Monday 20 June 2011

Pocket Books updates

The Simon and Schuster online catalogue has been updated with new blurbs and covers:

TOS: The Rings of Time, by Greg Cox
The U.S.S. Enterprise responds to an SOS from a vital dilithium-mining colony in the Klondike system. The colony is located on Skagway, a moon orbiting Klondike-6, a gas giant not unlike Saturn. For unknown reasons, the planet’s rings are coming apart, threatening the colony and its inhabitants. Kirk and his crew need to find a solution–fast. There are over three thousand colonists, including hundreds of families, on the endangered moon. That’s more than even the Enterprise can take on, and there are no other rescue ships or habitable planets anywhere in the vicinity. Meanwhile, a approaching comet that may be the source of the crisis threatening Skagway turns out to be a mysterious alien probe that seems to be on its last legs. Sensors indicate that the probe is incredibly old and running low on power. Suspecting that the probe may have something to do with the crisis threatening Skagway, Kirk has the probe beamed aboard the Enterprise. Scanning the artifact with his tricorder, Spock is unable to determine its origins, but detects no obvious threat. The surface of the probe is badly scorched and corroded, but Kirk can make out the remnants of alien hieroglyphics that look strangely similar to the ones on that alien obelisk he encountered on Miramanee’s planet years ago. Troubled by the memory, he reaches out to touch it…there’s a blinding flash…and Kirk suddenly finds himself floating in orbit above Saturn in our solar system, drifting in space wearing an old-fashioned NASA spacesuit. Disoriented, it takes him a few moments to realize that he is nowhere near the Klondike system and the Enterprise is nowhere in sight. Instead he glimpses an old-style spaceship of twenty-first century design several meters away. What just happened…?

Mirror Universe: Rise Like Lions, by David Mack

Wizkids games updates

ICv2 has posted information about Wizkids' second Star Trek game, Star Trek Fleet Captains. The game will be released in August, at just under $100. The game will feature twenty-four starship miniatures using the heroclix system to control power allocation on the ships. Half will be Federation, and half Klingon. The game is set in the prime universe, based on TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager, with the aim being to build a fleet and explore the galaxy while competing with the other side. It can be played one-on-one or in teams. Other elements of the game include fifty "galaxy location tiles", two-hundred "command cards" (half for each side), fifty "encounter cards", and seventy-six "mission cards".
 

ICv2 has also reported Wizkids will be releasing an expansion for the recently release new timeline game Star Trek Expeditions (the first story of any variety set after the film in the new timeline!). The expansion will consist of three characters, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov, and their corresponding character cards.

Aenar and Caitians in STO

The Star Trek Online Cryptic Store has been updated with listings for Aenar and Caitain bridge officers:
 


Friday 17 June 2011

IDW Star Trek returns in September with a new movie timeline ongoing series!!

After a more than half a year drought of Star Trek comics they are finally returning in September with the start of Star Trek Ongoing. Here's the blurb from Previews:

The adventures of the Starship Enterprise continue in this new ongoing series that picks up where the blockbuster 2009 film left off! Featuring the new cast of the film, these missions re-imagine the stories from the original series in the alternate timeline created by the film, along with new threats and characters never seen before! With creative collaboration from STAR TREK writer/producer Roberto Orci, this new series begins the countdown to the much-anticipated movie sequel premiering in 2012. Join Kirk, Spock and the crew as they boldly go into a new future! Up first, a drastic new envisioning of "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
This first issue is to be written by Mike Johnson, who with Tim Jones wrote all the previous IDW new timeline comics. The art will be by Stephen Molnar, who previously illustrated the Mission's End series. Covers will be by Tim Bradstreet and David Messina.

UPDATE: StarTrek.com have now posted an article on this, and reveal the issue will also have four "rare photo covers" (which I assume to mean retail incentives). There will also be even rare issues signed Orci and Johnson. They have images up of two, I'd expect the other two photo covers to complete the image:

Exciting times! I hope IDW don’t forget that the new timeline is currently several years earlier than the original TV series, and make sure the re-envisioned stories take that into account!

Also listed in the solicitations for that month is the "Star Trek Movie Universe Box Set". No blurb for it yet, but my guess would be StarTrek.com has confirmed it will be a collection of the trade-paperback editions of Countdown, Nero, and the Movie Adaptation. StarTrek.com also posted this image:
UPDATE: The full solicitations are now out, here's the blurb for the box set:
Relive the Star Trek franchise re-launch on the comic book page with this collector's edition slipcase containing all three Star Trek movie-related trade paperbacks. Find out how and why Nero and Spock have such a tenuous relationship in Countdown! Learn about the dark years Nero spent plotting his revenge against Spock and the Federation in Nero! And finally, experience the motion picture all over again in the strikingly stylish Official Motion Picture Adaptation!

PS. Any Jurassic Park fans will also be happy with September, as IDW are starting their third Jurassic Park series then too!

Thanks to DecepticonsRule on the IDW Forums for pointing out this news!

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Haynes T-Shirts, wallets, greetings cards, and in German!

