Nov 17 | Originally hired as co-executive producer to help with the second half of the show's first season, Kevin Murphy has now taken the reins of Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel on Syfy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He now serves as an executive producer along with Ronald D. Moore, David Eick and Jane Espenson and oversees the day-to-day functions of the show.
Nov 12 | Star Trek star Zachary Quinto is loosely attached to star in the romantic dramedy Whirligig, reports Risky Business.Quinto would play the lead role in the independent Canadian film, which is aiming to shoot early next year. The movie centers on a man who, in a misguided attempt to woo an older woman, befriends the woman's adopted son.Chaz Thorne is directing the pic, based on a screenplay by Michael Amo, creator of the Canadian supernatural series "The Listener."
Nov 11 | The CNS Foundation, is hosting an on-line charity auction at www.charitybuzz.com. One of the items they are auctioning is a signed movie poster of the new Star Trek movie which has all the cast members and writers. The president of our organization is Carol Abrams, JJ's mother, and she arranged for the donation from Bad Robot Production Company. J.J. Abrams is also a major donor to their organization. The funds raised will go to help find a cure to neurological disorders in children. The auction link is here.
Nov 10 | Candice Bergen, Charles Lisanby, Don Pardo, Gene Roddenberry, Tom and Dick Smothers and Bob Stewart have been selected as the next inductees into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame. They will be honored at a Jan. 20 ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "This year's inductees have challenged and shaped popular culture, changed television for the better and entertained us royally while doing so," TV Academy Chairman-CEO John Shaffner said. More info at the Hollywood Reporter
Nov 08 | Unreality-SF.net has interviewed Star Trerk author James Swallow about some of his upcoming projects. He talks about Titan: Synthesis and Seven Deadly Sins: The Slow Knife, as well as some forthcoming Doctor Who and Stargate stories.
The German TrekZone.de website posted an exclusive interview with author Kirsten Beyer in their newsletter, in which she talks about her upcoming post-DestinyVoyager novels, and here are few excerpts.
5) According to a comment from your colleague Keith R.A. DeCandido, [the upcoming Voyager novel] Full Circle will start initially where Enemy of My Enemy left off and go all the way through to Destiny and beyond. Is that true? If the answer is yes, isn't that really very demanding?
Yes, it is true, and yes, 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.
Now that I look at it, I'm amazed I even decided to give it a shot.
But the good news was that once Destiny was in the works, the editors at Pocket put all of us who were working in the same time-frame or writing significant pre-Destiny material: myself, David Mack, Christopher Bennett, William Leisner, Michael Martin, Andy Mangels, and Keith DeCandido, in regular contact so as we were working, we were able to help one another with all of the world and character building and continuity issues necessary to make all of these books as cohesive as possible. That part of the process has truly been a joy. All of the authors I worked with as I was writing Full Circle were incredibly generous with their time and valuable knowledge and our peer review process is a big part of what made this undertaking both possible and manageable.
6) If the Full Circle story ranges from Enemy of My Enemy to the aftermath of Destiny the U.S.S. Voyager will be catapulted into a very dark era of Star Trek. Recently the Federation has suffered terrible damage by a Borg invasion we've never seen before. Why could that be the right setting for a Voyager continuation? What outstanding role should ship and crew play in the future?
Yes, the period of 2378 - 2381, particularly from June of 2380 through February 2381 are pretty dark for our heroes. But that doesn't bother me. Conflict and obstacles are a prerequisite for these kinds of stories. Sometimes those conflicts are internal, and sometimes the universe comes along and just starts beating the living crap out of you. These are good problems to have as a writer, though less fun to experience (I would imagine) as a character.
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.
7) In Before Dishonor something happened we could call a sacrilege: a protagonist had to die, at least in the physical way. That is something we've never seen before in a Star Trek novel. How does the loss of Kathryn Janeway effect the continuation of the Voyager story? Isn't it a burden if such a protagonist is suddenly missing?
The loss of Kathryn Janeway was definitely shocking. As you said, we've never seen the permanent death of a major figure like her and I know that a lot of Voyager fans took it pretty personally either because she was their favorite character, or the first female captain of her own series, or because they just don't ever want to contemplate the death of a beloved character.
However, one of the good things about the ongoing fiction, for the readers and writers, is that because the shows and films are no longer in production with these characters, we are no longer bound to adhere to the status quo when we conceive of a story. It used to be that when we were done playing we had to make sure all of the toys were back on the shelf where we found them. That limits the kinds of stories you can tell. Those restrictions no longer exist.
