#tie in novels
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It is in my hands! Officially out July 1st from McFarland but on order now. 16 essays on Star Trek novels and their authors.
Table of content:
Introduction: Into the Vastness of the Novelverse
Caroline-Isabelle Caron and Kristin Noone 1
Official, but Not Canon: The Tie-In Writer’s Dilemma
David Mack 19
Feinting Forward, Barging Backward: Philosophical Analysis of Spock, Messiah!
Anne Collins Smith and Owen M. Smith 37
Growing Up with Deep Space Nine: Recruiting New Fans and Teaching Ideology Through YA Literature
Judith Clemens-Smucker 52
“300 full-color action scenes”: The Star Trek Fotonovels, Multimodal Storytelling as Paper Television?
Caroline-Isabelle Caron 69
Putting the Romance Back into Space Opera
Valerie Estelle Frankel 90
“The dream of stars”: Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens and the Star Trek Epic
Geoffrey Reiter 107
Imzadi, (Almost) Happily Ever After and the Female Gothic Tradition
Carey Millsap-Spears 124
The Tie-In Novels of History: Adaptation and Expansion in Diane Carey’s Star Trek Fiction
Kristin Noone 141
“What’s in a life?” Grappling with Genre, Gender, and Liberal Humanism in The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway
Mareike Spychala 159
Wind-Riders, Divers, and Merry Whales: Vonda N. McIntyre’s Star Trek Novels
Una McCormack 174
“The sheer unpredictability of the insane, demented galaxy”: Peter David’s New Frontier Novels
Val Nolan 192
The Hurt and the Comfort in J.M. Dillard’s Mindshadow: Tie-In Novels and/as Fanfiction
Agnieszka Urbańczyk 209
Surviving the Borg? Exploring Vengeance and Humanity in Peter David’s Vendetta
Brian de Ruiter 226
Contaminated Community in Jean Lorrah’s The IDIC Epidemic
Leah Faye Norris 243
Kira Nerys: Bajor and Beyond
Sherry Ginn 255
A Coda on Coda
Caroline-Isabelle Caron 266
#star trek#strange novel worlds#book#star trek novels#academia#acafan#acafandom#tos#ds9#star trek tos#star trek ds9#star trek tng#st tng#tng#star trek voyager#voy#tie in novels#tie in#spock#kirk#kathryn janeway#will riker#riker x troi#deanna troi#jean luc picard#beverly crusher#picard x crusher#nog#jake sisko
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I have a weakness for tie in novels and have since I was a 12 year old science fiction fan. I am currently reading some and they are....so badly written. The writing is so bland and matter of fact it feels like reading a textbook about when this thing happened. The dialogue is all the same and the same as the narration. There are no stakes. I feel no suspense. No emotion. Except sometimes I come across a sentence and I'm like, someone wrote that profoundly boring and unnecessary sentence. Amd their editor saw it and was like, good sentence, worthy of publication. Unbelievable.
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Buffy fans can have a little gaslighting
As a treat
#I had Dawn spoiled for me when I saw her on the cover of one of the tie-in novels#this was 10 years before I started watching#so no one gaslit me#but in retrospect I wish I went in blind#buffy#buffy the vampire slayer#btvs#spike btvs#angel btvs#btvs Dawn
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i'm finally getting around to reading Killing Time by Della Van Hise.
you know, the Star Trek book that was so gay that it was recalled and reprinted with over 50 changes.
I got my hands on a first edition copy from Thriftbooks and decided to use a sticky tab every time something "spirk" happened
I'm only halfway through.
