Blurbs for the 2013 TOS novels

[ryan123450]

My thoughts exactly. I will watch the movies, but I've been passing on all Abrahms-verse books and comics in order to using that reading time on other interests. Because of Countdown, I actually consider all the Abrahms-verse stuff part of the Star Trek Online continuity anyway.

 

[The Wormhole]

Perhaps the film's writers simply knew they'd be too busy to read four novel manuscripts while writing a new movie has not been laid out.

They wouldn't have to read the whole manuscript, just a general plot outline. Then they could decide "Reject, we plan on doing something similar to this in the next movie" or "Accept, we don't plan on exploring this idea and see no harm in a novel covering this ground." I doubt they're directly supervising every stage development for the YA novels or the comics, so they wouldn't have to with those novels either.

 

[Sho]

^ Alan Gratz mentioned that the reason for the long delay between the originally scheduled release date for The Assassination Game and the eventual actual release date was that he had to wait to get manuscript notes back from Bad Robot:

The Assassination Game (as has been pointed out) was scheduled to come out long ago. The delay was in getting notes back from Bad Robot, J.J. Abram's film company. Everything I wrote had to be signed off on by them, and, well, they were kind of busy making Star Trek 12. (And Fringe, and Super 8, and...)

Source post.

 

[The Wormhole]

That makes Bad Robot look like control freaks and that seems inefficient.

 

[Christopher]

That makes Bad Robot look like control freaks and that seems inefficient.

It's not so different from how Lucasfilm handles Star Wars tie-ins. And there are cases where the creators maintain even more direct supervision over the tie-ins, like the Del Rey Babylon 5 trilogies (and DC comics), the Buffy "Season 8" and "Season 9" comics, etc. It's the prerogative of the creators of a franchise (or in this case, the developers of a new facet of a franchise) to maintain close control over its tie-ins, since it is their creation, after all. It doesn't always happen that way, but that doesn't mean it's somehow wrong when it does. It's just a difference in individual approach.

 

[Sho]

That makes Bad Robot look like control freaks and that seems inefficient.

To me it rather feels like they're dedicated to making sure the launch of this new part of the franchise is done correctly, meaning in such a way that their strategy for its success comes to fruition. Now, I may not necessarily agree on the direction they're taking things into (for the record, my stance on the 2009 film is a cautiously optimistic ambivalence; a lot rides on the next one for me), but I don't really doubt their motives and appreciation of the property.

OTOH, there is of course value in allowing a broader set of people to do Star Trek, to serve a broader audience and to avoid putting all eggs in one basket. But then that's very much what we have right now with the multiple timelines. Certainly given the latest round of 24th century prime timeline novels one can hardly complain that they're not allowed to take bold steps.

 

[RPJOB]

Personally I derive great enjoyment from the cohesive, unified "extended universe" TrekLit paints today and have no interest in yet another new timeline.

I prefer the stand alone books to those that are part of the "extended universe". Rather than being "extended" I find that it leads to more "small universe syndrome" with character crossovers happening way too often. For these people to meet so often the Federation must be a very small place indeed.

TNG and DS9 crossed over twice, once in the first episode for what was essentially a cameo for Picard and once in a later two part episode where the crossover was part of the first episode only, making it feel like something tacked onto the Worf story to pad it out to two hours.

Space is big. Really, REALLY big. Once Riker headed off on the Titan it would be likely that he'd never see Picard in person again. Having them meet up in the big cross series crossovers make it feel like he's gone around the corner rather than to an unexplored part of the galaxy.

Trek lit these days loos in large part like the comics of today. Big crossovers with the time between either being set-up or aftermath with a couple of unrelated stories in the mix.

Let's have more stories like Crucible. Self contained and not relying on any other books for background.

"Do you remember when we were explorers?" - Picard

 

[Thrawn]

I think you're overstating it. Titan has encountered Picard in exactly one of the 11 novels it has appeared in - the third Destiny novel (and maybe a tiny bit right at the end of 2). And a lot of the other books have been concerned with major political movements where you'd expect the Federation flagship to be engaged.

If anything, it's a lot more IMplausible that the Ent-E wouldn't have ever appeared in any of the Dominion War battles on DS9. The only reason that they didn't cross over MORE was budgetary constraints.

 

[RPJOB]

I would imagine that the Dominion War was widespread enough that not every ship involved in it stopped at DS9 at some point. How often did ships serving in the Pacific during WWII also serve in the North Atlantic?

Picard says that the Federation is over 8,000 light years across. Now, that doesn't mean it's a sphere 8,000 ly in diameter but that's still a vast area. It's more than 10% of the distance that Voyager had to travel to get home.

Space is BIG!

 

[JD]

It's way too early to splinter off a new timeline into even more, new, "Parallel" timeline. Yet.

Yes, after a solid seven years each of new stories.

Why not? The movies have their splinter timeline, why can't the novels have their own one, too? Especially since the novels aren't allowed near the movie one.

We know how it all ends, all there is is to fill in the gaps. And we're at the point where they're all packed solidly and we're getting the fourth or fifth "end of the 5YM story." Doing an ongoing TOS Myriad Universe can not only cash in on the current movies but give longtime lit fans something fresh and exciting with TOS characters.

But you are asking for a "Myriad Universe" based on the new movie (ie. releasing the four shelved novels now) that won't necessarily agree with the next new movie. And Bad Robot doesn't want that kind of story tie-in being published. For now.

That's not what I said. My only mention of those four STXI novels was just the usual "Oh, I wish they'd release them one day" and seperate from my suggestion of a new TOS Myriad Universe-style novel series, where anything can happen to Kirk and co.

I don't see where that is really necessary though. Part of the appeal of the Myriad Universes stories is the novelty, and IMO that novelty would ware off after a while, and so would the appeal of series. A lot of people already complain that the stuff we're getting now isn't familiar enough, so I wouldn't want to image the reaction this would get from the average reader (and by average reader I mean people who don't read every novel and come here every day). There is still plenty of appeal to the Prime universe.

 

[Christopher]

If anything, it's a lot more IMplausible that the Ent-E wouldn't have ever appeared in any of the Dominion War battles on DS9. The only reason that they didn't cross over MORE was budgetary constraints.

I'm not sure that was the only reason. It was also probably to let DS9 stand on its own.

 

[Thrawn]

I wish I had more than a vague memory to back this up, but I'm fairly sure I read an interview with the powers that be in which they said exactly that. That the idea of more TNG crossovers had been thrown in for the latter seasons a few times, but that now that they were making TNG movies, the cast cost too much. Even just getting Patrick Stewart was beyond their guest budget.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I did a quick skim, but couldn't see it. The cover of the upcoming "The Weight of Worlds" by Greg Cox:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/14...pf_rd_t=3201&pf_rd_p=1280661782&pf_rd_i=typ01

 

[Jarvisimo]

In the Companion, they talk about having wanted to put the TNG cast in as extras at Dax's hen party in 'You are Cordially Invited'!

 

[zarkon]

I did a quick skim, but couldn't see it. The cover of the upcoming "The Weight of Worlds" by Greg Cox:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/14...pf_rd_t=3201&pf_rd_p=1280661782&pf_rd_i=typ01

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=199288

 

[JWolf]

I did a quick skim, but couldn't see it. The cover of the upcoming "The Weight of Worlds" by Greg Cox:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/14...pf_rd_t=3201&pf_rd_p=1280661782&pf_rd_i=typ01

Sulu looks pissed.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Sulu looks pissed.

Shatner had his lines taken out. Again.

 

[JWolf]

Sulu looks pissed.

Shatner had his lines taken out. Again.

Maybe this takes place during Allegiance in Exile.