This week officially kicked off what promises to be the most epic literary trilogy in all the decades of Star Trek’s publishing history…
Let’s take that in for a moment. With an estimated 700 franchise novels, the next three months will give us a series crossover trilogy to rival fifty-plus years of printed Trek stories.
Why do I say this? Following the conclusion of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on television, the success of the series’ continuation in book form, known as the DS9 relaunch (about which I’ve written extensively in this space—see here for an overview and index to individual book reviews), inspired a shared continuity across almost all Trek novels being published at the time. Authors and editors worked closely to keep this continuity as tight as possible across twenty years (2001-2021) of multi-book series storytelling, in the process giving rise to a vast tapestry of interconnected stories that some fans refer to as the Trek Litverse.
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Moments Asunder
That enormous Litverse, at least in its current form, is now concluding. In September, October and November we’ll see the publication of three volumes that will stand as the epic final chapter, called Star Trek: Coda, of the decades-long mega-story:
- Moments Asunder by Dayton Ward (September 28)
- The Ashes of Tomorrow by James Swallow (October 26)
- Oblivion’s Gate by David Mack (November 30)
As the trilogy’s title makes clear, this is the end of an era.
Descriptions of the novel’s plots have obviously been kept vague in the promotional material, but we do know we’ll be dealing with some kind of temporal apocalypse, and it’s also a pretty sure bet that one or more key legacy characters will face significant sacrifices.
The purpose of this article is to provide a high-speed crash course in the events leading up to Moments Asunder. If you’ve only occasionally dipped your toes in the Litverse over the years, you may want to follow up on some of the books I reference for a fuller context, but this synopsis will cover you, plot-wise. Even if you’ve been an assiduous Litverse reader, I hope the refresher proves useful.
Rather than proceeding chronologically, I’m going to break this out by crews and ships and then proceed move more-or-less chronologically within each grouping. Take this separation with a grain of dilithium, though, since many events, like the 2381 Borg attack, span multiple characters and vessels. In-universe, this material takes us from 2376 to 2387, but many books jump around in the timeline, even within a single volume.
With these caveats in mind, here we go…
The Next Generation — Enterprise-E, U.S.S. Titan
The Star Trek: A Time to… nine-book series, which details events in the year leading up to Star Trek: Nemesis, sees quite a lot of things happen. Notably, in A Time to Be Born, Wesley Crusher journeys with the Traveler to Tau Alpha C, where Wesley is essentially reborn or transformed into a Traveler himself. Having gazed into the Pool of Prophecy, he sees the destruction of the Enterprise, and in A Time to Die aids the crew in order to prevent said catastrophe. Also during this “gap year” (see A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal), Captain Jean-Luc Picard becomes involved—along with Admirals William Ross, Alynna Nechayev, Owen Paris, Edward Jellico, and Mamoru Nakamura, and others—in a covert operation to remove from office Federation president Min Zife… who later, unbeknownst to Picard, is killed by Section 31.
Following the events of Nemesis and a new era of diplomacy between the Federation and the Romulans, William Riker, now married to Deanna Troi, becomes Captain of the Titan, on which Commander Troi serves as counselor and first-contact specialist. As is chronicled in the Titan book series, Riker and Troi eventually have a daughter, Natasha Miana Riker-Troi. Love is also in the air for Picard and Beverly Crusher, who get married in the novel Greater Than the Sum. They too will in time have a son, Rene Jacques Robert Francois Picard (see the Star Trek: Destiny novel Lost Souls, as well as the Typhon Pact book Paths of Disharmony).
At the heart of the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy, in which Captains Jean-Luc Picard, William Riker, Ezri Dax, and Erika Hernandez all have to work towards a common purpose, is a terrifying Borg incursion into the Federation, which suffers the tragic loss of entire planets and billions of lives. Despite these staggering casualties, the Federation does finally emerge victorious. Key to this success is the alien species Caeliar. In Lost Souls we learn that they appear to be responsible for the unwitting creation of the Borg in the first place, and when confronted with this, they intervene to help take out the Borg Queen and break up the Collective.
The broad Litverse features a number of resurrections or quasi-resurrections, and one important instance relates to Data, who famously sacrifices himself in Nemesis. In The Cold Equations trilogy, Data’s memories are retrieved from B-4 and downloaded into the body that Noonian Soong had made for himself after faking his own death. Now Soong, in order for Data to return, really says goodbye. This new version of Data, Data Soong, whose brain has a copy of all the memories and experiences of his long deceased daughter, Lal, proceeds to bring her back as well.
