• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

2019 Releases

I’m hoping that characters like Detmer and Owosekun and Rhys get featured too. I find it weird not knowing much about Discovery’s bridge officers at this point.
We've gone entire series not learning much about certain bridge officers. The difference is those bridge officers were actually part of their show's main cast, and Detmer, Owosekun, and Rhys are not.
 
We've gone entire series not learning much about certain bridge officers. The difference is those bridge officers were actually part of their show's main cast, and Detmer, Owosekun, and Rhys are not.

Technically, TOS's main cast was just Shatner, Nimoy, and eventually Kelley, and the rest were supporting cast. It wasn't until the movies that the other four got billed as part of the core cast along with the big three -- which is ironic, since they got barely any more character development in the movies than they did in TOS. (The best character development Sulu and Uhura ever got onscreen was in the animated series.)

For what it's worth, the season 2 trailer does give us glimpses of the Discovery bridge crew, enough to suggest they may have larger roles this year.
 
Technically, TOS's main cast was just Shatner, Nimoy, and eventually Kelley, and the rest were supporting cast
Oh, I know. I was more referring to the other shows which did include bridge officers in the main cast that didn't see much character development over the course of their series.
 
I was more referring to the other shows which did include bridge officers in the main cast that didn't see much character development over the course of their series.

The only character I can think of who fits that description is Travis Mayweather. And maybe Hoshi Sato to an extent. The other shows did a pretty good job spreading the wealth among their regulars.
 
That's true, and you're right that the back cover credit only indicates where the art comes from rather than who chooses to use it. However, I expect CBS would still have final approval on cover design as they do on everything else, and it kind of stands to reason that they'd want the first few tie-in covers to be official publicity art, which is often the case with movie and TV tie-in books.
That seems to be a new direction with CBS. When you look at the artwork for the “Starfleet Academy” books based on the 2009 film, the characters look like they may have come from promo shots, but the covers look a lot better than the DIS covers. Even going back to Enterprise, “Broken Bow” had a promo ship shot and “By The Book” had a full cast promo shot, and then “What Price Honor?” Had a Reed promo photo but that was gone with “Surak’s Soul” were a promo or screen grab of T’Pol, but overlaid with other artwork and possible “Shockwave” (I don’t recall if that artwork was promo or if some artist drew it just for the book). But, suffice it to say but for novel only books, the Enterprise promo shots were gone by January 2003. But still the Enterprise promo photos are more interesting to look at than the current DIS covers.
 
The best character development Sulu and Uhura ever got onscreen was in the animated series.
And even then, ADF's books did more than the as-aired episodes did. Especially with Uhura's backstory, involving an adulthood ritual that involved killing a (robotic) lion with a spear.
("What would have happened if I'd failed?" "The lion would have walked over, patted you on the head, and you'd have another chance in six months." [Or something to that effect; it's been so long, I don't even remember which of the Star Trek Log volumes that whole sequence was in])
 
Especially with Uhura's backstory, involving an adulthood ritual that involved killing a (robotic) lion with a spear.

Well... That was well-intentioned, but somewhat laden by Western stereotypes of Africa being all about wild animals and savannahs and tribal traditions. It's hard to do a genuinely good progressive portrayal of a culture if you don't know it very well. (Kinda like how well-intentioned efforts in the '70s and '80s to be inclusive of Asian characters invariably portrayed them as martial artists or ninjas.)
 
I'm not at all worried about the litverse continuity and any potential contradictions by the expansion of on-screen canon that pushes into the 24th century. First, the new Picard show will be set at least a decade after the current novels, meaning that there's plenty of room to correct course to have things line up, but most fundamentally I'm long past being bothered with everything being one cohesive story line. The novelverse has told a very compelling story of the 24th century after Nemesis, and I will enjoy it no less if on-screen canon contradicts it.
 
flashbacks? Backstory?

A single line like "I left Starfleet a year after my friend Data died" collapses the whole thing in 30 seconds.

Well I sort of answered that with my second point, which is ultimately I don't really care if something like that happens. The books aren't going to incinerate on my shelves, the emotions they stirred within me as I read them won't disappear, and the enjoyment I had over discussing them with friends and interacting with the authors won't be blocked from my memory. They will just be an alternate set of events from what is considered the Prime Star Trek timeline, just like Kelvin Timeline is its own version, STO has its own version. I believe all this stuff can co-exist without everything needing to fit together.
 
They books pretty well always were an alternate set of events. They are not cannon. And the tv shows don’t need to have anything to do with them. I just think of them as fanfiction. (Really awesome fanfiction).
 
There are 3 years in between the end of Into Darkness and Beyond - aside from what happened in the comics, surely there are things a novel can be written about. And there's a whole year in between Kirk's Khan blood resurrection and the Enterprise repairs. Don't tell me Starfleet kept the entire senior staff on ice for a year. Spock may have taken a 6 month posting somewhere; Uhura may have joined a particular contact mission due to her language expertise.

For that matter, the Teenaxi debacle was Kirk's last straw, the last incident prior to him considering a desk job as vice admiral. What were some of the prior straws? Treklit has books that show events which culminate in Spock Prime's decision to undertake kolinahr, so why not this?

What was Spock Prime doing when not meeting with young Spock?
 
Last edited:
There are 3 years in between the end of Into Darkness and Beyond - aside from what happened in the comics, surely there are things a novel can be written about. And there's a whole year in between Kirk's Khan blood resurrection and the Enterprise repairs. Don't tell me Starfleet kept the entire senior staff on ice for a year. Spock may have taken a 6 month posting somewhere; Uhura may have joined a particular contact mission due to her language expertise.

For that matter, the Teenaxi debacle was Kirk's last straw, the last incident prior to him considering a desk job as vice admiral. What were some of the prior straws? Treklit has books that show events which culminate in Spock Prime's decision to undertake kolinahr, so why not this?

What was Spock Prime doing when not meeting with young Spock?
Am I dumb, or does this post have nothing to do with anything in this thread?
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top