Spoilers New Picard TV Series and Litverse Continuity (may contain TV show spoilers)

The cold, hard, sucky truth.

 

Definitely. A novel which expands on the new show's backstory will certainly turn more heads than the latest Typhon Pact intrigue novel will.

It worked for Star Wars, it's a viable option for Star Trek.

Besides, even if the end of the Litverse comes to pass, there's still a possibility Trek novels for the other shows will continue to be published. Granted, it means we'll likely go back to TV series-era adventures with a primary focus on TOS and TNG for "past Trek" content. But compare that to Doctor Who. During the wilderness years, they had two novel lines, Eight Doctor Adventures which were an interconnected continuing storyline for the "current" Doctor, and Past Doctor Adventures, basically standalone novels featuring the first seven Doctors. Then in 2005 when the show returned, both novel lines were cancelled in favor of doing novels for the new series exclusively.

Hell, if CBS's rumoured plans of at least four more spin-offs go through, you're looking at increased chances the annual novel line will be devoted more and more to these new shows and a possibility that novel material for the other shows would gradually slow down to a stop anyway. You can be guaranteed a TOS 5YM novel a year (these are the best sellers) but we probably are looking at the end of interconnected Trek novels anyway. The price you pay for Trek's return to TV.

 

But some of us want it to end and restart - so it is impossible to please everyone.

 

If what they have in mind for the show is inconsistent with the novels there is no way they are going to make them change the show to fit the books. They are just way to minor a part of the franchise for them to be able to determine what the core part of the franchise, the TV shows, can do.
Now if what they have in mind for the show fits with the books there's a chance they could stay intact, but no matter what the show will always come first.

 

Do you really think the post-Nemesis line would get restarted? Because out of all scenarios I don't see that one at all. If the show doesn't contradict anything the novels will continue as they are. If it totally contradicts absolutely everything there will either be a lot of retcons (not a restart mind you, just changes in the history when stuff is mentioned) or they will scrap the post-Nemesis stuff entirely and go back to one-offs during the series. Maybe after the Picard series is over they'll put some books out on how Picard got from Nemesis to [title of Picard show], but I doubt it'll be anything as large as the Novelverse. Plus, it seems like a rather weird thing to do, "We spend the past 13 years telling the story of Picard after Nemesis, now let's confuse everyone by telling stories in the exact same time frame". I just don't see that happening.

 

The later option is exactly what the Star Wars books have done, and it doesn't seem to have hurt them to much. Some fans are upset, but the books still seem be selling very well.

 

I think this is where you find that there are two different camps of Trekkies. Some fans don't care if they blow everything up and basically start over every 5 years with a new continuity. Something like the Batman movies where we're with the what, 3rd iteration of the modern film series none having really anything to do with the prior films.

Then you have old school fans that prefer a certain continuity, A goes to B goes to C and so on. I'm an old school fan, and not just with Star Trek. I don't like having to reset my brain everytime I watch the next film or show. That's one of the big reasons I don't watch many new movies based on other franchises these days. I'll take a sequel over a reboot any day.

But that's just me. I'm aware enough to realize in this day and age what sells is continuously resetting old franchises, ignoring what came before.

And I know they aren't going to give a rat's ass what I think.

 

What I can see happening, is that as these new TV projects take off, the novels are going to shift focus to tie-ins devoted to them. And we're not getting more than twelve novels a year, in fact we're probably going to start getting less than that given the novels are switching exclusively to trade paperbacks next year. So with the novel line being taken up with Disco and Picard tie-ins, a potential third series comes along, you're probably looking at fifty percent of the annual line-up being devoted to tie-ins for the shows currently in production. Assuming the rest of the fifty percent is devoted to "past Trek" I think we're more likely to see stand alone TV series era TOS and TNG novels than we are post Nemesis adventures involving the Enterprise E and the Typhon Pact.

 

Yeah, I agree. If the new TNG show is not reconcilable with the existing novel verse, they will stop. Like I said, Pocketbooks is not going to continue to publish novels in a continuity that can't exist with the new show. They won't want to confuse fans of the new show by releasing books that don't jive. My prediction in that scenario is any new TNG books will be based on the new continuity and be one off books. An occasional pre nu-TNG book but more like Discovery, where they tie into the show and don't really tie into one another like the relaunches have.

 

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That was Star Wars Aftermath trilogy and the overall ‘Journey to The Force Awaken’ but it covers I think twenty years not 13.

That’s actually a good parallel for another reason, one day Star Wars fans thought that Luke was a married man with children and the next day he wasn’t. His wife who was this fan favourite character simply ceased to exist as far as canon was concerned. Still At least if Bev died horrifically a year after Nemesis, she was still a canon character.

 

Well, it's a single trilogy not an ongoing series like the Novelverse was. That was my point, I did mention the possibility of some books (ie a few, no ongoing effort) dealing with what happened after Nemesis,

The 13 years was a reference to how long the TNG relaunch has been going on, not the timeframe covered by the novels.

 

I’m agonostic on If future books form any sort of cohort universe post the new series.

No I meant that was the period of history shitcanned between Return of the Jedi and TFA and in total they shitcanned about hundred years of adventures post-ROTJ. That was about thirty years worth of writing in the real world.

 

Oh, I assumed you included yourself in the "some of us want a restart". My bad.

Yes, I know that, but I was refering to the time the post-Nemesis TNG novels were put out (Death in Winter was published in 2005, now it's 2018, 2018-2005=13; the in-universe time covered between Nemesis and where we currently are is more like seven years). You then referenced the time covered by the post-movie SW novels, I reiterated that I meant the time the post-Nemesis TNG novels were published and you said once again that you meant the in-universe time period. Not that any of that actually matters.

 

Let me be clear by what I mean by a reset - I want a Picard series where it is a wodnderful surprise to me what happened to him and any other featured characters after the end of nemesis because we have absolutely no idea. The books then might fill in some gaps or be about new characters who appear in the show (Like the upcoming Tilly book).

Nothing is off the table and if it serves the script that the Enterprise blew up decades ago they should do this with absolutely no consideration of tie-in material.

 

Well, you said restart not reset so all your arguments are invalid

Okay, sure, that's a valid opinion, but the way I understood your first post I assumed you meant an end and restart of the LitVerse. I guess I misread that.

 

Yes

It's 30 years between ROTJ and TFA.

 

Maybe they were only refering to the time covered by the EU novels. Would that fit? *has no clue of Star Wars*

 

The old EU I think was also like at most 30 years and then a 100 year jump to the Legacy series.

Or something.

 

Yep, and that's the cold hard truth. I could decide, nope, not for me, I'm not interested in another reset and walk away and CBS and Pocketbooks wouldn't even notice.

I'd be disappointed, sure. I'd love to be on board for future shows and movies, but I'm not going to go nuts over what is basically entertainment. If I don't enjoy it anymore I'll move on. And the beauty of Star Trek is after all these years of The Cage through Star Trek Beyond that I have enjoyed thus far, is that's hundreds of hours of TV and hundreds of books (many of which I haven't read in years and would almost be like new stories now) that I can continue to enjoy. CBS is not going to confiscate all my classic Star Trek stuff after all.

So if it gets to the point that nu-Star Trek or future-Star Trek isn't enjoyable to me anymore, I'll be just fine

That being said, at the very least I hope the books get us to the destruction of Romulus and a little beyond (to find out what consequences that has). After all we're less than a year away. Might as well finish the journey.