2026 Novel Releases

[The Wormhole]

Huh. Y'know, it seems all so long ago now, but it actually took less than a decade from the conclusion of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1994 for Star Trek: Stargazer novel series to debut in earnest in 2002. I wonder if Captain Philippa Georgiou will need that long to get a dedicated prequel series.

Given how few novels are being published these days, I wouldn't hold my breath on any new novel-exclusive series anytime soon. Indeed, you'll note the Stargazer novel series was released at a time when the novels were first establishing the novel-exclusive continuity and when there were two novels being released every month. And indeed, when the novels were scaled back to one novel a month in 2005, that was it for the Stargazer series.

We're now averaging three novels a year, with a majority of them centering around in production shows or TOS. That doesn't really create many opportunities for a Captain Georgiou/Shenzhou series to happen.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Now that there won't be any more Kelvinverse movies apparently, is there any chance for them to appear in more books/comics?

 

[Christopher]

Now that there won't be any more Kelvinverse movies apparently, is there any chance for them to appear in more books/comics?

Generally it works the other way around -- there's not much market for tie-ins to a series that's ended. If there were still as many Trek books as there used to be, we might have potentially seen a "post-finale" Kelvin series, but with the current schedule of only a few books a year, I think the priority will be tie-ins to the active series.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Do I have it right? Authors sometimes have to take into consideration:

a) their story being coincidentally too similar to the plot of an upcoming related show season/film
b) not contradicting something from a project that's just about to be released (less worry if it's still a ways away)
c) telling new stories set between the projects (one film and the next, one season and the next, the end of a show and the beginning of a role reprisal, etc.)

a) is always possible, b) and c) now not as much because there won't be a reunion.

It won't happen, but if it did, there's plenty of room to tell stories in a different reality where nothing is happening in shows or movies.

 

[Cicero]

Wow, I never really thought about it before, but Kirk really did go through a lot of loss, especially if we had his brother and son to that list.

It gets ridiculous on TNG. Every single member of the main cast except Picard lost at least one parent prematurely, and most lost several close relatives:

Picard — 3 (Brother, Nephew, Best Friend)
Riker — 1 (Mother, Father-in-Law, Sister-in-Law)
Data — 4 (Mother, Father, Daughter, Brother)
Yar — 2 (Mother, Father)
Geordi — 1 (Mother)
Worf — 2 (Mother, Father)
Beverly — 3 (Mother, Father, Husband)
Troi — 2 (Father, Sister, Mother-in-Law)
Wesley — 1 (Father)



Edit: Removed response that belonged in another forum.
Edit 2: Deleted reference to Marie Picard.

 

[Tosk]

Picard — 4 (Brother, Sister-in-Law, Nephew, Best Friend)

When was it confirmed that Picard's sister-in-law died?

 

[Cicero]

When was it confirmed that Picard's sister-in-law died?

I think I misremembered her as having also died in the fire.

 

[Tosk]

I wasn't sure if maybe it got mentioned in PIC and I forgot.

 

[James Swallow]

Do I have it right? Authors sometimes have to take into consideration:

a) their story being coincidentally too similar to the plot of an upcoming related show season/film
b) not contradicting something from a project that's just about to be released (less worry if it's still a ways away)
c) telling new stories set between the projects (one film and the next, one season and the next, the end of a show and the beginning of a role reprisal, etc.)

You have it right. And there's also:
d) avoiding something that the screenwriters have expressed an intention to explore at some point

These issues are part of the hidden work of being a tie-in writer, the additional complications on top of just trying to tell a good story and be true to the source material.

Fortunately, at present there's a good working relationship between the screenwriters and the prose authors, so conflicts of these kinds are less likely to be an issue.

 

[Christopher]

c) telling new stories set between the projects (one film and the next, one season and the next, the end of a show and the beginning of a role reprisal, etc.)

