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Star Trek: Picard is just one month away, but fans will have another opportunity to engage with the new series in Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope, a new novel written by Una McCormack. McCormack has authored eight previous Star Trek novels, including The Lotus Flower, Hollow Men, The Fall: The Crimson Shadow, Enigma Tales, and The Way to the Stars. The Last Best Hope is a prequel to Star Trek: Picard that promises to introduce some of the new characters in the series. It's interesting that the novel is releasing February 11th, three weeks into the first season of Star Trek: Picard on CBS All Access. It's also notable for being the first Star Trek novel published in hardcover since 2007. The novel is now available to pre-order.

“From the moment we announced this series, we’ve seen a groundswell of support from our fan base who are thrilled to have Jean-Luc Picard back on their screens,” said Veronica Hart, EVP Global Franchise Management at Star Trek Las Vegas when discussing Picard's tie-in materials. “Having this brand new original backstory play out through both comic book and novel formats will set the stage for the new series in an exciting way while also showcasing the work of our talented partners at Simon & Schuster and IDW.”

IDW Publishing is already publishing its Star Trek: Picard prequel comic, Star Trek: Picard -- Countdown. With two out of three issues already published, the series has revealed the fate of Geordi La Forge, Picard's new ship, his new First Officer, and the mission that would lead to Picard resigning from Starfleet.

(Photo: Simon & Schuster)

In addition to published prequel materials, the final installment of the second season of Star Trek: Short Treks, "Children of Mars," will also serve as a prequel to Star Trek: Picard. The episode debuts on CBS All Access on January 9th.

With a month to go until the series premiere, CBS has begun heavier promotion of Star Trek: Picard. Today it debuted the first look at Jonathan Del Arco returning as Hugh from Star Trek: The Next Generation. CBS released a new Star Trek: Picard trailer earlier in the week.

Star Trek: Picard continues the story of Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but producer Alex Kurtzman has said that this series is a different experience from the series in which Stewart originated the character.

“You know, we feel a tremendous responsibility to the fans who have loved [the Picard character], and Patrick himself, who took a massive leap of faith with us in choosing to come back and play Picard [after] he said he was done forever,” Kurtzman said. “He also said, ‘I want to make sure if I come back, if you loved TNG, you’ll feel we’re honoring it, but this is a very different experience.’ This is really a very different experience. It looks incredibly different, the kind of storytelling is different, but if you’re someone who’s never watched it at all, it’s been built for you to come into it and get to be dropped into this very emotional story about this captain who’s in the late stage of his life and is dealing with the sum total of all his choices.

“It also has an incredible new crew — incredible, to a person, they’re all so wonderful. And we have now started showing it to the studio, and they’re thrilled with it, so that gave us a lot more confidence that we’ve hit the mark. We’ve now watched five episodes with Patrick and he’s thrilled with it too. Because he was so happy with it, it makes us feel like it honored what we promised.”

Star Trek: Picard debuts January 23rd on CBS All Access.

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