Vesta design, new 24th century meta-story and a whole heap of novely news, oh my!

TrekMovie.com has posted a rather massive report on Pocket Books' plans for the next couple of years, with all sorts of new (and uber-exciting) info. Lets start with... a design for the Vesta class (USS Aventine). The now former-Trek editor Marco Palmieri mentioned a while ago a design was being worked on, and now TrekMovie has released a concept design, by Mark Rademaker, the same artist who designed the smaller slipstream starship, the USS Spirit, in this year's Ships of the Line calendar:

The design will be used in the 2010 Ships of the Line, and more excitingly, on planned future novels featuring the Aventine! Which leads into the really big news I think: Following on from Destiny in 2010 will be a new cross-series meta-story, incorporating the new Aventine book (or books), TNG, Voyager and Titan. The Federation will face a new alien threat, called "The Typhon Pact" which, as editor Margaret Clark, has described "is comprised of non Federation members who "watched the Federation insidiously 'Root Beer' their way across the Galaxy and they realize the Federation is down and it is time to move."

Before that (or starting it?) is TNG: Losing the Peace, which Clark has described as follows: "we see Picard trying to deal with the vast array of civilian casualties and how the Federation deals the want and need…this is something we have never seen in the 24th Century…" We've also got a new cover for that novel:

There's also big news for the Voyager section of this big adventure, the second new Voyager book now has a title "Unworthy", which will see, amongst other Voyager regulars, the return of Seven to Voyager and a cameo from Neelix. Voyager will be on a new mission exploration and accompanied by a number of support ships. And one more big bit of news, Chakotay will no longer be captain after "dealing with having his soul ripped out" due to the "apparent death of Kathryn Janeway" in Before Dishonor.

Away from all the 24th century excitement there is also a new description of Enterprise: The Romulan War: "Because of things that unfolded in "Kobayashi Maru," the Vulcans have to come with a horrifying fact and they realize that there is something they have to do. Vulcan is going trough upheaval after the rediscovery of Surak’s teachings and the society is not as stable as what we see in the 23rd century. T’Pol realizes what their involvement in a war could wrought on Vulcan society and she does something that horrifies her partners in the coalition, but will eventually lead to the foundation of the United Federation of Planets and the Vulcan that we see in the Kirk era."

In less exciting news there are also some delays to the schedule (at least in part due to Marco Palmieri's departure). The third Myriad Universes anthology, now titled Shattered Light, has been delayed until August 2010, it will still include three short novels, including a TNG story by David R. George, and a Sulu story by Scott Pearson. The Seven Deadly Sins anthology has also been pushed back, to March 2010 and the latest Corps of Engineers omnibus, Out of the Cocoon has been pushed back to December 2010. Finally the hardcover omnibus of the Crucible trilogy planned for release along side the new movie, as been cancelled.

Finally some little newsoids:
-The latest run of reference books haven’t done so well it seems, so no more of those for now.
-No return to original ebooks for now.
-A deal is being worked on for new audio books.
-This cover for the next New Frontier book may not be final:

-But these new covers for the next two DS9 books are:

-2010 will see something slight unusual, David Mack's Mirror Universe story The Sorrows of Empire is to be expanded and published as a stand-along novel.

And last but not least here's what the schedule now looks like for the next two years:
-Jan 09: TOS: Errand of Fury: Sacrifices of War, by Kevin Ryan
-Jan 09: Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows
-Feb 09: A Singular Destiny, by Keith R.A. DeCandido
-Mar 09: Titan: Over a Torrent Sea, by Christopher L. Bennett
-Apr 09: Voyager: Full Circle, by Kirsten Beyer
-Apr 09: NF: Treason, by Peter David
-May 09: Vanguard: Open Secrets, by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
-Jun 09: TOS: Troublesome Minds, by Dave Galanter
-Jul 09: TNG: Losing the Peace, by William Leisner
-Aug 09: DS9: The Soul Key, by Olivia Woods
-Sep 09: DS9: The Never Ending Sacrifice, by Una McCormack
-Oct 09: Voyager: Unworthy, by Kirsten Beyer
-Oct 09: Enterprise: The Romulan War, by Michael A. Martin
-Nov 09: Titan: Synthesis, by James Swallow
-Dec 09: Vanguard: Precipice, by David Mack
-Feb 10: TOS/Mirror Universe: The Sorrows of Empire, by David Mack
-Mar 10: TOS novel TBA
-Mar 10: Seven Deadly Sins
-Apr 10: TOS era reprint
-May 10: TOS: Unspoken Truth, by Margaret Wander Bonanno
-Aug 10: Myriad Universes: Shattered Light
-Dec 10: CoE: Out of the Cocoon

