Did The Edge of the Sword ever have another title?

[bfollowell]

I've heard good things about Kevin Ryan's Errand of Vengenace and Errand of Fury trilogies and have been thinking of reading them soon. I opened my first title Errand of Vengenace, Book One: The Edge of the Sword and noticed that the cover has the wrong title. It's the right image, the right cover, just the wrong title. Instead of The Edge of the Sword, it's called Sword's Point. Has anyone else noticed this? Was the name changed at some point before publication and when S&S cleaned up this title and put out a new version a year or two ago, maybe they used and old version of the cover image?

I know sometimes titles change before publication but this is the first time I've ran into an ebook being put out with the wrong title on the cover.

- Byron

 

[Therin of Andor]

It's hard to see the point.

 

[Stevil2001]

It's an ebook? Weird.

That series had the world's most boring covers.

 

[bfollowell]

It's an ebook? Weird.

That series had the world's most boring covers.

Yes, Steve. I'm sorry, I guess I didn't make that 100% clear.

Yes, the original S&S ebup had a lower resolution, but ultimately, correct, cover image and title. A year or two ago, S&S started working to clean up a lot of their older ebooks. The was one of them and, while the cover image is much cleaner, higher resolution now, the title is incorrect. I've Googled and haven't been able to find anything about The Edge of the Sword ever having another title that was changed before publication so I thought it was really strange too.

I've emailed S&S about the mistake. As expected, nothing has been changed so far and I haven't received any sort of reply. It is no big deal either way, of course, I was just curious.

- Byron

 

[Therin of Andor]

That series had the world's most boring covers.

For all of those "lower decks" books.

From the original exciting descriptions we got from John Ordover, I was kinda expecting covers featuring the likes of Martine, Tomlinson, Chapel, Rand, Riley, Garrovick, et al, interacting with Kirk, Spock and/or McCoy. We got large, single pics - quite familiar studio publicity shots of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. And then, of course, the stories weren't all that different to regular TOS novels.

And then, many years later, the advertised cover art of "Errand of Fury #3: Sacrifices of War" had to be changed, to blur out one of the Organians because Paramount couldn't get permission from the actor's estate to use his image.

 

[bfollowell]

What were all of the "lower-deck" series? Errand of Vengeance, My Brother's Keeper and The Janus Gate come to mind. Were there any others along those lines?

- Byron

 

[Christopher]

^Actually it was just Janus Gate and the first Errand trilogy. Brother's Keeper was from three years earlier and part of the numbered TOS novels.

 

[Therin of Andor]

What were all of the "lower-deck" series? Errand of Vengeance, My Brother's Keeper and The Janus Gate come to mind. Were there any others along those lines?

- Byron

"Errand of Fury" was the trilogy sequel to "Errand of Vengeance" but, of course, the "lower decks" concept had been abandoned by then. (For the purposes of the character appearance matrix I was compiling at the time, I ended up adding "My Brother's Keeper", which probably helped inspire the concept of a LD ongoing series, and the "Crucible" trilogy, mainly because it had so many LD and TAS characters making cameos!)

"Harm's Way", a LD trilogy by Jerry and Kathy Oltion was seemingly abandoned at proposal stage.

 

[KRAD]

John Ordover's original conception was that the numbered TOS novels would come to an end with #100, with #98-100 being a trilogy called The Last Roundup by Diane Carey, which would be the last adventure of Kirk and the gang before Kirk's "death" in the Generations prelude. Then they'd kick off a new series with the formal title Star Trek: The Original Series, with a series of trilogies that would weave stories around existing TOS episodes and treat Kirk and the gang like a modern ensemble drama, building up the supporting cast and not just focusing on the Big Three.

That original plan didn't entirely come together. Diane's trilogy became instead a single hardcover novel by Christie Golden, the numbered original series novels stopped at #97 (Dayton Ward's In the Name of Honor), and the whole "Original Series" concept didn't really come together the way John had planned, and it wound up being abandoned.

I think the title of Kevin Ryan's novel was changed because Swordspoint is the title of a classic fantasy novel by Ellen Kushner. But I have no idea if that's really the case or not.

 

[Corran Horn]

I'm still looking for Giotto in the Janus Gate books...

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'm still looking for Giotto in the Janus Gate books...

He's there, or at least name-dropped. I see he's mentioned by surname on the first cover blurb, but my own records say that his first name was given as Antonio for the first time in this trilogy. Memory Beta assumes his name is Barry (from the actor, but perhaps also a different novel).