update its very fucking gay
#this is an unparalleled reading experience#nothing that happens in this book would phase me if i was reading it in a fic#but because this is an official published Star Trek tie in novel#im going bananas#screaming at almost every page#star trek#star trek tos#jim kirk#spock#spirk#k/s#let me know if you want a thorough analysis when i finish#or dont because ill probably do it anyway#killing time#star trek killing time
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the new nightmare is cool but i think not putting them in hanfu was an missed opportunity
(+ long hair version that i wasn't as sure about)
#i was going to give barbatos the Long Flowing Locks but he strikes me as the type who WOULD adhere to the tie-it-all-up rule#but then he looked bald so i gave him a bit of leeway. i mean even a lot of cdramas don't follow the rule#then satan's hair is more wuxia novel protagonist (which i feel suits him) and solomon's is unfortunately all inside his hat#well the long hair is for authenticity (lol) not Hot Boy Look anyway#art#obey me#obey me barbatos#obey me solomon#obey me satan#jtta ik#anyway wrt the new nightmare: barbatos's outer robe (dachang) DOES look like hanfu#but then he takes it off in the deflowered look and it's. idk. a sexy gongfu vest??? satan too#not that i have anything AGAINST that but if you're gonna do chinese fashion i feel like hanfu is a shoe-in#based off the previews for celestial blessing i'm assuming diavolo+lucifer+asmo will be in the second nightmare for this event#and both parts of a nightmare usually follow a theme so most likely it'll be kung fu clothes 2 electric boogaloo BUT i will hold hop#if anyone should be in hanfu it's those three. lucifer for that cold elegance dia for that regal charm and asmo for that Beautiful Princess#regardless i will probably be drawing them in hanfu anyway. in fact i already have the idea for it#it'll be ddvd because i NEED to put zhao in beautiful clothes for once. and also i really want to draw something in earnest for this au
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The ultimate Cale vs White Star showdown, just them coughing blood on each other while Cale's family and White Star's henchmen keep providing tissues
#im currently on chapter 383 please no spoilers#reading lout of the count's family#they are 2 sides of the same weak-consitution idiot#idk if it's because i gotten too used to it with orv and sctir#but the fact that Cale's family hasnt yet tried to lock him down or tie him up to stop him from sacrificing himself#is baffling#the kids insult him a lot#ron gives him revenge lemons#eruhaben shook him hard once#was nice#no locks tho#albert arrest this man for crimes against himself#locf#lout of the count’s family#tcf#tcf novel#trash of the count's family#cale henituse#kim roksu#white star
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just realized no BoO graphic novel means no Nico in his silly little dog harness for the Athena Parthenos this is TRAGIC
#pjo#riordanverse#nico di angelo#pjo graphic novels#I NEED TO SEE NICO LOOKING STUPID >->o#also no like nico in his silly little hawaiian shirt or whatever#but im more enamored with Nico going ''im gonna TIE MYSELF TO THE STATUE this is a GREAT PLAN-''#and the fact that its described like a sled dog harness. i love that for him.#''AALV arent you an artist cant you draw that yourself-?'' YOU THINK I HAVENT? MULTIPLE TIMES? I MADE A GIF OF IT#but i want it in print#we keep getting sequel books we dont need but the graphic novels are getting cancelled. who is deciding this i wanna have a word
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sort-of-redraw of an old piece. there is always a place in my heart for x-wing jocks and luke's esb jacket
#star wars#star wars legends#luke skywalker#wedge antilles#wedgeluke#<- to me personally (tormented by decanonized tie-in novels)#originals#art
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I hope your favourite fanfic never updates for months and the author comes back to say they're discontinuing the work
If this happened with Meridian's Dominoes or the Guidesverse, I think I would cry
#if you like star wars. go read those#dominoes is so mega good#it's about domino squad time travel#by meridianpony#on ao3#and guidesverse is short for something but i forget what it's good though#the first one is called tuning up your tie fighter to prove you're better than the bastards running the imperial program for fun and profit#by jackdaw-kraai#also on ao3#seriously those are so good#whole novels
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Ni Var by Claire Gabriel. In Star Trek: The New Voyages
#k/s#spirk#kirk/spock#star trek tos#the original series#tos tie in novel#the new voyages#star trek#rio.png
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do you prefer being chained physically or metaphorically ?? 🤔
side by side
