Hey! About those German-language versions of the Typhon Pact books….

While I was busy with this and that, the world kept spinning, the planets kept moving, and so on and so forth. Along the way, German publisher Cross Cult also was doing its thing, and over the last few months they’ve been releasing their translated versions of the first four Star Trek: Typhon Pact novels. A German-language edition of my novel Paths of Disharmony, is now available, completing the first four TP books.

As I mentioned before when this topic came up, this marks the first time one of my novels has received new cover art for a foreign-language edition. For the Star Trek: Vanguard books Cross Cult released, the art created by the wonderful Doug Drexler was used. Here are all four of the Typhon Pact covers for the German editions:

 (Click to Biggie Size)

L-R: Zero Sum Game (Nullsummenspiel) by David Mack, Seize the Fire (Feuer)by Michael A. Martin, Rough Beasts of Empire (Bestien) by David R. George III, and Paths of Disharmony (Zwietracht) by Yours Truly.

Pretty sweet, eh?

From what I’m to understand, my book also has in the back a new essay by the translator, Bernd Perplies, writing about the portrayal of the Andorians on Star Trek: Enterprise and in the recent novels, and all the fun to be had trying to reconcile those two versions. 🙂

For anyone reading this who happens to acquire these editions, please let me know what you think of them. I don’t know yet when I’ll get my grubby paws on a copy, and even when I do…it’s not like I can read German, anyway.

Thanks to the good people at Cross Cult for giving us the special treatment!

Listen to me live on Trek Radio this Saturday!

Tis true, boys and girls! I have been invited by the fine folks over at Trek Radio to round out their special “Typhon Pact Author Series” of interviews for their site’s “Captain’s Table” feature.

The show already interviewed fellow Typhon Pact contributors David R. George III on April 13th and Michael A. Martin on April 20th. David Mack has also appeared a couple of times on different show segments, so that leaves little old me, so far as the original four Typhon Pact authors goes. As of this writing, I believe they have an interview with Una McCormack scheduled for the near future.

But, let’s get back to me.

As stated above, I’ll be sitting down with Trek Radio hosts “TimeWarp” and “Nydra” from 12pm to 2pm Eastern Time on Saturday, April 27th to discuss my Typhon Pact novel Paths of Disharmony, though I suspect questions from the audience will branch to other topics.

Wait, did I forget to mention that? Hey, that’s right! Listeners and fans will be able to submit questions for the interview ahead of time via the following avenues:

– email to questions@trekradio.net
– Tweet them to @TrekRadio with the hashtag #CaptainsTable
– Post them on Trek Radio’s Facebook wall

So, if you’re just dying to hear me babble with a modicum of coherence for a couple of hours on Saturday and maybe even answer a question of yours, now you know where to find me: Trek Radio. Hear you there?

Final covers for German-edition Typhon Pact books.

Back in July, we found out that German publisher Cross Cult had posted preliminary cover art for their forthcoming translations of the first four Star Trek: Typhon Pact novels. Now thanks to “8of5” over at The Trek Collective, we know that the cover art has been finalized, and as expected it’s remained largely the same but with a few tweaks here and there:

(Click to Up-size.)

L-R: Zero Sum Game (Nullsummenspiel) by David Mack, Seize the Fire (Feuer)by Michael A. Martin, Rough Beasts of Empire (Bestien) by David R. George III, and Paths of Disharmony (Zwietracht) by Yours Truly.

The German-language editions of the Typhon Pact novels are still scheduled to be published one per month between June and September 2013.

Star Trek: Typhon Pact…Cross Cult Style!

This morning’s check of Facebook brought with it this little bit of Trekkie goodness, being preliminary cover art for Cross Cult‘s forthcoming German-language translation of my Star Trek: Typhon Pact novel, Paths of Disharmony:

(Click to Biggie Size)

Since mine was the fourth of the original four Typhon Pact books, I went digging and found similar art for the other three books. All of the covers are being rendered so that they’ll form one nice, continuous pic. And because I love you folks so much, I cobbled them together in somewhat crude fashion:

(Click to Biggie Size, too)

L-R: Zero Sum Game by David Mack, Seize the Fire by Michael A. Martin, Rough Beasts of Empire by David R. George III, and…well, you know that last one.

