While 2023 has not seen a lot of Star Trek novels, things will be ramping up in 2024, including the announcement of two new titles coming in the Spring and Summer from Pocket Books. One is set shortly before Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and features Jean-Luc Picard and Ensign Ro Laren. The other novel is set shortly before Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and features the crew of the USS Enterprise-A and Dr. Gillian Taylor from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Ro returns in Pliable Truths
Pocket Books has announced a new Star Trek: The Next Generation era book titled Pliable Truths, written by Dayton Ward and set for release on May 21, 2024. While technically a TNG book, Pocket Books describes it as a “thrilling new Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine adventure.” The novel is set in the year 2369, the same year as the first episode of DS9 and a year before Ro defected to the Maquis.
Here is the official synopsis:
2369: Shortly after Starfleet thwarts a Cardassian attack on a Federation star system, the Cardassian government orders an end to its fifty-year occupation of the planet Bajor. As a result, a newly installed Bajoran government requests immediate assistance from the Federation to mediate how the withdrawal will proceed and what recompense, if any, Bajorans are owed from their brutal oppressors. Captain Jean-Luc Picard is ordered by Starfleet Command to oversee these tense negotiations on Terok Nor, the massive Cardassian space station still orbiting Bajor, even as he still deals with his own recent trauma as a prisoner held and tortured by a Cardassian interrogator.
As these critical peace talks get underway, Ensign Ro Laren receives a call for help from a friend thought long dead, exposing an insidious secret from inside Cardassian space. Now, Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise must act to prevent an interstellar incident from reigniting deadly hostilities between the Federation and the Cardassians, and shattering any hope of justice for the Bajoran people…
You can pre-order Pliable Truths in paperback, Kindle e-book, and audiobook now at Amazon.
Dr. Gillian Taylor returns in Lost to Eternity
The other newly announced novel from Pocket Books is titled Lost to Eternity set to be released on July 23, 2024, and written by Greg Cox. Officially a Star Trek: The Original Series movie era novel, Lost to Eternity actually has multiple time settings including 2292, one year before the final TOS movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The novel features Dr. Gillian Taylor, the 20th-century whale biologist who time-traveled from 1986 with the USS Enterprise crew when they returned to 2286 in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
Here is the official synopsis:
Three Eras. Three Mysteries. One Ancient Enemy?
2024: Almost forty years ago, marine biologist Gillian Taylor stormed away from her dream job at Sausalito’s Cetacean Institute—and was never seen or heard from again. Now a new true crime podcast has reopened that cold case, but investigator Melinda Silver has no idea that her search for the truth about Gillian’s disappearance will ultimately stretch across time and space—and attract the attention of a ruthless obsessive with his own secret agenda.
2268:The USS Enterprise’s five-year mission is interrupted when Captain James T. Kirk and his crew set out to recover an abducted Federation scientist whose classified secrets are being sought by the Klingons as well. The trail leads to a barbaric world off limits to both Starfleet and the Klingon Empire—and an ageless mastermind on a quest for eternity.
2292: The Osori, an ancient alien species, has finally agreed to establish relations with its much younger neighbors: the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans. A joint mission involving ships from all three powers, including the Enterprise-A, turns explosive when one of the Osori envoys is apparently killed. Each side blames the others, but the truth lies buried deep, nearly three hundred years in the past…
You can pre-order Lost to Eternity in paperback, Kindle e-book, and audiobook now at Amazon.
Up Next: Seven’s story in Picard: Firewall
The next Star Trek novel coming from Pocket Books arrives on February 27, 2024. Written by David Mack, Star Trek: Picard: Firewall tells a story of Seven of Nine’s time after Star Trek: Voyager and before her return in Star Trek: Picard.
Here is the official synopsis:
Two years after the USS Voyager’s return from the Delta Quadrant, Seven of Nine finds herself rejected for a position in Starfleet…and instead finds a new home with the interstellar rogue law enforcement corps known as the Fenris Rangers. The Rangers seem like an ideal fit for Seven—but to embrace this new destiny, she must leave behind all she’s ever known, and risk losing the most important thing in her life: her friendship with Admiral Kathryn Janeway.
And here is the cover…
You can pre-order Star Trek: Picard: Firewall in hardcover, Kindle e-book, audiobook, and audio CD now at Amazon.
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Excited for all of these! More canon Seven is fun, more Ro is always fun, and I’ve had a soft spot for Gillian Taylor since childhood. (Plus, I’m a huge fan of the TOS movie era.)
Have they now established the novels as canon?
Like Disney with its extra star wars media stuff ? probably
Marketing speak, Lucasfilm only considers the shows and movies to be canon. The all one canon thing is to sell tie in merchandise. Its literally no different than the legacy canon now called Legends.
the PIC S1 writers room considered the Season 1 tie in novels/comics canon since several of the writers contributed to them but other than that the official stance hasn’t changed and none of the comics/novels are actual canon
It’s true that no novels, even the ones that are novel versions of the actual movies, are canon. That being said ideas from the novels and comic books often find their way into canon such as Worf being Captain of the enterprise E
Since discovery launched in 2017, they are considered canon, until they are not.
Desperate Hours is probably the egregious in how it has been contradicted. It had a different home world explanation for Saru and had conflicting details of Spock and Michael’s childhood. It was however the source of names of the shenzhou crew – such as Kayla Detmer, the writers respected what David Mack had written. It also set the details of the klingon attack on Michael’s parents, before it was shown fully on screen at the end of season 1.
Canon has also flowed in the opposite direction – things like Roktahk’s species the Brikar were originally a beta canon race, canonised by Prodigy.
No novels and comics are truly canon since the TV and film writers can always ignore them. Every time a comic or novel has been deemed canon, it has eventually been overwritten by something onscreen. So no, nothing in print is canon.
Worf was first mentioned as Captain of the E-E in the Picard prequel novels. That was later ratified in PIC S3 by Geordi. So sometimes novels or comic books do make their way into canon.
Print’s not canon. Unfortunately.
Long live the First Splinter.
I remember Gillian in a bit part in a graphic novel and am guardedly interested in that novel.
Debt of Honor was the name of the book you are talking about.
Definitely here for “Lost to Eternity.” The others I’ll take a pass on – most of the PIC tie-in novels were either very mixed bags or letdowns, unfortunately.
Wondering if it’s somehow tied into the Department of Temporal Investigations series
All great authors
Lost in Eternity sounds fun. Count me as a Gillian Taylor fan. But then it helps she was played by Catherine Hicks, who is always a delight.
Wow that Seven novel sounds promising. That’s what many of us wanted to learn about since the day she revealed to be in the show.