Hey! Come stick these in your ears!
We found out just this morning that Star Trek: Legacies, the trilogy of novels that is part of Pocket Books’ celebration of the original Star Trek series’ 50th anniversary, is going to be released in audiobook format as an “unabridged audio download,” in concert with the usual mass-market paperback and e-Book editions.
All three books will be read for you by actor Robert Petkoff. According to what we were told, Mr. Petkoff begins recording the first book, Captain to Captain by friend and fellow word pusher Greg Cox, tomorrow (May 11th). The process takes a few days, and I presume the recording sessions for Dave Mack’s Book 2 and mine and Kevin’s Book 3 will occur in short order.
This marks the first time Star Trek paperback novels have been adapted for audio since the 1990s. In the years since then, that treatment was reserved almost exclusively for hardcover Trek offerings. Pretty cool, huh?
EDIT #1: The above statement isn’t really true. I remembered that Cross Cult, the publisher that creates German-language translations of various Star Trek novels, has adapted several of those titles for audio, including the Star Trek Vanguard books. Yes, those are in German. 🙂
Is this start of a new trend? Hard to say, at this point, of course, but the obvious indicator that Simon & Shuster should continue with more Star Trek audio offerings is decent sales on the ones they do put out. So, you know…..rest is up to you kind people, amirite? 🙂
Personally, I’m pretty jazzed about this, as Purgatory’s Key will mark the first time a novel of mine or mine & Kevin’s has been adapted for audio. Further, it’ll come just a couple of months after the audio edition of 2113: Stories Inspired By the Music of Rush drops, which is the first time an anthology containing a short story of mine has received such treatment.
EDIT #2: See Edit #1 above.
So, hey! Not a bad year on the writing front…at least to this point.
The Fog of Ward. 
The question is, will it get those classic ‘action’ ‘tension’ and ‘wonder’ tracks from the Dark Mirror/Crossover/The Return audiobooks of the 90s? Those are, essentially, the integral audio language of Star Trek audiobooks. 🙂
LikeLike
LOL! I’d forgotten about those. 🙂
LikeLike
On a related note, do you think that hardcover Star Trek novels will be published again?
LikeLike
I hope we never get any hardcover Star Trek books. All that will do is raise the price of the eBook versions and we’ll have to maybe wait until the paperback comes out to get a reasonable price. No thanks!
LikeLike
I’m not aware of any plans for Trek hardcover novels. I’d like to see them return one day. I still haven’t been able to cross “publish in hardcover” off my list, yet 🙂
LikeLike
I have a question regarding your Star Trek novels.
Where Time Stands Still has an Admiral Byron Komack. Open Secrets has an Admiral Franklin Komack. What Judgments Come has an Admiral James Komack.
Is this a mistake or are they all supposed to be separate characters?
LikeLike
I’m pretty sure the first switch was a mistake, but the second one was because he was referred to as “James” in the 2009 film.
LikeLike
Wasn’t there an Admiral Komack in the original series? The name seems very familiar.
LikeLike
There was, but he was never given a first name. There have been several attempts to do so, and for a while we thought about changing it every time his name came up, just to see if anyone noticed. That was probably an idea floated at 2am in some hotel bar during a convention, though. 🙂
LikeLike
thought you would get a kick out of this….https://sightsnbytes.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/ignoring-the-prime-directive/
LikeLike