TOS Omnibus cover

Amazon.com have posted the new cover by the Sharp Brothers for IDW's Star Trek: The Original Series Omnibus, a omnibus of IDW TOS comics coming out later in the year. Looks like this:

News from Michael A. Martin

Unreality SF has posted an interview with Michael A. Martin, which extensively discusses his work on the Star Trek: Enterprise novels, and goes reasonably in depth on his new Star Trek Online novel, and forthcoming Titan book. Well worth a read, especially for any Enterprise fans.

News from the report: There will be at least one more Romulan War novel, and Martin has already put in a proposal for a second Online novel, which, if the first one sells well enough to justify a second book, will probably be structured more like a normal novel, rather than the first's series of reports format.

Martin also provided a summary for his forthcoming Titan Typhon Pact novel Seize the Fire: "[Seize the Fire] will greatly expand the idea of Gorn social castes, two of which were introduced by Kevin J. Anderson in Wildstorm’s The Gorn Crisis graphic novel nine years ago. The Gorn will suffer an ecological catastrophe that essentially wipes out the ability of the warrior caste to reproduce. The subsequent Gorn discovery of ancient terraforming technology holds the promise of reversing the aforementioned eco-disaster - and also gives the Gorn Hegemony a potent weapon capable of wiping out entire planetary ecospheres. Captain William Riker of the U.S.S. Titan will have to decide how (or whether) to intervene when the Gorn Hegemony’s need for a new warrior hatchery-world puts it on the verge of exterminating an entire civilisation."

German Nero covers

Cross Cult have posted on their facebook page their new covers by David Messina for the German paperback and hardcover releases of the Nero miniseries. They look like this:

Ghosts #5 preview

TrekMovie have posted a five-page preview of this weeks' fifth and final issue in the TNG: Ghosts miniseries. Here's one page:See the rest, here.

Aventine update

Mark Rademaker has posted on the TrekBBS the latest update to his Aventine Mark II design, now featuring the first stages of the ship's hull plating. Looks pretty:

KRAD does Jellico

Keith R.A. DeCandido's latest Star Trek comic has been revealed to be Captain's Log: Jellico, coming out some time this year, and, as mentioned by KRAD on the Destinies: the Voice of Science Fiction radio program, will be illustrated by J.K. Woodward.

Thanks to Unreality SF's Jens Deffner for the tip!

Department of Temporal Investigations novel!

Christopher L. Bennett has announced he is now working on a new novel, for release in 2011,with the working title Star Trek: DTI. The novel will feature Dulmer and Lucsly from Trials and Tribble-ations, and other members of the Department of Temporal Investigations as well as other more familiar Star Trek characters. Bennett notes that he will be avoiding the cliches of typical time travel stories and using the book as "my chance to take the byzantine logic of Trek-universe time travel and offer a unifying theory with some degree of scientific credibility to it". Sounds exciting!

Unspoken Truth excerpt

TrekMovie have posted an excerpt from the released any moment now book Unspoken Truth. You can read the first chapter, here.

New TOS action figures

Toy News International has announced a new wave of TOS action figures coming from Diamond Select Toys. The three figure wave, limited to 1000 cases, and already in production, consists of: Kirk in his green wrap uniform, Scotty, and a Romulan.

Nightshade cover

The Simon and Schuster website has been updated with a cover for the reprint of the TNG novel Nightshade, it looks like this:Most exciting cover ever, huh?...

IDW June

Comic News i have posted IDW's solicitations for June, which includes just two new Star Trek comics and one omnibus:

Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor #3
By John Byrne
A planet at war—but all is not as it seems. Especially not when Dr. McCoy finds himself face to face with someone who seems to be from the wrong century! This issue picks up threads from both the Assignment: Earth and Crew minis. Features two covers by Byrne, including a single-panel “gag” cover.Burden of Knowledge #1
Written by Scott and David Tipton, art by Federica Manfredi
The newest adventure of the classic Enterprise crew begins here! When a routine Federation diplomatic visit turns suddenly and unexpectedly violent, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy find themselves kidnapped and halfway across the galaxy! A new Original Series-era miniseries from the creative team behind Spock: Reflections!Ghosts omnibus
Written by Zander Cannon, art by Javier Arnada
Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise respond to a distress call and find a terribly wounded scientist aboard a marooned ship. While evaluating the planet below (and its two warring nations) for possible Federation membership, Picard discovers to his horror that the survivor of the disaster is foreseeing his death. More so, Picard is rattled at being identified as one of the phantoms that haunts the seriously wounded researcher they rescued! Written by Eisner-nominated writer Zander Cannon (Top Ten).

In non-Trek news, June also sees the start of a new Jurassic Park series from IDW!

Fool's Gold #4 preview

Earlier this week TrekMovie posted a five-page preview of this week's final issue of the DS9 miniseries Fool's Gold, here's one page:See the rest, here.

What's Past cover

Simon and Schuster's digital catalogue website has a cover up (labelled not final) for the Corps of Engineers: What's Past omnibus. Looks like this:

Comics update

Some comic bits:

TrekMovie posted a five-page-preview of last week's second issue in the movie adaption. Here's one page, and the rest can be found, here:On his forums John Byrne has noted that, while he has had three Trek series green lit, he does not anticipate he will start work on them for some time now! IDW better fix that, we can't be doing without John Byrne Trek comics, they are literally the best!

