Is there any chance that we could see any new Star Trek audio books in the future? It seems in that audio books in general are doing quite, and it was announced that all new Star Wars audio books are now going to be unabridged in the future. It just seems like a big event like the upcoming Destiny trilogy could do well as audio books.
Simon & Schuster Audioworks hasn't abridged a Star Trek novel since Shatner's "Captain's Glory" in
2006, and it was the first not to be released as an audio cassette. CD and download only! Obviously, Star Trek abridgements have become
unprofitable, much as I enjoyed collecting (and listening) to them.
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com.au/2007/05/i-hear-star-trek.html
A company called Recorded Books has done a set of unabridged audios for the "Vulcan's Soul" trilogy. But, even though I'm a completist, I've had no desire to commit to the expense, let along find the time to listen to many, many hours of these stories, word-for-word, when I've already
read them. I feel that unabridged audios are aimed at people who probably don't intend to read the actual book, or want to hear the whole thing again on a looooong journey.
To me,
abridged audiobooks often have a fresh take on a story, even if shorter, and they sorta, kinda, feel like an official adaptation/episode.
If you're talking about
original audios, then it seems no one has secured the separate license for these since the three "Captain Sulu" audio-only experiments in 1994-95. I recall John Ordover once saying that Simon & Schuster was
not able to present the audio tracks of the "Star Trek Academy" computer game as an audiobook, (as they had for 1996's "Star Trek: Klingon" and "Star Trek: Borg") when that game came out, because they'd
let the part of their license lapse.
If another original-to-audio series was mooted, it would be very hard to judge what the audience would be. "Doctor Who" and "Blake's Seven" went to audio when there was a dearth of new
visuals being made.
Do we know if S&S Audio's ST license has actually lapsed, or will there be a chance they intend to adapt the "Destiny" trilogy? (If they intended to, I'd assume Book 1 would be underway already.) It's odd that S&S would wait so long between audios if they did intend to produce more. Do we have any contacts at Recorded Books?
One of the reasons why the Big Finish audios are successful is because BF is a very small company with low overhead and low standards for success, and selling to a much much smaller primary market (the UK). For it to be worth it for S&S Audio, the stuff would need to sell in much larger numbers than BF's audios.
What, you mean Corps of Engineers? They're not discontinuing that, are they?
