Latest Trek posters from Bye Bye Robot

At the recent Star Trek convention in Las Vegas Bye Bye Robot unveiled their latest Star Trek posters. TrekMovie have posted the best photos I've found s far, which I've taken the liberty of straightening up a tad; bare in mind the real things will look better than manipulated photos!:

 

Those two are apparently coming soon. While at the convention BBR also had some special stickers for the event on offer:

Complete TOS soundtrack

La La Land Records have announced their latest Star Trek soundtrack release, a mere fifteen disc (!) collection of all the music from Star Trek: The Original Series, including hours of music recorded from the series but never used or released before. Here's a video to tell you all about it:



And a box mock-up:

The set is expected later this year, in an as yet undetermined limited quantity. You can read La La Land's full press release over at the 8of5 Archive.

More 2013 novels

A couple more 2013 novels have been informally announced. While discussing his Department of Temporal Investigations novels on the TrekBBS, Christopher L. Bennett has revealed he is working on a new Trek novel for 2013. All that has so far been revealed is that it will not be another DTI book.

Dayton Ward has also announced he is working on another Trek book, and is similarly light on detail at the moment, only specifying that is is "something I’ve been wanting to do for years". Meanwhile I hope you've read Ward's recent feature on StarTrek.com looking at novels overtaken by canon.

With these two, there are just five empty slots left in the 2013 publishing schedule (which is outlined after the jump):

More DRG3 DS9 plus new TOS blurb

David R. George III has announced on his Facebook page that he will be writing a new DS9 novel to celebrate the series' twenty anniversary next year. After the amazing job he did with Plagues of Night and Raise the Dawn I cant say I am remotely upset to hear this!

Meanwhile the Simon and Schuster online catalogue has been updated with a new blurb for his next Trek novel, the TOS book, Allegiance in Exile:

A beautiful green world, rich in fertile soil and temperate climate…a textbook Class-M planet that should be teeming with life. Scans show no life-signs, but there are refined metals, including those associated with a space-faring race…and a lone city. But where are all of the inhabitants? Captain James T. Kirk leads a landing party from the U.S.S. Enterprise, hoping to get some answers.

The away team discovers a city in ruins, covered by dust, utterly bereft of life. Tricorder readings indicate that this is no ancient metropolis—it has been deserted only for a year. And just beyond the citadel lies what appears to be an ancient spaceport…a graveyard of ships that have clearly been sabotaged.

With these ruins too far from either the Klingon or the Romulan Empires, the Enterprise crew can only wonder: Who could have done this? And could this unnamed threat now pose an imminent danger to the Federation?

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

STO's new Regent class

Star Trek Online has revealed its latest new starship, the Regent class, a variant of the Sovereign class:

 

Here's what the designer, Ian Richards, has to say about the process of creating this new design:

When I was tasked with the creation of the refit version of the Sovereign, I knew I had to draw from other 2409 ships seen in STO. The standards were set pretty high, seeing the Venture class refit of the Galaxy, the Thunderchild and Armitage refit of the Akira, among others. All of these ships had something in common, namely, selling the idea that they are an advanced version of their original counterpart, while keeping true to the basic design features. The Sovereign is already a gorgeous ship, so I knew it would not be an easy task to make it even cooler.

I took design features seen in an assortment of ships, from the Defiant, to the Odyssey, and everything in-between. Most importantly, I had to make sure it paid its dues to the Sovereign, so it kept the overall shape and size. A few key features were changed to help make it stand out, namely the forward swept pylons, and the grand arms stretching across the ship, from the front of the saucer to the rear shuttle bay. The top of the hull was ideal ground to do something to help it stand out. It's a mixture of what is seen on the Sol, Venture, and Sovereign. Creating negative space from different perspectives was massively important to making the Regent what it is today. From the side, there is no negative space between the Nacelles and the hull of the ship, akin to the Venture class. The inward facing windows on the rear of the semi-split hull is akin to the Odyssey and Sol. Some of the details under the saucer are not only directly inspired from the Constitution, but also from the Defiant and Intrepid.

In the end, keeping familiar elements from other ships, and merging them together into one glorious vessel, results in the Regent. While the Sovereign will always have a special place in my heart, I'm very happy with the end result of the Regent. I feel that it will perform quite well as Starfleet's primary assault cruiser.

Finite Space

It has seemed to be the case for a while, and now GameForge has confirmed they will not be going forward with development of their online Star Trek game Infinite Space as they find themselves unable to find a publishing partner:

Since autumn 2011 we made many efforts to find a publishing and marketing partner for Star Trek: Infinite Space. Unfortunately, our efforts were not successful. So we have decided with a heavy heart to finally abandon the project Star Trek: Infinite Space. The discontinuation is very regrettable. Unfortunately it happens from time to time that a good concept for a game cannot be implemented as originally planned.

