Children of Kings blurb?

[DarkHorizon]

Simon & Schuster's page for Dave Stern's April TOS release has been updated with what appears to be a new blurb. It's a bit odd though...

A distress call goes out from a Federation outpost near the Klingon border. The U.S.S. Enterprise, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, responds. Starbase 18 lies in ruin. There are no survivors. And there is no clue as to who is responsible for the attack, until Captain Pike’s brilliant science officer discovers a means of retrieving parts of the station’s log. Lieutenant Spock has detected signs of a unique energy signature, one that he believes is Klingon. There are unsubstantiated reports that the Klingon Empire has made a technological leap forward and created a cloaking device—code-named Black Snow Seven—that can shield their ships from even the most advanced sensors. The destruction of the base and the unique energy signature that remains prove that the Empire has succeeded.

For generations the Orions have been known as pirates, operating at the margins, outside of legal conventions. A proud and powerful race, the Orions were once a major force in the sector, and they have been using the tension between the Klingon Empire and the Federation to rebuild their power. Captain Pike is charged with trying to foster cooperation between the Orions and the Federation. A distress call from an Orion vessel offers him the perfect opportunity. But the Orion ship lies in disputed space long claimed by the Klingon Empire, and crossing it could be the spark that sets off an interstellar war.

For one, this is a very different blurb from that which we got from the publishers' catalogue a few months back, which had to do with the Enterprise doctor being held captive by the Orions in the midst of increasing aggression from the Syndicate. Obviously, as with all the catalogue details, we are never supposed to take that as being the final blurb, but it was really that far away from what the actual story is?

The other thing that struck me - is it me, or does this almost seem to be describing two separate books: one about the Klingons and their development of a cloaking device, the other about contact with the Orions? You could draw a line between those two paragraphs, and they would easily serve as blurbs to two different novels.

 

[Paris]

This sounds great. Dave Stern is good writer and I have confidence that this will be another great read like Troublesome Minds (supposedly)was . It will be pretty cool to see how the Klingons came to be in the possession of the cloak. Maybe they got it from the Orions...

 

[8of5]

Oh nice, that sounds rather interesting. Given the setting I hope the novel explores the notion a cloaking device/sensor arms race that the use of cloaks from Enterprise to Balance of Terror would seem to hint at.

 

[Christopher]

For one, this is a very different blurb from that which we got from the publishers' catalogue a few months back, which had to do with the Enterprise doctor being held captive by the Orions in the midst of increasing aggression from the Syndicate. Obviously, as with all the catalogue details, we are never supposed to take that as being the final blurb, but it was really that far away from what the actual story is?

The other thing that struck me - is it me, or does this almost seem to be describing two separate books: one about the Klingons and their development of a cloaking device, the other about contact with the Orions? You could draw a line between those two paragraphs, and they would easily serve as blurbs to two different novels.

I'm not sure if this is the case here, but if you look at a number of blurbs on Trek novels from the past few years (for instance, say, Greater Than the Sum), they're basically rather lengthy descriptions of only the early portion of the novel, rather than overviews of the entire plot. So they can be misleading about the actual story and emphasis of the book. What seems here like two separate plotlines may be pieces of the same overall story, with the connection becoming clear in later portions of the book that the blurb doesn't address.

 

[JD]

This sounds really cool. I'm a big fan of the Klingons, and Orions, and I've been curious to read some Piker era stories. I'm working my way through Early Voyages on the DVD comic collection, but that, The Cage/The Menagerie and ST09 are the only Pike stories I've experienced.

 

[Defcon]

^ If you want to read more Pike, you should really read Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno. Great novel.

 

[JD]

I've been wanting to since it first came out, I've just never gotten a chance to get it yet. I've got a bunch of other older Trek Lit books that I wanted to get through, and I'm also reading the new releases as they come out.

 

[Paris]

Consider the vote for MWB's Burning Dreams seconded right here . This is one of the reasons I'm jazzed for this book. We need more Pike on a regular basis!!

 

[Paris]

Does anyone know what year CoK's takes place in?



...that's an unfortunate short form

 

[mbruno]

This sounds great. Dave Stern is good writer and I have confidence that this will be another great read like Troublesome Minds (supposedly)was . It will be pretty cool to see how the Klingons came to be in the possession of the cloak. Maybe they got it from the Orions...

Troublesome Minds was written by Dave Galanter, though. Perhaps you got your Daves mixed up.

 

[Christopher]

^Right. Dave Stern is the author of several ENT novels including the Shockwave novelization, What Price Honor?, the Daedalus duology, Rosetta, and "Nobunaga" in Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows. He also wrote the Captain Sulu audio adventure Transformations and cowrote issue 18 of DC's TNG comic. And he was the editor of the Trek novel line in the late '80s and early '90s.

 

[Reanok]

Interesting Book blurb. I'm definitely planning on getting this book.Captain Pike in a new novel is long overdue.And having the Orions trying to cause problems between Starfleet and the Klingons. and how they solve this crisis and why the Orions want to stir up trouble is what I want to read and find out how the mystery unravels in this book.

 

[Paris]

This sounds great. Dave Stern is good writer and I have confidence that this will be another great read like Troublesome Minds (supposedly)was . It will be pretty cool to see how the Klingons came to be in the possession of the cloak. Maybe they got it from the Orions...

Troublesome Minds was written by Dave Galanter, though. Perhaps you got your Daves mixed up.

Oops . My bad. I did get my Dave's mixed up...

Dave Stern wrote the Destiny Trilogy, right ?