Again, the art is not final, but past experience has shown that Cross Cult artists, more often than not, hit pretty close to the final product even with these “early versions.” However, I’m hoping a few items already brought up by other fans will be addressed, such as the Borg cubes. 🙂

This is the first time Cross Cult’s translation of one of my books will feature new cover art. For the Vanguard books, they’d been sticking with Doug Drexler’s original art (which makes sense, as that art is awesome), so I’m rather jazzed about this.

The German-language editions of the Typhon Pact novels will be published one per month between June and September 2013.

Many thanks to the folks at Cross Cult for sharing these!

Look! Shiny stuff!

So, this arrived in today’s mail, having completed its safe and successful journey across the pond from the home offices of Unreality SF to stately Ward Manor:

(Click to biggie size.)

I was relieved to see that it had arrived intact, after hearing that the award sent to writer/actor John Dorney, this year’s runner up in the Unreality poll for his Doctor Who audio play Solitaire, traveled but a fraction of the distance only to arrive at his home in three pieces. No assembly required for me, though.

Thanks again to everyone who voted for Paths of Disharmony, and to the kind folk at Unreality for holding the poll as they have the previous two years, and for the very nice award which has already found a place of distinction on one of the shelves in my home office. I will do my best to protect it from the curious eyes and unsteady hands of my two offspring.

What a naughty blogger I’ve been.

Yes, I’ve been remiss in my social media responsibilities these past several days. Chalk it up to being first on the road to Denver, then consumed by the awesome chaos that is the annual Starfest Convention, during which I had Clan Ward with me to enjoy the fun, then the road trip back to Kansas City yesterday. On top of all of that? I was sick, fighting whatever bug had burrowed its way into my system a little over a week ago, and which only seemed to get more determined as the convention got into full swing. Even now I’m still fighting the damned thing. Despite that, we had a blast, and a more detailed after-action report will be forthcoming.

For now? I need to address a few administrative items:

• First, it was announced last Friday that my Star Trek: Typhon Pact novel Paths of Disharmony was voted the Story of the Year by the good folks at Unreality SF, the website devoted to news, reviews, and interviews focusing on the world of media tie-in writing. It was a tough group of finalists, which makes the selection that much more gratifying. I’m even told an actual trophy is on its way to me in the near future. Rest assured there will be a shameless photo of me mugging with the thing once it arrives at stately Ward Manor. Many thanks to everyone who voted for the book, and for the Unreality SF gang for hosting the poll.
• Also on Friday, Kevin and I received the copyedited manuscript for our forthcoming Star Trek: Vanguard novel, What Judgments Come. We have until the 28th to address any notes, make any revisions/fixes, and so on. Guess that’s the next big thing on the agenda, but not until I finish….
• The outline for the Star Trek original series novel Kevin and I will be writing this summer. I’m behind a bit on this, owing to the Denver trip and being sick. I expect to finish it this evening, though, so that I can get on with finishing my still in-progress article for Star Trek Magazine which is due on the 22nd.
• I also need to take a more detailed gander at the outline for David Mack’s next Vanguard novel, Storming Heaven, which is due out next summer. I gave it a cursory read today just to get a gut feel for the thing, and I have to tell you people who read the Vanguard series (and really, the rest of you who don’t but should), that this promises to be EPIC MACK. That’s right, I just invented a new descriptor, of which “Awesome” will evermore be known as a subcategory. Grab your socks and hose and pull, folks; it’s gonna be a hell of a ride.

Anyway, I’ve got enough to keep me busy over the next few days.

So, what did I miss? Y’all behave while I was away?

New interview at Unreality SF.

Jens Deffner over at Unreality SF has posted a new interview he conducted with me. I’m assuming I was the subject of this latest interview because Charlie Sheen isn’t returning any phone calls.

