Return to Trek books in Czech!

Regular readers will know I like to keep an international flavour to things here, especially when it involves new cover art, so I regularly report on new editions of Star Trek stuff in other languages. Most commonly Cross Cult's German translations (as they have the most active publishing program at the moment), but I've also previously found new titles in French, Spanish and Portuguese. Over at the 8of5 Archives I've also explored some of past foreign language titles, so far looking at French comics and prose and comics published in Hebrew.

I have yet to do a piece on Star Trek published in the Czech Republic, and you might be surprised to know that over the years there have been quite a few published there! There had been a bit of a lull in recent years, but it seems now, under a new editor, Albert Balatka, that things are getting going again at Laser Books. Last year saw the publication of Fusion (Fúze), book two in the Voyager: String Theory trilogy - Book one, Cohesion (Koheze) was translated back in 2008. They seem to have a growing schedule for this year, with Alan Dean Fosters movie novelization already out, and the second Titan book The Red King (Černý král) out about now (following from Taking Wing (Mezi dvěma světy) back in 2007), which has had the cover subtly altered to reflect the slightly changed title to Black King:

 

There's a new cover on the way for what will be Laser's first Enterprise book, Kobayashi Maru, expected in August:

Also planned for this year (September) is the second book in the Crucible trilogy, Spock: The Fire and the Rose (Oheň i růže), which again follows from the first book, McCoy: Provenance of Shadows (Odkud přicházejí stíny), coming out back in 2008.

If a Czech forum I found is reliable, also currently in development are The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Romulanská válka: Pod křídlem dravce), in October; Death in Winter (Smrt v zimě) appropriately in December; String Theory: Evolution (Teorie strun: Evoluce), in January; and later in 2013, Articles of the Federation (Zákony Federace), Resistance (Odpor), Q and A (Q: otázky a odpovědi), Before Dishonor (Před zněuctěním), The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm (Romulanská válka: Odvážně vstříc bouři), and Orion's Hounds (Orionovi psi).

Perhaps the most interesting of all though is Star Trek: Kusy (Pieces), which appears to be a Strange New Worlds-like writing contest, which like several of series launched years back by Laser was begun in 2007. According to the competition website, three stories were to be chosen, each to also have an accompanying illustration. This book is finally expected some time this year.

Interesting Laser has previously published two original Star Trek novels in Czech; Q alternativa and Zrcadla, in 2002 and 2004 respectively. These don't seem to be licensed however, while one cover depicts the Enterprise-D neither of them actually have Star Trek in the title and some websites seem to to refer to them as being based on a "modified version of the series". Hopefully this new anthology is a bit more official and a bit more likely to get translated into other languages.