Former Trek authors you'd like to see write a new adventure

[DarrenTR1970]

I know that in my M:I book, there are quite a few episodes that were made simply by someone walking up to the producers and pitching a one or two sentence description of the set up.
A couple of episodes were built around devices/equipment someone had seen at a lab and they went back to the producers and said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could build an episode around this device?"
The producers would then give that idea to the script editor who would work in conjunction with the individual who pitched the idea in order to flesh out the story and the beats.

 

[Christopher]

I know that in my M:I book, there are quite a few episodes that were made simply by someone walking up to the producers and pitching a one or two sentence description of the set up.

Yeah, that's basically how it's supposed to work, just a few quick elevator pitches, since producers' time is limited. Part of why I gave up on pitching was that I couldn't do that -- I wrote up detailed story outlines, and I never figured out how to trim them down to just a couple of sentences. My creative process is just too detail-driven.

A couple of episodes were built around devices/equipment someone had seen at a lab and they went back to the producers and said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could build an episode around this device?"
The producers would then give that idea to the script editor who would work in conjunction with the individual who pitched the idea in order to flesh out the story and the beats.

I would assume that the classic M:I episode "Submarine" was inspired by the producers gaining access to a submarine mockup set left over from a movie and writing an episode around it. (Does your book specify where the submarine mockup came from? I've always wondered.) There were some episodes that seemed to be written specifically to take advantage of certain locations, like the one where the climactic action revolved around a pair of cable cars.

In his series prospectus for Star Trek, Roddenberry suggested that the show could save money by writing episodes around leftover sets from just-wrapped movies, e.g. building a "parallel Earth" story around sets and costumes from a historical epic or something. It's a bit odd that they apparently never did that, just used the standard backlot sets or whatever historical props/costumes were in storage at Desilu. "A Piece of the Action" was written to recycle stuff from The Untouchables, but that show ended in 1963.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

If they can't do a full novel, how about contributing a short story to an anthology?

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I would assume that the classic M:I episode "Submarine" was inspired by the producers gaining access to a submarine mockup set left over from a movie and writing an episode around it. (Does your book specify where the submarine mockup came from? I've always wondered.) There were some episodes that seemed to be written specifically to take advantage of certain locations, like the one where the climactic action revolved around a pair of cable cars.

So, in order, these are the 'M:I' episodes that came from a pitch or a location
#35 - The Seal
#45 - The Counterfeiter
#46 - The Town
#50 - Recovery
#58 - The Cardinal
#68 - Doomsday
#79 - Mastermind
#84 - The Double Circle
#92 - Chico
#96 - Phantoms
#117 - The Hostage
#127 - The Bride
#131 - The Tram
#143 - Double Dead
#147 - Speed
#148 - Two Thousand
#151 - Break!
#166 - The Western

 

[KRAD]

If they can't do a full novel, how about contributing a short story to an anthology?

That was an option -- which I took advantage of -- when Star Trek Explorer was being published, but its cancellation kind of kills that avenue, since S&S hasn't published a Trek anthology in 15 years.

 

[ClayinCA]

Authors I'd like to see return:

Keith DeCandido
Howard Weinstein
Diane Duane
Barbara Hambly
Robert Greenberger
Christopher L. Bennett
Michael Jan Friedman

 

[Elwro]

Keith DeCandido, of course. Never a miss with KRAD. (Thanks for Alien:Isolation, too!)

G. Eklund. Let the guy have some fun in retirement[?]!

 

[somebuddyX]

Give me another Diane Carey novelisation of an Enterprise episode.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Definitely Diane Duane. When was the last time a woman wrote a Star Trek novel?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

When was the last time a woman wrote a Star Trek novel?

About a year ago: Una McCormack's Asylum.

 

[F. King Daniel]

About a year ago: Una McCormack's Asylum.

A lot better than I feared!

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

A lot better than I feared!

And a much more pleasant read than her opus of a few years earlier, in which she was contractually obligated to write an unmitigated tragedy that ended in utter hopelessness. You know, the one with a title that seemed more appropriate for a B5 novel.

 

[Greg Cox]

Una has been quite busy in recent years, writing novels for DISCOVERY, PICARD, and STRANGE NEW WORLDS.

I loved her DISCO novel about Tilly, and was very impressed by the scope and ambition of her PICARD novel. Haven't read her SNW book yet.

 

[David Mack]

^ Una’s SNW book Asylum was very good, and quite deservedly won this year's Scribe Award for Best Original Novel, Speculative.

 

[Cicero]

Number one: Diane Duane. Full stop. She wrote books that are still being sought out, over four decades later, and the last I heard, she was still alive and writing.

She's my first choice, too. I'd also like to see more from Julia Ecklar, Diane Carey, and/or Heather Jarman.

