Thursday, August 07, 2008

The other Star Fleet Universe

Just ordered the book For the Glory of the Empire from Amarillo Design Bureau, the people behind Star Fleet Battles and various related games. They've reportedly been planning to print some books of fiction for some time. From their online store:
Our first paperback book, compiling several stories about the Klingons from Captain's Log. These are prototypes from the first production run and offered as collector items. When we do an official release, the book may be a little different in size and some cover elements may be moved a little bit here and there. We have only about two dozen of these, and when they are gone, we won't have more until we do the real production run later (not sure when).
Haven't seen any solid publication date yet, but according to a forum post a second book is in the works. Day of the Eagle will be a collection of Romulan stories.

The SFB fiction I've read -- a couple of stories in the SFB Captain's Logs magazine/books -- aren't exactly literature; they seem to be designed to introduce certain gaming concepts. Lots of action and tech, not so much character. I can't imagine these first two books catching on to any great extent outside SFB circles, so Pocket has nothing to worry about, but I hope that they may lead to more original fiction set in the game's Star Fleet Universe. It's a very different universe that has developed from the original Star Trek, and the right writers could probably do some interesting stuff with it. Whether ADB will try to draw writers from outside their usual contributors to create more original fiction remains to be seen, but I think it could be worthwhile.

3 Comments:

At 11:34 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I played SFB a long, long time ago, and still have various rulebooks/etc. in the closet somewhere. If you like TOS Trek, it's a fun offshoot, though the emphasis is of course on war/battles rather than more traditional Trek storytelling.

 
At 7:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm really surprised Pocket's contract allows enough wiggle room for this sort of thing to sneak out.

I ordered an extra copy on the outside chance it becomes fiercely collectible one day, like that Mongoose Babylon 5 novel (novels?) that was available at a con, but never truly published. Wish I had me one of those!

 
At 8:23 PM, Blogger Steve said...

There are a lot of restrictions on what ADB can do Star Trek-wise, and I assume they've made sure they can do this legally.

As for the B5 book... I'm glad I have a copy of that one Mongoose book. but I might be happier if I hadn't actually read it.

 

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