Talk: Novels

Starfleet Academy[]

How should the Starfleet Academy books be listed? As Starfleet Academy like New Frontier is or under each show since there are TNG SA books and VOY SA books. Alison9 23:03, Jan 22, 2005 (CET)

I had pondered this earlier -- my scenario is that the books would be in the Star Trek: Starfleet Academy article, listing all of them, and the academy premise for the series -- but all the TNG installments would be listed aslo on the Pocket TNG page also, and so forth for each subseries. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 00:14, 23 Jan 2005 (CET)

Section 31 books?[]

Shouldn't Section 31 books be listed as crossovers instead of under each individual series for consistency? Alison9 23:07, Jan 22, 2005 (CET)

They should be listed under both: their parent series Pocket DS9, Pocket VOY, etc) and the Star Trek: Section 31 article. -- Captain Mike K. Bartel 00:14, 23 Jan 2005 (CET)

Star Trek Books[]

I am new and I was wondering if star trek books that are done with paramounts ok are considered as usable in writing articles.If not,why? <unsigned>

You already seem to have a grasp of the answer. The only things usable for writing articles are episodes and movies. If it hasnt been made into a TV or theater production by the Paramount Pictures studio itself, it is not considered canon. (content and resource policies) -- and therefore, none of the books are relevant to our articles (except of course for the article about that book). This means, for example, you can create an article about the publiction data of The Final Reflection, but neither Paramount nor this database considers it valid enough to list information from it in Klingons or D5 class -- because it is "non-canon". -- Captain Mike K. Bartel^talk 14:39, 1 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Novel Duty Roster[]

Would it be innappropriate to make a link to the novel duty roster. It is listed a user project, and seems to have community support. Jaz ^{talk | novels} 00:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Still, I personally don't like these sorts of "comments for editors" spreading too much into content space. We already have all sorts of message templates, of course, but these are easily recognizable as not belonging to the content, and they only appear on individual pages - why bug a reader that does not want to edit with comments about duty rosters? Also, I know that Vedek doesn't want to for some reasons, but why is that user project not on a User projects subpage? :) -- Cid Highwind 01:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

New Earth?[]

Shouldn't New Earth series be listed here? I can't find it unless I go thru Gateways to Chainmail (Star Trek: Challenger). Also is Challenger a new series continuing New Earth? - rkk 08:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

New Earth falls under Pocket TOS - it forms part of the numbered series there - a mini-series within the TOS line, rather than a separate series. Challenger was hoped to be a new recurring series, similar to Star Trek: New Frontier; however, time constraints on Diane Carey have prevented her from writing further books as yet. -- Michael Warren | Talk 16:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Star Trek Novels[]

I was wondering......the pages in this website that tell what all the books by Pocketbooks are.....are they in order? Because I am interested in reading them. Also, what does it mean when you see a subheading "Numbered" and "Unnumbered" on some of the book pages?– Mattmitchell37 16:31, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The Pocket Books pages are _generally_ in order. But not 100%. Numbered vs unnumbered? For a while, Pocket numbered their books. They no longer do. Thus the difference. Check out the pages for the various series, such as Pocket TOS and Pocket TNG for more details. -- Sulfur 16:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a pocketbook DS9 also.--Windu223 19:19, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch. One more question, like in the DS9 Pocketbooks, there are different subheadings also. I know that the books under the "Relaunch" subheading take place after the tv series, but where do the "Numbered" and "unnumbered" fall into place? During the tv series or a continuation of the series?– Mattmitchell37 22:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's more or less up to the author when they intended the story to take place so you'd have to check on any particular book to see. I know that some of the TNG and TOS books even take place before the events in the respective series as well as during and after. I'm not sure if there would be any that take place before the events in DS9 or Voyager due to the nature of the series, but it's still a possibility. --Maestro4k 22:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Scoop on novel continuity.[]

Sorry if this has been answered before. I know the novels are not considered a part of canon with regards to the television show and movies, but I was wondering about continuity within the books. Are all the novels from a single publisher are considered to take place within the same universe? To what extent are the newer Pocket Books supposed to be respectful of the events established in previous Pocket Books?

Thanks in advance, Listener 23:35, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Supposed to be? Yes. Are they always? No. :) -- Sulfur 23:37, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

To expand on (and contradict, slightly) Sulfur's reply somewhat, the only requirement for authors is to follow events portrayed in canon sources. Authors are not beholden to previous novels in any way. It's only in recent years that an increasing amount of inter-novel continuity and consistency has arisen, largely due to the editors at Pocket Books. In reply to your first query, all novels - regardless of publisher - are assumed to take place within the familiar Trek universe. Discontinuities and discrepancies can be ignored, explained or debated at your own convenience. :D -- Michael Warren | Talk 23:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you both for your speedy answers. Mainly I was curious how much "freedom", so to speak, is offered to the writers, to openly jettison the ideas of those who came before them when they're dramatically limiting. I take it that while the only requirement is to follow cannon, the current folks at Pocket prefer a more inter-novel-continuity oriented approach in terms of what they choose to publish -- do I have that right? I suppose there's always timeline-breaking space anomolies for those who want to do something with the series that's completely off the wall... -- Listener 00:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Something like that. And then there's the Shatnerverse novels. :) -- Sulfur 00:28, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

do you have it right? well, no, the word is spelled "canon", not "cannon"...

since Memory Alpha is concerned only with the canon episodes and movies, we only list the specifics of novels and comics (i.e. the facts they were published), we don't have a lot of info on the contradictions or continuity therein...

if you want the real scoop, check the Main Page at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works -- Captain MKB 00:29, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link -- I was unaware of Memory Beta. And as for "canon", I got it right the first time -- I blame tiredness and repressed hostility for spelling it like the weapon the second time. :) Cheers, Listener

Ugg, don't remind me of those, I forget the title but the one where he had Kirk basically destroying the Borg single-handedly after being brought back from the dead (this taking place after Star Trek Generations) was particularly atrocious. I stopped reading anything that Shatner was involved in after that one. --Maestro4k 00:09, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Voyager Relaunch[]

I want to apologize if this has been topic has been overdone, but I didn't see any mention anywhere I looked. Does anyone know about the status of the Voyager books written and set after the show ended? I was wondering if they were a separate series and/or if they were still being written. I have seen mention of some, but nothing that I have seen has been published in over two years. Wood 00:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

As it stands... some of the Voyager crew has been seen in other books (ie, the TNG novels), but there hasn't been a new Voyager novel in a year or two now, as Pocket appears to be concentrating on their Enterprise, SCE, New Frontier, and Next Generation lines. -- Sulfur 01:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)