Pocket's 2010 Schedule Announced on TrekMovie.com

[Reanok]

I'm sorry to hear that Mike Barr's book isn't going to come out.I really like Captain April and was looking forward to getting this book. I'm interested in some of the new Tos books The Christopher Pike & the Orion syndicate being involved sounds interesting . I definitely plan on getting the new Unspoken Truth Saavik novel by MWB. I Definitely plan on getting the ds9 novel by David R. George Having Romulans and TZenkethi in the novel causing trouble.I can't wait to hear more about this book.I also hope there's chance for another Enterprise novel next year too.

 

[Rush Limborg]

This is pretty much my opinion (though I always seem to take 6 paragraphs to say so).

I sympathize!

My complaint is that we have two slots taken up by reprints that could have been used for new material. Treason and the next SCE/CoE. This is what I find unfair. If they were reprinted along side of new material, that would be fine. But to take up two months is just wrong.

Well...didn't the TrekMovie article imply that there would possibly be more books to be revealed for the year, or...something?

 

[Therin of Andor]

My complaint...

Aaaaagggghhhh! It does my head in. Complaints over a tentative schedule that is eighteen months away, and in the publishing game, where so much can change.

Just release the reprint alongside a new book. That would solve that problem pretty well.

What often happens since they went one MMPB-per-month is that a reprint MMPB appears the same month as a new trade or hardcover.

Don't assume that the 2010 schedule is set in stone.

whoa. A lot of TOS books. I will have a lot of purchases to make.

It's funny that Pike and Saavik books get lumped into "a lot of TOS books". I wonder, do the same people count "Vanguard" as "another TOS book"?

People who avoid Kirk/Spock/McCoy books like the plague may well get a lot out of a new Pike pre-TOS book, or a new Saavik post-TOS movie book.

 

[Stevil2001]

I can't imagine why people would consider Pike and Saavik TOS characters.

 

[Christopher]

I liked that DS9 was dealing with its own thing and wanted to see it continue to do that. It also doesn't help that I'm not a Destiny fan and the Typhon Pact doesn't hold much interest for me. So only having one DS9 book and for it to be part of a series I'm not interested in isn't the best for me...other then I might save a bit of money on Trek movies next year. We'll see when they come out how un-interwoven they really are, the less so the more likely I'll have a look at the DS9 novel.

My impression is that each one tells its own distinct story -- and the whole tetralogy spans a fair amount of time, so there's some separation between them -- but collectively they show the evolution of the Typhon Pact and its relationship with the Federation.

Margret Clark should be fired. She is destroying Trek single handily.

That's silly. In addition to all the other points people have raised, Margaret doesn't run the entire corporation. She has bosses who have their own preferences she has to take into account. So she's hardly "single-handed."

I really don't see why everyone's lumping TOS and nuTrek novels in the same boat. NuTrek is rather obviously a different animal than TOS, and really should be seen as its own series, as unique as, say, New Frontier or Corps of Engineers.

Quite true. Abrams Trek is not TOS. It has its own style, its own voice, its own distinct characters and backstory. It has much less continuity baggage. It's even set in an earlier time when the characters were younger.

Clearly tie-ins sell, obviously they wouldnt exist. But I wasnt saying that no one would buy these books, I was saying that the hope that loads of new readers would come into a book shop next year, looking for books based on the film they saw, therefore it is better to market them in a block and make an event of it, rather than make the schedule more appealing to the established reader base by varying the titles over the year, seems to be wasted effort, because, as you yourself say, barely anyone buys books anyway.

As others have pointed out, it's a matter of proportion. The Trek literary audience numbers in the tens of thousands, maybe. The movie audience is in the tens of millions, so a "tiny" one percent of that would be hundreds of thousands, which is huge by book-publishing standards.

Your problem is that you seem to be thinking of these percentages in qualitative rather than quantitative terms. So you assume that a tiny fraction of anything is always going to be inadequate. But you have to look at the actual numbers. A tiny fraction of a huge number is still a pretty big quantity. For instance, the Earth receives only about two billionths of the Sun's total energy output, which seems like almost nothing at all, but it's enough to keep the entire planet warm and drive all of its weather and biosphere, because it's "almost nothing" of a really huge quantity. Scarcity is relative.

I hope we don't watch plot threads left dangling or wrapped up too quickly in order to make the leap forward and get it in step with what is clearly Pocket's direction for 24th century Trek.

DS9's jump forward is pretty far - a good three to four years into the future. Are we, as readers, supposed to just gloss over the huge gaps in the characters' histories?

As Margaret put it at the post-Destiny panel, she's "a vaudeville editor: always leave them wanting more." She leaves enough dangling to pique our curiosity for later stories that fill in the blanks. For instance, having me jump over Picard and Crusher's wedding and present them as already married at the start of Greater Than the Sum. That way, the wedding story can potentially be told in, say, some future anthology.

