Why no USS Kelvin novel yet?

[F. King Daniel]

Forgive the impatience of this Trekkie, but...

As more and more 2011 books are announced, I have to ask: Why no USS Kelvin novel? As neat as the announced books are, I keep waiting for further adventures of Captain Robau, George and Winona Kirk, the Bug-Eyed Nurse and that cool alien lady Anschloss.

IIRC Bad Robot's Bad Decree (that got the post-STXI novels axed/delayed) only covers sequels to the film set in the new universe. A Kelvin novel or novel series would obviously be a prequel, to both STXI and TOS.

Are Pocket afraid to spend money on a Kelvin book in case higher powers pull the plug again? IDW published Nero and there are kiddie Cadet Kirk books coming, so I can't imagine that's the reason.

Or is it that I'm the only person who thinks a Kelvin novel could be great?

 

[Garm Bel Iblis]

Because the "Captain Robau" thread in the trek xi forum would tear a hole in the space time continum and kill us all should his actions be scribed.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think we would all expect a more fallable and mortal Robau than the STXI thread version

Then again, many of those "facts" would make cool chapter titles!

 

[Christopher]

Are Pocket afraid to spend money on a Kelvin book in case higher powers pull the plug again? IDW published Nero and there are kiddie Cadet Kirk books coming, so I can't imagine that's the reason.

The full schedule for 2011 is still being developed and it's too early to say what may or may not end up being on it. And even if there turns out not to be a Kelvin novel in that year, that doesn't necessarily mean there's any specific reason for that; it could simply be a case of waiting for the right story to come along.

 

[Therin of Andor]

that cool alien lady Anschloss.

That alien crewmember is male, but played by a slender female performer, a kind of homage to "The Cage".

Are Pocket afraid to spend money on a Kelvin book in case higher powers pull the plug again? IDW published Nero and there are kiddie Cadet Kirk books coming, so I can't imagine that's the reason.

There are two "Academy" set novels coming later this year, aimed at the YA demographic. Hardly the "kiddie" age group.

It really hasn't been very long since the movie premiered. It takes time to write novels. Think about it. How long did we wait for Excelsior novels after its debut in ST III? (And yet the comics were able to start adding Styles and Excelsior references to numerous comics between ST III and ST IV.) How long before Captain Alexander of the Saratoga (ST IV) started to appear in ST novels?

I'm sure we'll get a novel featuring the Kelvin eventually, but its not like the diehard novel collectors are going anywhere. We'll buy it whether it comes out in 2011 or 2021.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I will go bananas if I have to wait until 2021 for a USS Kelvin novel.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I will go bananas if I have to wait until 2021 for a USS Kelvin novel.

Have you revisited all the old George Kirk stuff? I think it would be fun to read through "Final Frontier" and "Best Destiny" again, imagining Chris Hemsworth and Jennifer Morrison in their roles.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm halfway though Janus Gate: Past Prologue at the mo. Captain Kirk stuck in the past with George - but it's obviously not quite the same guy. It's interesting to read the different versions over the years, from Gold Key's war hero Col. Ben Kirk to the racist George Kirk of the Keep Earth Human League (who I think was only mentioned in passing) and then Diane Carey and Bill Shatner's Starfleet security officers.

The Kelvin scene at the start of STXI was fantastic, but other than the story I loved the atmosphere - the dingy lighting, the peeling paint on the huge pipes in the gigantic engineering section (so big it had guys rappeling down from the upper levels!).
It spoke of an old, somewhat worn ship with a lot of history. It would be cool to explore that. Plus it's the era of the end portion of The Final Reflection.

 

[Steve Roby]

What's so interesting about Robau and the Kelvin? Seriously. What makes them any more interesting than any other one-time guest stars in any of the hundreds of other Trek episodes of movies?

 

[Therin of Andor]

What's so interesting about Robau and the Kelvin? Seriously. What makes them any more interesting than any other one-time guest stars in any of the hundreds of other Trek episodes of movies?

Yeah, I thought the ST IV Saratoga stuff was just as intriguing. And the Epsilon 9 team from TMP. And Terrell, Chekov and Kyle on Reliant in ST II. Snippets of other ships and their earnest, hardworking crews, who - but for the toss of a coin - could have been the stars of their own TV series that we never saw or could follow beyond those brief snippets.

 

[JD]

I would gladly read books based on any of those topics, in fact I got Alien Spotlight: Gorn specifically because it was a Reliant story. Or at least Chekov/Terrell Reliant era story. Are there any others?

As for the Kelivin, I'm another one who's dieing for a story about her and her crew.

 

[Christopher]

What's so interesting about Robau and the Kelvin? Seriously. What makes them any more interesting than any other one-time guest stars in any of the hundreds of other Trek episodes of movies?

Well, I can imagine various possible answers. Part of it is the sense of history. This isn't just some random ship, it's the ship that Jim Kirk's mother and father served aboard. More broadly, it's our first glimpse at the 2230s, an era hitherto untouched in Trek canon and barely addressed in the literature. So it's opening up a whole new era, with its own characteristic tech, uniforms, and so on. You know how much Trek fans like to fill in the unexplored gaps. Plus the Kelvin is a whole new class of starship, and a lot of people are excited by such things.

Then there's the fact that it's the common ground between the Prime and New continuities. Stories about the Kelvin before the events of the movie grow out of the movie continuity but are still valid for the Prime timeline, because the divergence hasn't happened yet. So in a way, it bridges the two. It could also be seen as bridging ENT and TOS to an extent.

To JD: One chapter of Mere Anarchy Book 4: The Darkness Drops Again is a Terrell/Chekov sequence.

