Excalibur class

The Star Trek Online website's Ships of the Line section has been updated with an entry for the Excalibur class, a new class modelled on the profile of the Constitution class. Read the full report, here.

Spock really does a lot of Reflecting!

MTV's Splash Page site has a preview for Spock: Reflections, showing us a new page of Spock and Captain Harriman:

You might want to skip the actual article though, they seem to be getting confused about Spock growing up on Romulus, and attempting to stir controversy by suggesting the TOS movie era stuff is from the new movie continuity...

Another Sharp cover

On his blog, Chris Ryall has released a new Sharp Brothers' cover, apparently for a forthcoming Spock omnibus book. Looks like this:
UPDATE: And here it is as a finished cover:

Novel news

Updates to the Pocket Books website have given some little bits of news from the Star Trek novel line. The mystery TOS book coming early next year has finally been revealed to be Inception, by S.D. Perry. Amazon have a brief description up for it: "There is always one person who touches our life that they transform it forever. For two women those men are James Kirk and Spock", and on the Trek BBS Keith R.A. DeCandido commented that he suspected this might be "the Carol Marcus meets Leila Kalomi novel that Danelle's been talking about for a while......"

The Pocket Books site has also updated its listing for the Enterprise Romulan War book with a new title: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing. Start of a series maybe?

Crew #4 preview

Comics Continuum have posted a five page preview of the fourth issue of Crew, titled Shadows of the Past - the issue sees Number One finally back on the Enterprise, along side a young Pike, and both serving under Captain April. On top of that this is the issue that ties into one of the Assignment: Earth stories. I can't wait! Here's one page:

See the rest, here.

Details on Spock: Reflections

In an article on TrekMovie it has finally been revealed how many issue there will be in Spock: Reflections, four. The article also confirms the structure of the series; showing Spock's reasons for going to Romulus in flashbacks throughout his life. The article also showed off the retail incentive cover for the first issue, and another interior page:

Schism cover

On his forums, John Byrne has released the cover for the first issue of his Romulan-arc series, Schism. It looks like this:

IDW August

Comics Continuum have posted IDW's solicitations for August, which include three Star Trek titles: The return to Alien Spotlight with a Q issue by Scott Tipton (but not David!); A new Pike story in Spock: Reflections; And the start of a new series, Nero, which is set among the events of the new film (fingers crossed for a what-was-Nero-up-to-for-quater-of-a-century series):

Alien Spotlight: Q
Writer: Scott Tipton; Artist: Elena Casagrande
The all-powerful Q has returned once more, with his latest attempt to understand the nature of humanity, and this time, it's in a manner that Captain Jean-Luc Picard will never forget! How will Q bedevil Picard this time... or has Picard finally found a way to turn the tables?
Spock: Reflections #2
Writers: Scott and David Tipton; Artists: David Messina and Federica Manfredi
Spock continues on his mysterious mission! What could have driven him to leave his new life on Romulus? The answers start here! And also, an untold tale from Spock's life featuring Captain Christopher Pike!

Nero #1
Writers: Mike Johnson and Tim Jones; Artist: David Messina.
From Star Trek writer/producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and the creative team behind the prequel comic Star Trek: Countdown comes an all-new story set within the events of the film! Not an adaptation, this exclusive story follows the villainous Nero as he seeks to destroy the Federation. An essential chapter in the rebirth of Star Trek!

William Leisner on Losing the Peace

In an interview with Unreality SF William Leisner has discussed what his forthcoming TNG novel, Losing the Peace, is about: "Losing the Peace picks up almost immediately after the conclusion of the Destiny trilogy, as the Federation starts to take stock of just how much damage has been wrought by the Borg invasion, and realises that even though the Borg are gone, they can't simply declare victory; there are still huge repercussions that need to be dealt with”. “There are a number of plotlines running through the book, mostly looking at the personal impact the Borg invasion had on the members of the Enterprise crew. We have Captain Picard, who after fifteen years of living with his residual link to the Borg, is finally completely free, and who is finally ready to fully embrace this bright new stage in his life as a husband and father. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Jasminder Choudhury, a woman characterised by her sense of inner peace and her outward serenity, who has just lost her entire family and her entire homeworld of Deneva, struggling with her belief system to make sense of such a senseless tragedy. Beverly Crusher also gets a major storyline as she takes a special assignment to investigate a refugee camp that's starting to overwhelm its guest world, and we also get a closer examination of the personal tragedy that had most shaped her life: the death of her first husband, Jack.”

