Book bits: First details of Takedown, and author updates

A few bits of Trek books news for you today, starting with some new details of John Jackson Miller's forthcoming TNG/Aventine novel, Takedown. Visionary Trek's The Captain's Table recently interviewed Miller, about his recent Titan ebook, Absent Enemies, as well as discussing his Star Wars work. When it came to Takedown he gave some nice teases at what he plans to cover in the book, which he is thinking of as a naval adventure, in the style of Horatio Hornblower. Miller also revealed Riker will be using the Aventine as his flagship in his book, and will be at the heart of the story, as his new admiralship leads him to be at odds with Picard:

It does indeed feature Jean Luc Picard and Enterprise, investigating this episode that's happened, this seeming rampage that's taken place, where a number of targets have been struck (and I wont tell you whose targets or how). But he discovers in the process the involvement of Admiral Riker, who is currently on Aventine (he's transferred his flag there), which is captained by, of course, Ezri Dax. This sets up a conundrum, because Riker cannot necessarily tell Picard everything that he is supposed to be doing, because of rank and other things, and of course Picard, at the same time, has obligations to the Federation and to the peace, himself. And we wind up with a battle of wills, we wind up with a chase; because it's possible for two people to be on the same side, and not necessarily agree about the means.

You can look forward to Takedown early next year. And you can listen to more from Miller on Visionary Trek.

Meanwhile also looking to the future, Jeffrey Lang's latest blog post revealed he is currently at work planning his next Star Trek novel. He didn't give any hints at the subject, but if we're lucky it will continue the adventures of Data, following Lang's new book, The Light Fantastic, which is out any day now. If you're eager to sample that, Amazon's look inside feature now allows us a glimpse at a few pages.

Continue after the jump for more on recently released books.

Out about a month now, David R. George III's new Lost Era novel, One Constant Star, brings us a new Enterprise-B story, which he recently talked to TrekFM's Literary Treks about. As well as noting it is both an exploration and rescue story, George also discussed the emotional themes in the book:

When people are close, not just close colleagues, but also become close friends, what is it that they are willing to do for each other, even if they're not asked. What is that they're willing to do? What is they're willing to give up? How deep is that bond? And how much does that responsibility drive somebody? How much of a responsibility does somebody feel if they're somebody's friend? It's one thing if you're in a committed romantic relationship, those questions are pretty easy to answer, but it's something one step down from that, a friendship, what are you willing to give up? We see characters in this novel faced with that.

Listen to TrekFM for more of George on One Constant Star.

Talking to TrekCore, Jeff Mariotte noted he had no plans for more Trek in the immediate future, but did talk about his recently released TOS novel, Serpents in the Garden, highlighting it being a Kirk book:

I love the interaction of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and played with that a lot in The Folded World. This time, I wanted to see who he was when he was removed from everything familiar — new Starfleet colleagues, and a Neural that’s virtually unrecognizable from his previous trips. Of course, he had to remain in character — Kirk is Kirk, after all — but I got to explore some different facets of him.

He also noted why he chose to set the book in The Motion Picture era:

I wanted to send Kirk there without his usual crew, so it couldn’t be during the first five-year mission. And I wanted enough time to have passed since “A Private Little War” for the situation on Neural to have become far, far worse. That time period suited both requirements.

Finally, UnrealitySF posted an interview with Keith R.A. DeCandido, in which he discussed his most recent work, including The Klingon Art of War:

The book is presented as a text that has been published in the Klingon Empire. The original ten precepts go back to shortly after the time of Kahless, and the original text has been published in various forms throughout the thousand years since. This particular edition is published in the late twenty-fourth century and not only has the original text, but also modern commentary, as well as an introduction and afterword, by a Klingon novelist named K’ratak. This way, the book includes examples of how the precepts apply to life using examples that the reader might be more familiar with. The precepts themselves are guides to how to live your life as a proper warrior. Following these precepts will lead you down the path of honour.

While DeCandido hasn't yet been pinned down for more Trek, he did mention that among the many projects he is currently working on, he will soon be published in another of my favourite sci-fi franchises, Stargate, having written a short story for a new anthology, Far Horizons.

For more details of current and forthcoming Star Trek books, hit one of the books buttons at the top of my schedule page, to find listing of the year's releases, and links to my previous coverage.