Book bits: new ebook, and German cover

It looks like Simon and Schuster might be stepping up their ebook releases. After having one original ebook novella a year for the past three years (with the most recent, The Stuff of Dreams, out just last week), there is now news of a second novella coming this year, expected in June: Michael A. Martin has apparently told the Star Trek Books Community Facebook page, that his next Star Trek story will be a TOS ebook, called Seasons of Light and Darkness, which will be starring Doctor McCoy.

Hopefully this indicates we'll be getting the ebooks on a more regular basis - Which I am pleased about, I really enjoy their easy-to-read-in-one-sitting episode-like length. I guess I might have to finally give in and get some sort of ereader if they do start coming a little more often. Hopefully Simon and Schuster will get there act together and promote the next one a bit better though; The Stuff of Dreams still doesn't have an official blurb, let alone an excerpt. If it wasn't for James Swallow self promoting we wouldn't have a clue what it's about!

In other prose news, over in Germany Cross Cult has revealed their latest cover art. This time Martin Frei gives us his version of the New Froniter novel Gateways: Cold Wars, which is due out early next year, under the German title, Portale: Kalte Kriege:

I find myself a little underwhelmed by this one, as it's the same basic concept as the original cover, but perhaps a little less dynamically delivered.

Into Darkness latest: Music and costumes UPDATED

That enterprising young man, Michael Giacchino, has been tweeting videos of the recording of his soundtrack for Star Trek Into Darkness. All three four posted so far seem to be from the closing titles, which like the first nuTrek film incorporate Alexander Courage's original Star Trek theme alongside Giacchino's rousing new stuff. Have a listen, the third and fourth videos have a choir too!:

Giacchino also tweet this interesting behind-the-scenes comment and image:

My music editor Alex Levy teaching an unspecified alien language to the choir... instagram.com/p/XqmRDDldlW/
— Michael Giacchino (@m_giacchino) April 4, 2013

I wonder if we're going to get some music sung in Klingon?

In my last Into Darkness round-up I mentioned Anovos is re-issuing some of it's nuTrek costumes. Well Entertainment Earth have now added the missing female versions; you can now pre-order an Uhura or Carol Marcus uniform, as well as the Kirk, Spock, and Scotty tunics.

At the lower end of the price scale, as Rubie's Costumes are also making sure their nuTrek costumes are available again too. Their catalogue also includes several blank spaces that they intend to fill with new costumes for Harrison and Klingons, as well as new weapons for both characters, to add to their range of brightly coloured side-arms:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minimates, breeding like tribbles

Due next month is the Minimates USS Enterprise. We already knew about a mirror universe variant, and now Diamond Select Toys have announced a third version of this ship, exclusive to Action Figure Express; this time coming with a bunch of tribbles. The ship itself appears to be the same as the standard version, but it comes with a different Kirk figure, this time in his green tunic:

This is the third Minimates Kirk release in the green tunic, he is also available, with a slightly different face, in a two-pack with Yeoman Rand, and was issued as another tribble exclusive back when Minimates were slightly less mini. Here's an image from A Piece of the Action's excellent article on the original Star Trek Minimates, comparing the previous green Kirks:

In other Minimates news, Diamond have also revealed the final pair of figures coming in the Star Trek Legacy range, posting an image on their Facebook page. Here are TOS Kirk and Khan; the only characters not displayed at the Toy Fair, from the eight pairs of Minimates coming between the regular and Toys'r'us collections:

Happy Birthday Unreality SF

Regular readers will, I'm sure, be familiar with Unreality SF, as one of their contributors, Jens Deffner, regularly helps me out with information on the latest Star Trek releases in Germany, and I always give the site a mention by way of thanks.

For those of you that haven't clicked through yet, Unreality SF is full of reviews and features about sci-fi and fantasy tie-in fiction, with a particular devotion to Star Trek and Doctor Who. They also occasionally do some really great author interviews, which I've often referred to as the sources of the latest hints of future Trek books.

Unreality SF has just passed its fifth birthday, and to celebrate they're running a series of features highlighting to world of tie-in fiction, with articles from their current and past contributors (which include several Star Trek writers), as well pieces from guest contributors - Including me! I took the opportunity to celebrate the TNG relaunch novels, which after a bumpy start, I've come to cherish. I've written about the things I enjoy in the series (as well as the things I've not enjoyed), and how those things have changed my opinion, of not just the books set after the on-screen adventures, but the entire TNG series. You can read it, here. Keep your eyes on Unreality SF over the next week or so to see what the other contributors have written about.

New images of the Star Trek Kre-O sets and packaging

Amazon has added listings for the new Star Trek Kre-O construction sets, with new high resolution images giving us a much better look at the sets, and their packaging, as well as blurbs for the sets, highlighting some of their features (complete with rather odd selection of words in quotation marks). I've chopped it out of each blurb below, but each starts with "Build your own Star Trek adventures with this awesome Kre-O construction set!" and ends with the rather cute "Boldly build what you haven't built before with [insert subject of set here]"

Any new clues about Star Trek Into Darkness here? Maybe, the space dive set mentions a "Federation Special Ops" kreon figure (presumbly the figure that appears to be John Harrison). The transporter set also describes what the set design implies; Scotty having to beam a Klingon away (from where? to where?). The Klingon Bird-of-Prey set might also be giving us a clue, suggesting Kirk and Uhura need to avoid being taken hostage by the Klingons. And of course the USS Enterprise's inclusion of the "specialist" kreon figures, in the alternate Starfleet uniform, remains a bit of an enigma.

