Fellow author and Star Trek: Picard co-creator Kirsten Beyer called me, and said, Hey, weve got Patrick Stewart to come back and play Picard! I thought, Wow, thats going to be a problem for the books!. We get that this trilogy is a celebration of Star Treks literary efforts over the past couple of decades and you would naturally want to include as many people as possible (on that front Mack does include some cameos and references that long-time fans will enjoy), but just know that sometimes it may not make too much narrative sense when certain characters pop up. . Thats when I knew we were definitely dealing with an issue that was going to impact the novels. At that point, I was like, Well, Im glad I set things up that way now I get to go have fun. Those things happen sometimes. It may not surprise you that at 422 pages, Oblivions Gate is Macks longest book, and only rarely do we consider some parts of this novel unnecessary or filler. The broad Litverse features a number of resurrections or quasi-resurrections, and one important instance relates to Data, who famously sacrifices himself in Nemesis. We must hold this ground until our task is done, or else we lose everything. Star Trek Prelude to a Coda What You Need to Know Ahead of Star Trek 's Most Epic Novel Trilogy Alvaro Zinos-Amaro Wed Sep 29, 2021 1:00pm 47 comments 4 Favorites [+] This week. Importantly, this grand finale is given room to breathe. Rather than proceeding chronologically, Im going to break this out by crews and ships and then proceed move more-or-less chronologically within each grouping. I cannot wait to read it! Dude, I told him, We have got so much more work to do than you think, to make this work., TREKCORE: So they were already trying to find paths to help guide the novel stories to wherever Picard was headed, WARD: Yes Dave was like, We can bring back the Borg, and we can do all sorts of things to reconcile the two stories together!. Taken at face value, we know our heroes need to make the ultimate sacrifice to stop the threat facing them that is, erasing themselves and their entire universe from existence and that the road to that solution isnt an easy one. TREKCORE: What was your reaction to Patrick Stewarts return in Picard, in terms of how it would impact the Star Trek novels? Star Trek: Coda: Book 1: Moments Asunder - amazon.com Now we lose that too. Good or bad it no longer matters, Beverly. Qty: 1 Buy Now Secure transaction This is my 30th year of reading the Star Trek books. But then we moved into the book version of the Control story, which was led by David Mack and the fallout from that so it was a while before we needed to come back to it. In 2018 after learning about the then-upcoming Star Trek: Picard, Ward and fellow Star Trek authors received the go-ahead from the powers-that-be to send the Star Trek novel-verse out with the bang. I divided it into groups for ease of organization. Notably, in A Time to Be Born, Wesley Crusher journeys with the Traveler to Tau Alpha C, where Wesley is essentially reborn or transformed into a Traveler himself. Some like it hot, others not so much. The purpose of this article is to provide a high-speed crash course in the events leading up to Moments Asunder. Ultimately, the Devidians find a way to exploit natural time-disrupting elements in a given timeline to destabilize it completely, annihilating its billions upon billions of denizens so as to. Captain Kathryn Janeways involvement in the Borg incursion, though, just a few years later, ends up costing Janeway her life (see the TNG novel Before Dishonor). Stay tuned to TrekNews.net for all the news on Star Trek merchandise releases, along with the latest details on Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, and more. Tomorrow is doomed. What I believe that means is that this is gonna be the cap for the TNG-era novels for a little while, except for DS9: Revenant because that was already announced. Dayton Ward uses our connection to lit-verse characters to help solidify the threat these people are facing. Countless alternate and parallel realities are under attack, weakening and collapsing from relentless onslaught. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. The Coda trilogy was born out of necessity, with Star Trek having finally returned to our screens and erasing the past 20 years of novels 3 writers took up the mantel to ensure the lit-verse had a true conclusion and wasn't left to die like a certain rival expanded universe. Help support TrekNews.net, when you shop Amazon, Upcoming Star Trek Conventions and Events. Alvaro is a Hugo- and Locus-award finalist who has published some forty stories in professional magazines and anthologies, as well as over a hundred essays, reviews, and interviews. Why do I say this? With an estimated 700 franchise novels, the next three months will give us a series crossover trilogy to rival fifty-plus years of printed Trek stories. As it stands, Moments Asunder does a good job framing how dangerous the temporal threat is. TNG and DS9 become heavily interconnected, and since Moments Asunder seems to be an Enterprise-centric story, the