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September 19, 2009

What's going on in Star Trek book land?

I've been a regular on the TrekBBS Star Trek novels forum for a long time, but I haven't been going there much recently for some reason (nothing against the board, I just haven't been going as often).

Anyway, it's where I always kept up on the Star Trek book news, mainly because so many of the authors post there as well. It's a very cool place to be if you want to "hobnob" with many of those who are producing the books that you enjoy.

Sadly, my favourite editor there, Marco Palmieri, was layed off last year due to budget cuts. He was always a fixture on the boards, keeping the readers informed, and interacting with them. I enjoyed almost all of the projects that he edited.

Now, things have taken a turn for the worse.

I just saw Steve Roby's post about Margaret Clark, who was also a Trek editor and who took on most of Marco's projects, getting laid off in August. Now, the two best Trek editors are gone, and as Steve pointed out in a post on the BBS, when you get laid off, you don't get replaced. Either somebody who's already there picks up your work, or it doesn't get done.

Is this an indication of Pocketbooks' editorial policy regarding media tie-in books? Pocket has also published CSI books, both Marvel and DC superhero books, 4400 books, and many other television series (mostly SF). Clark and Palmieri, I believe (and somebody correct me if I'm wrong) were Pocket's main media tie-in editors, and now they're both gone.

Will the 2010 schedule change? Supposedly things will be taken over by two other editors who have some Trek-editing experience. When Marco got laid-off, some interesting-sounding projects were canceled (the Crucible collected book, to name one). However, thankfully, Pocket seems to have announced that the 2010 schedule will remain unchanged, though who knows whether that will continue? I hope it does.

And now there's even some confusion among at least one author (from Steve's post):


"Looks like there's been a bit of confusion at Pocket following the layoff of editor Margaret Clark, a few months after the layoff of editor Marco Palmieri. David McIntee was told his proposal for an Abramsverse novel focusing on Scotty, which he'd worked on with Margaret, had been sent off to John Van Citters at CBS licensing for approval. And then Margaret lost her job. And David didn't hear anything, until Greg Cox announced on TrekBBS that he's doing the book David thought he was doing."


So what's going on? Hopefully this won't impact the line too badly, though obviously something's going to give. As a Trek-book reader, I'm understandably concerned.

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