Jumping to 2386, in the TNG novel Armageddon’s Arrow we find the Enterprise exploring the Odyssean Pass. There the ship encounters a weapon based on the Doomsday machine, sent back through time from ninety-four years in the future. The crew manages to deactivate the weapon and Picard commits to brokering a truce between the two alien races involved in the conflict for which the weapon was to be used. In the course of the novel, Lieutenant Commander Taurik is exposed to information from the future that the Department of Temporal Investigations advises him he cannot reveal. In Headlong Flight, another TNG novel, the Enterprise discovers a dimensionally-shifting planet. The crew of our Enterprise has to end up working with a Romulan Bird-of-Prey, as well as the crew of an alternate Enterprise from a reality in which Riker is Captain because Picard died during the 2366 “The Best of Both Worlds” Borg attack.
Picard’s involvement in the operation that deposed Min Zife (and later got Zife killed) comes back to bite him in the Section 31 novel Control (more on that in the DS9 section), when Section 31’s records are exposed, but in the TNG novel Collateral Damage he is thankfully cleared of wrongdoing, though relegated to staying at Captain’s rank indefinitely. Picard takes the Enterprise back for another round of exploration in the Odyssean Pass. This point, in 2387, is where we last see this crew before Coda.
Deep Space Nine — Deep Space Nine, Deep Space Nine (II), U.S.S. Aventine, U.S.S. Robinson
In “What You Leave Behind,” the Dominion War ends, and Captain Benjamin Sisko leaves his corporeal existence and joins the Bajoran Prophets/wormhole aliens. About a year later, in the DS9 novel Unity, he returns to our physical domain to witness the birth of his daughter with Kasidy Yates, Rebecca Jae Sisko. In the same novel, Bajor ends up formally joining the United Federation of Planets. Fearing the validity of certain Prophet foretellings, though, Sisko separates from Kasidy and Rebecca, who remain on Bajor.
After the 2381 Borg conflict, Sisko takes command of the Robinson, where he spends the better part of a year patrolling Romulan borders, as shown in the Typhon Pact novel Rough Beasts of Empire. Another Prophet vision, however, causes Sisko to re-examine his life, and after reconciling with Kasidy, in the Typhon Pact novel Raise the Dawn she and Rebecca join Sisko on the Robinson. In The Fall novels Revelation and Dust and Peaceable Kingdoms, their relationship has solidified, and Sisko is on a new mission of exploration into the Gamma quadrant. In Gamma: Original Sin, which takes us through part of 2386, Rebecca is kidnapped, but Sisko is ultimately able to locate and save her (with a slight temporal reset assist).
In the DS9 novel Warpath, Kira Nerys, who took command of the station in Sisko’s absence, has her own Prophet experience and comes to believe that she is “the Hand of the Prophets.” She resigns from Starfleet and becomes a vedek, but her fate ends up being much more complicated than this. In fact, because it involves time travel through various books, and events are told out of order, I provide a detailed chronological breakdown of Kira’s journey in my review of the DS9 novel Ascendance. In the DS9 novel The Long Mirage, Kira realizes that someone else, named Altek Dams, may be the Hand of the Prophets after all, and sets off on a journey with him.
I mentioned in the TNG section that Ezri Dax was involved in the 2381 Borg confrontation where she ends up becoming the Aventine’s Captain after several senior crew members are killed. Let’s turn to Doctor Julian Bashir for a moment. In the Typhon Pact novel Zero Sum Game, he and Sarina Douglas go undercover on a Breen planet to undermine Breen efforts to replicate Starfleet’s new-ish quantum slipstream drive. Some three years later, in 2385, Bashir enlists the aid of Captain Dax and violates strict orders from the Federation President, using classified information to develop and deliver a genetic cure for the reproductive crisis facing the Andorian people (greatly complicating matters, Andor actually secedes from the Federation in the Typhon Pact novel Paths of Disharmony).
Bashir and Dax are imprisoned for their misdeeds, but in the Section 31 novel Disavowed Bashir accepts a Section 31 mission again involving the Breen and stolen technology (though this time in the mirror universe). In the final Section 31 novel to date, Control, Bashir uncovers the eponymous and malevolent super-smart AI who has been pulling Section 31 strings behind the scenes for centuries. In the novel, which takes us up to 2386, Control itself is defeated, but Sarina is killed and Bashir ends up in a catatonic state. The DS9 novel Enigma Tales, set in late 2386, gives us the last chronological glimpse of Bashir, still in a coma and under the care of Cardassian’s now-Castellan Garak.
