Today at the Las Vegas Star Trek convention, the team at the forefront of Trek publishing took the stage to lay out some of the upcoming plans for tie-in print offerings coming up for Star Trek: Picard, the legacy Trek shows, and even the Kelvin Timeline!

Gallery Books senior editor Ed Schlessinger was joined on stage by authors John Jackson Miller, Robb Pearlman, and IDW Publishing’s Chase Marotz and Mike Johnson to talk about a number of things that are set to hint print over the next year, from tie-ins we’ve known about for a while to some new announcements.

First up is the launch of Star Trek: Picard tie-in publishing, starting with STAR TREK: PICARD — COUNTDOWN, a new comic miniseries from IDW that will launch in November 2019 ahead of the debut of the upcoming series. This three-issue tale, written by Johnson and Picard supervising producer Kirsten Beyer, will center around “a mission that would go on to change the life of beloved Star Trek captain Jean-Luc Picard,” set in the years ahead of the new television show.

In February 2020, returning Trek author Una McCormack’s THE LAST BEST HOPE will be the first Star Trek: Picard tie-in novel, which will “lead directly into the show and continue to introduce fans to brand new characters featured in the series.”

No cover artwork for either of these Star Trek: Picard releases has been unveiled yet, but as soon as that becomes public we’ll certainly bring you those updates — but in the meantime, you can preorder The Last Best Hope at Amazon ahead of the February release.

One of the biggest surprises out of the Trek publishing panel was the announcement that two of the long-thought-dead Kelvin Timeline novels — first announced in 2010 (and later cancelled) — are coming back from the black hole they disappeared into for the 2020 publication schedule.

Alan Dean Foster’s novel The Order of Peace (originally titled Refugees) and David Mack’s story More Beautiful Than Death are slated for resurrection next year, scheduled for an April and August release.

David Mack followed up on this announcement on Facebook:

Ten years ago, I wrote a Star Trek “Kelvinverse” novel set after the 2009 feature film, showcasing the new characters and situations of that movie. For behind-the-scenes reasons unrelated to my work, my book and three others in that setting were abruptly cancelled. It was announced today at Star Trek Las Vegas that my novel, MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN DEATH, will be published next year, in August 2020, as a trade paperback. I’m very excited by this news, because I have always been pleased by how that book turned out. I felt that it was a faithful continuation of those characters’ stories, one that could not be possible in the original series incarnation of Trek. Next year, fans of the films and the books will get to decide for themselves whether I succeeded, and if the book was worth the wait. 🙂

These two books mark the very first official Kelvin Timeline-based Star Trek tie-in novels, and may mark the start of a Kelvin line of ongoing publications. New cover artwork for both stories is expected to be released before these books hit stores next year.

The next new reveal was official cover art for David Mack’s upcoming Star Trek: The Next Generation novel COLLATERAL DAMAGE, announced some time ago but not seen until today’s panel.

Scheduled for release in October 2019, Collateral Damage (which can be preordered at Amazon now) will serve as “the culmination of 16 years of storytelling,” said Schlesinger, going all the way back to the early 2000’s A Time To… novel series; the editor also shared how the Collateral Damage novel will be an “intense legal drama” where Captain Picard will finally have to face the consequences of his involvement in recent Federation events.

Additionally, the panel also announced the release of two more Star Trek: The Original Series novels: March 2020 will bring us Christopher L. Bennett’s The Higher Frontier, and we’ll get another classic Trek tale from Dayton Ward in June with Agents of Influence.

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Star Trek: The Motion Picture — and the 40th anniversary of Star Trek tie-in publishing — a re-release of Gene Roddenberry’s novelization of the first Trek film will be arriving in October, and for the first time an audiobook edition of that book will be available as well.

We also got confirmation today that Star Trek: Voyager storyteller Kirsten Beyer — who has been hard at work on Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard — will finally have her long-awaited novel To Lose the Earth arrive in 2020.

Finally, while there were no announcements or specifics, Schlesinger responded to an audience question about potential young-adult tie-in books for Star Trek: Lower Decks and the upcoming Nickelodeon Star Trek animated series by saying that there are “active discussions” on that subject.

The last subject to be discussed was the state of the long-generated Star Trek novel continuity, as 24th Century Trek is about to return to the screen in Star Trek: Picard — Schlesinger commented that “We are taking [the status of the books] very seriously, and we are not looking to do anything to jeopardize our relationship with the fan base… stay tuned.”

Panelist John Jackson Miller commented that there are “a lot more opportunities to integrate things [between books and television] now… you guys want it to work, and WE want it to work. The stories that matter to you will still matter in some form [even if it may not be neat and tidy]…. keep in mind Star Trek is a multiverse.”

In addition, Trek novelist Dayton Ward — who was not in attendance at this panel — weighed in on Facebook with his take on that issue:

My various consulting duties for CBS involve working with certain licensing partners to help develop tie-in opportunities, primarily as they pertain to the new shows but also the older series as appropriate. One of those tasks – indeed, one of the very first things I was asked to help tackle when they hired me – was to work with S&S *and* CBS and figure out a path forward for the novels as they pertain to the new Picard series. From the minute this came up, I’ve approached it as one thing and one thing only: the most epic fucking ‘Star Trek’ storytelling challenge ever. There have already been several discussions on this topic, going back more than a year – even before I started developing the storyline for what became my TNG novel AVAILABLE LIGHT – about how we might proceed. A lot of the earlier conversations didn’t have the benefit of knowing just what the new show was going to do, so we ended up with a lot of talk about pretty much anything you can think of with respect to these books. Well, it’s a year later, and we know a whole lot more than we did then. As our editor, Ed Schlesinger, and John intimated, it’s a complicated process with ongoing conversations (David Mack and I had a pretty drawn-out talk about this very thing at the recent Shore Leave con, and that was basically “part 1”), and everyone involved is taking it very seriously because we all want to do it right. So, as has been said in somewhat joking fashion before now but which I’ll re-iterate with absolutely no snark: We’re working on it. Honest.

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