Star Trek: The Seekers

[Defcon]

Dayton has posted about the listing on his blog:

We were told Friday that this info was being pushed out over the weekend, and it looks like Amazon.com‘s already more or less on the ball with it, but the first two Star Trek: Seekers novels are now as listed as forthcoming and available for pre-order.

Kinda.​

Star Trek: Seekers #1 – Second Nature, by David Mack - July 29th, 2014​

Star Trek: Seekers #2 – Point of Divergence, by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, August 26th, 2014​

Now, there’s a few things to note about these listings:​

First, they’re listed as being only available in Kindle e-Book format. For those wondering, rest assured that the books also will be available as mass market paperbacks, along with all the various other e-Book formats.​

Next, they’ve appended “Star Trek: The Original Series” to both titles. I suspect this is just related to whatever sales/marketing copy was sent out, as “Star Trek: Seekers” remains the series title. For whatever it’s worth, they did the same thing with Harbinger, the first book in the Star Trek: Vanguard series​

At the moment, Kevin is listed as the sole author of Book #2, which is just another example of how Amazon tends to dick up entries with more than one author. I imagine this will be updated/corrected in due course.​

Anyway, there you go. I expect that other booksellers will start populating their own sites with similar info in the coming days. It should be fun to see what they do with the data entry.​

Meanwhile, I guess I should probably get on with writing my part of Book #2, then….​

I wouldn't be surprised if they now had titles for merchandising and sales purposes. Pocket wouldn't want people in bookstores to miss a book because they were confused by the lack of a title, and they would want people to be able to find the book online through searches. A title cuts adds clarity. I'm only speculating -- I don't know that that's the reason -- but it wouldn't surprise me at all because I deal with the very thing in my day job.

I think you're probably spot on with that.

 

[Defcon]

David Mack has now posted about this as well on his blog.

Excerpt:

Eagle-eyed readers who remember the original pitch for the Seekers concept might be scratching their heads right now. Because Dayton and I have already been asked about this on Twitter, I might as well address the inevitable inquiries now.
When we first announced the series, our vision was that the books would not have regular titles, only numbers, in order to evoke the retro look and feel of the old James Blish anthologies published by Bantam in the 1970s.


Long story short, we were overruled on this by the publisher. I’ll spare you the book-industry technobabble, but the simple explanation is that we were told the automated, meta-tagged, keyword-driven sales system that connects publishers, wholesalers, and retailers, would have suffered some kind of cyber-seizure if we had denied it titles. So, the books will now have titles. Win some, lose some.

 

[Relayer1]

Can anyone remember if the authors said anything about whether Reyes (and Desai) were 'done' or if there was any chance of seeing them again ?

How about Pennington and (I'm sorry but) I just can't remember what happened to Quinn.

 

[David Mack]

^ Don't expect to see any of them in Seekers.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

(I'm sorry but) I just can't remember what happened to Quinn.

He has a new identity and a clean chance at a new life out beyond the Federation. T'Prynn saw to it (rather than killing him as she was directed to do). I doubt we'll ever be seeing him again. He's free now.

 

[Relayer1]

^ Don't expect to see any of them in Seekers.

That seems pretty definitive - I didn't really expect to.

Then again, what about in something that's not Seekers ? It just strikes me that there's a few non Starfleet characters around in the 23rd Century that might just have a story or two left in them...

 

[David Mack]

One never knows, but at this time I have no plans to revisit any of the Vanguard principal characters, other than the crews of the Sagittarius and the Endeavour.

 

[Relayer1]

^ Fair enough. It's your corner of the sandbox after all. Please let me know if you change your mind...

I'm looking forward to Seekers anyway !

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I wouldn't be surprised if they now had titles for merchandising and sales purposes. Pocket wouldn't want people in bookstores to miss a book because they were confused by the lack of a title

Peter Gabriel fans never had that problem.

 

[Relayer1]

I wouldn't be surprised if they now had titles for merchandising and sales purposes. Pocket wouldn't want people in bookstores to miss a book because they were confused by the lack of a title

Peter Gabriel fans never had that problem.

I lost interest when he started naming albums...

 

[DEWLine]

Quinn being free and clear? I'm fine with that.

Pennington getting his own adventures apart from anything else in the TOS era...might be interesting. Ditto for Nogura. Neither character need show up in the Seekers books at all.

 

[Jedi Ben]

One thing that really interested me in The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses was the Operation Vanguard and Shedai references so have decided to give it a whirl. Turns out the first 3 Vanguard books are harder to get than the others so have bagged those first.

Will likely preorder this duo, if I get on well with the Vanguard trio. I suspect it's likely as I tend enjoy these little mini-author-verses a lot.

 

[JWolf]

One thing that really interested me in The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses was the Operation Vanguard and Shedai references so have decided to give it a whirl. Turns out the first 3 Vanguard books are harder to get than the others so have bagged those first.

Will likely preorder this duo, if I get on well with the Vanguard trio. I suspect it's likely as I tend enjoy these little mini-author-verses a lot.

Actually, it's trivial to get ALL of the Vanguard books. Just buy them as eBooks and you can get them no trouble at all.

 

[David Mack]

^ Unfortunately, because of some major weirdness in S&S's pricing algorithms (which links increases in print version costs to eBook costs for some titles), the prices of the Kindle, Apple iBook, and Nook versions of Reap the Whirlwind are all outrageously high, for no good reason. I recommend finding used copies on ABEBooks whenever possible.

 

[Jedi Ben]

Actually, it's trivial to get ALL of the Vanguard books. Just buy them as eBooks and you can get them no trouble at all.

Just can't get into that format. I spend 8 hours a day screen-reading, don't really want that for the fun stuff.

I still like holding a book!

 

[David Mack]

For those who do like eBooks, it might be possible to acquire the nook version of Reap the Whirlwind more economically via nook.com in the UK, which sells the nook version for £3.99 (roughly $6.67 USD). Also, amazon.co.uk sells the Kindle version of Reap the Whirlwind for the same price. If you sign up on those sites with a U.S. address, it might be possible to buy the eBooks from them without paying VAT, since that applies only to EU residents. (Unless these eBooks are region-restricted; anybody know anything about that?)

UPDATE: I registered an account at amazon.co.uk and it was able to sense that I was in the U.S., and as such, it won't let me buy Kindle ebooks through their site. So this advice helps my European fans, but not the Yanks or the Canucks.

 

[Relayer1]

You can apparently get software that lets you be in any country you like for internet purposes. I've heard of it being used to register for foreign Netflix accounts and similar. I'd think it would work for ebooks too.

I don't think it's actually illegal (I'm not sure though) and I don't know what it's called, but you can probably find a download out there somewhere - other people have...

 

[David Mack]

I suspect the key to that would be masking one's original IP address and then having a service like TOR mask one's location. However, there might also be a second layer of verification, such as checking the billing address of one's credit cards, and banning sale to those with addresses outside the permitted region.

 

[Jedi Ben]

That whole business of region-locking eBooks, much like DVDs, would exasperate me if I were buying. It just offends the bargain hunter in me - what do you mean I'm not allowed to buy that at this price because I live in X?

 

[Jedi Ben]

By the by, for UK posters interested in this series, Book Depository are offering them at a prebuy price of £4.31 each - hard to say how much longer they will be doing that for though.

Given the RRP ends up as £6.99, it's quite a bargain. If you scan the site for advance releases, you can prebuy the books for as low as £3.84!

(I'm aware people's experience with BD varies, but I've never had any problems myself.)