Latest Star Trek novel previews and hints at future books

We've got a quite time coming up for Star Trek novels, with only a couple of books on the schedule so far for next year (more on that below), but before we enter the lean months ahead the year is ending with a bumper load of releases. So continue below for preview from all the new novels and novellas released in the last week or two, and other Star Trek novels news.

The last Star Trek book from Pocket Books this year is David Mack's Fortune of War, the latest in the Titan series, and a follow up the TNG episode The Survivors, exploring the fallout from the disappearance of the Husnock. Here's an except from that book:



Like many of the recent Star Trek novels, this book was simultaneously released as an audiobook; this one read by Robert Petkoff. Here's the square version of the cover for the audio release:

And two extracts have been released too:

Following hot on the heels of Mack's Discovery novel, Desperate Hours, and ahead of the release of his original fantasy novel, The Midnight Front, he has had lots to talk about while popping up on several podcasts recently. Perhaps the most exciting nugget however was about another book altogether - Years ago now, Mack was one of four authors who wrote the first tie-in novels for the Kelvin timeline. All four were abruptly cancelled, due to never fully publicly explained reasons, after they had been written already! Well it now we've a glimmer of hope at least one of them could return, as Mack told Rain Man Digital:

I've heard rumours that if and when the Star Trek guys get their book line going again, one of these days, and start announcing new titles. There has been some rumour that my book, which is titled, More Beautiful Than Death, might actually get resurrected. That's not confirmed, I've not seen it on a scheduled, nobody has confirmed this to me, I've only heard the rumours; I've heard that they're talking about it. My book may yet see the light of day, after having been pulled from the schedule over seven years ago, it may yet see the light of day.

Exciting stuff! If you don't recall the details, you can read the blurbs for all the cancelled Kelvin timeline novels in my report of their covers and blurbs from 2010! Don't expect all four novels to return though, Greg Cox has already revealed he cannibalized his book to create the TOS/Voyager crossover No Time Like the Past, and similarly Christopher L. Bennett recycled parts of his book for this year's TOS book, The Face of the Unknown.

Meanwhile in the present, also recently released is a new DS9 ebook novella: I, The Constable, the latest from Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann. Here's an extract from that book too:



And there's even more, also just released, by Titan Books, is the English language edition of the first book in the Prometheus trilogy, Fire with Fire. These books, written by Christian Humberg and Bernd Perplies, were the first ever original German language Star Trek novels, released by Cross Cult last year, and now us English readers are getting a chance to catch up with the series. The next two books are due next year. Here's a preview from book one:



In other books news, Doug Drexler recently shared, on ArtStation, his cover art (sans titles) for the latest DS9 novel, David R. George III's Original Sin, which features the USS Robinson:

George has also been attending to the podcast audience, appearing on TrekFM's Literary Treks, to provide the typically indepth discussion of his book that podcast is known for. He did not announce any further Trek books of his own, but did indicate that the Gamma sub-title used for this book is planned to continue:

This Gamma series is Sisko and Robinson in the Gamma Quadrant, and moving forward that's what we'll see.

Elsewhere, in response to a question about continuing the Stargazer series on Good Reads, Michael Jan Friedman, a prolific writer of Star Trek novels and comics, but out of action for nearly a decade now, suggested he is anticipating a return:

I always have more stories to tell--Stargazer and otherwise. They wake me up in the middle of the night, demanding to be told. And I do expect to write some more Trek books in the near future--I've had discussions with the publisher. However, no plans to write 'gazer books in particular. 

But all these hints aside, you might be wondering what the heck is going on with the Star Trek books next year - As there are hardly any announced. A few months ago it was revealed the license was being renewed and renegotiated, and would include being able to explore subjects from the Kelvin timeline. But since then we've heard nothing. Some of the authors have shed some light on current events over on the TrekBBS, with Dayton Ward providing the latest update

At last report, the deal was being finalized. There was a change in leadership at S and S/Gallery Books a short while back, at a level above the in-house editor, and that likely interrupted whatever discussions were in process, for Trek as well as any number of other things. The new person in charge gets to weigh in, etc.

Even if a new license is announced tomorrow, it takes months to bring a novel to life, through pitching, writing, and printing, so we should expect a pretty thin year of Star Trek novels ahead. On the schedule right now is one Voyager novel, Architects of Infinity, delayed from this year (and another is contracted, but not yet scheduled), and the next Discovery novel, Drastic Measures, which was probably in development for a while (and so probably also a hold over from the previous license period). Plus of course the aforementioned Prometheus novels, published by Titan Books.

If David Mack's Kelvin timeline rumour plays out, maybe his book, and perhaps Alan Dean Foster's too, could be brought to publication fairly quickly, given they were already finished before they were cancelled (I assume they'd still need another pass to get them up to date with two more movies of continuity though, even if they are set before those later films). And who knows, maybe Simon and Schuster will throw out some reprints or omnibuses to fill the gaps?

So finally, let's end with some hints at that forthcoming Discovery novel, a Drastic Measures. The author, Dayton Ward recently appeared on the Go Trek Yourself podcast, and expanding what we already know about the book with some interesting details:

Gabriel Lorca is a Lieutenant Commander at this point in time, and he is the leader of an outpost on Tarsus IV, a Starfleet installation, so like a sensor monitoring outpost. So he and a very small group of Starfleet officers are there.

And Georgiou is a Commander, and she is actually en route to her next assignment, she is going to become first officer on a ship. She gets sidetracked, she gets pulled out of waiting to get to her next assignment by an admiral, and she is put in charge of creating a team of first responders. So they basically pull people from wherever they can find them at the starbase, and put together a group of a couple of hundred people, and send a colony transport ship as fast as they can get there to be the first people on the scene.

And confirmed what we might have expected, that our two future captains don't exactly see eye to eye:

He does go to a dark place a little bit in the book. He and Georgiou do but heads a couple of times. Because they don't know each other before this incident. There was nothing in the show to indicate that they ever knew each other. But Kirsten was ok with me making that connection; in fact she gave me carte blanche "you can do whatever you want with Tarsus IV, and Lorca and Georgiou at Tarsus IV. Go"

He also talked a little about the development of the book, working with Kirsten Beyer. Initially Ward was set up to produce a Lorca story, but Ward wanted Georgiou too!:

So we started coming up with ideas of how we might write a story that has both these characters. And it was Kirsten Beyer's idea to send me looking into backstory, TOS mythology, or Trek mythology, to try and find an event that might bring them together. So we had three or four ideas, and Tarsus IV was one of them, and that's the one she liked.

To keep track of all the latest releases, hit the prose or books buttons on my 2017 and 2018 schedule pages. You can also find series reading lists and author bibliographies on my dedicated Star Trek lists site.