The Haynes Manual illustrations have found another application, this time as T-Shirt designs! Using the original cover, and some of the alternate covers (the same ones recently made available by Walls360 as print-on-demand wall graphics). Currently available seem to be the Enterprise, Communicator, and the Bridge, though sadly not the shuttlecraft version!:

 
 

It looks like the Official Star Trek Store is keen on these too, as wall graphics, posters, and greetings cards of all five designs are available there. Here's the full set of cards:


Still not had enough of those Haynes images? Well you're in luck as it appears Dynomighty have also expanded their range of Star Trek Mighty Wallets with another one based on the Haynes Manual, this time using the shuttlecraft cutaway image (rather attractively inverted giving an X-Ray sort of feel to it), and two more Gold Key comics designs as well:

 
 

Finally, it appears the Haynes Manual also has a German language edition on the way (next month) from the publisher Heel. They've given their edition a new cover, which seems to complement their cover for one of their previous Trek books, the Enterprise-D Technical Manual:

DS9 DVD collection. And Voyager too!

Amazon UK has updated its listing for the forthcoming DS9 complete series DVD repackage, and now have an image of the box-set:

They have also updated their listings and now have pages up for the Voyager and Enterprise sets to follow. Though like the DS9 set before these pages are currently using images of previous versions of the sets.

UPDATE: It appears these re-issues are also happening in Germany, and Amazon.de has the box design up for the Voyager set too!


Monday 13 June 2011

Ships of the Line 2012 images, and other Trek calendars

Amazon have updated their Star Trek calendar listings, so you can now see the back-cover of next year's Ships of the Line calendar, giving us a tiny glimpse of the images within:


Amazon do have a front-cover up too, but like previous years it seems to be a stand-in, using one of this year's images. The back-cover hints at what we might see later, with the cover image entitled "Reflections After Probert".

Like this year we get a technical briefing as the centerfold (yay!) featuring Mark Rademaker's Merian class from the Voyager novels, and a new Ambassador class variant, which appears to Tobais Richter's model based on one of Andy Probert's early designs (which you can see more images of at Modelerer Magic). Both of those ships get their own pages too.

Enterprise and DS9 don’t seem to have got a look in this time, neither does the new movie timeline curiously, but TOS and TNG have a good showing as a result. From TOS we get: a TV era shuttlecraft planetscape, the TV era Enterprise entering drydock, Captain Christoper's F-104 and the Enterprise from "Tomorrow is Yesterday", the Enterprise and the Botany Bay ("Space Seed"), several movie-era ships around a spacedock-style starbase in an asteroid field, and two new (to me) movie-eraish starships. While TNG gives us the Enterprise-D in the dyson sphere from "Relics", a shuttle's eye-view of the Enterprise-E, the Enterprise-E and Son'a collector from Insurrection, and a Borg cube attaching another class of ship I'm struggling to recognise!

Amazon also has front and back images up for next year's TOS calendar:


Plus there's the electronic calendar:

Mark Rademaker's Project Full Circle

Mark Rademaker has been commenting on his work on the Voyager fleet design project on the TrekBBS lately, here are a few of the thing's he has revealed:

On the Merian class science vessels he commented:
I designed the Merian to be a replacement class for the aging Miranda. Less crew, newer technology same diversity. Planck and Hawking will look reasonable the same, the Curie is a variant. The platform is very easy to construct and modular.
On the USS Demeter (the fleet's airponic's ship) he noted:
I think the head of the design department for this project was an Andorian, at least the ship is going into a more "Andorian" direction. 
And also released this first look at the design:


The USS Achilles (the fleet's technical support vessel) will similar in shape to the Demeter, but have a utilitarian look.

Final he also revealed this look at the direction he is taking the Voyager refit (though was careful to note this is not the final design):


Commenting on Voyager he also noted the aerowing will be removed to make space for new slipstream sensors.

You can follow Mark's work on this and other projects on his blog.

New Star Trek game announced!

A new Star Trek computer game has been announced! Set for release next year, the new game, coming from Paramount Digital Entertainment and Digital Extremes, will be available for Windows, X-Box 360, and Playstation 3. The game's story is by Marianne Krawczyk, and will be set in the new timeline, with players able to play as either Kirk or Spock.

Here's a picture:

Here's a trailer:


And here's the exlcusive Playstation move phaser controller that is going to be released with it!:
 

Source: Startrek.com, here, and here.

STO updates: Jupiter uniforms and the Enterprise-F

The Star Trek Online C-Store has been updated with a new uniform variant the "Jupiter" style:

And the latest STO Dev diary looks at the development of the Enterprise-F design, from the initial concept drawing to a basic shape model to examine the ship from all angles:
 

Star Trek T-shirts, great for flashing!

Tired of your boring old T-shirts that just sit there displaying one constant image? Then you're in luck! Flashware.com have recently unveiled their new line of Star Trek flashing light-up T-shirts, with four designs currently available:
Find Star Trek comics, toys, statues, and collectibles at TFAW.com!