New editor at IDW

Andrew Steven Harris, the new editor in charge of Star Trek comics taking over from Dan Taylor at IDW, has made himself known on IDW's message boards. He expressed an interest in DS9 and wants to know what us lot think of IDW's efforts and what we'd like to see in future. So go tell him here.

Perpetual Entertainment have added a new post to their Star Trek Online devlog, in this update they talk to a Quality Assurance Tester about his recent experience with a Gorn in the game. And they show of this snazzy Vulcan landscape.

Read the full report here.

A Burning House cover

Jeff Ayers' Voyages of Imagination site has been updated with the following (fantastic) new cover for the forthcoming Klingon Empire novel A Burning House:

Retro figures wave 3

Diamond Select Toys have announced their third wave of TOS retro cloth figures. The Wave will consist of Dr McCoy and a Romulan:

The original report can be found here and you can see higher res photos here.

TNG figures wave 5

Diamond Select Toys have announced the fifth, and apparently final wave of TNG figures. The wave is a bit of a jumble of TNG secondary charters plus a new variant Beverly Crusher figure. The figures in the wave will be:

-Nemesis Beverly Crusher
-TV era Miles O'Brien
-TV era Olysaa Ogawa

And exclusively from Previews - Ro Laren.

These will probably be out earliest next year.

Original report here, and you can see higher res photos here.

IDW November covers

IDW have posted their solicitations for November (previously reported) on their own site with these newly release covers:

Alien Spotlight: AndoriansYear Four #5

Year Four #2 cover by Joe Corroney

Joe Corroney has posted his covers for IDW Star Trek comics coming in the next few weeks, including this newly released one for the second issue of the Year Four miniseries:

D.C. Fontana comics on the way

In an interview with TrekMovie.com D.C. Fontana has confirmed she is working on a new Star Trek comic miniseries which the ever resourceful website has confirmed from IDW will be going ahead.

The series will be a five part story arc continuing on from IDW's Year Four series and will be featuring Arex but maybe not M'Ress.

That will be co-written by Derek Chester, as will a new Star Trek novel Fontana is working on, also set in the classic TOS era. The site also reports Fontana has approached Paula Block about reworking the cancelled computer game she wrote "Secrets of Vulcan Fury" into a novel.

You can read the full original interview here.

Ships of the Line 2008

Calendars.com have a listing and cover for next years Ships of the Line calendar.
They also have the backcover:

I see images from "Regeneration", "Storm Front", "More Tribbles, More Troubles" and the "Trouble with Tribbles" as well the cover image from last year's Ships of the Line book, a D7 chasing a TOS shuttlecraft through an ice field (reminiscent of a recent New Voyages episode), a Borg cube attacking Voyager, a TNG shuttlecraft, TOS Enterprise in spacedock, a Dominion War battle and a battle-damaged Enterprise NX-01. I can’t figure what the remaining two are.

Amazon also have a cover up, though that appears to be half of one of the images from last year's calendar:

The calendar should be shops next month.

Alien Spotlight Gorn preview

David Messina has updated his blog with preview art for his forthcoming Alien Spotlight comic on Gorn:

Star Trek: The Manga 2 update

Tokyopop have posted a preview of the forthcoming second Star Trek manga book. Anyone can view the first six pages and if you log into their website you can read the entire first story in the book, which is Wil Wheaton's "Te Cura Ipsum". The preview can be found here.

And on Memory Beta a user as added a full story list with titles authorship and artists. You can see the full list on MB's page for the book. I imagine this information comes from the book itself as it's mid-August and it's due in September they should be appearing in shops about now.

More Conquest details

Bethesda have posted an interview with the lead designer, Frank Arnot, of the forthcoming Star Trek game Conquest on thier blog. The interview gives various details on the structure and game play of the game and reveals in addition to the six playable races; Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Dominion, Cardassian and Breen that the Ferengi, Borg Orion and Xindi fleets will also be featured.

Read the full interview here.

IDW November

Comics Continuum has posted IDW's November solicitations which are as follows:

Alien Spotlight: Andorians
Written by Paul Storrie, art by Leonard O'Grady, covers by Zach Howard and O'Grady.

