Star Trek books set in new universe?

[Pickering]

After the success of the latest star trek movie, I haven't heard anything about new books set after the universe reboot. Considering the amount of ST books out there, it seems like we should have had some by now! Any information

[mj72]

Wondering the same thing. I think I heard that there will be a second movie?

[bill_mchale]

I know they are planning at least one or two more movies based off the same starting point as the last Star Trek Movie. I suspect they want to hold off on novels in that universe to give the movie producers time to decide where they are going to go with changing the universe. It wouldn't do to have the Klingons look like humans (for instance) if they decided that in this Universe, they revert to their post motion picture appearance earlier in the time line.

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Bill

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I know they are planning at least one or two more movies based off the same starting point as the last Star Trek Movie. I suspect they want to hold off on novels in that universe to give the movie producers time to decide where they are going to go with changing the universe. It wouldn't do to have the Klingons look like humans (for instance) if they decided that in this Universe, they revert to their post motion picture appearance earlier in the time line.

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Bill

It is likely that human-looking Klingons still exist although they don't have to make an appearance in a future movie. Since everything in Star Trek that occurred before the time of the movie is still in continuity, the events in "Star Trek: Enterprise" that showed how human-looking Klingons came to be is still valid.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

The ST:TOS books that came out first were novelizations of individual episodes. Later novels didn't come out until after TOS had finished, and a good amount of background material had been established. The Star Wars movies didn't produce stories, other than the novelizations, right away... not until the third movie was done, and out for awhile, did new stories surface.

I think we'll have to wait awhile for Paramount to run some movies, debate about future TV shows, and establish a canon for everyone to follow.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

The ST:TOS books that came out first were novelizations of individual episodes. Later novels didn't come out until after TOS had finished, and a good amount of background material had been established. The Star Wars movies didn't produce stories, other than the novelizations, right away... not until the third movie was done, and out for awhile, did new stories surface.

I think we'll have to wait awhile for Paramount to run some movies, debate about future TV shows, and establish a canon for everyone to follow.

Actually, I do believe there were several Star Wars novels written in the late 70s and early 80s that were not novelizations. The most prominent was Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

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Bill

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

It is likely that human-looking Klingons still exist although they don't have to make an appearance in a future movie. Since everything in Star Trek that occurred before the time of the movie is still in continuity, the events in "Star Trek: Enterprise" that showed how human-looking Klingons came to be is still valid.

Yes, events up to the beginning of the movie are the same as in the original continuity. That being said, we have something like a 25-30 year period between the point of divergence and the new Universe's Kirk taking command of the Enterprise.

If I remember correctly, the back story of the movie suggests that the Movie Universe Enterprise was made much more powerful than the original show's Enterprise because of events surrounding the point of divergence. The Klingons certainly would have known something about that and who knows how they might have reacted.

Ultimately, my point here is, that something that might appear to be a relatively small change at the time of the event can have huge unpredictable consequences even as little as 20-30 years down the line. For example, lets imagine that John Kennedy died when his PT-Boat was sunk in WWII. Suddenly Nixon getting elected in 1960 becomes a whole lot more likely... or its possible that LBJ or even another Democratic Candidate would have been elected. Now in this new timeline, does the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall Crisis or the Cuban Missile Crisis occur? And who knows what happens after 1963.

Thus returning to Star Trek, the Federation is changed, so the Klingon Empire must be changed as well... how and in what direction is up to the writers of the Movies to decide. I can well imagine them not wanting other authors creating their own versions of that Universe until they have had a bit more time to establish it.

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Bill

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Actually, I do believe there were several Star Wars novels written in the late 70s and early 80s that were not novelizations. The most prominent was Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

If so, I stand corrected. (I wasn't reading them, I only remember when I was aware of seeing them.)

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

If so, I stand corrected. (I wasn't reading them, I only remember when I was aware of seeing them.)

There were only a few, so it would have been easy to have missed them. I mainly remember them because I was Star Wars obsessed in my youth, and so followed anything Star Wars related. It wasn't until Timothy Zahn's Admiral Thrawn trilogy that Stars novels really started to appear on the scene to challenge Star Trek for dominance in the media tie-in game.

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Bill

[BillSmithBooks]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Actually, I do believe there were several Star Wars novels written in the late 70s and early 80s that were not novelizations. The most prominent was Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye.

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Bill

The Brian Daley Han Solo novels (Han Solo at Star's End, Han Solo's Revenge and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy) are great fun...

Daley nailed Han and Chewie and because the books are set before "A New Hope," they are still the loveable rogues we saw in the Cantina scene, long before they ever "went respectable."

The Lando Calrissian books by L. Neil Smith are best left on the shelf.

Splinter of the Mind's Eye is interesting because Alan Dean Foster had the most direct access to George Lucas (Foster wrote the novelization of "A New Hope" under Lucas's name) and presumably gave us some insight into George's thought processes...We see the first battle between Luke and Vader (and a brutal one at that), an interesting glimpse into the Force and its manifestations, and an interesting preview of the "technological primitives whooping butt on the technologically dependent bad guys" theme as presented later in both Return of the Jedi with the Ewoks and The Phantom Menace with the Gungans...of course, Foster is an immensely talented writer, so the book is quite satisfying in most respects.

But then there is the Luke/Leia romance subplot...ewwww! (written in 1978 or 79 before Jedi came out...who knew?)