Oh well, another Trek game bites the dust. Still, Star Trek Online continues to grow, and we've got the new timeline game to look forward to. Have a look back through my previous coverage of Infinite Space to see a trailer and some of the new ship designs the game would have included.

Big Spock statue

Hollywood Collectables have announced their latest Star Trek statue, and this time it's a quarter scale Spock, to keep their previous same sized Kirk company:

Here's how Hollywood Collectables describe him:

We are proud to present Mr. Spock, Science Officer of the Starship Enterprise, recreated in fantastic 1:4 scale. With an authentic likeness of Leonard Nimoy in character as Mr. Spock, this is a must have for any Star Trek fan! Spock is ready for action with his Phaser in hand, trusty tricorder, and transporter themed base - "Beam me up Scotty"!

This is a companion piece to our very popular Captain Kirk 1:4 scale statue. Approx 19" tall, this incredible piece of art is constructed from heavyweight polystone and then hand painted to the finest detail.

There is no HCG Exclusive version of this piece. However if you like low serial numbers, we are reserving # 1 to # 100 for retail customers only. So the first 100 retail orders will receive the desirable low edition numbers!

Limited to just 750 pieces worldwide.

Sculpted by Chris Vierra. Paint masters by Fred DiSanto.

This new Spock is available for pre-order from Amazon.com and Forbidden Planet.

Collectables for Ferengi

Ever felt your Star Trek collection just didn't have enough precious metal in it? Well you're in luck, as The Danbury Mint have now launched a 22kt gold foil card set, featuring Star Trek characters from all the tv series and films. StarTrek.com reports there are sixty cards in the set, which you can house in their very own folder. Here's how Danbury describe their Spock card:

Once you examine your 22kt Gold Commander Spock Card up close you will see how the luster of gold beautifully captures every futuristic detail, from the Starfleet emblem on his uniform to his vulcan ears.

Can you resist the golden luster of Spock's futuristic Vulcan ears?

 

More original fiction in the latest Star Trek Magazine

Available now digitally from Zinio, and coming in the next few weeks in print, is the latest issue of the Star Trek Magazine. As one might expect it is busy celebrating all things TNG, including features on the blurays and music. There's also lots of love for Star Trek comics again, with a second Four Colour Flashback article, this time looking specifically at Marvel's Star Trek books. There's also a new comic strip, Starship Trekkers, which kicks off with its own quirky take on Encounter at Farpoint. Plus there's a six page feature on the TNG/Doctor Who crossover comic.

As well as the new comic, there's new original fiction in the form of a second Star Trek Online inspired short story, featuring the Enteprise-F, which comes together with an introduction to the crew of that new flagship.

 

TOS retro poster series

Starting this month, Quantum Mechanix in the US, and Pyramid in the UK are releasing a series of new TOS retro style posters from artist Juan Ortiz. For the next twenty months (!) they will be releasing sets of four. StarTrek.com have posted an interview with Ortiz explaining how the project came about:

It started with just three posters. I was just doing these for myself, not really thinking about making any money off of them. I liked how they looked and had fun creating them, so I figured why not do more? Even though I had majored in editorial illustration in college, I never really got to work in that field and these posters sort of filled that gap for me creatively.

After I made about 30-40 of them, I showed them to a few professional artist friends of mine and they all insisted that I should have them printed. I had worked as a product designer for Disney and Warner Bros., so my first instinct was to acquire the license and maybe print out a set of postcards or something. I contacted CBS and fortunately for me, the response for the posters was a good one. We decided, however, that having some of the CBS partners create the products would be a better way to go. Up until now, though, I had a tough time believing that it was all really happening. Hopefully the fans will appreciate the effort I made.

Here are the first four and Ortiz's comments on their designs:

The image is a stylized version of the patch worn by the doctor in the episode, I tried to give this poster an old Playbill look.

In drawing the character Edith Keeler, Ortiz went with "a '70s/'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' approach." The Beatles' Yellow Submarine was and still is a big influence in much of his work.

Ortiz wanted to be sure to credit not just the lead actors, but the writers and director as well. He says, "They are, after all, the creators. I'm just interpreting their words and visuals in a different format."

The look here is Grateful Dead-esque. "I knew that I wanted to create a black-light poster for this series, and naturally, "The Way to Eden," with its hippie theme, seemed perfect,"