In similarly disturbing news: In a post on David Messina's blog, the artist has mentioned that the current movie adaptation will be his last Trek work!! The post also has art at various stages of completion for the first issue, and another post has similar art previews for the second issue, like this exciting page:

Latest Aventine

Mark Rademaker has posted the latest updated version of the Aventine Mark II. Here's one view:

You can see two more on his blog, here, and here (which if you look closely has people on the hull for scale!)

STO update

Cryptic Studios continue to be busy bees; lately they have announced the details of the first major update for Star Trek Online, titled Season One: Common Ground. A full list of features can be found, here, but in brief:

-More player vs player features
-Greater customisation, with off-duty uniforms, stances and hairstyles, and a new Captain's Log feature to keep track of your's and other player's ship's activities.
-New Klingon ships: The K'Tanco battle cruiser, and customisations options on Klingon ships.
-New fleet action missions, and options for Klingons to play previously Federation only missions.
-New skills, and options to change the skills your avatar has.
-New buyable options, such as bridges, new starship variants, and extra character slots, and new character species: Tellarite, Rigelian and Pakled!

When the update was first announced it also listed extra features for lifetime subscribers (which have been removed from the list now), this included a new social area called The Captain's Table; sound familiar?

Here are a couple of video's showing off the updates:



Cryptic have also launched a testing version of the game, the test updates before rolling them out across the main system. This is know as "tribble" and they are offering people who do some testing the bonuses of receiving and assimilated tribble (which acts as a Borg-repellent) and a title, "Crash Test Tribble".

Prose update

A few updates on Simon and Schuster's Trek output:

Unreality SF recently posted an interview with S.D. Perry and Britta Dennison, which included this description for Dennison's mirror universe novella in Seven Deadly Sins, the latest anthology which should be appearing right about now: "It surrounds the marriage of Ben and Jennifer Sisko, and the impact of Ben’s association with the Intendant of Terok Nor, among others. I wanted to give this story a really dark feel, almost noir-ish, and I feel like that ultimately came through very well." The interview also discusses the writing duo's other works, and sheds some light on how they collaborate, well worth a read.

Simon and Schuster's website has also been updated recently. The new Starfleet Academy series now has listing for simultaneous releases in tradepaperback, ebook and hardcover for the series. They now list the title of the next New Frontier book as Blind Man's Bluff. And the random Death in Winter reprint coming at the end of the year has now become a trade paperback!

TrekMovie has posted an excerpt from the Star Trek Online novel, The Needs of the Many. A chapter, which itself it comprised of three reports building on the Undine.

And finally, Star Trek's German publisher, Cross Cult, has posted a new cover for thier release of the DS9 Section 31 novel Abyss:

Starfleet Academy #2 by...

Rick Barba, so says Simon and Schuster's website now... Credit once more to the TrekBBS's Darkhorizon for spotting it.

Star Trek Online calendar

The Star Trek Online website has been updated with a new calendar feature listing tentative release dates for forthcoming updates and fleet actions. You can find it, here.

More Academy adventures, this time from Mr Byrne!

John Byrne has announced on his forums that one of his up coming Trek miniseries will "be wandering briefly thru Kirk's time at the Academy, followed by some exploits after graduation." He's also looking for thoughts on how the pre-TOS Academy uniforms should be portrayed, if you have any thoughts on that matter, go make a post!

In another thread he released a page from the forth issue of the soon to start Frontier Doctor series, looks like this:

New Starfleet Academy books are in the new timeline, and other tie-in news!

As I theorised a few days ago, the new Starfleet Academy books are indeed tie-ins to the new movie timeline, so says TrekMovie. The first two books are expected to be the start of a series, and the listings on Simon and Schuster's website have now been updated so that Rudy Joseph is only down to write the first of the two, no author listed for the second yet.

In the same report TrekMovie has updated the upcoming book list; the Typhon Pact books now come out once a month starting in November (if one assumes the specific date listing of October 26 does as usual mean that is the November book) and carries on into 2011. Curiously there is now also a listing for a second paperback reprinting of Death in Winter for December.

TrekMovie have also posted an interview with CBS Consumer Product's John Van Critters. Van Critters commented on books in the new timeline:

It was decided that the upcoming sequel is best served by having JJ [Abrams] and his team tell the stories of what happens next for these characters. That doesn’t mean we wont have stories taking place in this timeline, and that doesn’t necessarily mean we wont have stories taking place in the alternate timeline before the next movie is released.

There's good new on the reference book front: The Haynes Guide to Enterprise(s) is still in the works, and now has Mike and Denise Okuda working on it. It will apparently cover multiple starships Enterprise; though which hasn't been settled on yet.

There is also a book called Star Trek 365 on the way, which will be written by Paula Block, and have lots of photos. It will be a TOS reference, out in September, and in the vein of similar 365 books by Abrams Books.

Van Critters also commented on a desire for a new edition of the Star Trek Encylopedia, however doesn't see it happening soon.

Beyond books he noted we shouldn't expect to see anything new from Playmates Toys any time soon. But Mattel’s Hot Wheels ship models have been successful, so we should have more of those to look forward too.

In vaguer areas we can look forward to new licensing deals for new video games and toys, more products tying into the new movie, a new Star Trek Experience, and other new unspecified things! (My favourite speculation by TrekMovie is the possibility of Star Trek LEGO, please "make it so"!)