No, they were cancelled in January 2010, four months before the first one was due to be released. Mine hadn't even reached the galley/proofreading stage yet, and only tentative covers had been designed. Nonsensical fan speculation that I got really, really tired of debunking over and over again for years on end. The reason for the cancellation had nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the books; if it had, they would've simply been rewritten. It was a business matter having more to do with the larger strategies and priorities of the companies involved.
I wanted to type this all out to see what could be gleaned. 2019: 7 Novels (For the most part every other month) 3 Discovery 2 TNG 2 TOS 2020: 7 Novels (Known so far) 1 Picard 1 Discovery 2 TOS 2 Kelvin 1 Voyager And we know at least five of these are by August, so it seems possible there will be more novels in 2020 than this year. There's a possibility that we're going back to month releases... We know Feb-Apr. IF May is the Voyager or Discovery novel, then we know June. Then hopefully July is the remaining either Voyager or Discovery novel. Then we know August. Then we can all hope for an amazing Crisis on Infinite Treks/ Destruction of Romulus/ Disappearance of Spock/ Lit-verse Finale/ Picard Reboot Novel Trilogy towards the end of next year. I sure have my fingers crossed. But it's also possible that the Discovery and Voyager novels will come out in either Sept, Oct, Nov, or Dec. In that case we could end up only getting seven novels again in 2020. But it seems more likely we'll get more than seven to me. I would very gladly return to one per month. On Facebook Dayton Ward called reconciling Picard with the Lit-verse "the most epic f-ing Star Trek storytelling challenge ever". So I am here for just one thing... The Most Epic F-ing Star Trek Story Ever. Get to it Treklit authors. You've done it before, I think we all believe you can do it again.
Very interesting. I'm pleased to see that the ongoing novelverse is not going to just end. I had expected them to just quietly come to end, or maybe if we were lucky have some sort of blockbuster ending with the destruction of Romulus...I mean, all just my speculation. But it does sound like that won't happen. And this would be huge for Star Trek. It indicates the real powers that be are actually giving the tie ins at least some consideration. I don't think you could say prior regimes gave much thought to tie ins. Now I'm not saying the show runners are going to be constrained by the novels or anything like that. But there does appear to at least be some coordination or consideration at the very least of seeing where the litverse can join up with the Picard show. Not sure I'm liking the upcoming cover for Collateral Damage. I'm also surprised to see the return of the original Next Generation font and not the one they've been using for novels going back to what "Death In Winter" I believe. I mean, unless the type is just temporary and will revert to the familiar novel font they've been using (I expect the cover art will probably remain).
Oh, and also glad to see 2 of the Abramsverse novels are going to see a release now. I'm sure Foster and Mack are happy too. I mean, when you go to the trouble to write a novel, you probably would like people to read it. It'd be nice to see if the other 2 ever get released. Though I think one of them would need significant revisions IIRC, was that Christopher's book? Though I seem to recall him mentioning he incorporated elements of that story in one of his later Star Trek books. Not sure about the 4th Abramsverse novel and if that can see a release at some point. The only bummer, though not unexpected, is no DS9 or Enterprise books. There are a number of loose ends in both series that I'd love to see continue to be explored (along with New Frontier--though I am even less confident we'll ever see NF books in the future). I continue to mention it but I think Christopher was on to something about maybe doing E-books for those. Maybe Pocketbooks feels printed books of the current running series and original series is a better investment...but I think there's certainly enough interest by fans of the other series to justify E-books.
Both the KT novels that weren't re-announced were parted out into new novels, so we're unlikely to see them unless Star Trek novels become so wildly popular there's a market for weird unpublished rarities. Seek a Newer World was incorporated into The Face of the Unknown by CLB, and Greg Cox's The Hazard of Concealing was adapted into No Time Like the Past, with Seven of Nine taking Spock Prime's place in the plot.
As I recall, I had delivered the ms. for mine and was waiting on the usual editorial notes from CBS when I got the word, so it probably hadn't even been copyedited yet.