Alien Spotlight: Tribbles art

While googling about I found some artwork for the first issue of the second Alien Spotlight series, focusing on tribbles. Found on artist Mike Hawthorne's blog:

The writer, Stuart Moore, has also been blogging about the issue, which he has dubbed "The Trouble with Humanoids" (I hope that title makes it to the issue).

New movie Barbies

TrekMovie.com has provided the first images of the new Star Trek Barbie dolls being released to tie-in with the new film, they look like this (which is like the characters rather than Barbie dressed as the characters, lovely):

See the TrekMovie article for more info on Star Trek-Barbie history.

A Singular Destiny excerpt

Keith R.A. DeCandido has released an excerpt from his forthcoming Destiny follow-up novel, A Singular Destiny.

You can read it, here.

The NX-91001

The Star Trek Online website has been updated with details of a new starship to be featured in the game. The NX-91001is described as follows: "A starship designed to carry Federation influence throughout the Alpha Quadrant and beyond, the NX-91001 is one of the first multi-role starship designs since the Sovereign class was commissioned in the early 2370s. Able to function as a deep-space explorer with extensive sensors and laboratory facilities for scientific research, the NX-91001 also is outfitted as a heavy cruiser armed with some of the latest in Starfleet weapons technology for deployment in hostile areas."

The article goes on to describe the various technologies employed by the vessel, and also gives specifications for dimensions and systems. Read it, here.

New covers and blurbs in the latest Pocket catalogue

Pocket Books has released their latest promotional/solicitations catalogue sort of thing, which includes some new blurbs and covers, some of which are not the finals:

Seven Deadly Sins
Lust. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Wrath. Envy. Pride. These are the seven deadly sins of humanity...but humans are not the only creatures in the universe to surrender to their baser instincts. In the world of Star Trek, entire civilizations are driven by avarice, or anger, or insatiable hunger, or one of the other fundamental urges that have come to define these fascinating species.

Now, this edgy collection of original novellas explores these empires from the inside, delving into the qualities that shape their cultures and their worldviews, through characters as compelling as they are provocative. These surprising and engaging tales feature all of Star Trek’s most prominent adversaries, including The Borg, The Klingons, The Romulans, the Cardassians, the Ferengi, the Pakleds, and the Mirror Universe.

Troublesome Minds
While exploring the unmapped frontier, the Starship Enterprise responds to a distress call from an unknown ship. Captain James T. Kirk turns first contact into a threat of interstellar war—by saving the life of a man his own people abandoned. Berlis, colony leader of a telepathic race calling themselves the Isitri, claims not to know why those from his homeworld want him dead. Now Kirk must either find a way to wrench billions from the grip of one man, or be responsible for the destruction of two planets.

Losing the Peace
The Borg invasion has left the Federation reeling. Countless people have been killed or displaced by the wonton destruction, and now seek solace on planets that struggle just to feed their own. The ideals wrought in the paradise that was the United Federation of Planets now seem to be a distant dream. Starfleet is shattered, giving old enemies a chance to gain the upper hand. The question now is, what can one ship, and one captain do to prevent humanity from losing the peace?

The Soul Key
Captain Kira’s lookalike, Iliana Ghemor, dreams of fulfilling a prophecy that will mark her as the one true Emissary of the mirror universe—a messianic figure who will lead her followers into a war that could trigger the cleansing of countless alternate Kiras in countless parallel realities. But the stakes are higher than anyone imagines, for the pull of destiny tugs at other souls who are swept into the vortex of the Prophets, remote and timeless beings who have set these events in motion. Yet the outcome of this struggle for the fate of one universe will ripple across many others, giving shape to a future that will prove to be greatest trial yet for the heroes of station Deep Space 9.