I should also probably mention that at one point in the above developments, specifically the Typhon Pact novel Raise the Dawn, set in 2383-2384, Deep Space Nine is destroyed! The pesky Breen and Tzenkethi are behind this. Fret not, though, because by the time we get to the Fall novel Revelation and Dust, in 2385, a new Deep Space Nine (II), also near the Bajoran wormhole, is officially opened up. The new cutting-edge space station gets off to a bad start, though, as during the inauguration ceremonies Federation President Bacco is assassinated. Replacing Bacco on a pro tempore basis is Ishan Anjar of Bajor—or so we think, until we get to the Fall novel Peaceable Kingdoms, in which it’s revealed that one Baras Rodirya was in fact impersonating Ishan, who’d been killed years earlier, and was involved in the conspiracy that led to Bacco’s death. By late 2385, Andor rejoins the Federation, and Leader Kellessar zh’Tarash becomes the new President. Per the TNG novel Available Light, zh’Tarash helps to clean up some of the Section 31 mess from Control. To the best of my knowledge, zh’Tarash is the last Federation President we see in office, chronologically speaking, in late 2386.
Voyager — U.S.S. Voyager
The series finale, “Endgame,” used time travel to return the version of the crew we were familiar with, rather than those introduced at the start of the episode, back to Earth in 2378. Captain Kathryn Janeway’s involvement in the Borg incursion, though, just a few years later, ends up costing Janeway her life (see the TNG novel Before Dishonor). But remember the resurrection theme I alluded to earlier? In the Voyager novel The Eternal Tide, set in late 2381, Janeway is brought back to life (this cleverly involves both the Q continuum and Kes), and Voyager itself and a full fleet, known as the Full Circle, are entrusted to Admiral Janeway on a new mission of Delta Quadrant exploration.
In To Lose the Earth, set in 2382, Janeway (who becomes married to Chakotay in the novel) and the Voyager leave the Delta Quadrant on a mission of aid to an alien race named the Edrehmaia. This mission takes Voyager out of our Galaxy altogether, and it’s suggested they’ll be far afield for at least several years. Presumably the crew’s return will in some way line up with Coda’s timing. As a curious side note, I’ll also mention that by the end of the novel, Tom and B’Elanna Paris elect to return to Earth and not go on aboard Voyager. Hmmm.
The Mirror Universe
The mirror universe gets quite a lot of play in the Litverse (too much, I’m sure some readers might say—and when it comes to entries like Fearful Symmetry and The Soul Key, I tend to agree).
On a macro-scale, as covered in the Mirror Universe-specific novels The Sorrows of Empire, Saturn’s Children, and Rise Like Lions, we see the development of the Galactic Commonwealth, following work by Spock and his Memory Omega project. The Commonwealth is founded in 2378 and replaces the Terran Rebellion.
Phew. All that was a bit of a mouthful… So, is this a recap of everything that occurs in the Litverse from the start of the DS9 relaunch with Avatar, Book One through Collateral Damage? By no means. I’ve focused on the character arcs and set pieces that seem most relevant from an overall perspective, touching on a few plot threads that appear to have been left somewhat open. TNG and DS9 become heavily interconnected, and since Moments Asunder seems to be an Enterprise-centric story, the bulk of the material above deals with those crews rather than Voyager’s.
I’m sure that by the time we get to Ashes of Tomorrow, though, we’ll be prompted to remember other events I haven’t included here, and so on—but we had to start somewhere…
For now, I can’t wait to dive into the Coda trilogy, and I look forward to reporting back here with some reflections after it’s all wrapped up in December.
Happy reading!
Special thanks to David Mack.
Alvaro is a Hugo- and Locus-award finalist who has published some forty stories in professional magazines and anthologies, as well as over a hundred essays, reviews, and interviews.
I’m about 2/3 of the way through my Library’s audio-book copy of Moments Asunder and it’s definitely a bittersweet experience.
I picked up Avatar back in 2000 and I’ve eagerly followed the Relaunches for 20 years. It kept my favorite era of the franchise alive long after we thought Nemesis closed the door on the 24th Century.
And I’ve known this was coming since Picard was first announced. We all knew it. But at least the post-finale literary continuity’s getting a sendoff.
I’m absolutely grateful Dayton Ward, James Swallow, and David Mack felt the same way we did and are giving it closure (and avoiding a repeat of what the Mouse did with Star Wars and the old Expanded Universe.)