bulk of the material above deals with those crews rather than Voyagers. And besides knowing these lit-verse books, lets just say you should watch TNGs Times Arrow before reading this book. One last note on reader preparation before reading this book: Newies to post-2005 Star Trek literature will be happy to know that Ward tries to ease the burden of learning about the novel-verse with a thorough timeline in the books beginning. Ive been reading Star Trek books since I was 12. In the DS9 novel Warpath, Kira Nerys, who took command of the station in Siskos absence, has her own Prophet experience and comes to believe that she is the Hand of the Prophets. She resigns from Starfleet and becomes a vedek, but her fate ends up being much more complicated than this. Following the events of Nemesis and a new era of diplomacy between the Federation and the Romulans, William Riker, now married to Deanna Troi, becomes Captain of the Titan, on which Commander Troi serves as counselor and first-contact specialist. And once I started reading scripts for Picard, and I realized where things were going, I sat down with Dave in the summer of 2019 at the annual Shore Leave Convention to talk through it all. Thats the feeling we get from this book. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), 2023 Macmillan | All stories, art, and posts are the copyright of their respective authors, Prelude to a Coda What You Need to Know Ahead of, here for an overview and index to individual book reviews, a detailed chronological breakdown of Kiras journey. And speaking of ends, we want to mention that the grace note at the end of the book a short chapter that helps frame the lit-verse and future canonical Star Trek as equally notable works of art will make you crack a smile and marvel at Macks creativity. Star Trek: Coda: Book 1: Moments Asunder - amazon.com Your email address will not be published. Its like, How are the fans going to react to this?. ), When it became apparent that newStar Trektelevision projects would cause a conflict with the existingStar Trekliterary continuity the good folks at ViacomCBS in charge of approving such things very much wanted to avoid a replay of theStar Warssituation. Those who have finished the second book in this trilogy know that our heroes had to take shelter in the Mirror Universe to escape Admiral William Riker, who is being influenced by some kind of temporal personality disorder. Scarred and broken after decades spent tracking this escalating temporal disaster, while battling the nameless enemy responsible for it, an old friend seeks assistance from Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise. Author Dayton Ward laid out the stakes our heroes face in the first part of the landmark . By late 2385, Andor rejoins the Federation, and Leader Kellessar zhTarash becomes the new President. We had originally pitched four books, and I had actually proposed at least one book that I called a stealth setup book, which would seem to the reader like a standard adventure either a TNG or DS9 book and only after you started reading Coda would you realize we already had things moving into place ahead of time. The first book in the Star Trek: Coda trilogy, "Moments Asunder," comes out tomorrow. How much thought had you put into where those stories were heading before Picard was announced like that thread where Taurik got a glimpse of the future inArmageddons Arrow? THEIR MOST DAUNTING MISSION WILL BE THEIR FINEST HOUR. For example, did you know Taurik, the Vulcan engineer played by Alexander Enberg in TNGs Lower Decks, became a prominent part of the Enterprise-Es crew in the lit-verse? Despite these staggering casualties, the Federation does finally emerge victorious. New details about the Star Trek: Coda trilogy, which was first revealed in February, have surfaced. As Ward relates, they were told to swing for the fences. Fast forward now to Moments Asunder. REVIEW Dayton Ward's CODA: MOMENTS ASUNDER is the Beginning of the Here are a couple of lists Ive been using: https://startreklitverse.com/simple-post-nemesis-reading-list.php, https://www.shastrix.com/books/star-trek-reading-order.php, (You must log in or sign up to reply here. One cant help but reflect on humans normal existential fears while reading this book, and we credit Mack for really digging into this aspect of the human condition to help tell his story. TREKCORE: While some of the arcs have reached natural conclusions, there were still a number of novel story threads still awaiting resolution, like Siskos daughter being part Prophet. INTERVIEW Dayton Ward on the Massive STAR TREK: CODA Trilogy Youd know characters such as the Enterprise-Es TRyssa Chen and Taurik, or the Avelines Ezri Dax (also from DS9, of course) and her first officer Sam Bowers, are pretty fleshed-out characters in their own right by the time they appear in Moments Asunder. Live long and prosper . By the time they announced the show in at Star Trek Las Vegas in August 2018, I had a vague idea of the direction of the show. Without giving anything away, we were quite pleased with how Mack introduces the First Splinter and Prime