Vesta design, new 24th century meta-story and a whole heap of novely news, oh my!

TrekMovie.com has posted a rather massive report on Pocket Books' plans for the next couple of years, with all sorts of new (and uber-exciting) info. Lets start with... a design for the Vesta class (USS Aventine). The now former-Trek editor Marco Palmieri mentioned a while ago a design was being worked on, and now TrekMovie has released a concept design, by Mark Rademaker, the same artist who designed the smaller slipstream starship, the USS Spirit, in this year's Ships of the Line calendar:

The design will be used in the 2010 Ships of the Line, and more excitingly, on planned future novels featuring the Aventine! Which leads into the really big news I think: Following on from Destiny in 2010 will be a new cross-series meta-story, incorporating the new Aventine book (or books), TNG, Voyager and Titan. The Federation will face a new alien threat, called "The Typhon Pact" which, as editor Margaret Clark, has described "is comprised of non Federation members who "watched the Federation insidiously 'Root Beer' their way across the Galaxy and they realize the Federation is down and it is time to move."

Before that (or starting it?) is TNG: Losing the Peace, which Clark has described as follows: "we see Picard trying to deal with the vast array of civilian casualties and how the Federation deals the want and need…this is something we have never seen in the 24th Century…" We've also got a new cover for that novel:

There's also big news for the Voyager section of this big adventure, the second new Voyager book now has a title "Unworthy", which will see, amongst other Voyager regulars, the return of Seven to Voyager and a cameo from Neelix. Voyager will be on a new mission exploration and accompanied by a number of support ships. And one more big bit of news, Chakotay will no longer be captain after "dealing with having his soul ripped out" due to the "apparent death of Kathryn Janeway" in Before Dishonor.

Away from all the 24th century excitement there is also a new description of Enterprise: The Romulan War: "Because of things that unfolded in "Kobayashi Maru," the Vulcans have to come with a horrifying fact and they realize that there is something they have to do. Vulcan is going trough upheaval after the rediscovery of Surak’s teachings and the society is not as stable as what we see in the 23rd century. T’Pol realizes what their involvement in a war could wrought on Vulcan society and she does something that horrifies her partners in the coalition, but will eventually lead to the foundation of the United Federation of Planets and the Vulcan that we see in the Kirk era."

In less exciting news there are also some delays to the schedule (at least in part due to Marco Palmieri's departure). The third Myriad Universes anthology, now titled Shattered Light, has been delayed until August 2010, it will still include three short novels, including a TNG story by David R. George, and a Sulu story by Scott Pearson. The Seven Deadly Sins anthology has also been pushed back, to March 2010 and the latest Corps of Engineers omnibus, Out of the Cocoon has been pushed back to December 2010. Finally the hardcover omnibus of the Crucible trilogy planned for release along side the new movie, as been cancelled.

Finally some little newsoids:
-The latest run of reference books haven’t done so well it seems, so no more of those for now.
-No return to original ebooks for now.
-A deal is being worked on for new audio books.
-This cover for the next New Frontier book may not be final:

-But these new covers for the next two DS9 books are:

-2010 will see something slight unusual, David Mack's Mirror Universe story The Sorrows of Empire is to be expanded and published as a stand-along novel.

And last but not least here's what the schedule now looks like for the next two years:
-Jan 09: TOS: Errand of Fury: Sacrifices of War, by Kevin Ryan
-Jan 09: Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows
-Feb 09: A Singular Destiny, by Keith R.A. DeCandido
-Mar 09: Titan: Over a Torrent Sea, by Christopher L. Bennett
-Apr 09: Voyager: Full Circle, by Kirsten Beyer
-Apr 09: NF: Treason, by Peter David
-May 09: Vanguard: Open Secrets, by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
-Jun 09: TOS: Troublesome Minds, by Dave Galanter
-Jul 09: TNG: Losing the Peace, by William Leisner
-Aug 09: DS9: The Soul Key, by Olivia Woods
-Sep 09: DS9: The Never Ending Sacrifice, by Una McCormack
-Oct 09: Voyager: Unworthy, by Kirsten Beyer
-Oct 09: Enterprise: The Romulan War, by Michael A. Martin
-Nov 09: Titan: Synthesis, by James Swallow
-Dec 09: Vanguard: Precipice, by David Mack
-Feb 10: TOS/Mirror Universe: The Sorrows of Empire, by David Mack
-Mar 10: TOS novel TBA
-Mar 10: Seven Deadly Sins
-Apr 10: TOS era reprint
-May 10: TOS: Unspoken Truth, by Margaret Wander Bonanno
-Aug 10: Myriad Universes: Shattered Light
-Dec 10: CoE: Out of the Cocoon