Books bits: SCE, TOS, and Rise of the Federation

The latest books news, starting with some good news for German readers. Cross Cult have decided to start translating the Corps of Engineers series. They've so far scheduled the first four novellas (of seventy-four in the series), with the first ebook coming in April. The German titles are:

• In der Höhle des Löwen (The Belly of the Beast), by Dean Wesley Smith - April 2014
• Schwerer Fehler (Fatal Error), by Keith R.A. DeCandido - June 2014
• Bruchlandung (Hard Crash), by Christie Golden - August 2014
• Interphase I (Interphase, Book One), by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore - October 2014

They have so far released new covers for the first two UPDATE: four (via Facebook):

Something these wont have, as ebooks, is spines. Which is a shame, as Cross Cult do a really good job with their spine design. My regular German correspondent, Jens Deffner, pointed me towards the following photo, posted on Facebook by Bernd Perplies, one of Cross Cult's translators, showing the glorious uniformity of their Star Trek library. Oh how I wish the English books looked this neat:

Back in the English-reading world, one of my readers, nisus8, pointed me towards comments made by Greg Cox on the TrekBBS, about his forthcoming TOS movie-era novel, Foul Deeds Will Rise. Apparently the book is to be set between The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country, and will focus on Kirk and Chekov.

Finally Simon and Schuster have updated their listing for Christopher L. Bennett's next Enterprise novel, Rise of the Federation: Tower of Babel, with an excerpt. You'll find chapter one on their website, while the book itself should be showing up any day now.

They also have an excerpt up for this month's Greg Cox TOS/Voyager novel, No Time Like the Past. Again, chapter one is what you'll find on Simon and Schuster.

New movie tie-in novels cancelled

Or more optimistically are put on hold until some future time (if ever) when the new universe is more developed. TrekMovie got this statement from Pocket:

"With last summer’s blockbuster STAR TREK movie, JJ Abrams created a new vibrant, layered version of the Star Trek universe. After careful consideration, we decided to hold off on telling new stories while JJ and his team continue to develop his vision."

All four novels due to come out this summer are written and were in the editorial stages. Roberto Orci has already commented on TrekMovie that he had nothing to do with this change in policy, but the internet is already speculating on Pocket's, Paramount/CBS's, and Bad Robot's possible motivations and involvements.

Aside from wondering why exactly this has happened it also raises the question of what (if anything) will now fill a four month hole in the schedule at rather short notice. The Typhon Pact series is due to start after when these books were meant to appear, could that be brought forward? Perhaps slightly, to lessen the gap, but surely it wont be possible to rush them ahead enough to fill it completely. TrekBBS user DarkHorizon has already spotted there are three new trade paperbacks listed for summer release now on Simon and Schusters website; the final two SCE omnibuses, Out of the Cocoon and What's Past, and something titled "Starfleet Academy Untitled Paperback #1", which seems to be listed as a childrens’ book, leading to speculation it might be an omnibus of some of the old young adult Starfleet Academy series (UPDATE: That last one has now vanished!). However trade paperback relases are normally seperate from the regular monthly mass market paperback releases, so this not be releated at all.

At any rate we've lost four new novels, and there's no new stories coming out of the alternate reality for a long time to come. *sigh*

Wounds cover

TrekWeb.com has released the cover for the next Star Trek: Corps of Engineers print omnibus; Wounds. By the artist Rick Berry apparently:

Wounds is out in October and will contain eBooks of 50-56 of the SCE series (including three stories that have some level of cross over with the DS9 relaunch).

Couple of new things

Have yourself the following tit-bits:

Over at the Trek BBS Pocket Books' ebooks editor, Keith R.A DeCandido has announced the details of the eleventh print compilation of the Corps of Engineers series. The book titled Wounds is scheduled for release in October 2008 and will include the following stories:
-SCE #50: Malefiction, by Terri Osborne
-SCE #51: Lost Time, by Ilsa J. Bick
-SCE #52: Identity Crisis, by John J. Ordover
-SCE #53: Fables of the Prime Directive, by Cory Rushton
-SCE #54: Security, by Keith R.A. DeCandido
-SCE #55 & 56: Wounds, by Ilsa J. Bick
As DeCandido pointed out, this book might be off interest to fans of the DS9 relaunch as it featured several stories relative to DS9 in that time period.

Meanwhile from IDW, editor Chris Ryall let slip John Bryne will be producing a second Star Trek comic, for an as yet unspecified project, sometime after the Romulan Alien Spotlight he has written and illustrated, which comes out in February.