Timelines to the lit-verse characters, and as you learn about how the First Splinter timeline was created, youll never look at a particular event from a certain Star Trek movie the same way again. That was always in the back of our minds but at that time we were told we could not reference anything from the Bad Robot films. We did not want to go down that road. We were already toast. Its important to understand what youre getting yourself into when you pick up this book. What to read/see before Coda? | The Trek BBS TREKCORE: Did you ever actually have thoughts on how you would have tackled the Romulan supernova in print, if you had been given the chance? WARD:I cannot imagine Im done with Star Trek, at least in some form. Time is coming apart. All that was a bit of a mouthful So, is this a recap of everything that occurs in the Litverse from the start of the DS9 relaunch with Avatar, Book One through Collateral Damage? 2. This new version of Data, Data Soong, whose brain has a copy of all the memories and experiences of his long deceased daughter, Lal, proceeds to bring her back as well. The new cutting-edge space station gets off to a bad start, though, as during the inauguration ceremonies Federation President Bacco is assassinated. When you say "everything" are you talking about all of Titan too? Mack has delivered a literary effort worthy of such undivided attention, and as you turn the last page of this book, its okay to feel exhaustion, sadness, and even grief at having the lit-verse as we know it come to end. The biggestStar Trek literary event of the decade starts this week, as the Star Trek: Coda trilogy marks the closing chapter of over 20 years of Trek novel continuity. In The Fall novels Revelation and Dust and Peaceable Kingdoms, their relationship has solidified, and Sisko is on a new mission of exploration into the Gamma quadrant. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. For us, the Romulan supernova was a pin on the whiteboard of where things might eventually head, like, Oh, you never know.. In Moments Asunder, the first part of the Coda trilogy, we see these crews start to come together. However, Paramount still had no major plans for a new show set anywhere in the main Star Trek canon. While not considered canon, the Star Trek literary universe is a massive body of work that covers many crews from many starships. Also during this gap year (see A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal), Captain Jean-Luc Picard becomes involvedalong with Admirals William Ross, Alynna Nechayev, Owen Paris, Edward Jellico, and Mamoru Nakamura, and othersin a covert operation to remove from office Federation president Min Zife who later, unbeknownst to Picard, is killed by Section 31. To return to the choreographed dance analogy from before, you wouldnt want to get up and walk out of the theater as the last dance number is underway, would you? The Star Trek: Coda trilogy, the biggest Star Trek book event since 2008's Borg-ending Destiny trilogy, continued into its second chapter last week with author James Swallow's The Ashes of Tomorrow.. As we noted in our review last week, the book significantly expands the scope and scale of the Coda story that will bring an end to 20 years of the Star Trek literary continuity - a shared . Cookie Notice Picard takes the Enterprise back for another round of exploration in the Odyssean Pass. We pitched a few ideas, and we talked to Margaret Clark at Simon & Schuster, and we got her support. Paperback - Sept. 28 2021. I included movie and episode novelizations for completeness and reference. But thats a challenge that the writing team of Dayton Ward, James Swallow,andDavid Mack have taken head on, crafting the three-partCoda saga as a natural conclusion for theStar Trek novel continuity in a way that doesnt just throw the long-running stories out the window, after so many fans have enjoyed the tales over the years. Star Trek: Coda is a novel trilogy based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Well, we blew through it in three days not because we were short on time, but because its hard to put down. The Telling and the Knowin: Laurie Brooks, The Doctor Is In: Five SFF Stories Featuring Therapists, The Rot Beneath the Great American Road Trip: Max Gladstones, Horror Is Not a Celebration of Death, It Is a Celebration of Life: Chuck Tingle Talks, Queering SFF: Three Stories by Trans Creators. Descriptions of the novels plots have obviously been kept vague in the promotional material, but we do know well be dealing with some kind of temporal apocalypse, and its also a pretty sure bet that one or more key legacy characters will face significant sacrifices. This episode follows Uhura . YMMV. One minor criticism against this book is that sometimes it seems that Mack has a hat from which he pulls various character names, and then tries to insert them in this story. I believe ViacomCBS probably wants more stories to be written about the newer Star Trek shows,rather than the older ones. Review: Star Trek: Coda - Book II "The Ashes of Tomorrow" Note: This review contains minor spoilers. The same thing can