The fact that fan art can lead to the creation of a book series is the coolest part of this whole thing.
Star Trek: The Seekers
- Thread starter captcalhoun
- Start date
I'm crazy excited about this. Vanguard is my favorite Trek series, and I loved the Sagittarius and Endevour crews, so the idea of a series focused solely on them has me very excited indeed. Every time I think we've gotten the best year in Trek Lit ever, we get news like this that makes the next year look even better.
I think the best year in TrekLit was probably either 2008, with Terok Nor, A Burning House, the first two Myriad Universes volumes, Greater Than The Sum, and oh yeah a little trilogy called Destiny, or 2009, with Vanguard 4 & 5, the first two Beyer Voyager novels, two of the best Titan novels, A Singular Destiny, and Losing The Peace.
Since then, things have been a bit TOS-heavy for my tastes. Last year did have Plagues/Dawn, which was stunning, and Beyer has been awesome every time, but I felt like Cold Equations was solid but not really up to Destiny's standards.
Next year, though, is starting to look pretty great, as long as Seekers takes the place of a couple of TOS novels and the 24th century line stays strong.
Since then, things have been a bit TOS-heavy for my tastes. Last year did have Plagues/Dawn, which was stunning, and Beyer has been awesome every time, but I felt like Cold Equations was solid but not really up to Destiny's standards.
Next year, though, is starting to look pretty great, as long as Seekers takes the place of a couple of TOS novels and the 24th century line stays strong.
Just...Wow.
Cool beans! Hopefully the connections back to TOS are more background rather than set-up. It's a big galaxy, not everything has to revolve around Kirk and his crew. Let's see that the rest of Starfleet is just a capable and has just just as many strange, exciting and occasionally oddball adventures as the Enterprise did.
Holy crap! How something like this can come around is crazy. A ship I designed for a fan website 12 years ago is plucked from obscurity to become a secondary "character" in a official book series, stars in a series of fan-made fake book covers paying homage to the official novelizations of TOS, and then becomes the star of an official book inspired by the fake covers. What a world!
It is gratifying to see that Pocket Books apparently realizes that even though we may be a niche audience, if they wish to keep even the most diehard Trek fans business they have to be willing to try new and different things. There was a time when it felt as if TPTB thought that simply churning out a mediocre pseudo-episode style novel was enough for us.
I gather the intent is to do something different this time, more in line with the sensibilities of classic TOS episodes and novels. Hence the retro Blish-style covers and numbered installments. So we'll be getting more episodic strange-new-worlds adventures with the Endeavour and Sagittarius crews, and it'll be open-ended rather than having a finite arc like Vanguard.
I didn't care excessively for Destiny, but loved Cold Equations. Add in DRGIII's duology, 2012 is very strong for me.
Either way, Seekers already makes me anxious for next year !
I know... it's a dizzying thrill ride, huh? I'm still suffering a degree of disbelief about the whole thing.... how my fannish faux homage inspired a series?! Ka-RAY-zeee!!!!
DorkBoy [TM];8464324 said:
Thanks! I'm really pysched that they insisted on that cover format as part of their agreement with the publisher. I mean I thought it was cool... but it's now become more obvious that most old school Trekkies start squeeing in the ultrasonic at the sight of that format and the big ole numbers
BTW, if anyone wants to see the covers that inspired this... and my "Blish: Remastered" book covers, you can catch 'em here:
http://arcas-art.deviantart.com/gallery/30878717
http://arcas-art.deviantart.com/gallery/30878717
Great that you are on the forum MrArcas. Congratulations on the part you've played in this series' creation!
Awesome work! Thanks for sharing it with us. I've been loving your faux Blish covers since they were pointed out to me a year or so ago. I also love the faux Bantam '70's "novel that never was" cover by Silverberg. Did you ever do the other titles in that series -- by Phil Dick, etc.?
That's some great stuff. I can't wait to see what you come up with for the covers for the real books.
I haven't read Vanguard yet (they're all on my shelf,waiting) so I can't speak to their content, but the covers will definitely be nice! I just hope these are stories that CAN'T be told just as easily in ENT, TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY.
Well I certainly MEANT to.... I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I liked the fact that name SF writers were taking on Trek novels, back then.... but honestly.... reading 'em today... they just weren't that good. Probably my fave of that era is "The Galactic Whirlpool", but since it was Gerrold he already had a leg up on what makes good Trek.
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