In the vast Star Trek universe, many diverse alien races abound, and now they finally get their due! Continuing a series of one-shots, each by a different creative team and featuring a different Star Trek alien race. Now, the spotlight shines on the Andorians. In the issue written by Paul Storrie, Andorian Ortees Shared, a Commander in Starfleet Intelligence, returns to his homeworld while on leave and finds himself in the midst of mistrust and deception, and is captured by a renegade commander of the "True Heirs of Andor."

Year Four #5
Written by David Tischman, art by Steve Conley, covers by Conley and Joe Corroney.

The U.S.S. Enterprise is dispatched to observe a Quark Gluon Plasma experiment at the Gemini Science Station -- in orbit between two suns -- in an effort to learn more about the beginning of the universe. But the formation of a black hole from the experiment's outcome means eminent danger for Spock and Dr. McCoy who are stranded on the debilitated science station.

Klingons: Blood Will Tell omnibus
Writtn by Scott Tipton, art by David Messina, cover by Joe Corroney.

There are two sides to every argument, and this special collection looks at some of the most famous encounters between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire -- from the Klingon perspective! Star Trek fans are used to the Klingons responding with "swift and blinding violence," and now the creative team that brought you Angel: Auld Lang Syne will show us why. Also includes a cover gallery by series artist David Messina and variant cover artist Joe Corroney, as well as the Klingons: Blood Will Tell #1: Klingon Language variant edition and Tipton's original, untranslated script, too.

November's Alien Spotlight issue was previously announced being on the Borg, so looks like they're rejigging the release order for that series.

Spring from Pocket Books

Several new blurbs and covers have appeared via the Pocket Books Spring 2008 catalogue:

Captain Kirk's Guide to Women

When it comes to legendary men of romance, Casanova, Don Juan, and James Bond are the first names that might enter the mind. But really, there is only one man who can boast that his powers of seduction have taken him where no man has gone before: Captain James T. Kirk.

Captain Kirk's status as an interstellar stud is proven by his ability to seduce any woman, in any situation, in any part of the galaxy. Women from high society princesses to insane asylum slave girls - from blood-sucking shape-shifters to emotion-deprived androids - they all swoon, acquiesce, and malfunction from just one kiss. But a single question remains in the minds of millions of Star Trek fans aboard Starship Earth: how does he do it? Whether you're a guy who wouldn't be caught dead in the self-help aisle, or a gal looking for a gift for a socially impaired friend, the answers for how to succeed with women are inside this quirkily entertaining guide.

Shards and Shadows

The third all-new collection of deliciously twisted Star Trek tales, showing the dark, amoral, alternate versions of Voyager, New Frontier, and Deep Space Nine.

This new anthology spanning more than two hundred years of alternate Star Trek history by well-known authors, including Peter David and Keith R.A. DeCandido features a dozen new twisted tales from the other universe - a sinister yet eerily familiar world where history took a different turn, featuring the brutal, amoral, alternate versions of Star Trek’s heroes.

Day of the Vipers and Night of the Wolves

The first two volumes in the Terok Nor trilogy reveal the true story behind one of the greatest tragedies of the Star Trek universe -and the rise of some of its greatest heroes.

A decade ahead of its time, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 began with an eerily prophetic and untold backstory: the military occupation of an alien world, and the violent insurgency that fought against it. Now the forty-year saga of warring ideologies, moral compromise, and embattled faith is given its due.

In Day of the Vipers, what begins as a benign visitation to the bountiful planet Bajor from the Cardassian Union becomes a conflict of competing national interests. Seen through the young eyes of many original and familiar Star Trek characters, the personal, political, and religious struggles between the two sides quickly spiral out of control, shaping the futures of both heroes and villains in an unforgettable tale of tragedy and hope.

In Night of the Wolves, the Cardassians have built an orbital fortress to solidify their power - which will one day become station Deep Space 9. But twenty years earlier, Terok Nor is the seat of the occupation, a place of slave labor, harsh justice, and terrorist violence. One side of the struggle fights for domination; the other for freedom…with both sides fighting for survival.

The catalogue also released this new cover for Klingon Empire: A Burning House (along side a blurb very similar to what has been previously released) and announced that Vulcan's Soul: Epiphany will be reprinted in paperback early next year.

