Discovery updates: Third novel announced, plus art prints, comics, pins, video game, and music updates!

Lots of different Discovery merchandise and tie-in fiction updates today, including updates from both the novel and comic lines, soundtrack news, new art prints, FanSets latest releases, and new additions to Star Trek Timeline. Continue below to check them all out.

First up, the third Discovery novel has been announced. Coming in June will be the Saru focused Fear Itself, by James Swallow. StarTrek.com released the blurb:

Lieutenant Saru is a Kelpien, a member of a prey species born on a world overrun by monstrous predators…and a being who very intimately understands the nature of fear. Challenged on all sides, he is determined to surpass his origins and succeed as a Starfleet officer aboard the U.S.S. Shenzhou.

But when Saru breaks protocol in order to prove himself to his crewmates, what begins as a vital rescue mission to save a vessel in distress soon escalates out of control. Forced into a command role he may not be ready for, Saru is caught between his duty and the conflicting agendas of two antagonistic alien races.

To survive, he will need to seek a path of peace against all odds, and risk compromising the very ideals he has sworn to uphold…. 

Swallow has also posted about the book on his blog, revealing a little more detail about the setting. Obviously set aboard the USS Shenzhou, this book continues the pattern so far in all the Discovery tie-in fiction of exploring periods before the TV series' main timeline. In this case the book is set before David Mack's Desperate Hours, which was a year before the TV series, but after Dayton Ward's Drastic Measures, set a decade before the TV events. He also confirmed Michael Burnham will appear, so presumably it takes place after she joined the Shenzhou crew, some seven years before the TV series starts. Swallow also talks about the sort of access he has had to the production, continuing to demonstrate the unprecedented degree of coordination tie-in writers have had with Discovery, check out his blog for all the details.

Meanwhile over at IDW, artists are busy making covers for the Discovery comics still. The latest tease of one comes from Declan Shalvey, who is producing starship focused covers for every issue of the first Discovery comic series, The Light of Kahless. Here is a snippet of his rendition of the USS Discovery:

The completed A cover for the second issue of the series (due out at the end of the month) has also now been released. It features Voq, as drawn by Tony Shasteen:

And here is Shasteen's artwork sans titles (via Instagram):

Shasteen has also posted interior artwork from the first issue on his Instagram, I think his rendition of the Sarcophagus ship is particularly impressive:

Speaking of impressive art, poster artist extraordinaire, Paul Shipper, has created two designs for prints now available from the Star Trek Shop. One features an assortment of Starfleet characters from the show, and the other is Klingon focused:

Over at FanSets, the first batch of Discovery Episode Pins have now been shipped to those who subscribed to the full series, and a small number of additional pins have been made available individually for those who'd like to pick and choose. Here are the pins for the first eight episodes in the series, in their final form:

Players of Star Trek Timelines were among the first to be able to sample Discovery content when the game added Discovery characters and ships near the launch of the TV series. More recently Disruptor Beam have added a whole load more Discovery characters to the game, and made the USS Discovery a playable ship.

Here's a trailer showing off some of the latest additions:

And finally, TrekCore recently interviewed Discovery composer Jeff Russo. As well as discussing his music for the series in general, he detailed what to expect from the first soundtrack release, Discovery Season 1, Chapter 1, due digitally in a few days time:

It’s a smattering of music from across all nine episodes, though I may have left one out, I can’t remember for sure. But really what I tried to do was give as much of a cross-section of the general feel of the score for the series to date, rather than try to fit everything in.

I come from a background of making albums that you can listen to straight through. Once you start packing 35 tracks onto long two-hour CD sets, nobody ever listens to everything.

And I’m sure there are going to be people who will say, “Well, where’s that ONE piece of music from that scene?” and really, it’s just impossible to put everything in. You can’t ever make everyone happy. [Laughs] But you try your best! Stuff that people are missing, like, at some point, will probably end up on my website or something.

I’m sure that everybody will be happy with what’s on there — I hope, anyway — and we will pick up with the vinyl release next year, where I’ll take some of the tracks from Chapter 1 off and replace them with score from Episodes 10 through 15.

Which indicates the vinyl released next year will be a sort of best of album, following the digital release of Chapter 2, which will feature music from the final batch of episodes from the series.


For an overview of everything Discovery, including all the tie-in products, visit my Star Trek: Discovery guide page. And for detailed breakdown of many Star Trek product lines, reading lists, and author bibliographies, check out Trek Collective Lists.