Don't get me wrong. No one is considering the wholesale destruction of the universe that has been so painstakingly developed for over forty years now. No one is going for mere shock value and the decision to kill any character, be they large or small, is never undertaken lightly. These people exist in our imagination and it is painful to let them go.
But the time has finally come when it is no longer safe to assume that when you start a Trek novel, everything is still going to be in the same place when you've finished it. We can go deeper with characters and their evolution than ever before. We can challenge them in new ways. And we can explore stories that would be impossible given the budgetary realities of filmed Trek.
The decision to kill Kathryn Janeway was not made simply to force readers out of their complacency. It was made because it presented us with uncharted ground that we were interested in exploring. Yes, it's hard. But there's no point in doing this if it's easy. And yes, the death of Kathryn Janeway is treated in great depth in Full Circle and has major repercussions for all of the Voyager characters.
Personally I don't see it as a burden to continue the series without her, so much as a challenge. It remains to be seen if readers will be able to embrace the changes that are coming. For me, Janeway was always the center of Voyager, and definitely one of my favorite characters to write. Now, we have to find a way to shift that center and still remain true to what has always been best about Voyager.
11) We are curious: What will be your next Star Trek novel? Can you image to change to other Star Trek Relaunches?
October of 2009 will see the release of my next novel in the Voyager series. The title hasn't yet been made public, but it will continue the story begun in Full Circle. At this point, once that novel is complete, I'll be returning to work finishing an original novel. As I said earlier, I would definitely enjoy the opportunity to work on other Trek series, but I have no definite plans yet for future Trek, Voyager or otherwise. I look forward to seeing what the future has in store in that regard.
The full interview (in English) can be found at the TrekBBS.
Sorry, but I can't think of one good reason (shock not being a good reason) for killing off Adm. Janeway in the literary continuation of ST:Voy. Other characters, perhaps, but why kill off someone who should remain as central for some time. Surely that wasn't the ONLY way to continue creating interesting stories in the VOY framework.(Of course, she could also always be brought back, but your point is that she's now dead. So the written novel is now also canon. Hmm. )
But, you know, since that's been done by one author in a literary book, not a series or film, why should ST fans buy into it. I certainly don't and won't.
This is just my opinion but, first, I think having Janeway killed off was just a bad 'decision' motivated by the very shock value that is denied in the above interview.
More importantly,,second point, let's face it. The ST novels range from good to bad, yes, a few are entertaining and well put together, most are OK, some are bad. It is possible too that sometimes some of what's been written in a few of them might one day become part of what is filmed. BUT, that possibility not withstanding, I just don't expect or think of what's in any of those books, written by a myriad of some talented and some less so persons as CANON. More plainly, none of what is in any of those books is constitutive of new canon for the ST universe; and shouldn't be treated or thought of as such. Or, did I miss the announcement, has Paramount blessed them accordingly.
I know you'll retort that you're just trying to make things smoother in the ... what would you call it, the Star Trek universe as it pertains to novels, stressing again that since one doesn't expect new Voyager filmed material that this gives you such a license. It doesn't. Someone else might write a whole series of stories involving Janeway that just clash with the ones you're referring to. And wouldn't that be OK. My point being that since what is written in the ST novels is not canon, why try to fit it together so painstakingly when the novels aren't even all written by the same person.
So, in my way of thinking as a simple reader and watcher of ST in its various incarnations, you can kill Janeway and Picard and Kirk all you want in novels, but that's where it stays. And, I think it's a bit presumptuous to act otherwise.
And, please, there are just so many different things that come up in different books, even acting that they're some canon ... why...when we know they aren't. Apologies again if I missed Paramounts announcement.
Peter David killing her off in Before Dishonor was really shocking, however, it was tempered by it being a sci-fi/Star Trek death and had Janeway's... spirit, for lack of a better term, chatting with Lady Q at the end of it, so they can easily bring her back anyway.
I'd like to see how these Trek novels are going to dovetail into the beginning of JJ's Trek (the Nero/Old Spock stuff), or that may just be the providence of the "Countdown" comic book mini-series.
Look, I am a big fan of Peter David (love his Star Trek New Frontier books) but I have to tell you that I hated the ending of Before Dishonor. I think killing Janeway was a mistake. The character was sorely missed in the Star Trek Destiny books and will be missed in the Voyager relauch books (I never cared by the notion that Captain Chakotay is now in command of Voyager, a character I never cared for). I wonder what Kate Mulgrew thinks about the death of her character in the novels and the impact of such in future Star Trek Voyager stories in novels and comic books (and yes, I know that they are not canon, at the moment).