 

[Dayton Ward]

Well, I can imagine various possible answers. Part of it is the sense of history. This isn't just some random ship, it's the ship that Jim Kirk's mother and father served aboard. More broadly, it's our first glimpse at the 2230s, an era hitherto untouched in Trek canon and barely addressed in the literature. So it's opening up a whole new era, with its own characteristic tech, uniforms, and so on. You know how much Trek fans like to fill in the unexplored gaps. Plus the Kelvin is a whole new class of starship, and a lot of people are excited by such things.

Then there's the fact that it's the common ground between the Prime and New continuities. Stories about the Kelvin before the events of the movie grow out of the movie continuity but are still valid for the Prime timeline, because the divergence hasn't happened yet. So in a way, it bridges the two. It could also be seen as bridging ENT and TOS to an extent.

These are the major appeals for me, so far as Kelvin tales are concerned. For me, Robau isn't the hook; it's the link to Kirk and that era of Trek history.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Honestly, the idea of books set on the Saratoga (either the STIV one or even Sisko's), the Grissom or the Reliant don't appeal to me too much. It might be that it's the same sets, outfits, era and whatever as we've seen countless other times in the past. The Kelvin was the first time we saw the new epic scale (I'm not just talking about the size of the ship itself) Star Trek. It was a recognisably TOS ship, but seen anew. The crew were slightly more military (I loved the crew stopping to salute Robau amidst the chaos on his trip to the shuttlebay), the gears, levers, buttons and switches oddly reminded me of the way DC comics would draw the Enterprise innards in their post-STII series.

I just hope when a book arrives it's not watered-down to fit more snugly in the continuity of Trek (ie making the ship smaller, ignoring the power plant engine room, ignoring the 800+ crew etc) or that pages are wasted explaining away why the ship looks more hi-tech than TOS (it's reimagined! Artistic licence!)

 

[F. King Daniel]

One spin-off ship book series that did interest me was the Stargazer one.

But I was a little annoyed reading Valiant - it ignored the fact that the sets for the Stargazer we saw were tiny. The bridge had about four control panels and the captain's chair, and Picard's quarters made Archer's ready room on the NX01 seem like a five-star suite. Yet was it cramped in Valiant? Nope. In fact the bridge scenes feature about six people on the bridge at once - leaving me thinking "where do they all sit? Do they stand and just mill about aimlessly?". Presumably MJF assumed the bridge was a full-size TMP style one. Changing premises like this kinda defeats the object of setting the story on a unique ship, IMO.

Although I did like Valiant and intend to read the rest of the Stargazer books eventually.

 

[Dayton Ward]

The crew were slightly more military (I loved the crew stopping to salute Robau amidst the chaos on his trip to the shuttlebay)...

Whereas I thought that was one of the stupidest things I'd ever seen, Trek or no. Protocol goes out the window when there's a real problem being worked, much else a crisis situation like the ship being under attack. Any leader worth a tinker's damn would dispense with that sort of crap from the get-go.

Sorry, just my humble $.02.

 

[Christopher]

But I was a little annoyed reading Valiant - it ignored the fact that the sets for the Stargazer we saw were tiny. The bridge had about four control panels and the captain's chair, and Picard's quarters made Archer's ready room on the NX01 seem like a five-star suite. Yet was it cramped in Valiant? Nope. In fact the bridge scenes feature about six people on the bridge at once - leaving me thinking "where do they all sit? Do they stand and just mill about aimlessly?".

Actually the Stargazer bridge was about the same size as the movie Enterprise bridge, since it was a redress of the same set (or more to the point, a redress of the TNG battle bridge set which was in turn a redress of the movie bridge). Picard's flashbacks in "The Battle" showed five people on the bridge, including himself. The bridge has a command chair and five stations: the helm and navigation stations, the tactical console to port, an unidentified console (which I designated as the science station in The Buried Age) to starboard, and a wall console labeled "System Status" on the aft wall. So six people at once would seem to be the standard bridge complement.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^It looked a lot smaller to me. The back wall and elevators look to be lifted from the TMP set, but instead of circling around, the (straight) side walls slope inward toward a viewscreen much closer to the helm/nav stations then on the TMP ship. I'd guess there was only about a two-thirds as much floor space.

 

[Christopher]

^Even so, it has no problem holding six people and giving each of them a station to man. Remember, the TMP bridge had eleven stations, including the command chair, and the TOS bridge had at least nine (eleven if you count the half-size consoles flanking the main viewer). And the TOS bridge also usually had a security guard or two flanking the lift, yeomen coming in and out with reports and coffee, and the like. So six people on a bridge maybe 2/3 the size of the TOS or TMP bridge is nowhere near excessive. If anything, it seems like exactly the right number.

(There were six people on the Stargazer bridge in Ch. 1 of The Buried Age: Picard, Ben Zoma, Asmund at helm, Durand at navigation, Schuster at science, and Vigo at tactical.)

Now, I don't discount the possibility that MJF may have described the Stargazer bridge as having more than six stations. But keep in mind that the SGZ bridge we saw was its configuration in 2355, while most of MJF's Stargazer fiction is set 22 years earlier. The bridge could've undergone multiple refits in that span of time. An earlier arrangement with more stations could've been replaced by a more efficient model later on as technology advanced and fewer people were required on the bridge to monitor and operate the ship.

 

[JD]

To JD: One chapter of Mere Anarchy Book 4: The Darkness Drops Again is a Terrell/Chekov sequence.

Cool, I'm actually planning on going back to my MA, Seven Deadly Sins rotation once I finish the first story in Night Watch. So hopefully I should get there fairly soon.