It's All a Show, It's All a Game
Jean-Luc Picard Awaits His Return to Television: My Place, January 2020
The most commonly reported statistic on Star Trek tie-in fiction is that its readership is generally about 1-2% of the larger audience for the franchise as a whole.
To that end, I'd originally hoped to post an update relating to published Star Trek tie-ins back in January to, er, tie in to the premiere of Star Trek: Picard. However, I quickly became distracted by the slow collapse of American democracy at that time, followed by...other world events which were even more distracting for all of us.
Luckily, the pace of new releases in this franchise has given me another prompt with the premiere of Star Trek: Lower Decks, leading to the latest in this series of updates to go along with those I did when the Kelvin Timeline movies came out in 2009, 2013, and 2016, as well as after Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017.
In the hope that a rising tide raises all boats, then, and a larger audience for both Picard and Lower Decks (and other series yet to come!) equals a larger audience for the tie-ins, let's move some paper and list the most recent Star Trek outings by people on my friendslist.
To prevent redundancy, I'm only listing those people who've published something or will be doing so soon (or, in a couple of cases, who I've added to my friendslist) since that last promotional post almost three years ago:
Keith R.A. DeCandido (kradical) most recently contributed quite a bit of material to The Klingon Empire Core Rulebook, a standalone version of the Star Trek Adventures roleplaying game from Modiphius Entertainment which allows you to play entirely from the Klingon perspective. He also continues to write numerous pieces for Tor.com about the franchise, including a long-running rewatch series currently working through Star Trek: Voyager.
Jim Johnson (the former ineti) is the Project Manager for Star Trek Adventures, working with Modiphius Entertainment since the game's inception to develop and write The Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook along with everything that followed.
David Mack (the former infinitydog) has any number of recent contributions to the franchise, including the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Collateral Damage (part of the ongoing literary continuity, despite its seeming contradictions with the series Picard) and the long-delayed Kelvin Timeline novel More Beautiful Than Death. He also developed character profiles for many crewmembers on the Shenzhou when writing the Discovery prequel novel Desperate Hours which were then used in the series proper, and he serves as a consultant for both Star Trek: Lower Decks and the upcoming Star Trek: Prodigy.
Una McCormack (altariel) most recently contributed The Way to the Stars, a Discovery prequel novel about Sylvia Tilly's rebellious teenage years; The Last Best Hope, the first prequel novel connected to Star Trek: Picard; and is the "editor" of The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway.
David McIntee (lonemagpie) most recently contributed the novel Indistinguishable from Magic, published under the Star Trek: The Next Generation banner despite prominently featuring characters (like Montgomery Scott and Nog) from other series.
Scott Pearson (the former scottpearson) most recently contributed five sidebars to The Klingon Empire Core Rulebook (mentioned above), as well as developing the Shackleton Expanse--an unexplored region of the Beta Quadrant invented for Star Trek Adventures--with Dayton Ward (mentioned below). He is also the Canon Editor for Star Trek Adventures as a whole and the copy editor for most of the recent Star Trek novels from Simon & Schuster.
Lawrence M. Schoen (klingonguy) most recently contributed, perhaps unsurprisingly, to The Klingon Empire Core Rulebook.
James Swallow (jmswallow) most recently contributed Fear Itself, a Discovery prequel novel about Saru during his time serving aboard the Shenzhou.
Dayton Ward (daytonward) remains a prolific contributor to the franchise in multiple formats, with recent works including the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Available Light and the TOS novel Agents of Influence; the reference books included with the IncrediBuilds USS Enterprise Book and 3D Wood Model and its Enterprise-D counterpart; and, of course, the Kirk Fu Manual: A Guide to Starfleet's Most Feared Martial Art. He also helped develop the Shackleton Expanse for Star Trek Adventures (as mentioned above) and, against all odds, contributed to The Klingon Empire Core Rulebook.
...and of course, my last appearance was "You Are Not in Space" in Strange New Worlds 10 (and my annotations for that short story continue to be available online for those who are interested).
Virtually all of the titles I just listed are also available in paperless formats such as Amazon Kindle, so let's move some electrons as well.
With more and more Star Trek productions coming out now, it's clear that literary tie-ins for the franchise are also becoming more frequent and more varied, so perhaps my concern about their future back in 2017 was somewhat premature...but my availability and willingness to contribute to them going forward remains unchanged.
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