I still find it a weird coincidence that I ended up being the author of the books that led to both Riker and Troi becoming parents and Picard and Crusher becoming parents. In Orion’s Hounds, I had Riker and Troi decide in principle to start a family, and then (after the hardships they went through in the Destiny trilogy in between) showed the birth of their child in Over a Torrent Sea, as well as naming her Natasha (after my cat who’d recently passed away at the time, though my cat was sort of named after Tasha Yar — actually her original owners named her after Natasha Fatale from Bullwinkle and Rocky, but I kept the name because of Yar). And then when I was commissioned to do Greater than the Sum, my editor asked me to include the plot point of Picard and Crusher conceiving a child.
@2,
…Huh.
You’re right. I hadn’t realized that, CLB.
Heh, that’s either the work of hand of fate or an El-Aurian gambling device.
By the way, as I’ve said before, Orion’s Hounds is still my favorite of the Titan novels.
I’ve liked a good name of the Literary Continuity books that one actually picked up, but am quite relieved that Paramount et al didn’t follow it too scrupulously; nothing I’ve heard about the Borg Invasion makes me keen to see it (or anything like it) in the ‘Prime Time’ (i.e. TV) continuity – mostly because, as a long-term (casual) WARHAMMER 40,000 fan I’ve had my fill of sector-ravaging, planet-eating, Apocalyptic enemies (Which one can’t describe as ‘threats’ since they actually do the business).
In all honesty, the only thing I’d love to borrow from 40K for TREK is the notion of a religion that worships Science (not a rogue supercomputer, Science and all it’s creations); given the generally agnostic-irreligious, SCIENCE-loving tenor of the Federation, it could be absolutely delightful to see their reaction to the local answer to the Adeptus Mechanicus and its theocratic-technophile glories!
Well Moments Asunder arrives tomorrow. I’ve only read the tie-in fiction sporadically in the last few years, but I finally have all my Star Trek books from the 80’s and 90’s unpacked and out where I can see them on my bookshelves. I’ve been going through old favorites since then. I’m a bit sad that the books are ending.
can someone make a list of the books that should be read before if one wanted to read all these books first?
Thanks
@1. Mr. Magic: I don’t think I’ve been quite as consistent as you in reading every title, though I’ve obviously read large swaths. I do feel that little bit of bittersweetness you mention, but it’s outshined by my feeling of gratitude towards Dayton Ward, James Swallow, David Mack and the editorial team that helped bring this to fruition.
2. ChristopherLBennett: Yes, an interesting coincidence for sure. Thanks for sharing the origin of that name; that’s really cool.
I wasn’t surprised that in the new official TV canon, Riker and Troi became parents as well; however, I kept looking for Beverly Crusher’s backstory in Season 1 of Picard, or some hint of what happened to her post-Nemesis, and didn’t find it. I’m wondering if that’s something they’ll eventually get to.
@5. RobinM: Just to clarify, in case there was any confusion, there will certainly be more Star Trek tie-in novels! They just won’t be set in the continuity of the specific Litverse discussed above. The new books will most probably all tie in to the new series, or feature stand-alone stories set in earlier periods of the legacy shows. Shadows Have Offended by Cassandra Rose Clarke, published in July, and the upcoming Revenant by Alex R. White, set for publication in December, are examples of the latter for TNG and DS9 respectively.
Will we get more multi-book arcs, trilogies and crossovers set in the new Picard/Lower Decks/etc. continuity? Hard to tell, but if we do, it probably won’t be for a while…
@8,
Eh, actually, it used to only be the DS9 Relaunch and the Titan novels that had the bulk of my interest during the 2000s.
DS9 is my favorite Trek and I didn’t want it to end. With Titan, I was dying to see how Riker’s first command panned out since we’d never see it on screen.
As to the rest, I mean…I gave the VOY Relaunch a try and Christie Golden’s Homecoming duology didn’t really land with me. I had no initial interest in the TNG Relaunch between Nemesis and the heavy reliance on the Borg in those early novels. Hell, I didn’t read Destiny until…late 2014.
It’s only in the last 7 years that I started playing catch-up and had begun following things more consistently.
And I’m glad I got caught up on the TNG Relaunch in the years since, as having that context immensely enhanced my read-through of Moments Asunder (and made the gut punches land even harder).
And speaking of said punches, it does not at all reassure me that David Mack’s over on the Trek BBS ‘solemnly’ (read: gleefully) prophesizing that these opening gut punches are just the beginning of the heartbreaking and soul crushing to come in the next two months.
