A few weeks ago we brought you a look ahead to the year ahead in Star Trek fiction, and now we’ve got even more detail about other publishing plans for 2021 from Hero Collector, new cover art for this summer’s novels… and news of a cat’s take on Star Trek: Discovery.
Hero Collector is moving right along with the next entry in its Star Trek Celebration series — following last fall’s long-needed Star Trek: Voyager – A Celebration behind-the-scenes book — with an entry centered around the Original Series for its 55th anniversary year.
The definitive collection of interviews, history, photos, and artwork from Star Trek: The Original Series. A must-have for all fans of Captain Kirk and his crew!
Following the success of Star Trek Voyager: A Celebration, this second volume in the series focuses Star Trek: The Original Series. The book will be released in the week of Star Trek’s 55th anniversary.
Gene Roddenberry’s series changed television forever and created a broadcast phenomenon, and world that continues to influence our culture today.
With a curated selection of archive interviews, personal recollections from cast and crew, and new interviews specially undertaken for the book, the chapters explore the writing, directing, production art and visual effects, plus classic episodes from the show’s three season run.
Star Trek: The Original Series – A Celebration will feature a mix of “curated archival interviews” along with new interviews with the surviving cast and crew, and like the Voyager edition before it, will include chapters on production, art design, visual effects, and special spotlights on selected episodes.
It’s likely not to be quite as interesting as the Voyager version — it’s not like there haven’t been many classic Trek behind-the-scenes books in the past — but it’ll be a nice addition for those not so versed in the stories from the the Original Series’ creation.
Due out in September, Star Trek: The Original Series – A Celebration can be preordered today.
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Following the four prior entries in this series, another book in the Star Trek: Designing Starships line is set for this summer — centered this time on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Showcasing the concept art behind the Deep Space 9 station itself, the U.S.S. Defiant and dozens more ships from the award winning Star Trek series.
Deep Space 9 is considered by some as the best Star Trek series.
The fifth in the series of Star Trek Designing Starships is built around original production art and extensive interviews with the station and ships’ designers, explaining exactly how the ships came into being.
The award-winning series Deep Space Nine ran for seven seasons and 176 episodes, from January 1993 to June 1999.
This book will add another 200 pages of design work to collectors’ bookshelves, culling information mostly shared through prior Official Starship Collections magazine issues. Prior books in this series covered the legacy of starships called Enterprise, the starships of Voyager (and beyond), new designs for Star Trek: Discovery, and the ships of the Kelvin Timeline — so a DS9-focused release is nice to see.
Set to arrive on August 17, Star Trek: Designing Starships — Deep Space Nine and Beyond can be preordered today.
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For those of you who want all there is to know about the starships of Star Trek — but don’t have room for all the Eaglemoss starship models! — Hero Collector’s adding two more Star Trek Shipyards hardcover collections to its roster, collecting several-hundred-more pages of behind the scenes information and detailed schematics in a bookshelf-friendly format.
Coming in August (preorder here) is a revised and expanded second edition of the Starfleet Ships: 2294 – The Future collection, first released in 2018, which is set to add 70 pages of additional content from both Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery.
Included in the updated edition will be the Inquiry-class USS Zheng He from Picard, several of the 32nd century Starfleet ships from Discovery Season 3 (including the USS Voyager-J), and if the cover artwork is any indication, the fan-favorite Akira-class design (which was left out of the 2018 first edition).
Also on tap for this October is the first of two books focused on miscellaneous non-Starfleet ships from the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, following in the footsteps of this year’s two-part Delta Quadrant Shipyards series.
Set to include Cardassian, Ferengi, and Romulan starship designs, along with others from the Original Series and TNG/DS9 eras, Star Trek Shipyards — Alpha and Beta Quadrant: Volume One can be preordered now.
Speaking of the Shipyards series, this week Hero Collector also released a number of preview images from its Delta Quadrant: Volume 1 (coming in April) and Delta Quadrant: Volume 2 (coming in June) books, which you can check out in the slideshow above.
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In the last bit of Hero Collector publishing news, the company is also set to release a Next Generation version of their fun 2020 Nerd Search book Star Trek: Quibbles with Tribbles, which takes comic book-styled drawings of moments from the Trek series and deliberately sneaks in continuity errors for fans to search out and identify in the colorful spreads.