More fancifully, I'd want an Early Voyages or Colt novel from Dan Abnett, or a Nog story by Christian Cooper.

Definitely Diane Duane. When was the last time a woman wrote a Star Trek novel?

It's been fifteen years. The last was garamet, whose Unspoken Truth was released in 2010.

Including Vanguard and Seekers (eventually moved into the main series; and none of the four writers were female), I count thirty-three Star Trek novels and one anthology since:

1. The Children of Kings
2. Declassified
3. Cast No Shadow
4. A Choice of Catastrophes
5. What Judgements Come
6. The Rings of Time
7. That Which Divides
8. Storming Heaven
9. Forgotten History
10. Allegiance in Exile
11. Devil’s Bargain
12. The Weight of Worlds
13. The Folded World
14. The Shocks of Adversity
15. From History’s Shadow
16. No Time Like the Past
17. Serpents in the Garden
18. Second Nature
19. Point of Divergence
20. Foul Deeds Will Rise
21. Savage Trade
22. Crisis of Consciousness
23. Child of Two Worlds
24. The Latter Fire
25. The Face of the Unknown
26. The Captain’s Oath
27. The Antares Maelstrom
28. Agents of Influence
29. The Higher Frontier
30. A Contest of Principles
31. Living Memory
32. Harm’s Way
33. Lost to Eternity
34. Identity Theft

 

[Greg Cox]

It's been fifteen years. The last was garamet, whose Unspoken Truth was released in 2010.

That's just TOS books. Not Star Trek novels in general.

As noted, folks like Una McCormack, Kirsten Beyer, Cassandra Clarke, etc. have been writing books for TNG, DS9, DISCO, PICARD, SNW, PRODIGY, and so on.

And that's not even counting various short stories in Star Trek Explorer magazine and the hardcover collections of same.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

It's been fifteen years [since a woman wrote a ST novel]. The last was garamet, whose Unspoken Truth was released in 2010.

Una McCormack, Kirsten Beyer, Cassandra Clarke

In addition to the three cited by GC, I think Paula M. Block would also have something to say about @Cicero's assertion.

 

[Cicero]

That's just TOS books. Not Star Trek novels in general.

Sorry, I meant to re-write that. I first read the question as being about the series, and forgot to clarify why I was only talking about TOS.

But it's still been fifteen years (and thirty-three novels). In retrospect, female authorship seems to have first declined sharply after 2001*, then ended after the Great Recession.

It's baffling for a series that's famous for its great female authors (Duane, Crispin, Carey, Fontana, McIntyre, Kagan, Lorrah, Dillard, garamet, Ecklar, etc.).

*Until 2002, most TOS books were female-authored, but only five of twenty-five () in the next eight years.

As noted, folks like Una McCormack, Kirsten Beyer, Cassandra Clarke, etc. have been writing books for TNG, DS9, DISCO, PICARD, SNW.

And that's not even counting various short stories in Star Trek Explorer magazine and the hardcover collections of same.

Among female authors, only Una McCormack has published a novel for the franchise in the last four years. In the last fifteen years, only three of twenty-three novelists have been female.

As few as male authors increasingly are in publishing broadly (which should concern the industry), and as popular as Star Trek has always been with female writers, something has obviously gone wrong in either the pipeline or the process.

The last fifteen years have seen more men named David than women (I'm sorry to see that Dave Galanter died; I'd heard about LoneMagpie):

Female authors

1. Cassandra Rose Clarke
2. Kirsten Beyer
3. Una McCormack

Male authors

1. Alan Dean Foster
2. Alex White
3. Christopher L. Bennett
4. Dave Galanter
5. David A. McIntee
6. David Mack
7. David R. George III
8. Dayton Ward
9. Greg Cox
10. Kevin Dilmore
11. James Swallow
12. Jeff Mariotte
13. Jeffrey Lang
14. John Jackson Miller
15. Michael A. Martin
16. Michael Schuster
17. Steve Mollmann
18. Peter David
19. Tony Daniel
20. William Leisner

In addition to the three cited by GC, I think Paula M. Block would also have something to say about @Cicero's assertion.

Do you mean her short fiction from eight years ago?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

You get no argument from me about a shortage of female ST authors. Many of the best have died, and too few have joined the party.

And I think I've already said that I'd happily join any campaign to (1) convince DD and DC to come back, and (2) convince S&S to seek them out. (I have no basis to even speculate on whether DD isn't writing ST fiction because she doesn't want to, or because somebody else doesn't want her to, and as to DC, it wasn't that long ago that I re-read her Broken Bow; rumors of it being unforgivably bad have been greatly exaggerated.)

 

[F. King Daniel]

...and that's before we start discussing Trek lit authors of colour...