Sigh. It’s astounding how frequently, for a franchise that wants to be global, we are confronted with the perspective that really, to those marketing tie-ins, only the US market counts.
Yes, there’s legal stuff to deal with. So deal I say. It feels like Paramount licensing is still existing in the 1960s.
I’m a huge Relaunch novelverse fan. These books really kept me going in the absence of new Trek television. I’m still grieving the end of that era of publishing.
(I had never found many of the earlier tie-in books that interesting - the constraints on authors to finish the books with no lasting impact on characters or events made the books feel unimportant.)
The Relaunch Novelverse was something that authors had wanted for a long time. A real way to play in the Trek sandbox and move characters and events forward. Some of the authors seized the most from it, others seem to get stuck in documenting what they saw as history. In either case though, one can seen the influence of the Relaunch writers room thought experiments running through the new shows, to their benefit.
Recommendations? The crossover Destiny, Typhon Pact, and The Fall sequences are all solid overall. Destiny is stands out as great science fiction regardless of its tie-in fiction foundation.
The Bashir-S31/Control, Titan, Voyager Full Circle, and later TNG books are all reliably good to great reads. The DS9 books seemed to start off well and got me into the Relunch books but seemed to bog down. McCormack’s Cardassian books were all excellent. Bennett’s Temporal Investigations are fun reads for knowledgeable fans.
The Relaunch novelverse is not however upbeat and trippy. Its starting point at the end of the Dominion War shapes the backdrop. Even many of the TOS-era books that have a Relaunch basis can be fairly dark, including the much loved Vanguard Series by Mack, Ward and Dilmore.
I definitely have my favourite authors. Most of those became regulars contracted for the new books being released as tie-ins for the Secret Hideout era shows. Simon & Schuster has been managing their room of writers well.
There are however couple of Relaunch authors that I avoid even if it means skipping a key book in a series. There’s one who really knows his Trek stuff but writes exposition-heavy books that ready like background rather than stories. Fortunately, the other authors always fill in what I missed, and Memory Beta is there as a resource too.
In terms of books about the franchise, I have an original copy of the TNG Technical Manual and a few others. I recently got the TAS official guide and it’s great. However, no matter who writes them, I always consider these beta-canon.
This didn’t do much for me even as a TAS fan.
YMMV🖖
Some thoughts after sleeping on it…
— I found the 4 x 01 Twovix the best season premiere yet.
All the premieres seem callback and Easter egg heavy. Making this one a museum (ship) mishap episode worked that into the story in a natural way and allowed some of the weirdest and trippyest things from Voyager to pike on. Bravo.
While some reviewers have expressed regrets that the original Voyager actors voices weren’t used, I’m glad that the focus stayed on the Cerritos crew, the artifacts and how Voyager remains dangerous wherever she is, even as a literal museum.
I am unhappy that the Klingon lower decker and his ship were sacrificed for the seasonal mystery big bad. It’s clear it’s really dangerous though. (Perhaps the mystery ship is collecting humanoids to take them to another era where they are extinct….?)
It’s also likely the case that I enjoyed the ride of the premiere more for knowing I had another new episode to watch immediately.
— The second episode was mostly a straightforward Lower Decks classic, but one that did its job to move the main 4 lower deckers into their new roles.
We’ll have to see how well it works on rewatch, but the moopsie scenes seem likely to be classics. After the Voyager celebration of weird in the season premiere, it was very smart for Lower Decks to underscore its ability to give us its own very original weirdness, and remind us that humanity are the most dangerous in the menagerie.
I’m glad that they make Rutherford a bit of an odd man out in the promotions. I still feel that he’s a bit of an incomplete person/character because his ambition and drive has been submerged by the implant. I really hope that the writers will keep dribbling out more about that.
I really hope this isn’t a permanent change. But with Lower Decks, who knows?
I have been reading and following your reviews with interest, but can’t engage much as I have found it difficult to get copies from local comic stores in a timely way. I usually have more success preordering the omnibus versions, and really welcome the reviews to help decide which ones to invest in.
So, it might be helpful to have a running thread for each comic series rather than a separate one for each issue.
So, when the Shatnerverse finally gets its month basking in the glow of ebook deals, will that signal the auspicious moment to create the Treklit sub?
Just asking for a friend…
I was referring to the one in Vancouver.
I wouldn’t call it a ‘trial’.
It was in place for a couple of decades. Agreed that it failed in the end, as did Rideau street in Ottawa.
I found that the opinion-piece from Space.com didn’t distinguish classic tropes and use of legacy characters from ‘gimmicks.’
While my personal preference prior to the show’s premiere had been to hold on the introduction of so many TOS legacy characters, to allow the others and original ones to breathe, as long as having Kirk there is bringing new insights to his character (and others’), it’s all to the good. At this point, I’m eager to see more of young Scotty.
It’s all moved to Paramount+ and SkyShowtime.
I understood that the EP/Showrunner is the same for all, and the writer of the first one. So, he set the tone. Sigh.
A am still hopeful for ‘Holograms all the way down’ as it has Aaron Waltke as the writer credited.