Following the hit ‘Quibbles with Tribbles,’ here comes the sequel …STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. This Nerd Search takes your favorite show and adds annoying mistakes that only a true Trek Nerd could spot! This is next level ‘Where’s Waldo,’ for the fanatical adult fan.
In this fully-illustrated book, the Borg have created time-travelling Chaos-Cubes that break down reality as we know it. You must spot the cubes, and save Picard’s voyages as we know them. On another level of complexity, the reader must spot five CONTINUITY ERRORS caused by the Chaos Cubes, like characters in the wrong costume, or scene … or series!
Finally, we have hidden ten random items from every season of Next Gen in every scene. Spot these rogue elements and name the episode if you can! Also spot 5 Super Quibbles, for the next level fan. These are things that only fans who peer behind the scenes will know about!
We will be revisiting classic episodes like Best of Both Worlds, The Big Goodbye and Encounter at Farpoint. Watch out for sneaky Ferengi, hairy Klingons, and quirky ‘Q’ madness. Top score is the magic number of 11001001. If you want to prove you are the greatest Next Generation expert ever, here’s your chance to make it so!
While it doesn’t yet have a formal title or cover artwork, Star Trek Nerd Search: The Next Generation can be preordered now ahead of its November 2021 release.
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New cover artwork for this summer’s pair of Star Trek novels have been revealed; designs for Cassandra Rose Clark’s Next Generation tale Shadows Have Offended and Christopher L. Bennett’s Living Memory each hit the web this week.
While attempting to settle in as commandant of Starfleet Academy, Admiral James T. Kirk must suddenly contend with the controversial, turbulent integration of an alien warrior caste into the student body — and quickly becomes embroiled in conflict when the Academy controversy escalates to murder.
Meanwhile, Captain Spock of the USS Enterprise and Commander Pavel Chekov of the USS Reliant are investigating a series of powerful cosmic storms seemingly targeting Federation worlds — unstoppable outbursts emitting from the very fabric of space.
Endeavoring to predict where the lethal storms will strike next, Spock and Chekov make the shocking discovery that the answer lies in Commander Nyota Uhura’s past — one that she no longer remembers….
The USS Enterprise has been granted the simple but unavoidable honor of ferrying key guests to Betazed for a cultural ceremony.
En route, sudden tragedy strikes a Federation science station on the isolated planet Kota, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard has no qualms sending William Riker, Data, and Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher to investigate.
But what begins as routine assignments for the two parties soon descends into chaos: Picard, Worf, and Deanna Troi must grapple with a dangerous diplomatic crisis as historic artifacts are stolen in the middle of a high-profile ceremony… while nothing is as it seems on Kota.
A mounting medical emergency coupled with the science station’s failing technology — and no hope of rescue — has Doctor Crusher racing against time to solve a disturbing mystery threatening the lives of all her colleagues….
Star Trek: The Original Series – Living Memory is available for preorder now ahead of its June 16 release, and Star Trek: The Next Generation – Shadows Have Offended can be preordered now ahead of its July 13 street date.
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Finally, it seems that this fall, we’ll be getting a cats-eye perspective on the world of Star Trek: Discovery… as Book’s cat Grudge will get her own publishing deal in November.
Star Trek: Discovery — The Book of Grudge from author Robb Pearlman will take the wisdom of Discovery’s feline queen and translate it into this new release, a small book where Grudge weighs in on the events of Discovery’s third season.
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY through a cat’s eyes: find out what Grudge the cat really thinks of the planets, the ships and all of the people she meets in the course of her travels.
Grudge is a “Queen,” and she knows it. Everyone – her so-called owner, Cleveland “Book” Booker, Michael Burnham, Ryn, Zareh, and Tilly – bows down to her, some more willingly than others. And nothing, not extended periods in space, not ship-rattling attacks from enemies, rattles her. Ever. She’s a cool kitty with a ’tude. We call it “Cattitude.”
While there’s no cover artwork yet available, The Book of Grudge is available for pre-order now ahead of its November 7 release.
That’s a lot of new content to fill your shelves this year — which releases do you plan to pick up in 2021? Let us know in the comments section below!