Well, a sizeable portion of it was -- the main plotline and overall story structure, albeit rewritten to fit new species, characters, and motivations. The big "visual" and action set pieces were the parts that survived most intact, along with most of the original characters, species, and settings, adapted to a new context. There was a major subplot I abandoned completely, and don't really have any desire to recycle, since in retrospect I don't think it turned out well (it was too much of a cliched "Kirk vs. obstructionist superior officer" plot). All in all, I'd say the recycled material makes up less than half of TFotU, although it was a larger percentage of SaNW (which was a significantly shorter book).
I hadn't realized Greg Cox's story had been partly adapted into one of his later books. So I guess the good news is once the other 2 books are released we'll at least have seen parts of all 4 books. I wonder if David Mack and Alan Dean Foster had to do any revisions of their books based on things we learned in STID and Beyond, or if they can be released as is. Yeah, I'm disappointed by that too, though not really surprised. It's not that I don't want the books coming out. But I also would love to see DS9 books, Enterprise books and I enjoyed the Titan books as well. Hell, I want it all. Original Series, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Titan, NF, Enterprise, Discovery, Picard, Abramsverse, Movie era (which I guess would be counted as original series books), Mirror Universe (though I guess that had a satisfying conclusion so we could skip that I suppose)....and....did I forget anything. I think the only reason a Voyager book is on the schedule is just because that's the novel Kirsten Beyer has been working on since before I was born....just kidding. I know she's a very busy lady and I'm thrilled it's on the schedule for next year. I had fears that it was going to quietly get cancelled because frankly, with all she's involved with I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't have time to write a novel on top of that. I do have a feeling it will probably be her last novel, at least for a while.
It was mentioned that they've done revisions, though how extensively is unknown. If nothing else, ADF's book has had a title change, from Refugees to The Order of Peace. Indeed, the books were cancelled before the original editing had been completed, so they would've needed to go through copyediting and proofreading anyway. So naturally the authors would've had a chance to make any updates they thought were necessary for consistency with the later movies.
First.. Thank you to all the authors.. Your love and caring for us and star trek are well apreciated. I for one look forward to what's on the horizon! One thing that I was looking forward to was how you guys/girls were going to tackle the hobus supernova in the lit verse.. What explanations and aftermath of it. But now we won't get there. Sad.. Hope one day y'all might share where you would have gone with it, at least in a broad idea. Again. Thank you!
I think we just haven't reached that moment in time yet. At least if I read Dayton Ward's post above correctly. We'll probably get to 2387 in "Collateral Damage" but I'm not entirely sure what time of year the supernova happened. We still may be months away. According to the comics the Stardate was around 64400, around the middle of the year....though the novels may not use the same stardate (after all, the novels have already gone in a different direction from the comics in other ways--I think the only thing we will know is the year is 2387 because that was noted in Star Trek [2009]). And since the supernova is said to play a major role in where Picard is in the new show, I think we will definitely see it in the novels. I imagine the tie-ins will probably want to wait to see where the show is going with the supernova first, then build around what we learn from the show. But I think we will see it. Now will it even be called the "Hobus" supernova--since that was also only mentioned in the comic and not on screen? Well, that probably also depends on the Picard show. If it is there then yes. Also, even if it's not, whatever author is lucky enough to write the book about the supernova may very well decide to use the same name since it's become a pretty common name among Trekkies nowadays. If for no other reason than to avoid confusion.
Maybe The Last Best Hope is going to be the novel that deals with the supernova. Only speculation - I know no more than any other reader.
We were steadily creeping up to it Oh we will get to the supernova in Picard and what there writers will make it and I'll look forward to it. Was just opining on how we won't know what the lit verse had in mind with the event. Probably a great trilogy of books.. I'm sure dayton and the others had ideas floating around between them and were just waiting for the go ahead from CBS .. But alas not to be.
I'm really glad we're finally getting the Kelvinverse books next year and a TNG Picard book and Voyager and I'm still wishing the Ds9 and Enterprise books could've wrapped up their continued story threads. I like the cover for Collateral Damage . Who's the artist that did the cover.It looks like a movie poster.
Yeah, the Collateral Damage cover is one of the best I've seen in a VERY long time. Props to whoever's responsible.