Then again, heh, I expected no less from the man who earned the nickname ‘The Angel of Death’ thanks to the Destiny Trilogy.
@6. Kaboom: A good place to start would be the individual titles mentioned in the article:
Deep Space Nine novel Unity
The Next Generation novels: A Time to Be Born, A Time to Kill, A Time to Heal, Greater Than the Sum, Before Dishonor, Armageddon’s Arrow, Headlong Flight & Collateral Damage
Titan novel series
Destiny novel trilogy
Cold Equations novel trilogy
Section 31 novels: Disavowed & Control
Typhon Pact novels: Paths of Disharmony, Rough Beasts of Empire & Raise the Dawn
The Fall novels: Book I: Revelation and Dust, Book III: A Ceremony of Losses & Book V: Peaceable Kingdoms
Voyager novels: The Eternal Tide & To Lose the Earth
Mirror Universe novels: The Sorrows of Empire, Saturn’s Children & Rise Like Lions
@12,
What Mack did with the Mirror Universe is nothing short of astonishing.
I remember reading Sorrows of Empire (back in the original Myriad Universe anthology before it was expanded from a novella) and my jaw dropping as I’d realized how he’d thoroughly re-contextualized all the then-existing MU episode.
No mention of Admiral Riker? (Yes, really.)
I’ve no idea when I’ll be able to track down copies of these novels, distribution is pretty poor in my part of the world these days, although you do get the odd Discovery or Picard novel popping up sometimes, so who knows? (Yes, I could buy them off the internet but where’s the fun in that?)
Man. Where would I find the time to catch up on the reading? Maybe when (if?) I retire in a decade or so…
Do we know what’s next, after this? Is there a list of “books considered canon” (presumably: the Picard and Discovery series?)? Are forthcoming books only to be tightly tied with the TV series?
@6, I’ve been using https://startreklitverse.com/simple-post-nemesis-reading-list.php.
@16/Morbus Iff: “Is there a list of “books considered canon” (presumably: the Picard series?)?”
No Star Trek books are ever considered canonical. As a rule, the only time you get canonical tie-ins like books or comics is when the creators of the franchise are personally behind the books, e.g. the Babylon 5 novels outlined by J. Michael Straczynski or the Buffy comics “showrun” by Joss Whedon. And those generally only happen after the series ends and there’s nothing to contradict them. Even in Star Wars, where they claim the tie-ins are canonical, they still freely ignore them when it’s convenient to do so in a new movie or TV series (for instance, the premiere of The Bad Batch retold the story of Caleb Dume’s escape from Order 66 in a different way than it was told in the comics). For that matter, even canons contradict themselves when it’s convenient, e.g. when Dallas retconned a whole season as a dream or the latest Terminator movie ignored most of the sequels.
“Are forthcoming books only to be tightly tied with the TV series?”
Tie-in novels and comics always strive to remain consistent with the current continuity of the series they’re tying into. That’s their job, to support and supplement the main work. It would be a contradiction in terms for tie-ins not to tie in. But the source material is under no obligation to stay consistent with them in turn, because the tail doesn’t wag the dog. So tie-ins to an ongoing series tend to get contradicted over time.
@15. wiredog: The suggested reading is to enhance these books, but it’s not strictly necessary. Coda: Moments Asunder has a great “Previously…” recap at the start that summarizes the main events one should be aware of; really, that’s enough :-)
As Dayton Ward says in the Afterword, “Whether you’ve been with us on this journey for years or are just coming aboard to see what the fuss is about, we’re glad you’re here […]”
With Dayton Ward and David Mack as 2 of the authors, they should be satisfyingly Trek
@18 ChristopherLBennett
“No Star Trek books are ever considered canonical.”
Probably the reason they’re so good. I suspect the idea of canon with regard to Star Trek started out as a bit of irony that a lot of people decided to take very, very literally.
I have only dipped into a few of the litverse books over the years, and have usually enjoyed them a great deal. Thanks for this great summary on the stories I have missed out on.
Despite not being a devoted fan of the verse, I’m still sad to see it come to an end…. even if it is getting a big finale sendoff. Any news on what Trek books will come out next?
@21/PTAEGEL: Canon has nothing to do with the quality or worth of a story. It’s just a descriptive term that fandom has become irrationally obsessed with out of all proportion to its actual significance.
