What is happening with Star Trek literature?

[E-DUB]

Not an advance review copy. Barnes and Noble is notoriously not scrupulous about lay-down dates. My wife, who worked at the late lamented Borders, used to complain about this frequently.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And, yes, the fact that I have a new Saavik novel and a new Saavik short story coming out at roughly the same time is not a coincidence.

I hear that: even as I review the current draft of my novel-in-progress, I'm also writing a short story that goes into detail on the backstory of my protagonist's aunt.

The character spotlighted in the short story started out as an unseen one-joke throwaway line, an aunt with a name that ties directly into a gift she gave my protagonist. Then she became a walk-on. Then she became the solution to a number of story problems, in the process becoming interesting enough -- and quirky enough -- to where I wanted to find out more about her.

And really, even if my novel never sells, I've still succeeded in writing a book I very much wanted to read.

I was about to ask when the Saavik novel is coming out; then I realized that Lost To Eternity is, in part, a Saavik novel, and is the "Saavik novel" you just mentioned.

Barnes and Noble is notoriously not scrupulous about lay-down dates. My wife, who worked at the late lamented Borders, used to complain about this frequently.

I've noticed the former myself. Except when you have a very limited time window. Like when I ended up, while vacationing in Northern California, making a return trip to the San Jose B&N in order to pick up a ST DVD set that they flatly refused to sell me about 16 hours earlier.

And sometimes, they aren't early; they're late.

As to the latter, I don't lament Borders nearly as much as I lament the demise of the Waldenbooks/Brentano's chain.

 

[Greg Cox]

Not an advance review copy. Barnes and Noble is notoriously not scrupulous about lay-down dates. My wife, who worked at the late lamented Borders, used to complain about this frequently.

Got it. Enjoy!

 

[Extrocomp]

Does anyone else miss the days when Simon & Schuster would release excerpts from upcoming novels, sometimes a month in advance?

 

[Greg Cox]

I was about to ask when the Saavik novel is coming out; then I realized that Lost To Eternity is, in part, a Saavik novel, and is the "Saavik novel" you just mentioned.

Bingo.

As it happens, I wrote the novel first, then the short story. There are no direct connections between the two adventures, but I did connect them with one character bit. (Saavik makes the same observation about Kirk in both tales.)

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Hmm. In my case, I sometimes have the same scene appearing in more than one opus, differing only in POV and/or level of detail.

 

[Greg Cox]

Hmm. In my case, I sometimes have the same scene appearing in more than one opus, differing only in POV and/or level of detail.

Back when I was doing the UNDERWORLD novels, I ended up writing Sonia's tragic death three times: once as a flashback in the first book, then again in the prequel, and one more time in the other prequel, the one that overwrote my previous prequel.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Hmm. Underworld. Vampires and werewolves. (There! There wolf! There castle!)

Why two different prequels? And I gather by "overwrote," you mean they contradict each other?

Hmm. With apologies to Stefan Kopeckne, from Barney Miller, you don't see a lot of lycanthropy these days.

 

[Greg Cox]

Hmm. Underworld. Vampires and werewolves. (There! There wolf! There castle!)

Why two different prequels? And I gather by "overwrote," you mean they contradict each other?

Hmm. With apologies to Stefan Kopeckne, from Barney Miller, you don't see a lot of lycanthropy these days.

UW movie #3, which was a prequel to the first two films, rendered my earlier prequel novel, written between movies 1 and 2, apocryphal. This did not stop me from writing the novelization of movie 3, which meant I ended up writing two completely incompatible UW prequels, covering the same time period.

This led to at least one confused reader posting on Amazon: "GREG COX: MAKE UP YOUR MIND!"

The irony is that I was specifically asked to write a prequel novel to the first movie, as opposed to a sequel, to avoid conflicting with any future movie sequels, which were then still just a gleam in the franchise's eyes. Delving into the origins of the vampire-lycan war seemed like a safer route since the actual movies were not going to move backwards in time, right?

Little did anyone know back then that the third movie would be . . . RISE OF THE LYCANS.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

"GREG COX: MAKE UP YOUR MIND!"

Is that anything like the tagline of the open, from Robin Hood: Men In Tights:

LEAVE US ALONE, MEL BROOKS!

 

[E-DUB]

Well, I have finished Mr. Cox's book and will fully express my thoughts when a separate thread is established for it. But, for now, I will say that it ranks among his best. If you're an fan of Trek Lit, don't miss this one.

 

[CaptChris42]

I'm reading it now. Like your juggling of three timeframes, but that's all I'm going to say about it now.

One thing about the old books that I miss is the short fiction. The single series collections, like "Constellations", the themed collections like "Myriad Universes", etc. Heck, even the SNW series had some true standouts.

On the subject of Myriad Universes, I recently reread "A Less Perfect Union" and will confess there were parts the brought a tear to the eye. Are we likely to see this sort of thing in the future?

Another thing I miss is smaller scale paperbacks.
Maybe don't have to be quite as small as they used to - but more shelf-space would be nice!

And I'm generally all for short story collections. They allow a nice variety of tone, content, setting, etc.