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For anyone who's interested Trekmovie has put up their review for the first issue of the Countdown miniseries. FYI it includes a huge spoiler that could possibly affect the book.
Data is back 8 years after Nemesis and is now Captain of the Enterprise!!! Luckily there are still 7 years between Destiny and the comic, so we have plenty of time for this to affect the books. If it does.
Which brings me to my next question, will this be incorporated into the books?
I have a warm, tingly feeling. I might buy my first Trek comic just for this.
As for the books - to the best of my knowledge, despite the presence of the producers behind the comic, they still aren't beholden to it as they would be filmed material. That said, I say go for it. It's far enough into the future that the novel line could easily go another ten years' worth of novels without catching up to that point, so likely won't affect even the longest of long-term plans currently in place for the various book series. By that point, I'm sure enough time will have elapsed to give our editors and authors a good idea or two on how the event should be performed, and also enough time would have elapsed to make the depiction of said event feel really momentuous, rather than the 'emergency repair' vibe of the Enterprise Relaunch.
I didn't really stop to do the math (for that matter, I'm not actually sure when we're at in the timeline as of Singular Destiny). Of course, for said character to be in said position eight years hence, he probably would need be returned (my tenses are jumbling, I know) somewhat earlier, unless a device is found to immediately maneouvre him into that position. But, yeah, barring artificial leaps in the novels' timeframes à la New Frontier, it'll be quite a while before they get to that point (not that I'm advocating any such leaps, mind you; just the confirmation of said character being back in play, however distantly, would make me happy, and the novels have this brand-spanking new status quo to explore still...).
Two things have been revealed that influence (or should influence, IMO, as this is the official prequel to the new movie) the TrekLit writers and editorial staff:
1.
The issue establishes that the 24th century setting is 8 years post-Nemesis (meaning 2388?)
2.
qouted from the article itself: From the looks of it, readers of "Star Trek Countdown" will certainly get a rich back-story to the feature film, especially for those who want to see how this ties into where Star Trek left off with the last film. This becomes especially evident with the appearance of three Reman warships, and the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain Data"
Obviously, the second spoiler is the massive one and I wonder about the ramifications for future Trek novels...
If the past is any indication, the tie-in text-based fiction doesn't have to obey other tie-in fiction, such as comics, only the live-action, onscreen material.
O won't go into the whole canon thing, but I think some tie-in fiction is considered official (like the TMP novelization by Gene Roddenberry).
As the Countdown comic is considered the "official" prequel to the film, I think developments in it (regarding the original Trek universe), should be taken into account by tie-in writers and editors.
Without getting into the reveals per-se,I think that when taken together, both reveals offer some intriguing storytelling opportunities, without getting in the way of current plans.
I'd be very pleased if it became a dictate from TPTB that Data is to return and become Captain of the Enterprise by 2388 within the Trek novels.
There is a very easy way of bringing Data back. I've written about it. Everyone and their mother has theorized about it. It's so obvious, it's painful. It was likely written into the Nemesis script exactly for such back-door "Remember" purposes...
The novels would have a great deal of time until such an event where to occur, so it wouldn't mess anything up. The folks at Pocket would have a good half-dozen years just until they even had to begin planning for that particular plot line.
When Richard Arnold worked at the Star Trek Office, he used to reiterate that the novelizations of ST movies were not any more official than other licensed tie-ins, including Gene Roddenberry's novelization. Admittedly, RA doesn't work there any more, so it's whatever Paula Block (CBS Consumer Products) decides can be used.
David Gerrold's bonus scenes in the "Encounter at Farpoint" novelization, including Data being created by aliens on Kiron III, were forgotten the moment he walked out of TNG's offices.
Denny Martin Flinn (ST VI) wrote a novel, "The Fearful Summons", and most people hate that novel with a passion.
Jeri Taylor considered her background for Janeway in the hardcover novel "Mosaic" to be canonical while she was working on the VOY series, then she offered the same idea about "Pathways" (for the rest of the characters), but the moment she left, the writers started to ignore information from both of the books, ie. whenever they liked their own ideas better.
Well, I'd like to actually see how they explain it (and if it's a permanent deal, and not just something that gets reset before the end of the story), before we get too excited.
I know, I know, this is the internet, and running off half-cocked is the norm, but I've always been a rebel.
Two things have been revealed that influence (or should influence, IMO, as this is the official prequel to the new movie) the TrekLit writers and editorial staff:
As Therin said, "official" doesn't mean anything, since all licensed tie-ins are official. The word only means that the franchise owner gave permission for their publication in exchange for a cut of the profits.
If CBS Licensing tells Pocket to take Countdown into account, then we will. Otherwise, we don't have to.
1.
The issue establishes that the 24th century setting is 8 years post-Nemesis (meaning 2388?)
2387. This was revealed in the preview report a couple of weeks ago. And it actually minimizes the influence on the novels, because we've got a cushion of six years of story time.
Good gods, no. Even Roddenberry didn't consider his own TMP novelization canonically binding when he developed TNG. It's full of concepts that have been disregarded or contradicted by later productions.
Precedent doesn't matter anyway. For some reason, fans have this odd idea that if some past showrunner considered something canonical, then that policy is binding on everyone throughout all of Star Trek's future -- even throughout all of mass media (just yesterday there was a post in the SF board where someone cited ST:TAS in a discussion of whether Star Wars: The Clone Wars is canonical). But canon is really nothing more than a matter of individual showrunners' preferences. Roddenberry wanted to decanonize things that subsequent Trek showrunners chose to acknowledge or incorporate after all. Jeri Taylor wanted her VGR backstory novels to be canonical, but her successors ignored them.
Like I said, if the folks at CBS Licensing to tell Pocket to acknowledge Countdown, then we will. It's as simple as that. If they don't tell us that, we might choose to anyway, but we wouldn't be compelled to.
Without getting into the reveals per-se,I think that when taken together, both reveals offer some intriguing storytelling opportunities, without getting in the way of current plans.
That may well be true. And I think that if we do choose to make the book continuity consistent with Countdown, it will be because of the story possibilities, not because of any compulsion based on past precedents.
I do realize that the books don't have to follow this, which is part of why I was asking. I'm actually kinda glad that it is so far in the future, because at least now we have plenty of time to build towards this if the authors/editors do decide to follow it.
2387. This was revealed in the preview report a couple of weeks ago. And it actually minimizes the influence on the novels, because we've got a cushion of six years of story time.