There're lots of images, so more sets and information after the jump!

USS Enterprise

 

Use the 432 pieces to build a U.S.S. Enterprise ship that your 5 Kreon figures can "fly." Lift off the top saucer to put your Captain Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy Kreon figures on the bridge! This incredible set features Lighttech technology, so the deflector dish and engines glow for extra-amazing Star Trek action! Open the engine cowlings and fire the ship's missile as it blasts through "outer space."

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Things From Another World, Entertainment Earth, Forbidden Planet.

Klingon Bird of Prey

 

Use the 236 pieces to build a Klingon Bird-of-Prey ship that your 2 Klingon Kreon figures can "fly." Will your Captain Kirk and Uhura Kreon figures be taken hostage by their Klingon enemies? This incredible set features Lighttech technology, so the ship’s cockpit not only opens but glows for extra-amazing Star Trek action! Position the wings and fire the ship’s missiles as it blasts through "outer space."

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Things From Another World, Entertainment Earth, Forbidden Planet.

Alice Eve to read Star Trek Into Darkness audiobook, and other Into Darkness bits.

StarTrek.com have announced Alice Eve, who plays Carol Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness, will be reading the audiobook version of Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Into Darkness novelization. The recording will apparently play for eight and a half hours, released as a seven CD set, or download.

In other Into Darkness news, Paramount have released a new TV advert for the film. In fact they have released two, one each in the US and UK, however the UK version is merely a re-edit of previously seen footage. The US version on the other hand has one new scene, with John Harrison announcing his plans for vengeance:



Scans from Empire Magazine's feature on Into Darkness are now popping up online too, including this interesting shot of J.J. Abrams on the dark bridge that we've seen little sections of in the trailers. This is the first wider view we've had:

I get the impression Harrison is commanding this ship. Maybe the same ship we see Kirk and companion space jump to, and/or the same ship we've seen a warp speed explosion on, and/or the same ship we've seen crashing! The different uniforms of the characters in the background also match those of the bad guys in the Kre-O USS Enterprise set.

You can see more images from the Empire article on TrekMovie.

Finally Entertainment Earth have now added listings for three high-end uniform replicas from Into Darkness, made by Anovos, using the same fabric suppliers as the actual film used uniforms. Currently listed are Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, Lieutenant Commander Scott tunics. These are presumably more or less the same as the previous nuTrek uniforms Anovos released based on the previous film. Last time they also offered female uniforms, so hopefully those will follow this time too.

Win tickets for The Best of Both Worlds screenings

To mark the bluray release of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 3, and the stand-alone feature-length edition of The Best of Both Worlds, CBS Home Entertainment and Fathom Events are continuing their run of TNG cinema screenings, this time shining the spotlight The Best of Both Worlds. On the 25th of April, across the US and Canada, there will be screenings of the newly remastered HD edition of The Best of Both Worlds, along with parts of the new behind-the-scenes documentary included with the stand-alone release, Regeneration: Engaging the Borg.

The nice people at Fathom have given me five pairs of tickets to give away to you dear readers; details of how you can get them further down, but first, have a look at the poster and trailer:

For details of all the locations in the US, check out Fathom Event's page for this event, and to enjoy the show in Canada you'll need to have a look at Cineplex. Alas there's still nothing for my fellow Europeans to enjoy!

However if you live in LA I've got a treat for you: Fathom have given me five pairs of tickets to give away, for the screening at Rave Cinemas Baldwin Hills, on Marlton Avenue. If you'd like to get a pair just send an email with the subject "The Best of Both Worlds" to competitions@thetrekcollective.com. Make sure to include your name and address, so Fathom can send you the tickets if you win! I'll pick names at random, make sure to email before 11:59pm GMT on the 10th of April. Small print: Your contact detail will not be used for any purposes other than mailing to the winners. Good luck, and thanks Fathom!

In other The Best of Both Worlds news, the StarTrek.com shop has got a bit excited about the bluray artwork, and issued a bunch of stuff using it. So you can now get Locutus T-shirts, mugs, mousepads, and iphone and ipad cases!

 

Book bits: New TNG story coming? And latest TOS excerpt

Amazon have added a new listing for a TNG story; Home Again, by Una McCormack. It is currently listed only for kindle released, expected to come out in December. That comes in the midst of the release of the TNG-era The Fall series, which includes McCormack's The Crimson Shadow in October. I suppose this could be a retitle and rescheduling, although for now listings for The Crimson Shadow persist. UPDATE: Pointed out by one of my readers (thanks Jakub), the listing is in fact for December 2014! When late dates like that spring up on Amazon it tends to be nonsense listings, however I still present these other possibilities for you to consider:

The other obvious answer is that this is latest of the occasional ebook novella releases; however at $9.28 it's a bit pricey for that category, more even than the usual mass market paperback novels. Which leads me to my final guess, which is that this is a new larger format trade paperback release, with the ebook listing appearing ahead of the paperback. Time will tell I suppose, whenever Simon and Schuster update their own listings to identify this, or the author reveals something.