By the same token, Nemesis jumped the TNG characters forward considerably, and the questions raised by that jump spawned a whole 9-book series filling in the gap. Not to mention The Lost Era filling in the gap between TOS and TNG, Ex Machina and The Darkness Drops Again filling in the gap between TMP and TWOK, To Reign in Hell filling in the gap between "Space Seed" and TWOK, etc. A lot of Trek fiction has been about retroactively filling in time intervals that were jumped over. So why is it so shocking for the novel line to generate a time interval of its own?

Also I was curious as to why the Haynes Star Trek Technical Manual was not included on the list, I though the publisher was partners with Simon and Shuster on the project. Is it as simple as it just isn't under the Pocket umbrella?

Haynes is an independent overseas company doing its own thing. Pocket has to be connected to the project since they own the rights to do it, but Haynes is the company that's actually in charge of making the book happen, so they're the ones who'd have to provide any information about its progress.

How is the ST09 universe going to be branded on the books? Will it strictly be under the title graphic of "Star Trek" with the character images being from the movie, or will there be some other branding/subtitle/some other indication to say "hey, this takes place in the ST09-verse, as opposed to these others that are in the Prime (or whatever) universe?"

The Abramsverse books will have their own distinct title font, probably the shiny silver version seen in the movie publicity or something resembling it. Also, most likely, Abramsverse books will have the new cast and ship on their covers while Primeverse books will have the original cast and ship.

Considering DRGIII is writing the DS9r novel, whose to say it will be a jump forward. He could write the entire five years worth of stories in one book, based on the way he writes.

Someone asked if that was the case at the post-Destiny panel, and the answer is no. Full Circle already took that approach. It'd be kind of repetitive to do it again.

Sorry for my error there. But we still lose a month because of Treason. I do feel that reprints should not count as a month's book. Just release the reprint alongside a new book. That would solve that problem pretty well.

I don't think you could "just" do that, because the production pipeline is set up to work at a certain pace, and adding an extra book would cost a lot of money and inconvenience a lot of people. It would be far more difficult than you assume.

 

[Deano2099]

the SCE/COE reprints are trade and therefore don't count in the One-MMPB-a-month rule. the same as the trade version of Treason didn't.

Sorry for my error there. But we still lose a month because of Treason. I do feel that reprints should not count as a month's book. Just release the reprint alongside a new book. That would solve that problem pretty well.

But when Treason first came out, it didn't take up a slot at all, because it was a trade, which are in addition to the normal stuff, so it all balances out. I guess if you're entirely caught up with all your reading and are constantly waiting for the next book to come out so you have something to read, then it could be frustrating. But even amongst us lot that's a small percentage of people, who in turn are a small percentage of the total book market.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I guess if you're entirely caught up with all your reading and are constantly waiting for the next book to come out so you have something to read, then it could be frustrating.

I remember that day!

I went out and bought up "Ringworld" and "Tales of Known Space" and went hunting kzinti! A few weeks later, "Ringworld Engineers" came out in MMPB. I was in heaven. It was like a secret cache of TrekLit.

I can't imagine why people would consider Pike and Saavik TOS characters.

Well, I can, but what I'm saying is that those books' flavours may be nothing like a typical Kirk/Spock/McCoy TOS novel.

 

[Thrawn]

Well, I can, but what I'm saying is that those books' flavours may be nothing like a typical Kirk/Spock/McCoy TOS novel.

I'm definitely one of the people you're talking about; I think just about everything that can be said about the 5YM era has been said but I'm excited as hell about that whole list of TOS books because all of them are playing with corners of the TOS universe we haven't seen much (if any) from. TOS is my least favorite series, but next year's lineup still has me pretty excited.

 

[seigezunt]

I can't imagine why people would consider Pike and Saavik TOS characters.

*shrugs*

I don't have much interest in the TNG era stuff, and I'm eager to see these books. I think of them as TOS characters because they are in the TV and film version of TOS TV and film productions.

 

[JD]

Well, I can, but what I'm saying is that those books' flavours may be nothing like a typical Kirk/Spock/McCoy TOS novel.

I'm definitely one of the people you're talking about; I think just about everything that can be said about the 5YM era has been said but I'm excited as hell about that whole list of TOS books because all of them are playing with corners of the TOS universe we haven't seen much (if any) from. TOS is my least favorite series, but next year's lineup still has me pretty excited.

This is pretty much my opinion as well. I'm glad to see the guest characters like Carol Marcus, Saavik and Pike get another chance to be in the spotlight.

 

[ronny]

I can't imagine why people would consider Pike and Saavik TOS characters.

I don't get why people wouldn't consider them to be TOS characters. Isn't that were we saw Pike? And for people who aren't in to TOS, I doubt the arguement that Saavik isn't really TOS is going to fly since the only place we've seen her is in a TOS era movie.

I'm not that disatisfied with that mix, since it all evens out year to year but to say 2 of the 8 TOS era books aren't TOS just strikes me as silly.

 

[ToddCam]

I'm sure if Marco was here he'd say that one of the most common questions asked on the board was "When is DS9 going to 'catch up' to TNG?"