The Never-Ending Sacrifice
Rugal is an orphaned Cardassian who has been raised by the people his race once conquered, the Bajorans. Reluctantly repatriated to Cardassia as a teenager, Rugal becomes the living witness to the downfall of the proud people to whom he was born, first by the invading Klingons, then during the Cardassians’ unholy pact with the Dominion—a partnership that culminated in a near-genocide. Through it all, Rugal’s singular perspective illuminates the choices that brought the Cardassians to their ruin...even as he learns that the Cardassian soul is not as easy to understand as he imagined.

Star Trek Online: 2383

Cyrptic Studios have updated the Star Trek Online website with the next year of their timeline leading up to the setting of the game.

2383 see the state of Romulan space continue to crumble as the Star Empire and Imperial State persist in fighting among themselves. Next door relations between the Federation and Klingon Empire also suffer as both sides react badly to the consequences of the Klingons tacking control of Khitomer.

Meanwhile in the Cardassian Union the unearthing of new Hebitian findings spurs the Oralians into more public displays of their faith. Back in the Federation, members of the Soong Foundation begin work on producing new mobile holographic emitters while the Federation's lawyers continue to debate the rights of The Doctor to retain the use of his own.

Read the full history, here.

Full Circle with Kirsten Beyer

German site Trekzone.de has recently conducted an interview with Kirsten Beyer, and were good enough to post an english translation at the TrekBBS.

As a general summary for her relaunch of the Voyager relaunch she described Full Circle thusly: "Full Circle is by far the most ambitious tie-in project I've tackled to date. Bear in mind that after the Spirit Walk duology ended in mid 2378, Voyager characters made appearances in several other novels – TNG, Titan, Articles of the Federation, and we had a Janeway cameo in Nemesis. Then came Destiny which is set in the first two months of 2381. So I was looking at a gap of almost three years that needed filling and that still had to line up with what had already been published and what David Mack was working on in Destiny. There were a number of unresolved story threads left by Christie Golden, but most important of all, we needed to figure out how to most effectively weave Voyager into the wider Trek universe. They needed to have their own special purpose, a creative direction that makes their stories unique, and that would set the stage for the future in a really compelling way."

Talking about some of the dark times the Voyager crew will face in the later time period of the novel, with the death of Janeway and fallout of Destiny she talked about Trek's history of relating to contemporary challenges: "But it's the right setting, not just for Voyager but for all of Trek in that I think it resonates with some of our larger challenges as a planet right now. As long as I've been alive, it feels like we've been careening from one disaster to another, constantly on the brink of our own annihilation. Yes, I know that the decades right before I was born, the 50's and 60's had their challenges, but I look at some of the accomplishments of those decades, the prosperity and sense of optimism, the civil rights movement, and landing a man on the moon, and I wonder if our more recent accomplishments, like the technological advances we've seen in my lifetime, have done as much for our morale as a people and actually improved our quality of life as decisively as they were meant to.

Star Trek has always had allegorical undertones. It's not that we just shift our current problems a few hundred years in the future and watch them play out, but at its best, Trek has a way of shedding light on our struggles, though in a vastly different context. The darkness of the Borg invasion, the despair, the devastation, and ultimately the power of hope in the face of fear is something I think is worth meditating upon, particularly right now.

What's wonderful about Trek is that it has always presented us with one vision of what is possible. It's not a perfect future. Humans are still human and a lot of the alien races they encounter share our collective baggage, but there is hope. There is a willingness to stretch ourselves beyond parochial and outdated views and to embrace the universe's mysteries. There is a desire, always, to try and do the right thing, and to push ourselves beyond our comfort zones. I believe we all share those desires right now but that we are faced with such daunting challenges that it may be hard to imagine how we're going to get from here to where we really want to be. I'm not saying that Trek is any kind of blueprint for our future, but by placing our heroes in really difficult and dark situations from time to time, and by watching their struggles, we can more easily relate to them, and hopefully, find inspiration in their solutions."

The interview also discussed Beyer's larger career and life, and talked more about Full Circle. Read it, here.

Countdown to Data

On his blog, David Messina has released the cover for the second issue of Countdown, featuring Data:

The blog also has a pre-coloured, and non-monochromatic version, the latter of the two curiously features Data in a command-red uniform, rather than his usual operations gold. Hmm...

Dukat in a two-pack

Toy News International has announced a new action figure two-pack from DST (and for once it doesn’t have a Kirk in it!). This set features young Commander Sisko and Gul Dukat:

See the original release for a little blurb describing the pair.