A canon, in the artistic sense, is a complete or essential body of works having a specific thing in common. For instance, the Shakespeare canon is the complete set of plays and poems that scholars accept to be Shakespeare’s work, while the film noir canon is the set of films in that genre that are generally accepted as the most essential and important, the ones your experience of film noir will be incomplete without. It’s also used to mean the entire set of essential or core works within a specific series as distinct from secondary or imitative works, e.g. the Sherlock Holmes canon is the four novels and 56 stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. In that regard, it’s a very simple concept, merely a straightforward matter of classification. The original set of works is the canon, while imitations from outside creators are not. It’s not a polemic or a value judgment, it’s merely a category. It shouldn’t be a big deal. After all, every story is equally unreal.
The problem is that in 1989, after Gene Roddenberry had been shoved back to a largely ceremonial position in the Trek franchise due to his failing health, he tried to make himself feel relevant again by issuing a memo declaring that the animated series and various other things were not canonical, and thus he created the false impression that canon was both a) a status that had to be officially declared or decided and b) something defined by what it excluded or rejected. The memo had no actual influence over the shows themselves, which continued to reference TAS even after Roddenberry claimed it was off-limits. It only ever affected the tie-in novels and comics, and it’s been a dead letter for a quarter-century now even there, since it didn’t last long beyond Roddenberry’s death. Yet fandom still clings to the myth that canon is a value judgment or an official status or a guarantee of “reality,” rather than merely a descriptive nickname for a complete set of works.
@@@@@ Alvaro Zinos-Amaro 12
thanks
@18 / CLB:
No Star Trek books are ever considered canonical. As a rule, the only time you get canonical tie-ins like books or comics is when the creators of the franchise are personally behind the books, e.g. the Babylon 5 novels outlined by J. Michael Straczynski or the Buffy comics “showrun” by Joss Whedon. And those generally only happen after the series ends and there’s nothing to contradict them.
And even then, involvement from the original Series creator isn’t always enough to ensure canonization.
Look at Jeri Taylor’s Mosaic and Pathways. As VOY’s co-creator, her biographies for Janeway and the rest of the crew were considered canonical at the time.
I know Taylor certainly did and she’s on the record about ensuring cross-pollination between the show and her novels (ex. establishing the death of Janeway’s father in “Coda” and dramatizing the accident in Mosaic).
But then, of course, Taylor left VOY at the end of Season Four. And with the show’s second co-creator no longer involved in the production, the Writers Room ignored and outright contradicted those books for the remainder of VOY’s run.
Hey folks.
I just came upon this article through the Tor email/newsletter & I’m intrigued by all of this.
so, I don’t want to read 20 years worth of stories or novels but is there a “recent” place where I can start reading these Trek books & not suffer missing too much?
thanks
@25/Mr. Magic: There’s no such thing as “canonization” here. As I just said, it’s an error to think that fictional canon is something that has to be officially designated. It’s a description of what something intrinsically is, like calling something land vs. water. Calling it that doesn’t make it what it is; its very nature makes it what it is, and the label is just a superficial convenience. The complete body of works by the original author is the canon by definition. And as long as Jeri Taylor was showrunner, she was the original author.
But it is also an error to mistake canon for continuity. A canon is just a complete set of created works, regardless of whether they’re consistent with each other. And since stories are just pretend, a set of stories can pretend to represent a consistent reality while still contradicting and retconning the heck out of each other. Marvel Comics pretends that every story it’s told since 1938 takes place in a single consistent reality, but it constantly retcons the chronology and details of that “consistent” reality so that characters who originally became superpowered in the early 1960s are still portrayed as being in their mid-20s or 30s more than half a century later, and characters whose origins and backstories were originally associated with World War II or Vietnam have now had those events written out of their pasts and replaced with more modern conflicts. Any ongoing artistic creation is subject to revision, because revision is an integral part of the creative process. The canon is the whole, not the parts.
@26. Todd: for a highly condensed list, I would recommend the Destiny trilogy (pub 2008) by David Mack, Available Light (2019) by Dayton Ward, and Collateral Damage (2019) by David Mack.
@@@@@16. Morbus Iff & 22. Kay: Thanks for the kind words Kay! Regarding future books, here’s what I’m aware of:
Novels:
DS9 novel Revenant by Alex White – December 21st 2021
Picard novel Second Self by Una McCormack – May 3rd 2022
Non-fiction:
Star Trek First Contact: The Official Story of the Film by Joe Fordham – April 5th 2022
The Science of Star Trek: The Scientific Facts Behind the Voyages in Space and Time by Mark Brake – April 5th 2022
Creating Star Trek The Next Generation: A Season by Season Companion – Season 1: 1987-1988 (1st of projecte 7 volumes by Hero Collector) – June 7th 2022
It’s nice to know the Litverse is getting a shot at having a proper send-off, which is more then the pre-Disney Star Wars Expanded Universe got.
