New books - New New Frontier, New Starfleet Academy

[seigezunt]

I never quite understood the need for a YA Trek line. It's not like Treklit is too "mature" or complicated for young readers. Or is it? I was reading Treklit in that target age, but then the Treklit was a little different in the 70s.

 

[Defcon]

Defintion for YA fiction from Wikipedia:

Young-adult fiction, whether in the form of novels or short stories, has distinct attributes that distinguish it from the other age categories of fiction: Adult fiction, Middle Grade Fiction, and Children's Fiction. The vast majority of YA stories portray an adolescent as the protagonist, rather than an adult or a child. The subject matter and story lines are typically consistent with the age and experience of the main character, but beyond that YA stories span the entire spectrum of fiction genres. The settings of YA stories are limited only by the imagination and skill of the author. Themes in YA stories often focus on the challenges of youth, so much so that the entire age category is sometimes referred to as problem novels or coming of age novel. YA novels are often as short as 16000 words.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young-adult_fiction#cite_note-3 Writing styles of YA stories range widely, from the richness of literary style to the clarity and speed of the unobtrusive. Despite its unique characteristics, YA shares the fundamental elements of fiction with other stories: character, plot, setting, theme, and style.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I never quite understood the need for a YA Trek line. It's not like Treklit is too "mature" or complicated for young readers. Or is it? I was reading Treklit in that target age, but then the Treklit was a little different in the 70s.

There are many young teens who'd balk at picking up a regular ST novel. Being an avid ST fan is not necessarily the only criterior for reading a ST book, and not every young teen will have the confidence (or reading age) to attempt a thick novel.

The ST YA books of the past, from Pocket, have featured teen protagonists, large fonts, shorter chapters, b/w illustrations, colour plates with captions, reduced page counts, thinner spines and larger page sizes, than the regular lines. Essentially, just seemingly more accessible to reluctant readers.

Interestingly, the old Blish Bantam collections (in a few of their many editions) were sometimes imprinted on the spine as being suitable for their teen readers, although it's still the regular edition inside. The imprint was "Pathfinder Science Fiction", and it seems the language level of Blish's prose had been deemed suitable/accessible to teens. My second hand copy of "Star Trek 9" is so marked.

 

[Christopher]

I never quite understood the need for a YA Trek line. It's not like Treklit is too "mature" or complicated for young readers. Or is it? I was reading Treklit in that target age, but then the Treklit was a little different in the 70s.

I was reading adult novels while I was still in grade school, but that isn't typical. Getting young people interested in reading, or getting them interested in Star Trek, isn't a given. Putting out a line of books that's tailored to young people's interests and preferences is a more effective way of getting them interested than putting out normal adult-type books and just assuming or hoping that younger people will pick them up too. Even if a lot of normal Trek books are accessible to teen readers, the teens can't be assumed to know that. Marketing is about reaching out to an audience and creating interest. So it makes sense to provide ST fiction tailored to the habits and tastes of younger readers in order to hook their interest in ST as a whole. Then they can move on to the mainstream of Trek Lit.

 

[Julio Angel Ortiz]

Is Treason any better?

"Treason" is a great page-turner. I loved it, but if you're that down on NF, you'll probably not be in the right mood for it.

Thanks, Therin. That's actually why I've waited for the NF books to come out in paperback, to give that extra time to "heal". I'll be giving Treason a shot, then, after I get through a few of my books on my never-ending pile.

 

[David cgc]

Hah, that's random. Rick Barba also wrote a few strategy guides to games, back in the 90s, and they were so funny and cleverly written that I bought a couple for games I didn't have just to read the writing. This may be the nerdiest thing I've ever written down, but it's a fact.

I really liked "Myst."

"Brought back the red and blue pages, heard some more invective from Sirrus and Achenar. Jeeze, talk about brotherly love. Keep these guys away from Philadelphia."

And, of course, "Oh, God, I'm starting to write like these guys talk."

 

[Thrawn]

SEE? Dude was funny!

I'm rather delighted I'm not the only one who thought so.

 

[seigezunt]

I never quite understood the need for a YA Trek line. It's not like Treklit is too "mature" or complicated for young readers. Or is it? I was reading Treklit in that target age, but then the Treklit was a little different in the 70s.

I was reading adult novels while I was still in grade school, but that isn't typical. Getting young people interested in reading, or getting them interested in Star Trek, isn't a given. Putting out a line of books that's tailored to young people's interests and preferences is a more effective way of getting them interested than putting out normal adult-type books and just assuming or hoping that younger people will pick them up too. Even if a lot of normal Trek books are accessible to teen readers, the teens can't be assumed to know that. Marketing is about reaching out to an audience and creating interest. So it makes sense to provide ST fiction tailored to the habits and tastes of younger readers in order to hook their interest in ST as a whole. Then they can move on to the mainstream of Trek Lit.