While we wait for that, this month's new novel, is Greg Cox's latest TOS adventure, The Weight of Worlds. Simon and Schuster have posted an excerpt, here are the first few paragraphs of chapter one:

Captain’s Log. Stardate 6012.9.

The Enterprise has concluded a successful week charting the Wyvern system, a region devoid of intelligent life but full of fascinating planets, moons, asteroid belts, and radiation fields, or so my first officer informs me. In the meantime, with no immediate crisis on the horizon, the crew is looking forward to some much-needed recreation . . .

“Mister Spock,” Lieutenant Uhura said. “Do you have a minute?”

The Vulcan science officer looked up from his scanner. “At our present cruising speed, we are not expected to arrive at Starbase 13 for another 72.03 hours. You have my attention for as many minutes as you require. How can I assist you?”

It was a relatively quiet moment on the bridge. The U.S.S. Enterprise was cruising at warp 2 through the interstellar void, with the Wyvern system receding in the ship’s aft sensors. Captain James T. Kirk listened casually to the conversation behind him as he reviewed the latest maintenance reports from engineering. A yeoman offered him a fresh cup of coffee, which he gratefully accepted.

“Oh, I doubt this will take 72.03 hours,” Uhura quipped. She wandered away from the communications station to confer with Spock at his post. “I’m just organizing this year’s holiday party, and I wanted your input.”

Spock arched an eyebrow. “I am not certain that I am the appropriate officer to consult on such a matter. Levity is hardly the Vulcan way.”

That’s putting it lightly, Kirk thought. He wondered what Uhura was about.

“Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you about,” she said. “As usual, the holiday party embraces the varied cultures and traditions of the ship’s entire crew, celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Diwali, Ramadan, mololo zam, and the Saturnian Blessing of the Rings, but I admit that I’m not terribly familiar with the customs of your people, Mister Spock. Are there any Vulcan holidays or rituals you would like us to include in the festivities?”

Kirk rotated the captain’s chair around to observe Spock’s science station. The general chatter on the bridge died down, the better to eavesdrop on this increasingly intriguing conversation. Kirk suspected that Chekov and Sulu and the rest of the bridge crew were listening in as well. Even though they had all been serving beside Spock for at least four years now, there was still much they didn’t know about Vulcan life and customs. Spock, like the rest of his people, tended to be rather close-lipped on the subject.

“You need not trouble yourself on my behalf, Lieutenant,” he said, “although you are to be applauded for your efforts at inclusiveness, which are very much in keeping with the Vulcan philosophy of IDIC.”

Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, Kirk translated mentally. He was quite familiar with the motto, which was one of the fundamental touchstones of Vulcan civilization. It had also been one of the guiding principles behind the formation of the Federation itself. No small surprise, considering that Vulcan, along with Earth, was a founding member of the UFP.

“So you never celebrated any holidays at home?” Uhura pressed. “Not even when you were growing up?”

“That is not entirely the case,” Spock admitted. “My father occasionally indulged my mother’s fondness for certain Terran holidays, most notably the human custom of St. Valentine’s Day.”

Uhura reacted with delight to this unexpected revelation. “Why, Mister Spock, that’s positively romantic!”

“On the contrary,” he stated, “it is simply logical. In a universe populated by myriad species and cultures, respecting and accommodating each other’s disparate traditions is the only rational response.”

You can continue to read the rest of chapter one, which goes on to set up the Enterprise's mission in this story, on Simon and Schuster.

The trouble with T-shirts, UPDATED

Trevco have released a bunch of new Star Trek T-shirts featuring tribbles! My favourite is this brilliant tribble infested schematic of the USS Enterprise:

There's also a horror movie poster style take on The Trouble with Tribbles:

And a declaration of love for everyone's favourite (barring Klingons) little fuzzballs:

UPDATE: Here's another one, The Tribble Terror, which seems to be a mash-up of the classic TAS promo image with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!:

These designs join the Tribble Trouble computer game-style design I featured a couple of weeks ago with other video game inspired shirts, as well as a couple of more generic The Trouble with Tribbles designs Trevco have (using stills from the episode), and a tribble-filled QUOGs shirt.

It's generally a pretty good year for wearers of the I love tribbles shirt, with both DST and QMx releasing new born tribbles into the world, and them apparently appearing in some fashion in Star Trek: The Video Game.

New views of the cutaway USS Enterprise

Due out in June from Diamond Select Toys is the new USS Enterprise cutaway model, featuring transparent panels which allow us to peer inside the ship. Toyark have posted lots of new images, giving us a nice look at the details of this model:

 

 

 

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Things From Another World, Entertainment Earth, Forbidden Planet.