@30,
Ward’s actually stated in interviews (and in the Afterword of Moments Asunder) that Star Wars was very much on their minds when he, Swallow, and Mack developed and pitched the Trilogy to CBS-Viacom Licensing.
They didn’t want a repeat of the Disney situation either — and I’m glad CBS-Viacom Licensing was game for doing this.
This thread deserves that Geordi two picture meme.
Arguing about whether something in Trek books is cannon – Geordi says nay
Arguing about what it even means for something to be canon – Geordi approves
@30/31,
I mean, the thing about the Star Wars situation…I mean, look, when Disney announced the LFL acquisition in 2012 and the development of the ST, most of us knew what was coming for the EU.
I wasn’t happy about it, but I was resigned to the inevitable new paradigm and made my peace with it.
In retrospect, though, the mistake Disney made was the transition to that new paradigm. In an ideal world, the old EU would have been given the chance to do some kind of conclusion or sendoff to placate the consumer base and not alienate them.
Alas, heh, this is not an ideal world. This is the Mouse’s World and we are but rats in the rat race.
(….That made more sense in my head, but whatever, LOL.)
Though…I still wonder if a proper sendoff might have been considered had Iger not locked in the debut of the ST — or if Abrams had been successful in lobbying Iger to push TFA back a year (to give them more pre-production time).
@33/Mr. Magic: Yes, that’s exactly what Dayton meant — they didn’t want a repeat of the way the SWEU was abruptly ended without closure.
@33,
And believe me, we’re grateful they’re doing it.
Having finished the audiobook yesterday, I’m really enjoying how Ward and company are playing this like the Trek version of Crisis on Infinite Earths.
We’ve got the Multiversal catastrophe threatening everything, we have our heroes teaming up (and I’m especially delighted and intrigued by that tantalizing acknowledgment of the ending of Kristen Beyer’s last VOY Relaunch novel).
It amuses me to no end that Wesley Crusher is, for all intents, the Mar Novu of this story (especially considering Wheaton’s cameo role in the Arrowverse adaptation of Crisis).
And their selection of the Trek Anti-Monitor…well, it ain’t who I was expecting, but it’s certainty an interesting choice for the climatic Big Bad.
I’ve dipped into and out of the Trek books off & on over the years, but the only ones I still own & re-read are the two by Mike Ford.
(Please note that I don’t read them together. The mental whiplash is too great. ;) )
@36,
Heh.
“Spock? Spock! Someone give the Captain a pie!”
@36/37,
Actually, speaking of comedic Trek literary moments, my Novel-verse personal favorite might just be that bit from Vanguard when the Orions kill the Klingon vessel Zin’za‘s entire supply of Gagh.
The Klingon Captain’s enraged, mournful reaction (“Who could be so ruthless!?”) always leaves me cackling. XD
@@@@@38. Mr. Magic: The Vanguard series is one I’ve always thought I would greatly enjoy, but just haven’t got around to.
@39,
Vanguard is most definitely worth checking out.
I know David Mack always gets the accolades and praise for the Destiny Trilogy (which, to be fair, is deserved). But for my money, Vanguard is his Trek magnum opus.
Don’t be fooled by the premise. It is not ‘DS9 in the TOS’ era. It is so much more than that and is easily among the crown jewels of the Novel-verse.
And as a Trek continuity geek, to this day I’m still in awe of what Mack, Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore, and the great Marco Palmieri accomplished.
They not only crafted a complete narrative that seamlessly runs parallel to (and at the times intersects) the events of TOS, but also tied together so many disparate threads and characters from throughout the entire 23rd Century era (both TV and the Movies).
I think Alan Moore said it best in “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow”, “This is an imaginary story but aren’t they all?”
I’ve enjoyed lots and lots of Star Trek media over the years and think that what isn’t and is canon is a trap like Christopher L. Bennett said. There’s some truly fantastic spin offs of Star Trek that are irreconcilable with modern Trek canon (Post-Picard or not). Certainly, I recommend John Ford’s THE FINAL REFLECTION and Diane Duane’s Rihannsu novels. I consider the novelverse, the video games (Bridge Commander, Elite Force, 25th Anniversary), and other works to basically be like the Justice League/Batman/Superman animated verse or the MCU.
Just because they’re alternate continuities doesn’t mean they’re invalid.
