So... Has All the Upheavel Been Due to Behind the Scenes?
- Thread starter Frontier
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Books get shelved all the time. Sometimes they eventually turn up, sometimes they get revised, sometimes they are forever buried.
As for ST, "Probe" was shelved for twelve months while portions were rewritten - twice, AFAIK. The printed dustjackets were warehoused until the book was ready.
DeWeese's "Engines of Destiny" was shelved for so long (four years) its original manuscript had been placed in the research archives of a public library in 2001 - and both "The Lost Years: The War Virus" by Irene Kress and Book 1 of a sequel Zar trilogy, "Yesterday Saga: Return to Yesterday" by AC Crispin were turned in and canceled outright.
And many more:
http://www.well.com/~sjroby/lostbooks.html
She missed her contractual deadline by several years, IIRC, and the fiction had taken a whole new direction in that time. The editorial staff had changed since Ms Crispin had pitched a trilogy-sized sequel. Although an interview update (mentioned on Steve Roby's site) says the whole trilogy was "virtually finished", I'd heard that only a third of the story had actually been sent to beta readers, and then on to the editors.
I loved the first two Zar stories, but I always thought it seemed a bit ambitious to try to wring three new novels out of a return to Zar, especially since the previous two books had been out of print for a looooong time. We'd already had the impatience of waiting for the endings to the "Rihannsu" saga, and the "Errand of Fury" sequel trilogy (to the "Errand of Vengeance" trilogy), and a year's delay forced upon the "Vulcan's Soul" trilogy when NEM introduced the Remans.
One new chunky standalone maybe, but not something that ended in a cliffhanger, and with no contracted dates for the next two parts. Sadly, IIRC, it left Ms Crispin disillusioned about writing more ST stuff. I do miss her input.
Well, can't argue about the 'behind the scenes' stuff, I guess. On the other hand, no reason it still couldn't work as a 'throwback' type run (2 books or 3, whatever) as long as it stays in the TOS/TMP timeframe. Wouldn't really get much into the TNG/VOY/DS9/Titan/NF territory anyway, and seems the Original Series stuff has always been allowed to be a little more fast/loose with consistency.
Just disappointed, as liked the Zar books a lot when i was getting into the Trek books. Had their strange moments, but good books, and would welcome a chance to see more of them. Not entirely sure what kind of circumstances would lead to a 3-book adventure with Zar, given where things last stood, but would have liked to find out...
Definitely doesn't make sense to just release the one, but if they got Crispin back under contract to wrap up wherever that series was supposed to go (either with a 2nd book, or doing all 3), would certainly love to see it.
Just disappointed, as liked the Zar books a lot when i was getting into the Trek books. Had their strange moments, but good books, and would welcome a chance to see more of them. Not entirely sure what kind of circumstances would lead to a 3-book adventure with Zar, given where things last stood, but would have liked to find out...
Definitely doesn't make sense to just release the one, but if they got Crispin back under contract to wrap up wherever that series was supposed to go (either with a 2nd book, or doing all 3), would certainly love to see it.
hmm, interesting I suppose. Wonder what Zar was supposed to be adding to that, though. Little Mary-Sue-ish if the big 3 need to go grab him every time there's a crisis. Last time, they only needed him because of his previous experience with the malfunctioning Guardian. This time, is the Guardian just acting like a teenager and will only talk to Zar? 
At one time, I had a copy of the outline for the trilogy.hmm, interesting I suppose. Wonder what Zar was supposed to be adding to that, though. Little Mary-Sue-ish if the big 3 need to go grab him every time there's a crisis. Last time, they only needed him because of his previous experience with the malfunctioning Guardian. This time, is the Guardian just acting like a teenager and will only talk to Zar?
Zar's involvement had nothing to do with a malfunctioning Guardian. Rather, it stemmed from Zar's survival at the end of Time for Yesterday; he now had a family he wasn't supposed to have, and for complicated reasons this brings him into the future. (I think one of his children was dying, and the Guardian brought him into the future so that she could be healed by 23rd-century medicine.) Unfortunately, it's a 23rd-century (right around the same time as Crispin's Sarek, I think) that's been radically altered due to a temporal incursion into Vulcan's ancient past, the time of Surak and the Reformation.
And so, Kirk, Spock, McCoy (all of whom were at the Guardian already, for other reasons, and thus protected from the change), and Zar travel back in time to Diane Duane's Vulcan to set things right. If you read the Howard Weinstein Star Trek comics of the early-90s, there was a similar story that involved Kirk and ancient Klingon history. Crispin's story, as I remember it, played with similar beats -- but where Weinstein had a better present after the temporal change that was undone by fixing history, Crispin had a post-apocalyptic present that had to be undone.
I remember something fun from the outline. (It's been several years since I've read it, and if I still have it, my hard copy is in storage.) Let's suppose that time travel became easy and convenient enough that time tourism was possible. There would be certain times and places where time tourists would naturally gravitate. (Seriously, there would be enough time tourists at the Crucifixion to upset the Earth on its axis, for instance.) The same sort of thing happens here; time tourists showing up in droves to witness a formative moment in Vulcan history. Dulmer and Lucsly happen to be there, to keep things from getting rowdy and to prevent time tourists from doing anything stupid. And Kirk gets into a fistfight with one of them! He doesn't have any idea who they are, but they know him, and he's a menace! I don't remember a lot of other details, but I do remember that.
Who is the publisher? I can't seem to find it on Amazon.
Not available for preorder yet, or I'd have done so. But I did submit an "alert me." I'm looking forward to this.
Yeah, I noticed this, oddly enough it's available for preorder on other amazon sites (.de, .co.uk, .ca etc.).
There's an interview with A.C. Crispin at startrek.com right now where she talk briefly about the book, the majority of the interview deals with her Trek stuff though.
Thanks for linking that interview! I always enjoyed Ann and her work, and it was good to "hear" from her, so to speak.