be said of KEhleyr (Prime-Worfs deceased wife) as the CSS Enterprises first officer. Ending a Timeline: A Star Trek Coda Primer You Don't Read Comics So we decided to turn our attention to coming up with something really cool, and epic, and insane, to give book fans closure. The novels were the caretakers of GRs vision. TREKCORE: Did the Star Wars franchises handling of their legacy novels dumping most of their Expanded Universe in 2014 after the Disney acquisition influence how your team handled theCoda project? One of the things we liked about the Destiny trilogy was that, because it included many people across various starships, there was a dramatis personae readers could reference. Youre not going to feel super-invested in these characters, but youre probably going to enjoy the movie anyway, right? Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Episode 6 Review - Lost in I hopped on Simon & Schusters train with the very first book they ever put out, and have been with them the whole 40-plus years. A trilogy of novels that serve as the Grand Finale to the Star Trek Novel Verse for the Star Trek Expanded Universe in the Star Trek. This left Pocket Books, the publishers of official Star Trek fiction, in a unique position . When I say my choice, I want to be clear that that these books are very much a collaborative effort, so even though my name is on this book, and Jim and Daves names are on the others, we hammered out the storyline together down to the smallest detail. and our Thankfully, even if youve read a select few novel-verse entries, such as the excellent Star Trek: Destiny trilogy, Hearts and Minds, a few Titan novels, and the Star Trek: Avatar duology, then youll be well-primed for this book. 7 min read. Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Star Trek: Coda: Book 1: Moments Asunder I should also probably mention that at one point in the above developments, specifically the Typhon Pact novel Raise the Dawn, set in 2383-2384, Deep Space Nine is destroyed! Since the launch of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017, the storylines of the non-canon books have been on shaky ground, but withStar Trek: Picard arriving in 2020, its become clear that the 24th century as represented in the novels is no longer compatible with on-screen Star Trek canon. As is chronicled in the Titan book series, Riker and Troi eventually have a daughter, Natasha Miana Riker-Troi. We do have one minor critique about Moments Asunder. Without spoiling who, just know that not everyone survives the events of this book, including a couple of characters we really didnt think would perish. This may seem like a strange critique for a Star Trek production, but in this book, Mack really seems to indulge in the highly technical and fantastical sci-fi explanations for whats happening to our characters. Kindle $12.99 Rate this book Star Trek: Coda #3 Oblivion's Gate David Mack 4.18 626 ratings93 reviews The crews of Jean-Luc Picard, Benjamin Sisko, Ezri Dax, and William Riker unite to prevent a cosmic-level apocalypseonly to find that some fates really are inevitable. Because its part one of a trilogy, Moments Asunder spends a lot of time building up the foe and the situation our heroes face. That was at the forefront of everything we were doing, it was always in our brain. Required fields are marked *. Star Trek: Coda: Book 2: The Ashes of Tomorrow - amazon.com If youve only occasionally dipped your toes in the Litverse over the years, you may want to follow up on some of the books I reference for a fuller context, but this synopsis will cover you, plot-wise. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. It really depends how much you want to read! While in the Mirror Universe, our heroes learn a fascinating truth about their existence: they are actually not part of the most stable and therefore most important timeline, the Prime Timeline, but rather merely a branch of it. Time is coming apart. Im sure that by the time we get to Ashes of Tomorrow, though, well be prompted to remember other events I havent included here, and so onbut we had to start somewhere. Obviously, if youve been following along since day one, or you hopped on the train, and you caught up, and now youre ready for Coda, youll get more out of it may be in some level than a person whos dove right in. I am very excited by what its attempting to do, and what it hopes to do the potential there is just phenomenal. Sometimes, you might read a few sentences about the temporal things that are happening, and then pause and ask yourself, what did I just read? Of course, oftentimes a character will swoop in with a convenient analogy or comparison to help reorient lost readers, but we cant help all this could have been accomplished less verbosely. All rights reserved. The ongoing novel-verse continuity kicked off with Avatar, the opening entry 2001s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine relaunch book series and for the last two decades has maintained an ever-growing, interconnected text-only universe thats followed ourTrek heroes since the end of the Berman-era television shows.