Now that it's actually happening we've got the opposite, "How dare they jump DS9's timeframe up to TNG's!"

Hilarious.

The lack of trust in the Pocket writers to continue telling compelling ST stories is amazing, even after they prove themselves time and time again. DS9, with its Wormhole Aliens, was the show that often had discussions of what is "linear". Good storytelling doesn't have to be "linear".

Once again, NOT the same people.

Also, to take a page out of Christopher's book, why are you assuming this is a lack of trust in the writers? If anything, the writers have been lauded in this thread (such as people talking about picking up nuTrek novels based on writers alone), and there have been blatant attacks on editor Margaret Clark. I thought the death of Janeway was garbage. But I never assumed that Kirsten Beyer would be unable to do something good with it (which she did!).

My opinion on the schedule by the way, is disappointment, mostly from the four nuTrek novels, though I understand the reasoning. I just have little interest in them, cause they will be contradicted in all likelihood (yes, Christopher, all scifi get contradicted, canon by itself, and real life), and I don't want to invest my time in those. But Mack and Bennett's writing is always excellent, so maybe I will pick them up anyway. Dunno. I am disappointed that 24th century Trek has been pushed to the end of the year, but after this year's great schedule, I can deal. I actually look very forward to the Pike and Saavik books. Probably will pass on the Kirk/Spock girlfriend book unless I hear there's something interesting about it.

 

[Rosalind]

I'm sure if Marco was here he'd say that one of the most common questions asked on the board was "When is DS9 going to 'catch up' to TNG?"

Now that it's actually happening we've got the opposite, "How dare they jump DS9's timeframe up to TNG's!"

Hilarious.

Once again, NOT the same people.

I think that's Ian's point, whatever Pocket do, there will always be people who like that decision and people who don't like that decision.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Once again, NOT the same people.

Well of course they're not the same people. Who'd even listen to someone posting two opposite personal views about an issue to the same board?

My point is, some people always seem to be unhappy, no matter what Pocket attempts to do.

 

[Mordock]

Abrams Trek is not TOS. It has its own style, its own voice, its own distinct characters and backstory. It has much less continuity baggage. It's even set in an earlier time when the characters were younger.

Glad to hear it! I left the theater wanting to see more of the new crew's adventures right that minute, so I'm eager to see if some of the film's verve can be translated into print. Will these books traffic with familiar characters and races (e.g. Klingons) in any way, or will they focus on the established bridge crew interacting with new characters?

 

[Paris]

I can't imagine why people would consider Pike and Saavik TOS characters.

Sometimes on message boards it's hard to discern tone. We're you joking ? Pike appeared in TOS (albeit, briefly) and Saavik was in three of the movies with the original crew. If you weren't joking, where would you place them?

 

[Stevil2001]

We're you joking ?

Bingo!

 

[Christopher]

Well of course they're not the same people. Who'd even listen to someone posting two opposite personal views about an issue to the same board?

I've actually encountered people like that. I recall having a debate with a person who made one argument one day and a completely contradictory argument in the same thread a day or two later, and he didn't even recognize that he'd contradicted himself. In a later instance, he was debating with me on a different issue and cited a piece of evidence "in support" of his point that actually proved my point instead. Some people apparently get so caught up in the details of arguing, or the kneejerk impulse to disagree with the other guy no matter what, that they can't even keep track of their own position. Sometimes they don't have a coherent position to begin with.

So you're right that it's pretty much impossible to listen seriously to anyone like that, but they are out there.

Glad to hear it! I left the theater wanting to see more of the new crew's adventures right that minute, so I'm eager to see if some of the film's verve can be translated into print.

I'm definitely trying to capture a similar style, energy, and sense of fun, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Will these books traffic with familiar characters and races (e.g. Klingons) in any way, or will they focus on the established bridge crew interacting with new characters?

We're pretty much sticking with what was introduced in the movie. Klingons were repeatedly referenced (if not seen) in the film, so they're fair game, but don't expect to see any Tholians or Gorn or Ferengi or what-have-you.

 

[ClayinCA]

So, we've had several people on here asking about it - does anyone know what happened to Mike W. barr's Captain April novel, The Millennium Bloom?

I chatted to Mike about it briefly, and he said that as far as he knew, it was no longer on the cards.

That's really sad.

It really is. Unlike many posting here, I don't have a problem with much of anything on the schedule, though I do echo people's disappointment at no new Vanguard or Voyager novels (especially since Full Circle has only just gotten me into Voyager in the first place) - but I am very saddened that The Millennium Bloom, one of the books to which I was most looking forward, is now not to be.

^ Even if it hadn't been standard practice before, Margaret just took over all of Treklit herself. I think one book expanded (Sorrows of Empire) and one reprint in the first few months of her deciding the schedule herself is entirely forgivable.

I agree. One can only imagine the amount of work that Margaret must have had dumped on her table when Marco was let go - I'm more than willing to put up with one reprint (especially since it means I will now be likely to actually buy Treason).

 

[Paris]

We're you joking ?

Bingo!

Ah...