Leisner talks more about Losing the Peace, other Trek work, and his writing in general in the interview, with you can read, here.

Star Trek Online: 2388

The Star Trek Online website has been updated with the next entry in its Path to 2409 timeline, this year deals with the fallout from the destruction of Romulus - the Empire is in chaos as various major colony worlds vie for power, the Federation struggles to arrange proving aid to worlds throughout the Empire as some accept while others accuse the Feds of trickery, and the Klingons are being miserable gits and refusing to help or be friendly to anyone - except maybe the Orions who they're thinking about making an alliance with.

Then, just to make things nice and easy for the Federation, the news is broken that Vulcan refused to help stop the Hobus supernova, leading to several ambassadors being withdrawn and general negativity for Vulcan rising.

Read the full report, here.

New reference book!

Well here's something we get almost never, according to a report by VFX World, Simon and Schuster (parent company of Pocket Books) are teaming up with Haynes Publishing (publisher of car manuals) to produce the Haynes Enterprise Manual, with detailed technical information on the new movie Enterprise.

The article offers the following description: "Haynes has created the ultimate guide to the Enterprise, applying its famous 'step-by-step' approach of stripping the mothership down to its essentials and reassembling it with detailed illustrations under the expert guidance of editors, consultants and artists."

The book will be out next year.

Kirk omnibus cover

On his blog, Chris Ryall has released a cover (by the Sharp Brothers) for what he describes as "a coming STAR TREK OMNIBUS collection featuring Peter David's "The Trial of Captain Kirk""

...which is either confusing or inaccurate, as that same Trial storyline is supposedly in a forthcoming Star Trek Archives omnibus book, Best of Kirk. Whichever series of omnibuses the book is in, the cover is TV era while the Trial story is movie era, so maybe this is an indication of the general era of the other stories in the book.

Mission's End #5 cover

Things From Another World have released the cover for the fifth and final issue of the Mission's End series, it looks like this:

Another of Spock's Reflections

TrekMovie have posted an additional page of art (to those released earlier in the week) from the first issue of Spock: Reflections:

Path to 2409 supplemental log update

The Star Trek Online website has been updated with a supplemental entry to the year 2387 on The Path to 2409 timeline. The log takes the form of an interview with Suran (one of the Romulan conspirators in Nemesis) discussing Donatra (his fellow conspirator and founder of the Imperial Romulan State in the books and online timeline) and in particular her disappearance following the Hobus supernova (from Countdown). Read it, here.

Schisms start

On his forums, John Byrne has released the first sneaky peaks at his forthcoming Romulans continuation, Schism:

Alien Spotlight: Romulans preview

Comics Continuum have posted a five page preview from the new Alien Spotlight on the Romulans, here's one page.

See the rest, here.

Online DIY

In a letter to ZAM Star Trek Online's executive producer Craig Zinkievich has explained the starship customization in the game - how pretty much every component of every ship can be swapped and changed, and how systems and crew can be similarly upgraded, resulting in this sort of variety (and a headache for Memory Beta!):

Gamespot has also posted an article on Online lately, with some new pictures, including this one:

Spock: Reflections preview

Trek News have posted two pages of art from the first issue of Spock: Reflections, they look like this:

Balance of Terror comic retelling in the works.

On his forums John Byrne has let slip that when his Romulans comic saga is reprinted it is to include an exclusive to the omnibus comic book retelling of the episode Balance of Terror. Of course the next series in the saga, Schism, isn't even solicited yet so this is some time off, but exciting none the less!