#put ur answer in the comments below !! 🤩#/j sorry i will leave now#its angst time guys#i give u silly fyosig yesterday and now hit u with sigma angst ^^ all is balanced#asagiri give us sigma backstory light novel please please please#welp at least in the meantime i can do wtv i want with headcanons#i hate drawing chains tho. even with reference. awful.#fvedyart#bsd#sigma bsd#bungou stray dogs#bsd sigma#bsd angst#sigma angst#also im never getting over sigmas tiny tie#sigma <3 <3 <3
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Emotionally wrecked by this edit of the Call Me By Your Name movie + audiobook narration
youtube
#this video deserves a 100 million views please#call me by your name#cmbyn#dont mind me im just bawling my eyes out#when will this movie stop breaking my heart?#Youtube#cmbyn movie#andre aciman#luca guadagnino#armie hammer#timothée chalamet#timothee chalamet#i think armie hammer narrating adds a million more points#perfectly tie between movie and novel
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The DnD Lore Problem - Accessibility and Characters (and how BG3 might not help)
You know what? I am gonna talk about DnD Lore and the accessibility of that lore. I talked about this exessively before. But to summarize that long blog very shortly:
Wizards of the Coasts currently makes the mistake of putting basically most DnD Lore behind a paywall, rather than offering official ressources. This leads to a lot of tables actually playing with their original worlds, rather than Toril/Faerûn, which in turn also means, that they are not spending money on official products. While my anti-capitalist ass things that the lore should be accessible just so that people can enjoy it, I also think that this inaccessibility actually costs WotC A LOT OF MONEY.
Today I want to talk about another aspect of this inaccessibility, that is kinda linked to some of the stuff I talked about before, but also is linked to the things WotC is currently not doing in terms of both Honor Among Thieves and Baldur's Gate 3. A thing, that also might not quite work with BG3, though.
See, the core problem of this inaccessibility is, that a) there is no official place where you can just get base information about the world and the timeline, b) this world has grown organically for about half a century, which lead to clutter, but also to the fact that things are at times showing their age.
I might actually make a post on the gods and religion in the world at some other point - but for now let me talk about something else: Extended universes and access points.
The Problem with Extended Universes
Okay, let's talk about how a lot of the big franchises for the longest time have told their meta stories - including DnD - and how it kinda struggles to find its audience. The extended universe.
I am frankly not entirely sure what franchise has started this. I am assuming it was Star Trek? But that is just a guess. But at some point in the 60s oder 70s someone had the idea that: "Hey, we could totally give the fans more to chew on by making official tie-in comics and novels!"
And that was how it worked for very long. Like a lot of the big franchises had at times around 10 novels and comics (if not more) releasing per year that would just explore other parts of the universe and allow the very engaged fans to... well, learn more about the world. Now, I am not going to talk about all the drama connected to the Star Wars stuff, but if you know, you know.
DnD did this too. (As did a lot of the big TTRPG systems, like Shadowrun and WoD as well.) Having a lot of tie in stuff - in the case of DnD mostly novels - that told more stories on the world and also established like some big player characters within the world. Elminster Aumar is probably one of the best examples here.
Those established some characters that play a big role within the world and also told just more stories of those big world changing events. In the recent DnD history that would be stuff like the Time of Troubles, the Spellplague and the Second Sundering.
Now, here we have one big issue. And one issue where I am not entirely certain where it arose from. But the fact is: In recent years, people invest way less into those kind of books. This is just a fact.
It is the reason why those big universes went from publishing like ten novels a year to often not more than three. We saw that in the failure of the extended Universe Disney tried to pull off for Pirates of the Caribbean (though I will still maintain that another big problem was that they barely marketed that at all - hi, everyone, who did not know there were extended universe novels for PotC). We also saw that with League of Legends, who really, really tried to tell a lot more stories with short stories and then also some novels set in Runeterra, before finally giving up, because most people didn't care.
In terms of Dungeons & Dragons I can totally see that a lot of people will also say: "I do not care what some other people's characters do within the world." Buuuuuut...
Stories actually can help you understand the world. Which brings me to...
