Latest updates from Laser Books

Last summer I reported on Laser Books' return to publishing Czech translations of Star Trek novels. After a pause in their output for a couple of years they had prepared a packed line-up, catching up on many of the recent series. Alas after getting a couple of books out last year they had some complications.

Next book on their schedule was kicking off their run of Enterprise books with Kobayashi Maru. Laser had thought they would then continue with the Romulan War series, having reserved the rights to do a translation, but as their editor, Albert Balatka, has explained to me, that was when things got tricky - It turned out in the intervening time another publisher, Baronet, had secured the rights to the Romulan War duology. Baronet and Laser have since decided to work together on the Romulan War books. So now Kobayahi Maru (Kobayahi Maru) will be coming from Laser this month, and Romulanská Válka: Pod Krídlem Dravce (Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing) follows in February, with Romulanská Válka: Ti, Kteří Celí Bouři (Romulan War: To Brave the Storm) due to follow in May.

Laser Books have changed the cover design of Kobayshi Maru since I last posted their artwork. Here is the new version by James Schejbal:

Balatka told me they intended to have Trip disguised as his Romulan alter-ego Cunaehr on the cover. That doesn't seemed to have happened in the end, but they did do a very rough mock-up of that sort of thing for a promo image they posted on the Czech Star Trek books Facebook page:

The cover for Pod Krídlem Dravce (Beneath the Raptor's Wing) is much the same as the original US version, although they have altered the back cover, allowing them to add in a Romulan Bird-of-Prey:

Balatka also sent me over a full cover for the already released Černý král (The Red King). Aside from changing the red king to the black king in the title and art work, they have also made the back cover the same colour as the spine, and plan to continue this treatment with further books in the Titan series (the original US ones all have a blue coloured back covers, until Synthesis, which also adopted the spine and front cover colours):

Another book that was intended for last year but is currently held up is Smrt v Zimě (Death in Winter). Balatka is hoping to be able to include the Titan short story Improvisations on the Opal Sea: A Tale of Dubious Credibility, which was originally published in the Tales From the Captain's Table anthology. That desire has set back the release while Pocket Books work out if they're allowed to include the short story with Death in Winter.

Beyond that they intend to complete the release of the String Theory trilogy with book three, Evoluce (Evolution), and then plan to get the novelization of Star Trek Into Darkness out in time for the Czech release of the film in June.

After Into Darkness they will be continuing with the release of TNG, and Titan, working their way towards Destiny.

Prose updates, covers and more

The cover for David R. George III's forthcoming TOS novel Allegiance in Exile has been released. The rather stylish design looks like this:

UPDATE: Somehow completely failed to notice: They added "The Original Series" as a subtitle. About bloody time!

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp.

In other 2013 novel news, William Leisner's TOS novel, formerly using the stand-in title, A Conflict of Strangers, has been rechristened, The Shocks of Adversity. At the moment the Simon and Schuster listing for this is using the blurb previously (and still) used for Jeff Mariotte's The Folded World.

Meanwhile on Amazon.co.uk (but seemingly no where else yet), there is a new blurb for Greg Cox's next Trek novel, The Weight of Worlds:

Kirk and the Enterprise crew face off against an ancient extra-terrestrial cult known as the Crusade, who believe that ancient prophecies proclaim the universe will soon be destroyed and recreated, but only those who surrender to the Truth will be saved. The Crusade is on a sacred mission to bring the Truth to Kirk's universe before the End comes. But how do you fight an idea? And is the Crusade here to save or subjugate the Federation?

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp.

Back to this year; this month's novel, Brinkmanship, and ebook, In Tempest's Wake, don't seem to have excerpts on the Simon and Schuster site, but if you want to try before you buy, both have a small sample you can read using Amazon's look inside feature. So, have a look, here, and here.

On the subject of In Tempest's Wake, Doug Drexler posted on his Facebook an unused alternate cover for the book:

He also posted the artwork for Raise the Dawn, which reveals the final artwork was cropped in quite significantly. Check out the runabouts with cargo modules! Curiously he refers to this as a cover from Pocket's Omega series.

Finally the Star Trek Czech books Facebook page posted a higher res version of the new cover for Kobayashi Maru, coming soon in Czech from Laser Books:

Return to Trek books in Czech!

Regular readers will know I like to keep an international flavour to things here, especially when it involves new cover art, so I regularly report on new editions of Star Trek stuff in other languages. Most commonly Cross Cult's German translations (as they have the most active publishing program at the moment), but I've also previously found new titles in French, Spanish and Portuguese. Over at the 8of5 Archives I've also explored some of past foreign language titles, so far looking at French comics and prose and comics published in Hebrew.

I have yet to do a piece on Star Trek published in the Czech Republic, and you might be surprised to know that over the years there have been quite a few published there! There had been a bit of a lull in recent years, but it seems now, under a new editor, Albert Balatka, that things are getting going again at Laser Books. Last year saw the publication of Fusion (Fúze), book two in the Voyager: String Theory trilogy - Book one, Cohesion (Koheze) was translated back in 2008. They seem to have a growing schedule for this year, with Alan Dean Fosters movie novelization already out, and the second Titan book The Red King (Černý král) out about now (following from Taking Wing (Mezi dvěma světy) back in 2007), which has had the cover subtly altered to reflect the slightly changed title to Black King:

 

There's a new cover on the way for what will be Laser's first Enterprise book, Kobayashi Maru, expected in August:

Also planned for this year (September) is the second book in the Crucible trilogy, Spock: The Fire and the Rose (Oheň i růže), which again follows from the first book, McCoy: Provenance of Shadows (Odkud přicházejí stíny), coming out back in 2008.

If a Czech forum I found is reliable, also currently in development are The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Romulanská válka: Pod křídlem dravce), in October; Death in Winter (Smrt v zimě) appropriately in December; String Theory: Evolution (Teorie strun: Evoluce), in January; and later in 2013, Articles of the Federation (Zákony Federace), Resistance (Odpor), Q and A (Q: otázky a odpovědi), Before Dishonor (Před zněuctěním), The Romulan War: To Brave the Storm (Romulanská válka: Odvážně vstříc bouři), and Orion's Hounds (Orionovi psi).

Perhaps the most interesting of all though is Star Trek: Kusy (Pieces), which appears to be a Strange New Worlds-like writing contest, which like several of series launched years back by Laser was begun in 2007. According to the competition website, three stories were to be chosen, each to also have an accompanying illustration. This book is finally expected some time this year.

Interesting Laser has previously published two original Star Trek novels in Czech; Q alternativa and Zrcadla, in 2002 and 2004 respectively. These don't seem to be licensed however, while one cover depicts the Enterprise-D neither of them actually have Star Trek in the title and some websites seem to to refer to them as being based on a "modified version of the series". Hopefully this new anthology is a bit more official and a bit more likely to get translated into other languages.