Starfleet Academy Tie-Ins

[Greg Cox]

Did you use a lot of white out?

Thankfully, I had progressed to WordPerfect by then.

 

[Greg Cox]

I wonder how many seasons have to go by before a demand builds up for novels.

Back in the day at least, you wanted to get the books out as soon as possible, to capitalize all on the hype and excitement surrounding the new show.

And, when it came to TV tie-in books in general, you didn't want to run the risk of the TV series getting cancelled before the books even hit the shelves. (This has been known to happen outside of Trek, sticking the publisher with a "lame duck" series of books based on a TV show that is already history.)

As I used to joke, all TV shows (and "Major Motion Pictures") are hits -- until they open.

EDIT: Oops. Sorry for the double post. I got carried away, catching up with this thread.

 

[ace2k]

And, when it came to TV tie-in books in general, you didn't want to run the risk of the TV series getting cancelled before the books even hit the shelves. (This has been known to happen outside of Trek, sticking the publisher with a "lame duck" series of books based on a TV show that is already history.)

What examples do you have of this? I'm genuinely curious.

I also feel like TV tie-in books outlasting the series are rare. Star Trek did it, of course, but Murder She Wrote and Firefly come to mind too.

 

[Turtletrekker]

What examples do you have of this? I'm genuinely curious.

I believe The 4400 is one example. However, that gave the authors the opportunity to hang up all the shows hanging threads.

 

[FredH]

Even earlier, the DC Trek comics set in the TOS movie era had to avoid storylines that might conflict with future movies, in much the same way as the Marvel Star Wars comics that came out between the original three films.

Or pretend that their comics that had retroactively conflicted with the films, hadn’t really — which is how they ended up with an entire run of Spockless stories of Kirk’s continued command of the Enterprise between TWOK and TSFS, and then an entire run of his command of the Excelsior (after adventures on the Bird of Prey first) between TSFS and TVH. Both runs give themselves fig leafs at the end (iirc) to explain how they fit in, honest, but both plainly run counter to the intent of the eventual films that ended each. And both were really enjoyable runs!