Star Trek: Enterprise

Original novels and relaunch

Like the Trek series that preceded it, a series of original novels based upon Enterprise was launched by Pocket Books soon after the program debuted.

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During the run of the series, however, only five books were published (not counting episode novelizations), a low number compared to the other series (the sixth original novel, Rosetta by Dave Stern and scheduled for release at the end of 2005, is the only Enterprise book release planned for 2005).

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As explained by Pocket Books editor Margaret Clark, it was decided to scale back the number of books published not due to low sales or lack of interest in the prequel series, but due to the fact that the televised series often conflicted with planned literary plotlines, or beat the book series to the punch entirely. For example, the novel Surak's Soul by J.M. Dillard, includes as a major plot point the aftermath of T'Pol killing a person during a mission. Before the novel was published, however, the TV series aired "The Seventh," an episode with a similar core plot point, which forced last-minute revisions to Dillard's book. Later, the novel Daedalus by Dave Stern, which included flashbacks to the early days of the NX program, also needed to be revised to avoid conflicting with the already-broadcast episode "First Flight" which also featured a look at the early days of the NX program. In a May 2005 posting at the TrekBBS, Clark explained that the recent lack of Enterprise novels was intended to avoid any further potential storytelling "land mines" since "Season Four kept doing stuff we wanted/planned to do".http://www.trektoday.com/news/180505_01.shtml

Related Topics:
Margaret Clark - J.M. Dillard - First Flight - TrekBBS

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Now that the televised series has concluded, the writers are free to compose stories without fear of being preempted or contradicted by the show (save for any restrictions put in place by the finale episode). In May 2005, Clark announced plans for a new series of Enterprise novels that will constitute a "relaunch" similar to that of the literary continuation of '. Although a publishing schedule for this new series has not been announced, Clark indicated that the books will cover events in the six years between "Terra Prime" and "These Are the Voyages...". http://www.trektoday.com/news/180505_01.shtml

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It is not yet known if Rosetta, the first novel published since the cancellation, will be considered the start of the Relaunch since it explicitly takes place during the fourth season. Similarly the status of the Jonathan Archer segment of Tales from the Captain's Table, an anthology released by Pocket Books in June 2005 and the only other post-cancellation Enterprise fiction as yet published, has yet to be determined. The Relaunch is not expected to get into full swing for at least a year, and with Pocket Books recently reducing the publishing schedule for its Trek fiction to one paperback novel a month, it may be some time before the scope of the Enterprise Relaunch is known.

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