The Elminster Problem
Okay, I do not know how to put this, but... If you look at the novels coming out for DnD literally half of them focus on either Elminster Aumar or Drizzt Do'Urden. Characters that have pretty much been around since the very beginning and. Look, I don't know how to put it but... It shows.
I am currently reading some of the newer novels and the fact is, that they do not really feel like fantasy books from the 2010s and 2020s. Because Elminster and Drizzt are very clearly characters originating in a very different time when stories were told very differently.
I mean, just look at Elminster. He is a wanna-be Gandalf character. He is from the early, early days of fantasy and... Look, I personally just really am unable to identify with a character like this.
And while Drizzt is a bit better as a character, but even he... How to put this delicately? They are both very much characters written by white cishet men for white cishet men. There, I said it.
I am noticing this a lot with reading Salvatore's books currently. Like, female characters are not overly sexualized, which is a plus. But they also very much exist most of the time in service to a man or at least in relation to a man. There is not a lot of female characters running around that have their own agency.
Which kinda leads to another thing. I actually saw this one brought up by one of those very cliché nerdy Youtube channels talking on DnD, who recognized the problem as well: There are basically two large groups of DnD players who barely intersect. One is the cliché nerds, the other is a largely queer and largely diverse group. And the youtube guy, who was very in the white cishet nerd group, suspected that actually the later group makes up more of the player base by now.
Buuuut... that is also the group who really do not get catered to by the canon lore so far. That was until 2023 with DnD:HAT and BG3 - both catering actually a lot to those groups.
Honor Among Thieves and the undermarketed books
Okay, here is the thing: Honor Among Thieves had two novelizations (one for young readers, one for older readers) and two tie-in novels. One featuring Edgin, Holga, Forge and Simon before the stuff with Sofina went down. And the other featuring Simon and Doric taking place at the time while Ed and Holga are in prison.
I am honest: I really, really liked the Ed and Holga novel. It was super cute and charming and really gives a better understanding of the characters.
But of course once again there is the thing: The books - just like the Pirates of the Caribbean books - were super undermarketed. Like, most people I know off do not even know that there were books released. Heck, even within the actual active fandom there are again and again people who will be surprised that those books exist.
And... I actually also think that the books waste one big ass opportunity, by not at all tying into the broader lore. They are super self-contained.
And that is actually just a waste. Because the place were Edgin lived in? Yeah, that place was super affected by the Second Sundering. Heck, that might have had to do something with his troubles.
Why is that an issue? Well, because... there was not a lot going on there that was inviting you to further interact with the world and learn more abotu what is happening. For once, again, because I think it is a super fun and interesting world. But also, because... WotC wants to make money and is so bad at it, that it really boggles my mind.
See, here is the thing: They could've used those characters - that really are fun and sympathetic characters - to create an accesspoint into that world.
Alright, so what about Baldur's Gate 3?
Which brings me to Baldur's Gate 3 and the thing that a lot of people have noticed: The other Baldur's Gate games - as well as some of the other games releasing around 2000 - had their own tie-in novels going into the characters, their background, but also what they were doing in the future.
Something that so far BG3 has not done, which some fans have already critized. Because a lot of people have actually gotten really invested into those characters. A lot of the kind of people especially who so far are underserved by a lot of the tie-in stuff: Queer and generally diverse audiences.
Like, I think there would be a lot of people, who totally would read a novel, about...
Astarion getting drawn into some sort of political intrigue in Baldur's Gate while serving Cazador
Karlach's time in Avernus
Some Adventure Wyll got dragged into while being the Blade of the Frontier.
Shadowheart going onto a mission for Shar (maybe together with Nocturne)
Whatever Gale was doing during the Second Sundering
Lae'zel's youth among the Githyanki
The Dark Urge and Gortash starting up the entire conspiracy
... whatever Halsin had been up to in his long live
Heck, people would eat that stuff up. And you could not only use it to worldbuild but also once more create some access into the world and what happened there. And they are kinda wasting a lot of potential by not bringing out those novels.