I dunno, I don't recall finding reading the "adult" ST novels as a kid challenging, and I'm hardly a rocket scientist. I've looked over a couple in the used rack, and they seem a little dumbed-down. *shrug*

 

[Christopher]

It's not about the actual challenge, it's about perception and interest. Kids aren't going to read Trek Lit if they don't know it would be interesting to them. But if they're already reading YA fiction, then offering YA Trek fiction is a way of catching the attention of teens who wouldn't otherwise be interested in reading normal Trek MMPBs.

It's all about niche marketing. Not everyone automatically likes every format. There are people who like reading MMPBs and trades, but there are also people who only read YA digest-format books, or who only read comics, or who only read manga-style comics, or who only play MMORPGs. It's just good marketing to broaden the diversity of ST tie-ins to encompass multiple different formats.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I dunno, I don't recall finding reading the "adult" ST novels as a kid challenging, and I'm hardly a rocket scientist. I've looked over a couple in the used rack, and they seem a little dumbed-down. *shrug*

Which ones?

In 1981, when I first started casual teaching, there were a few eleven year olds in my temporary class who had seen ST:TMP (a "G" movie) and were attempting to read the Australian edition of the TMP novelization. Its short chapters and captioned colour plates were probably motivating and encouraging to kids attempting their first-ever chunky novel - but I also remembered that there would be paragraphs describing the effect of Ilia's Deltan pheromones on Sulu's penis, and the introduction by Kirk describing how some people had speculated that he and Spock were lovers.

One of the other kids had brought in "Jaws", which also had some saucy material.

Had there been some YA ST books at the time, I'd probably have attempted to divert them to those titles. Sadly, the TMP Photonovel and MMPB version of Marvel's comic adaptation were both tricky to find - and way more expensive that the MMPB of the easily-found novelization.

 

[seigezunt]

I dunno, I don't recall finding reading the "adult" ST novels as a kid challenging, and I'm hardly a rocket scientist. I've looked over a couple in the used rack, and they seem a little dumbed-down. *shrug*

Which ones?

In 1981, when I first started casual teaching, there were a few eleven year olds in my temporary class who had seen ST:TMP (a "G" movie) and were attempting to read the Australian edition of the TMP novelization. Its short chapters and captioned colour plates were probably motivating and encouraging to kids attempting their first-ever chunky novel - but I also remembered that there would be paragraphs describing the effect of Ilia's Deltan pheromones on Sulu's penis, and the introduction by Kirk describing how some people had speculated that he and Spock were lovers.

One of the other kids had brought in "Jaws", which also had some saucy material.

Had there been some YA ST books at the time, I'd probably have attempted to divert them to those titles. Sadly, the TMP Photonovel and MMPB version of Marvel's comic adaptation were both tricky to find - and way more expensive that the MMPB of the easily-found novelization.

I was thinking more the Blish novels. But I read the TMP novelization at a fairly tender age, and I don't recall being permanently damaged by Sulu's penis.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I don't recall being permanently damaged by Sulu's penis.

"Oh my."

 

[Defcon]

Seems like Pocket Books has renamed the New Frontier book to Blind Man's Bluff.

They also have the Academy books listed as both paperback and hardcover now.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I prefer Resolutions. BMB sounds dumb, even for an NF book.

 

[JD]

Yeah, I'm with BrotherBenny on the title issue. I wonder if we'll ever find out why it changed.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Titles probably change more often than you might think. A working title on an outline can get changed for any of a number of reasons, not the least of which is a new title the author liked better than what he/she had when submitting the proposal.

 

[Christopher]

But Resolutions is such a generic title. It's already been the title of a VGR episode. Blind Man's Bluff is a much more interesting title. It's the name of a game with centuries of history (Henry the Eighth's courtiers reportedly played it). It's the name of a poker variant in which the player sees all the cards except one's own. It's the name of paintings by Goya and Fragonard. It's the name of a 1998 nonfiction book about submarine espionage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_man's_bluff

 

[JD]

I just thought that by the time it was listed on a site like S&S the title would have been finalized, unless something came up.

Hmm, I'd heard the term before but I didn't actually know what it meant. Knowing that now, I can see where that could be saying alot more about the story than Resolutions. I just thought that Resolutions sounded better, that's all.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I prefer Resolutions. BMB sounds dumb, even for an NF book.

"Resolutions" had people here speculating that it was the last ever "New Frontier" book. (Never a good marketing ploy to let readers think an ongoing series is ending prematurely.)

 

[Dayton Ward]

But Resolutions is such a generic title. It's already been the title of a VGR episode.

And that may very well be the reason it was changed. I'd forgotten about the VGR episode title, but it wouldn't be the first time a decision was made to change a book title because one of the shows already used it.