Star Trek spin-off fiction


The Star Trek franchise has produced a large number of novels, comic books, video games, and other materials, which are generally considered non-canon.

Continuity

Star Trek spin-off fiction frequently fills in "gaps" within the televised show, often making use of backstage information or popular fan belief. Although officially licensed spin-off material will often maintain continuity within itself, elements often contradict each other irreconcilably. For example, the end of Kirk's five-year mission has been depicted in several different incompatible ways.
Much fiction is set in a second five-year mission of Kirk's Enterprise, which the Okuda chronology dates after Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Backstories and fates of characters are often elaborated on, an example being Leonard McCoy's divorced status, and his daughter, Joanna, originally intended to appear in what became the TOS episode "The Way to Eden".
Several original series characters are established as still being alive in the TNG era, including McCoy, Spock, and Scotty. In the books written by William Shatner, these are joined by a revived Captain Kirk. Several novels depict the careers of the younger members of the Enterprise crew after Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Captain Sulu and his daughter Demora Sulu appear in Peter David's novel The Captain's Daughter. In the novel The Sundered, Chekov serves as Sulu's first officer on. The novel Federation has Chekov eventually becoming an admiral. Uhura is shown, in the novel Catalyst of Sorrows, to be Chief of Starfleet Intelligence in 2360. The 2006 novel Vulcan's Soul: Exiles has an Admiral Pavel Chekov, and Uhura is still serving as head of Starfleet Intelligence in 2377, at the age of 138. Peter David's novel Imzadi explores the backstory between Riker and Troi, and its sequel Triangle: Imzadi II covers the cooling of the Worf/Troi relationship, which was left unexplained on screen.
Spin-off fiction will often use re-use characters who appeared only once or twice in the actual show. Dr. Selar has appeared in more TNG novels than television episodes, and she and Elizabeth Shelby, who appeared in the two-part episode "The Best of Both Worlds" are major characters in the Star Trek: New Frontier series. The cast of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers series largely comes from such guest parts. Similarly, the IKS Gorkon series features Klingon characters drawn from a variety of TNG and DS9 episodes.
The spin-off fiction has also engaged in world building. Novels in the 1980s by Diane Duane and John M. Ford established a complex backstory and culture for the Romulans and Klingons respectively, which were later not taken up by TNG.

Technical and reference manuals

A large range of fictional reference books have been produced over the years. More recent books of this sort have been by production staff and, whilst not binding on the series, nonetheless reflect the thinking of the production office, and are used as sourcebooks by writers.
Similar material has also been published in the Star Trek Fact Files and the Star Trek Magazine.

Prose fiction

Since 1967, hundreds of original novels, short stories, and television and movie adaptations have been published. The first original Star Trek novel to be published was Mission to Horatius by Mack Reynolds, which was published in hardcover by Whitman Books in 1968. Geared for younger readers, the novel became a collectible and in the 1990s, Pocket Books issued a facsimile edition.
The first publisher of Star Trek fiction aimed at adult readers was Bantam Books, which initially produced a bestselling series of novelizations of the original 79 episodes by James Blish that began in 1967. Later adaptations were done by Blish's wife, J. A. Lawrence, some of these were credited to Blish with others appearing under Lawrence's name. In 1970, Blish wrote the first original novel published by Bantam, Spock Must Die!, although subsequent novels did not appear until 1976.
From 1974, Ballantine Books published a 10-volume series of novelizations based upon episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series, all written by Alan Dean Foster. Bantam also published a number of fotonovels based on episodes. In the late 1970s, Bantam published a number of original Star Trek novels, including two written by noted science fiction author Joe Haldeman, and one by original series scriptwriter David Gerrold.
Pocket Books began publishing Star Trek fiction in 1979, starting with a novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Gene Roddenberry himself, although the company's second Trek novel did not appear until 1981 due to Bantam being allowed to complete its publishing contract first. Eventually, Pocket Books would publish novels based upon every Trek series.
From around 1987 and with the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Paramount took a closer role in supervising the books, disallowing story elements that were said to conflict with Gene Roddenberry's idea of Star Trek. In particular, recurring characters between books were discouraged, as was the use of concepts introduced in The Animated Series. This era saw disputes between authors and the Star Trek production office – specifically Roddenberry's "assistant", Richard Arnold – with many novels being rejected for not focusing directly on the main TOS cast. Some novels were, in lieu of rejection, heavily edited, resulting in being disowned publicly by their authors, such as with the novel Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno.
A change of personnel at the Star Trek offices in the early 1990s – specifically the firing of Arnold immediately following the death of Gene Roddenberry in 1991 – led to a relaxation of policies regarding tie-in novels. Under editor John J. Ordover, many authors including Bonanno returned as Star Trek novelists in the 2000s after encouragement from fans, which continued under later editor Marco Palmieri, who has admitted being unaware of any prior blacklisting of authors resulting from the period of interference from Richard Arnold.
Prolific Star Trek novelists include Peter David, Diane Carey, Keith R.A. DeCandido, J.M. Dillard, Diane Duane, Michael Jan Friedman, and Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. Several actors and writers from the television series have written books: William Shatner has written a series with the Reeves-Stevenses featuring a revived Captain Kirk in the 24th century, and John de Lancie, Andrew J. Robinson, J. G. Hertzler, and Armin Shimerman have written or co-written books featuring their respective characters. Voyager producer Jeri Taylor wrote two novels featuring backstory for Voyager characters, and screen authors David Gerrold, D. C. Fontana, and Melinda Snodgrass have also penned books. The Reeves-Stevenses were later hired as writers for Enterprise.
None of the Star Trek novels are considered "canon", meaning that producers of the television series feel free to contradict events and facts from the novels. Paula Block, director of CBS Consumer Products, is quoted in Voyages of the Imagination as saying, "Jeri Taylor's books were considered quasi-canon for a while because our licensees really wanted some sort of background structure".

New series

Starting from the mid-1990s, several ranges of books were created based upon original continuing characters and situations set in the Star Trek universe. The first of these, Star Trek: New Frontier by Peter David, focuses on the crew of the starship Excalibur. Some characters in this series were guest stars from episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, while others were from previous Star Trek titles by the same author, and still others were created originally for the series. New Frontier takes place in Sector 221-G, where the Excalibur is dispatched to help with the chaos created by the crumbling Thallonian Empire.
Michael Jan Friedman's Stargazer series features the adventures of Captain Picard on the Stargazer, and reuses characters he established in his 1992 TNG novel Reunion.
Another series, Star Trek: Challenger, created by Pocket editor John J. Ordover and writer Diane Carey, was planned as a continuation of the six-book storyline Star Trek: New Earth. Thus far only one book in the series has been published, Chainmail, part of the Gateways crossover series.
The Starfleet Corps of Engineers series is a series of eBooks by various authors, set in the same general time frame as the Next Generation series. This series features a group of highly trained engineers stationed aboard and their adventures on various planets. The eBooks are eventually released in paperback collections. No new Corps of Engineers novels have been published since 2007.
From 2005 to 2012, a Star Trek: Vanguard series ran, set on Starbase 47, known as "Vanguard". It is set during The Original Series, and attempts to flesh out that particular period of fictional Star Trek history.
I.K.S. Gorkon was a brief series of novels by Keith R. A. DeCandido, the first Star Trek novel series to feature the Klingons instead of Starfleet. This series tells of the adventures of an all-new Qang -class war cruiser, on a mission to conquer new planets for the Klingon Empire. The series grew from DeCandido's TNG Ambassador Worf-focused novel Diplomatic Implausibility.