Lets hope that the death of Kathryn Janeway in Before Dishonor and in the Voyager relaunch books has no other impact.
I really doubt that any comic books will take that death to heart in their issues. And if they do, I would guess that another might come along that didn't.
But, consider beyond that:What happens if the current writer of the Voyager relaunch books goes on to other ventures (as was indicated as a very possible scenario and indeed, even if not soon, at some unspecified future point) after the current one is completed; and then after a time, another author then or later comes along who doesn't really agree with ...Or even ... twenty years go by and then another novel is written in which Janeway does ...Who is to say that the new author absolutely has to respect down to the last detail all the various 'decisions' of the preceding authors.
I think the canon issue is very important. When a character is killed in one of the series or one of the films (like those great villainous Klingon sisters who finally got what they had long deserved in GENERATIONS- but whose villainy is nevertheless missed), we definitely think of them as really having passed on.
There are so many reasons why what goes on in the novels is inappropriate to consider as canon - it isn't even the fact that different persons with widely different ideas are putting those together or that it's really important for such decisions to be made 'in house' and not randomly or by random artists every time a new novel is written, but beyond all those good reasons, there is also the one additional obvious point(which isn't even as important as those couple I mention just above, but which does have perhaps some impact): The number of persons who read any of the novels is insignificant when compared (this sounds like a Darth Vader sentence.., if only I could not say when compared to the power of) to the numbers of fans who watch any of the series or films - no matter what the ratings or grosses are high or low.
And then, what makes one set of novels about the ST universe 'correct' and another not so.What about all those other types of somewhat lurid novels that give the original characters all sorts of other traits that we were never ever aware of...I can just see some then arguing that shouldn't those have equal weight. You can see, I hope, where that could lead.
I think, again this is my opinion and everyone may feel otherwise, that a novel (like a series or film et al) is good or bad,among many other reasons, because of how ingratiating and interesting its characters and their situations are. And when one writes a novel that works essentially inside an existing franchise or universe or whatever one wants to call that, one creates ones 'interesting' and hopefully creative ideas always with an eye to staying within the framework of the franchise or universe.
Once you stray outside, well... anything could be the limit. Why stop with Kathryn Janeway, if you're tired of Kirk, just kill him (oh, but HE was killed, and hmm... he still goes on in novels.Let's move past that one) or, who else, Spock has done enough, kill him off too, That'lll make room for new blood, Of course, I'm being facetious, but if you get my point, I don't think a writer has the right to alter a franchise they are writing within; and to treat their changes as though they should now affect all else that happens in the universe without having the explicit approval of those who head that franchise. Those in charge are indeed extremely important, for they're the ones who make it all happen, and not that one author.... whatever his or her name might be - who may be writing his first or maybe his tenth ST novel, but who isn't and never has been the force behind the whole universe. That's why I said, in my earlier comment that I regarded the person interviewed as being really presumptuous and indeed completely unwarranted in now expecting every new ST book written to follow the lead and to consider Janeway dead, finished and that's all there is to say.
So ridiculously presumptuous do I think that is, and so dangerous (as it leaves open a door that could allow removing literally anything and adding anything to the ST universe) that I could hardly believe that someone would say what she said seriously and think that because someone had written a new ST novel in which they killed off Capt. Janeway, that indeed she was now written out (no pun) of all future writings. Give me a BREAK.
Kathryn Janeway is not dead. Just because some presumptuous and basically unknown writer shocked some readers with such, no such thing has happened And however many novels get written (lets hope not a one more) saying that, I will know they're just lies. Not until I see her blown apart by Borg remnants that somehow survived the explosion as Voyager escaped the Delta quadrant or some such thing happens in some future ST film or series will I think for even an instant that any written words have terminated Janeway. Other actresses may play her part or not, but Capt or Adm Kathryn Janeway continues in the ST U whether one likes her or not...
The canon issue is an important one, and while I've written some of the above lightly, that issue is one of importance. Millions of persons make up the universe, whether it is ours or that of ST, but those we create lose their integrity if we allow anyone to come in and make changes that affect the whole. To allow - except just for the sake of literary license for whatever is written - but to allow that as suddenly changing all ultimately would end up just causing chaos. Again, ,just my thoughts.
I think it is a matter of opinion regarding the franchise, zak. I consider the awesome STAR TREK DESTINY novels as part of the official canon and the upcoming COUNTDOWN comic book as well. So, in part, at least for me, Admiral Janeway is dead, in the official canon, when Peter David killed her in BEFORE DISHONOR. Just my two cents, of course.
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