 

[LightningStorm]

Oops . My bad. I did get my Dave's mixed up...

Dave Stern wrote the Destiny Trilogy, right ?

Yes, and DS9: Mission Gamma: Twilight.



What?!

 

[mbruno]

This sounds great. Dave Stern is good writer and I have confidence that this will be another great read like Troublesome Minds (supposedly)was . It will be pretty cool to see how the Klingons came to be in the possession of the cloak. Maybe they got it from the Orions...

Troublesome Minds was written by Dave Galanter, though. Perhaps you got your Daves mixed up.

Oops . My bad. I did get my Dave's mixed up...

Dave Stern wrote the Destiny Trilogy, right ?

 

[Tara]

I'm excited, but I really wish there was some mention of Number One in the blurb. Sometimes I feel like she's the invisible First Officer. I know audiences are more familiar with Spock, and Pike is familiar to new fans through the new film... but leaving out Number One and Boyce would be like leaving out Spock and McCoy, in a Kirk-era book, you know?

Still, the fact that we're getting new Pike & Number One fiction from Pocket after however many years (has it been 4 years since Burning Dreams? And BD is really the lightest on Number One out of all the Pike-era stories) makes me giddy.

Personally, I'm still hoping it's set post-2254/Talos IV mission. there's 11 years of Pike's time on Enterprise that is a complete mystery. And if it's after Talos IV, then it doesn't have to skirt around Pike and Number One's relationship, and might also feature Colt (who I know is a fan favourite, tho not as popular as Majel's character).

 

[Christopher]

^I agree. Virtually all Pike-era fiction seems to cluster around "The Cage" or before it. Vulcan's Glory was Spock's first mission under Pike. Alien Spotlight: Vulcans is early in Spock's time on the ship, apparently before Rigel VII and Talos. I think the DC Annual set in the Pike era was either just before or just after "The Cage," I forget which. Early Voyages gave us Rigel VII in issue 3 and a retelling of "The Cage" in issue 4. And Voyages of the Imagination's timeline places both Where Sea Meets Sky and "Conflicting Natures" (from Enterprise Logs) in the same year as "The Cage," though after it. It would be nice to have something set later than 2254.

 

[Tara]

Vulcan's Glory is bar none my fave TOS Pike and Number One story (and my fave TOS novel of all, after Mike Ford's two Klingon novels), so the fact that Stern was the editor who commissioned it from Fontana back in the 80s gives me great hope. The new Trek film has really made me interested in the 2250s, which is a period we've never seen explored in Trek canon before, and as much fun as it is to see a young Lt Spock, I'm much more interested in Pike, Number One, and Boyce and seeing how they function in contrast with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

...and I continue to desperately hope for awesome Number One awesomeness, because a) she's my favourite and b) she really does get short-shrift in the tie-ins. There's loads of story about Pike and Boyce's friendship, but with the exception of a tiny handful of tie-ins (Byrne's "Crew", Fontana's Vulcan's Glory, PAD's The Rift, and Jerry Oltion's "Conflicting Emotions"), Number One is just... written around, written out (I had a nasty shock when I found out she's in all of one panel of Star Trek: Mirror Images and she's never even named, at that), or written (and this is solely IMHO) poorly with very little of the wit, strength, and grace of Majel's performance in "The Cage". Sure, she's not perfect. But the seeds of so much are there, and there would quite literally be no Spock without her, you know?

You'd think, as the first woman in Star Trek, there would be more interest in her story. Certainly every old school Trek fan I know has been turning to fanfic for it for years, because literally there is so little out there, in terms of tie-ins, even among the Pike-era tie-ins. And given how beloved Majel was by the fandom, it really surprised me to see her first character so hard done by.

 

[RookieBatman]

On the subject of the blurb itself, I'm a bit confused by this idea of what seems to be the origins of the Klingon cloaking device. I thought the generally accepted idea was that the Klingons just got the cloaking device in their alliance with the Romulans (like, traded it for the battlecruiser designs the Rommies had in The Enterprise Incident). Since a Klingon cloaking device was never seen during the show (not until STIII, right?), I would think they wouldn't have it all that way back.
Or is that maybe something that develops later in the book, that the Klingons don't really have a cloak?

 

[Christopher]

Well, the idea that the Klingons got cloaking tech from the Romulans is just a fan assumption; canon is silent on the origins of Klingon cloaks.

But if you consider the whole sweep of Trek history, it's clear that cloaking tech has needed to be reinvented many times; as each type of cloak is penetrated, it becomes useless until the next kind is developed. Archer's crew devised a way to penetrate the early Suliban cloaks, which also worked against contemporary Romulan cloaks, so the Romulans used other forms of camouflage (the holoship, remote controls) in subsequent conflicts with Earth. A century later, the Romulans developed a more advanced cloaking tech and used it to attack the Neutral Zone outposts, but it could still be detected by motion sensors. So they developed a better cloak, and Kirk and Spock stole it. Then we started to see Klingon cloaks, and they could be detected by visual distortion in the starscape. Later, they were completely invisible and could remain active while the ship was firing, but that type of cloak didn't hide the ship's gaseous emissions. Later, in the 24th century, the emission problem had apparently been solved but ships once again had to decloak to fire. And so on.

So it's evident that there have been many different cloaking technologies in use over the centuries and many different "inventions" of the cloaking device. So the Klingons working on one type of cloak during the Pike era isn't incompatible with them getting another type of cloak in their later trading partnership with the Romulans.