And there's the never ending vigil for David Gerrold's next Chtorr novel...
The New Editors of the Star Trek Book Series
- Thread starter NextGen123
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Therin I have to mention the DS9 rebels trilogy here I always mentions that when we discuss book trilogies.
BTW your new Avatar is cool
I think that author communication and coordination is what has made the recent batch of novels some of the best TrekLit period. High quality work - ty to all the authors who work hard to make the "fiction" make sense.
So far, the ongoing comic is operating under very strict parameters: remaking old TOS episodes. The four novels involved four different writers taking guesstimates and extrapolations from one movie.
Not just outlines and proposals are vetted. So is the completed manuscript of each of those. A finished comic manuscript takes how long to read? Ten minutes? And a few more minutes to write up a memo with suggested changes.
A finished novel manuscript takes several hours to read. And the memos will be much longer.
Differently, three YA novels have been written, approved and published. But they are prequels, not sequel novels involving guesstimates and extrapolations taking place after one movie, but before the next one.
Ick. Don't remind me. They were... turgid.
Thanks! I understand it was quite a party when Spock produced the phaser.
Star Trek party by Therin of Andor, on Flickr
Totally fatuous and pointless link removed!!
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Er, isn't that the sequel to The Shining, not Salem's Lot...?
OOOOOOPS. As you were.
And still messing with it.
Yeah, taking Dr. Dehner out was a brilliant move! God forbid they have a strong woman character instead of just what amounts to nothing more than a girlfriend who happens to be an officer in the nuTrek universe. Sorry, I always liked Dehner from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (and I admit as a young lad in the 70s I had a massive crush on Sally Kellerman, but as I got older I appreciated the balance she brought to the Gary Mitchell character) and am disgusted they cut a main character from their version.
People can say, "no big deal" about it to me, but I really hope they do a version of "Space Seed" and there is no Lt. Marla McGivers, after all, not like she had a main role, right?
Sorry for the rant.
That has nothing to do with whether or not they're being allowed to tell new and original stories.
I was glad to see that Books a Million has replaced our local Borders. However the Star Trek section is much smaller. There is no back stock and only the current titles are displayed. Star Wars has an entire section with a very large back stock. What gives? Is it Paramount licensing or Pocket Books that determines the amount of space a bookseller allows for a particular franchise?
It probably comes down to a combination of two things:
1) All the adult Star Wars novels are still in print. The same isn't true for Star Trek.
2) Star Wars sells better.
The store only has so much shelf space, there's more Star Wars content available, and it sells better. Prioritizing it over Trek seems like the obvious choice to me.
The booksellers themselves decide how much stock to order and how to display it, based on their sales expectations. It's not like CBS Corporation owns the stores and can tell them what to do.
If you want your bookstore to offer a bigger Star Trek section, let them know you like Star Trek books. Let them know there's a market for them.
Father Callahan features heavily in Wolves of the Calla.
Not at all. The store manager (or sometimes his bosses) determines shelf space allocations. It can be that one visiting wholesaler could persuade a store to allocate more space to one thing over another, but if it is the store's perception (and pre-orders) that one type of book is underselling, then it's up to them to try to build it up or decrease visibility. Some store managers are huge ST fans; those stores often keep ST representation more prominent.
CBS Licensing has nothing to do with shelf space. Simon & Schuster may or may not send out promotional materials (esp. during a ST anniversary, or if a new movie or TV series is imminent), or a visiting salesperson, but most stores order by online catalogue these days.
"Star Wars" is more popular than "Star Trek". It seems to have a wider demographic. For a long time in the 80s, George Lucas allowed the SW toy and book tie-in licenses to languish; there was a "Starlog" article where he regretted letting S&S develop the ST book line into a publishing juggernaut in its day, complete with bestselling hardcover novels - and numerous ST book authors ended up doing SW novels soon after.
ST readers were also very early adopters of online shopping; shelf space for ST books began to shrink accordingly. Such things are also cyclic. Many shops temporarily reversed the shelf space to coincide with JJ's movie.
What I noticed and this was the same in Borders....was that being in alphabetical order, the Star Trek section was on the bottom of the shelf. If I didn't look for it, I would have easily over looked it. Baen Books had many more relases than Trek and I was really surprised. I always have ordered and purchased them as soon as they were listed. I don't see why fans see Star Wars as "better" when Trek has complicated characters and story arcs. My attempts to ask why more Trek books aren't being displayed are usually ignored by the book retailer. I've written Borders at the time and was never given a reply.
It's not really a matter of which is "better." I'm a lifelong Trekkie, but it's simply a matter of fact that STAR WARS is much more popular with the general public than STAR TREK--and always has been. STAR TREK is a popular, long-running franchise, which is great, but STAR WARS is this huge phenomenon like TITANIC or HARRY POTTER. You can't really compare the two . . . or expect stores to treat them the same.
It's like comparing Daredevil to Spider-Man. They're both popular Marvel Comics characters, but Spidey is on a whole 'nother level when it comes to popularity.
That doesn't mean that Spider-Man is better. It just means that Daredevil has never quite caught on the way Spidey did.
It's the same reason there are 100 copies of Twilight books but only one or two of Vampire Middle School. You order what sells the best.
Didn't expect you to reply Greg, I love your Q Continuum books and have it sitting here on my book shelf right next to my computer.
What I am dismayed by is how fast Trek dwindled after Enterprise left the air.
I was so used to Trek books every month when John Ordover was editor. It was shock to me after Marco was no longer editor. I liked the DS9 arc of books each month and then you see them streched out to the point where it's a yearly thing or every six months or more. If there was a good Star Trek show on the air I believe there would be more interest inthe novels.
What I am dismayed by is how fast Trek dwindled after Enterprise left the air.
I was so used to Trek books every month when John Ordover was editor. It was shock to me after Marco was no longer editor. I liked the DS9 arc of books each month and then you see them streched out to the point where it's a yearly thing or every six months or more. If there was a good Star Trek show on the air I believe there would be more interest inthe novels.
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