Not the most exciting batch of covers I feel. The Terok Nor ones do look like they join up though, so that should make a nice three book wide image.

UPDATE: As one should expect from information from this type of source this information is all subject to change, some of the things confirmed be the authors to be inaccurate are that the covers for Shards and Shadows and A Burning House are not the final ones and that the blurb for Shards and Shadows was modified from that of Obsidian Alliances, whilst it is partially correct it is not yet known whether there will be a Peter David New Frontier short story in the book as the blurb suggests.

New non-fiction

Trekmovie.com reporting from the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas have announced some new Star Trek non-fiction books. Firstly Star Trek 101, which has been announced before, but not as anything more than a vague idea and a title. The book by Paula Block and Terry Erdmann will be an idiot’s guide to Star Trek with synopsises for every episode of the series and a guide to characters, ships, planets and species.

The second book is Captain Kirk’s Guide To Women by Bones Rodriguez, who has already made a website for the book. That's out in November.

I would argue it's been the case since last year's release of Ships of the Line and Voyages of Imagination and this has to confirm that Pocket Books' long held stance of no non-fiction is at an end. Huzzah!

Collision Course blurb and preview

WilliamShatner.com has posted a preview of his forthcoming novel Academy: Collision Course. The blurb is as follows:

If you think you know how it all began...think again!

Young Jim Kirk wants nothing to do with Starfleet, and never wants to leave Earth. In the summer of 2249, he's a headstrong seventeen-year-old barely scraping by in San Francisco, haunted by horrific memories from his past.

In the same city, a nineteen-year-old alien named Spock is determined to rise above the emotional turmoil of his mixed-species heritage. He's equally determined to show his parents he has what it takes to be a Vulcan - even it means exposing a mysterious conspiracy at the heart of the Vulcan Embassy, stretching to the farthest reaches of the Federation's borders. There, a chilling new threat has arisen to test Federation's deepest held belief that war is a thing of the past and that a secure future can be forged through peaceful means alone. But it is in San Francisco, home to Starfleet Academy, where that threat will be met by two troubled teenage boys driven to solve the mystery that links them both.

In time, the universe will come to know these young rebels as Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock...two of the Federation's greatest heroes. Yet before they were heroes, they were simply conflicted teenagers, filled with raw ambition and talent, not yet seasoned by wisdom and experience, searching for their unique directions in life - a destiny they'll discover on one fateful night in San Francisco, when two lives collide, and two legends are born.

STAR TREK: ACADEMY - COLLISION COURSE sets the stage for an exciting new era of Star Trek adventure, and for the first time reveals Kirk and Spock as they were, and how they began their journey to become the Kirk and Spock we know today.

The pdf documnet which also includes and excerpt from the novel can be viewed here.

Conquest details

Bethesda have put up a section of their site for their forthcoming new Star Trek game Conquest. The game will be available for Playstation 2 as well as the Wii.

As the cover indicates the game will feature six races; Federation, Kingon, Romulan, Dominion, Cardassian and Breen. Yet despite those all being main players in the Dominion War (and the apparent lack of Borg who feature in most TNG era games) they describe it as a Next Generation era game rather than specifically tying it to Deep Space Nine and the Dominion War.

The game will be a real time combat sort of thing with resource management that sounds a bit like Activision's excellent Star Trek: Armada.

Check out Bethesda's site for the game for more details and images.

Star Trek Properties

Here comes a shiny new Star Trek collectible, now you can be the proud owner of a document declaring you the owner of land on Vulcan or Qo'noS, or of having successfully passed through any branch of Starfleet training. Each document is designed by Michael and Dennis Okuda and are also available signed by various Star Trek people. You can even join a club to be notified when new document become available!

An example of a Vulcan land deed

You can purchase these certificates of ownership of parts of the Star trek continuum here at StarTrekProperties.com. And read the press release about them here at StarTrek.com.

Shards and Shadows names

Since it's a announcement a few weeks ago a third of the twelve authors involved in next years Mirror Universe short story anthology Shards and Shadows have made themselves known. Most recently Mr. James Swallow with his story to be titled "The Black Flag" which he describes as a story of lost honour and risky endeavour (source). Other authors known to be involved are Keith R.A. Decandido, Jim Johnson and Christopher L. Bennett, who's story will be called "Empathy".