Anyway, during the course of our latest tête-à-tête, Jens manages to elicit from me new info about Paths of Disharmony, my recently-released novel for the Star Trek: Typhon Pact mini-series, as well as some juicy tidbits about my forthcoming contributions to the Star Trek: Vanguard series: a novella for the Declassified anthology, coming in June, and What Judgments Come, scheduled for October. We also cover a bit of ground about The Last World War and my sequel from last year, Counterstrike, and even my first foray into the world of editing.

Beware that the interview contains spoilers for Paths of Disharmony. If you’re wanting to read the interview and not be spoiled, Jens has set up a link which bypasses that part of the piece: Read the interview, and don’t F-ing spoil me!

Otherwise, you can read the whole thing HERE.

Thanks to Jens, Dan, and Unreality SF for taking the time to include me in their ongoing coverage of genre media tie-in products. If you’re a follower of such books, comics, and audio dramas for such properties as Star Trek, Doctor Who, Stargate, and so on, Unreality is the place you need to be checking out.

Paths of Disharmony: “official” Q&A post.

Well, today marks the “official” publication date for the book, even though some folks have had it for as much as two weeks, due to the weirdness of time, space, fate, and other nefarious forces at work behind the scenes. For the e-Book crowd, today marks the date electronic versions of the book are available for different devices and gadgets (not all, I’m learning, but supposedly that’s being addressed).

You’ve got yours, right?

Anyway, I’ve been getting some interesting (and a couple of interesting) questions about the book. After answering those queries, I decided to try something new. I’m making this the “official Q&A” post for Paths of Disharmony. Here, you’ll (hopefully) be able to get the straight dope from the dope, along with answers to all those burning questions about the story, characters, what it might mean for the ongoing narrative(s) currently underway in the various series/lines/etc., what the hell I was thinking when I wrote that, or that, or even THAT, and so on.

If questions wander into areas about which I’m not able to reveal too much info, I’ll be as polite about that as I can. I can’t rule out a smart-ass comment in reply to a really weird question, but I’ll do my best to keep that autonomous response in check. Even if that happens, I’ll still try to supply something approaching a “real” answer. Consider this post the Hollywood Squares of book-related threads. 😀

(For those of you reading this via Facebook, feel free to comment/inquire in the FB space.)

And with that, let the inquisition begin!

EDIT: I’ve been asked to repost questions I received via eMail. I don’t typically repost the contents of eMails to the blog, but I’ve asked those with whom I corresponded if it was okay, and so far I’ve gotten a couple of approvals. So, with that in mind, here are the questions I answered before starting this thread.

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK FOLLOW!!!

Paths of Disharmony

Star Trek: Typhon Pact

On a diplomatic mission to the planet Andor, Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-E bear witness to the rank devastation resulting from the Borg invasion. With the reproductive issues that have long plagued the Andorian people reaching crisis level, avenues of research that at first held great promise have proven largely unhelpful, and may well indeed be worsening the problem.

Despite the Federation’s seeming inability to provide assistance and growing doubt over its commitment to a staunch, longtime ally, Andorian scientists now offer renewed hope for a solution. However, many segments of Andorian society are protesting this controversial new approach, and more radical sects are beginning to make their displeasure known by any means available. In response, President Nanietta Bacco has sent the Enterprise crew and a team of diplomats and scientists to Andor to convene a summit, in the hope of demonstrating that the Federation’s pledge to helping Andor is sincere.

But the Typhon Pact is watching, and their interests may very well lead the Andorian people down an even more treacherous path….

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Paths of Disharmony excerpt.

I’m obviously a little late posting about this, but I only just got a notification about it last night. Anyway, for those of you who haven’t yet taken the plunge with the new book, the good folk over at Simon & Schuster have posted the first chapter of Paths of Disharmony over on their site. For those who might wonder, this is not the same excerpt which appears in the current issue of Star Trek Magazine.

Behold, yo:

simonandschuster.com: Paths of Disharmony excerpt

And don’t forget the ongoing Q&A thread I posted earlier this week. I’ve also gotten a couple of new queries via e-Mail, and once I have permission to post the contents from their messages, I’ll update the thread over there.