Of course, there is one big problem: BG3 makes it kinda hard to write about anything happening after the ending. Because as it is right now, someone is gonna be pissed if a novel set after the game does not go with the decision for a character they go for. Like, Ascended Astarion fans are gonna be pissed, if they go with Spawn Astarion - and the other way around. Same goes with every other character where you have those big decisions happening.
This is something they will have to tackle eventually if they plan on doing something with the characters in the future (no matter if we are talking Larian or WotC), but it is definitely an issue that just arises from the structure of the game.
Bonus of course is, that you just cannot define a canonical Tav. But without a Tav, you also gotta act as if the story of the game happened without a Tav, which still is not ideal. I am honestly not sure with how they are gonna deal with this on the long run.
Access via Characters
Alright, but what is the actual issue here?
Well, basically there are two hurdles to overcome for the accessibility of the lore. The first is the physical accessibility - aka, what I talked about in the last long blog post. The second meanwhile is more related to making the lore engaging. And that happens through characters.
It is for me what happened last year. I actually tried to engage with the lore as the movie came out - but only when BG3, that tied a lot more into the actual lore was released I actually found proper access to the lore. Because I had concrete things I could now look for because the game hinted at so much both through characters and major story events happening.
Here is the thing: If you just have the lore on its own, it is about as engaging as reading a history book. Sure, as your local history nerd I find reading history books fun, but most people really do not want to read a history book to engage with a hobby.
People will however engage with stories and characters that interest them. Which is where we get back to the thing I talked about at the beginning: Right now most canonical novels and stories still cater to an audience that is male, cishet, white and also, let's be frank, definitely over 30 years old. Leaving behind a lot of potential fans that theoretically make up a big part of the player-base, but actually do not engage a lot with the lore for this exact reason.
Look. DnD right now is fairly close to being an actual mainstream hobby, due to the recent proliferation of formerly nerdy stuff. And yet WotC is bleeding money, especially in regards of DnD.
If you ask me, sure... DnD should go into public domain. But it doesn't. And given that there are so many creative, skilled people working on this - no matter how dumb Hasbro is and how shitty of an employer they are - I actually do want them to succeed. I have really become engaged with this world now. And I think it is a pity that they clearly do not know how to market this stuff.
#dungeons & dragons#baldurs gate 3#dnd#baldur's gate 3#bg3#dungeons & dragons: honor among thieves#honor among thieves#dnd:hat#tie in#novels#dnd lore#accessibility#astarion#karlach#shadowheart#wyll ravengard#halsin#gale dekarios#lae'zel#elminster#drizzt do'urden#edgin darvis#holga kilgore#wizards of the coast#wotc#star wars#league of legends
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I need everyone to know for a fact dean was NOT functional in any way when he lost sam after swan song. he was a deadalive: he had nightmares everyday, sam was always on his mind “excruciatingly tearing his guts from his eyes,” he was obsessed with bringing sam back he became a lunatic about it, he was barely present and often went on a spiral, he went to lisa and ben for sam only, he daydreamed of sam looking disfigured taunting him, he drank himself unconscious all the time, he often left lisa and ben physically and mentally to focus on sam who's dead. he was an emotionally-absent trainwreck in every sense of the word
“You knew sam was alive? A whole damn year! You couldn't put me out of my misery?!”
#I can't vouch for the quality of other spn tie-in but I feel like this one novel actually gives a better insight and visualization#of how dean was a wreck in that 1 year without sam#spn tie-ins aka books#one year gone#samdean#wincest#mine#dean winchester
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The new companion is named Ruby. -> There is a River Song novel called “The Ruby’s Curse”.
The series seems to blur the lines between fiction and reality. -> In the novel “The Ruby’s Curse” the lines between fiction and reality are blurred.
#river song#ruby sunday#doctor who#dw spoilers#doctor who spoilers#kidding mostly#they are going to tie back to a random novel#I haven’t even finished the book yet
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A book you very likely don’t have on your shelf #685
1956
#1956#1950s#forbidden planet#movie tie in#movie novelization#cover art#book cover#paperback#vintage paperback#science fiction#scifi#sci fi#sci-fi#ephemera
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