Byrne has also confirmed Crew has been reduced to five issues, which prompted him to rearrange things slightly and is why the recent third issue had an extra page to bridge over to the forth issue which would have originally been the fifth. The next issue will apparently be one page short as a result.

New UK Star Trek comic magazine

Starting from the Friday just past Titan Magazines have launched a new Star Trek magazine aimed at younger audiences, the Star Trek Comic will be a monthly publication reprinting Star Trek comics with a handful of additional pages of games and information.

The first issue reprints the first two issues of the Countdown miniseries, with the date of Spock's time on Romulus corrected, and a timeline note added at the start of the first issue explaining the setting (which is a nice touch). The whole book is somewhat larger than a typical comic so the reprints are up from the original 16.5 by 26 cm to 22.5 by 29.5, though on lower quality paper.

All in all this is a quite nicely presented reprint (and a cheap way to pick up Countdown at £2.99 for this issue), I'm curious to see what will come after they finish with Countdown.

They have a website with info and subscription offers, here.

Something new from Mr. Byrne

On his forums John Byrne has posted a preview page from an mysterious new Star Trek project he has begun to work on.He's not given away much, other than it's set between the TV series and The Motion Picture and wont be out for a while yet...

As reported by Toy News International, the Vermont Teddy Bear Company has taken a Star Trek license and produced two Star Trek teddy bears, based on Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock (complete with pointed ears):

Mission's End #3 preview

TrekMovie have released a five page preview of the third issue of Mission's End, here's one page:See more, here.

D-A-C trailer

Looksie, a trailer for the D-A-C game:

Hallmark 2009

Toy News International has posted details of Hallmark's Star Trek keepsake ornaments for this year. The selection will include:

"Klingon Battle Cruiser", in celebration of the 30th anniversary of The Motion Picture (with lights).
  "The Menagerie", featuring Kirk and Spock beside Pike in his chair (with a light in Pike's chair and sound clips).
 "Starfleet Phaser", a TOS type 1 phaser (sounds and voice clips)
 According to TrekMovie there will also be a limited release Lieutenant Ilia (from The Motion Picture) figurine.

New movie bits

Boy did I choose a bad week to be too busy to update this place! Ok, so the movie is out already, but here are some other little bits related too it from the last week:

First, check out this insanely cool augmented reality thingy of the Enterprise, very cool! Website: experience-the-enterprise.com and video preview:


Also, if you head out to the videos section of the offical website you can see another clip from the film, titled "Ice Planet", with Kirk on Delta Vega.

And finally the Enterprise art project has been completed, so you can now check out twenty-five weird and wonderful Enterprises, here. My favourite remains the chocolate one:

Spock Reflects

Chris Ryall has posted David Messina's cover for the second issue of the Spock: Reflections miniseries, which looks like this:

Ryall also mentioned that Messina is already working on a second Countdown spin-off series, but gave no other detail on that yet.

Crew #3 preview

Comics Continuum have posted five-page previews of IDW's releases for the forthcoming week, which includes issue three, titled Ghosts, of John Byrne's Crew miniseries.

See the rest of the preview, here.

Star Trek Online 2387 and new Ship of the Line

The Star Trek Online website has been updated with new articles in both their Path to 2409 and Ships of the Line features.

The timeline has continued into 2387, and for the most part is a re-telling, and expansion, of the events of the Countdown miniseries, with a greater emphasis on general astro-political landscape around the comic series, notably making certain to save most of the major Romulan characters featured in the timeline so far. Read the whole update, here.

The Ships of the Line update gives details of the Type VII Commercial Laboratory, a civilian starship described as being used by a variety of species for all sorts of specialised research missions. See the full details, here.

D-A-C videos

Team Xbox have posted a preview of Star Trek D-A-C, including several videos, such as this one:



There are three more to watch in the report, so go have a looksie.