Peter David’s NEW FRONTIER novels, I klingon you not, were one of the major inspirations for my writing.
@42. C.T. Phipps: Appreciate the comment. I think that’s a cool perspective. Thanks for the recs, too. I have read many, many Trek books, but haven’t read Ford’s novels or Duane’s Rihannsu series, though both are frequently referenced. I did read a good chunk of the New Frontier series when it came out, but alas, wandered off to other things and never came back to finish it. I do own copies of all these books, so this state of affairs can be remedied quite easily :-)
A bit belated, but with the release of Moments Asunder, and the for the musically inclined…
David Mack has published the official Coda Playlist (or at least a read-along soundtrack comprised of Film/TV scores).
As we’ve compared this Trilogy to Avengers: Infinity War, it amuses me to no end that Alan Silvestri’s score’s on the playlist.
Mack’s also published his Writing Playlist for Oblivion’s Gate…but as that release is next month, heh, click link at your own risk.
Finally reading Moments Asunder and boy is it a gut punch I’ve really liked Disco and Lower Decks- Picard hasn’t quite resonated with me yet, but we’ll see where we are in 6 months. However for 20 years this has been a huge chunk of MY trek. I’ve loved the work of all of the authors through the last decades to weave together stories that mattered.
Quick tangent: I think a lot of the argument over Canon/Not Canon is truly about the investment and weight of the story. Put differently- how much should the reader care?The old 80s/90s novels were fun but the narrative they told wasn’t quite as real since they could be could be contrasted by the next book or by the show/movies. However since the re-launch, there was more sense of importance with the events of one story truly impacting the next. It made my reading of the story important to me.
Regardless I find myself reading with sadness. I am profoundly grateful to all of the authors for giving me these stories. I could set phasers to gush (there’s an old lit verse reference for you) go on and on about how much I enjoyed David Mack’s trilogy and the New Frontier series and the rest. Or how the characters we’ve met like T’Ryssa Chen and Zelick Lebenzon were worthy parts of the universe and how I loved authors taking THAT guy (Taurik Or Simon Tarses) and bringing them back. Mostly though I’m going to miss my time on the Enterprise E or the Titan or Excalibur or the IKS Gorkon. It’s sad knowing there is no more Klag or Calhoun or Vale or the rest coming anymore. Thank you for the ride
@45/Mike Kelm: “I think a lot of the argument over Canon/Not Canon is truly about the investment and weight of the story. Put differently- how much should the reader care?”
I’ve never understood the attitude that the only reason to care about a story is whether it impacts later stories. The point of fiction is to enjoy what you’re experiencing in the here and now. If your attention is exclusively on what comes later, then you’re not letting yourself live in the moment. And then, what is the point?
The primary value of a story is always in the story itself. If the individual pieces of the whole aren’t worthwhile in and of themselves, then whether the whole fits together is irrelevant. I’ve always been fond of continuity, but it saddens me how modern fandom has become unhealthily obsessed with continuity as the only thing that matters. And how so many creators have used serialization as an excuse for not making the individual installments fully satisfying in themselves. It’s easy to get your audience to come back if you leave the story unfinished. What’s more challenging is to give your audience a complete story with closure and have them still want to come back for more, not because they have unanswered questions, but just because they liked the story you told and want you to tell them other stories.
“The old 80s/90s novels were fun but the narrative they told wasn’t quite as real since they could be could be contrasted by the next book or by the show/movies.”
None of it is real. It’s all just made up for entertainment. A good story makes you willing to buy into its reality while you’re reading or watching it. It shouldn’t be dependent on other stories to do its job for it. Heck, that’s getting it backward. The reason we want sequels to good stories is because they made us buy into their realities the first time, all by themselves. Alien, The Terminator, even Star Wars gave us complete, satisfying stories that audiences bought into even before they knew there would be sequels, and that’s why they got sequels. Whereas plenty of modern movies that start out with the intention of setting up series, like Fant4stic or Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, fail miserably because they’re so focused on setting up what comes next that they neglect to be good stories in their own right, and thus don’t satisfy the audience enough to make them want to see more.
Wow! I didn’t know how far behind I was on the Trek books! I remember hearing about the continuation of DS9 and the destruction and replacement, but I hadn’t heard about the other series relaunch and that they are all connected! Sounds very interesting, but I have some concerns, from this brief overview, there seems to be a lot of (over)use of time travel to solve story issues and maybe there should be a moratorium on it, There use to be time that you could keep up with the books as they came out, my have times changed!