Blood Will Tell #4 title

As one now expects there was no title for this week's Blood Will Tell issue, but fortunately as before one of the series' writers Scott Tipton comes to the rescue via IDW's message boards. So to title for Blood Will Tell #4 is *fanfare*:

"Blood Reign O'er Me"

Blood Will Tell #4 review

Issue 4 of Klingons: Blood Will Tell is out this week, here’s what I think of it.

This issue is set around the episode "Day of the Dove" and like the first issue of the series set around "Errand of Mercy" I feel it suffered for the constraints put on it by the episode it retells. Where the second and third issues set around "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "A Private Little War" could take a character and really expand it with this issue and the first you have a quite restrictive story which in telling the other side of you don’t get much opportunity to really do a lot different.

That said it was still another superb edition to this consistently brilliant miniseries. As there wasn’t any big background story to explain it’s all just retelling the episode from the Klingons side, which was fun. To stop it being too much of a repeat f the episode the story mostly revolves around a small group of Klingons hunting about on the Enterprise, it works in that you get to see parts of the story not in the episode, I especially liked the scenes where the Klingons got attacked by the plants in the Enterprise’s arboretum, but it also meant the story concluded rather abruptly when (*) (as prose Trek likes to call the Beta XII-A entity) had been figured out by the characters doing their thing in the episode.

Had the TV retelling been all of the comic I don’t think it would work, fortunately the series is pulled together with the movie era story. The final issue is to be all in that era and look forward to seeing how the series concludes, what happens with the movie era characters and how an issue of the series works without a TOS episode to hold it together.

Blood Will Tell #4 preview

IDW have updated their new releases page with the covers and five page preview for Klingons: Blood Will Tell, Issue 4, out this week:

Covers: 1, 2 & 3
Pages 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

This month

July ends so here comes the slightly less jam-packed August:

Prose:
Very little from Pocket this month, just one Corps of Engineers eBook, Remembrance of Things Past, Book 1, by Terri Osborne, part one of a TNG crossover to celebrate the series' 20th anniversary. The short story anthology Strange New Worlds 10 was meant to be out this month but it snuck out last month and the TNG novel Death in Winter was to reprinted in paperback but that has been delayed until September.

Comics:
The usual double dose from IDW this month, Issue 5 of Klingons: Blood Will Tell by Scott and David Tipton which concludes the miniseries with a story set entirely in the The Undiscovered Country framing story period. And Issue 2 of Year Four by David Tischman, telling another new tail from the forth year of Kirk's first five year mission on the Enterprise. Issue 4 of Blood Will Tell is also technically out this month, just a day late of it's scheduled month being released on the 2nd of August.

Toys:
Last months assortment of figures seem to have been delayed so this month should see the release of DST's third TNG wave, consisting of Doctor Beverly Crusher and Ensign Wesley Crusher in later TNG uniforms and limited edition "All Good Things..." version of Doctor Crusher and a Q figure in Starfleet Uniform.

Other:
Also from DST this month is the third and final part of their Landing Party statue diorama, the Spock figurine.

This month is also a new magazine month, with the release of the September/October issue (UK#134, US#7) which will be the same 100 page issue in the UK and US celebrating TNG's 20th anniversary. The magazine will include articles by Keith RA Decandido, Terri Osborne, Kevin Dilmore & Dayton Ward, Bob Jeschonek, Chris Dows, Andy Lane and Jake Black. With highlights to include a look back at the Strange New Worlds competition and a look forward to the forthcoming TNG novels, including an excerpt from Peter David's Before Dishonor. The Dilmore/Ward article will be looking at how TNG used TOS characters.

And finally in Region 2 from GE Fabbri this month are parts fourteen and thirteen of their Magazine and DVD collection Star Trek: The Collector's Edition, which will includes six TOS episodes from "Friday's Child" to "The Gamesters of Triskelion".

Related Articles:
-IDW August issues

DST Wrath of Kahn wave 2 details

Diamond Select Toys have posted a report from the San Diego Comic Con providing further details of their second wave of Wrath of Kahn figures. The Wave will consist of Spock and a third Kirk variant "Regular 1 Kirk" (landing party jacket?) along with a limited edition Savik and Previews exclusive Uhura. Out next year.