas they cover.
     
  14. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    How is that so? They've published art books in the past. They've published Goodman in-universe "nonfiction" books in the past. They've published reprints in the past, just not for the US market. Like I said, the only really new thing is Prometheus, and that's something CrossCult started doing and Titan is just adapting.

    I think it just looks like Titan is doing more because the announcements of their stuff aren't being overshadowed by regular announcements of Pocket stuff. You're not noticing them more because they're actually doing more, but because they no longer have as much competition for your attention.
     
  15. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    This is the first time their reprints of older novels have been available in North America though. That part is what's getting my attention in particular.
     
  16. ryan123450

    ryan123450 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Good point. I’m very intrigued how this is going to play out.
     
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    But it's only reprints. There was a time when Pocket did both Trek novels and nonfiction books. Then they decided nonfiction wasn't profitable enough for them, so they stopped doing it, and that let Titan and others pick up the nonfiction rights. But that had no effect on Pocket's continued publication of original fiction. Maybe this is the same sort of thing. Rights are very specific. Having the rights to one particular thing -- like nonfiction or reprints -- does not imply having the rights to anything outside that category, like original fiction. (Similarly, when the Amazing Stories magazine got the rights to publish original Trek short fiction, that didn't affect Pocket's exclusive right to novel-length fiction. It's all very partitioned.)
     
  18. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    What will Titan publishing the reprints mean for the e-book versions of those books? Pretty much all of Pocket's back catalogue is still available as e-books from Pocket, so will they most likely change over to Titan then? If Titan doesn't do e-book versions would Pocket have to pull theirs?
     
  19. Stevil2001

    Stevil2001 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Are they availbable in the US? Book Depository is a UK-based site that seems to source from both US and UK distributors.
     
  20. tomswift2002

    tomswift2002 Commodore Commodore

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    Titan would need to get the digital rights along with the physical rights. Of course if Pocket still holds the digital rights, then the ebooks would still be published by Pocket. Of course CBS could decide to withhold the digital rights meaning that no one could publish digital versions.
     
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