There have been a number of these over the years, like DC's movie-era TOS comics. They were able to tell stories set after the latest movie, as long as they didn't change the status quo or, as James said, avoided ideas the next movie would probably follow up on. That's why they gave Spock a separate command after The Search for Spock, since avoiding too many Spock stories kept them from infringing on things the movies might cover. Similarly, Marvel's original Star Wars comics set between the movies had to invent their own villains and story arcs to avoid encounters between the heroes and Darth Vader, and had to keep the characters' overall status quo unchanged.

Really, though, that's no different from the way any tie-in novels to an ongoing series are done. The novels written during the series were usually set in the current season as of when they were outlined or written -- with the exception of DS9 novels, which stalled around season 5 until after the series ended because the storyline got too serialized to fit side stories into easily, and ENT novels, which avoided the serialized season 3 until after the season ended. (Although I think Voyager novels ended up lagging behind a bit as well, though I'm not sure why in that case.)

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What it boils down to is if there are no plans to create new Kelvin TV/film content, then anything a writer may decide to do with the Kelvin characters (for now, and aside from plots similar to non-Kelvin Trek productions) is possible.

 

[Christopher]

What it boils down to is if there are no plans to create new Kelvin TV/film content, then anything a writer may decide to do with the Kelvin characters (for now, and aside from plots similar to non-Kelvin Trek productions) is possible.

As I said, if we still had an active Trek novel schedule like we used to, with one or two dozen slots to fill per year, then there'd be a reasonable prospect of something niche like that being tried. But that kind of schedule has always been the exception for media tie-in novels. More normally, there's little interest in new tie-ins for an ended series. With only a few books per year, it wouldn't be a priority.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Perhaps in 2029 - the 20th anniversary of the film series.

 

[Ronald Held]

3 novels a year a Way to few!!

 

[Procutus]

By comparision, it seems to me that there were far less strictures facing the writers of the Bantam novels in the mid-70s. I don't know how much oversight Paramount had in those days but with the complexity of Trek now as opposed to then certainly makes it far more difficult. I commend the current writers of the novels for the excellent work that they do, given the boundaries they have to work within.

 

[Christopher]

By comparision, it seems to me that there were far less strictures facing the writers of the Bantam novels in the mid-70s. I don't know how much oversight Paramount had in those days but with the complexity of Trek now as opposed to then certainly makes it far more difficult. I commend the current writers of the novels for the excellent work that they do, given the boundaries they have to work within.

Yes, in those early days when writers only had TOS to go on (and TAS if they were aware of/interested in it), the universe was far more vaguely defined, so writers could fill in the gaps in more diverse and idiosyncratic ways. On the other hand, there were fewer reference sources to work with and no home video releases, so it was harder to get the details right. I'm sure there was a studio approval process, but Paramount probably didn't consider Trek as high a priority back then as they did once the movies came along and TNG became a hit, so the oversight was probably fairly light.

 

[Tuskin38]

3 novels a year a Way to few!!

we get it.
I also disagree, I have way too many books to read already lmao

 

[The Wormhole]

Perhaps in 2029 - the 20th anniversary of the film series.

This year's the 30th anniversary of Voyager, and we didn't get any novels to commemorate that. S&S didn't do anything to commemorate DS9's 30th a couple years ago, though Titan did do the Sisko Autobiography.

 

[Procutus]

On the other hand, there were fewer reference sources to work with and no home video releases, so it was harder to get the details right.

That is true. Back then, reference materials were pretty much limited to the Star Fleet Technical Manual, the Star Trek Blueprints and the infamous Concordance. I don't think I've left anything out (aside from perhaps some of the FASA material).

In those pre-movie days, finding those novels as they came out was something to look forward to.

 

[JD]

This year's the 30th anniversary of Voyager, and we didn't get any novels to commemorate that. S&S didn't do anything to commemorate DS9's 30th a couple years ago, though Titan did do the Sisko Autobiography.

Yeah this was a huge shock for me, I expected to get at least something Voyager related to celebrate the anniversary, and with Seven on Picard and so many Voyager characters popping up in other shows, there would be a fair amount of interest in it,