Posts Tagged ‘Oblivion’s Gate’

Oblivion’s Gate nominated for 2022 Dragon Award

The Dragon Awards

The 2022 Dragon Award ballot has been released, and I’m proud to share that Star Trek: Coda, Book III – Oblivion’s Gate is up for Best Media Tie-in Novel.

Star Trek Coda, Book 3, Oblivion's Gate, by David MackIt shares this honor with four other excellent novels by some of the best tie-in authors in the business:

• Star Wars: The Fallen Star by Claudia Gray

• Star Trek: Picard – Rogue Elements by John Jackson Miller

• HALO: Divine Wind by Troy Denning … and

• Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil by Timothy Zahn

Man, that is some MAJOR competition.

I won’t lie to you — I’d really love for Oblivion’s Gate to win this thing, but looking at that list even I have to admit my book is one of this year’s underdogs.

If you previously nominated Oblivion’s Gate for the 2022 Dragon Awards, check your email for a link to the final ballot, and vote for Oblivion’s Gate to win!

If you missed the nomination phase, you can still vote on the final ballot for free! All you need is a valid email. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP TO VOTE.

VOTING ENDS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2!

Musical Inspirations of Star Trek: Coda

No one has shown the least bit of interest in guessing at the inspirations/connections between my recent novel Star Trek: Coda, Book III – Oblivion’s Gate and its hand-curated Spotify playlist. I am, therefore, going to blather on about it anyway.

But before I dig into the tracks on the public Spotify playlist, I want to share an unreleased track that, for me, has been the unofficial “theme song” of the Star Trek: Coda trilogy: “Cue the Violins,” by my pal Friday’s Child front man Tom Walker.

Star Trek Coda - Moments AsunderNow, onward to the Spotify playlist tracks. Leading us off is “Goodnight, Saigon” by Billy Joel. For me this song served as a tribute to all of the story’s redshirts and other characters slain in the line of duty (or as collateral damage).

Entry two on the playlist should be easy to understand: “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult alludes, obviously, to the story’s main villains and their engineered temporal apocalypse.

Now we get into the character-specific inspirations on the playlist: “Against the Wind” by Bob Seger felt like a great summary of the life of middle-aged Traveler Wesley Crusher, reflecting on centuries of chasing an unknown enemy.

Next up is Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” which for me evokes Worf’s angst and conflicting emotions over meeting an alternate K’Ehleyr in the Mirror Universe in Oblivion’s Gate.

Continuing the playlist is Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms,” which for me feels like a perfect distillation of Benjamin Sisko’s spiritual journey in this heartbreaking trilogy.

“Life is a Long Song” by Jethro Tull, for me, captures the optimism and kindness of spirit of Geordi La Forge, as well as the sadness of dying in one’s prime.

“Hurt” by Johnny Cash brings a more somber note to the playlist. In this context, its lyrics feel to me like an eerie commentary on the story of the time-madness-stricken Admiral William Riker, and his desperate plea to his wife Deanna Troi.

Star Trek Coda - The Ashes of TomorrowFeel-good music? Not for this trilogy (not yet, anyway). Next up is “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas, which on the Star Trek: Coda playlist is meant to evoke the deep despair felt by Vedek Kira over the terrible sacrifices she has been compelled to make.

Ramping up the drama and tragedy of the playlist is Queen & Michael Kamen’s iconic ballad from Highlander, “Who Wants to Live Forever? (Heather’s Demise)”. For me, this is the theme of Mirror K’Ehleyr’s story, including its heroic/tragic end.

Have courage. We’re almost done. “Time in a Bottle” by Jim Croce felt like a great song to represent the sort of timeless POV of the functionally immortal androids Data Soong and his resurrected daughter Lal.

The most inspirational song on the Star Trek: Coda playlist is “The Garden” by Rush. It set the tone for Chapter 40, and it established themes & motifs throughout Oblivion’s Gate, which is meant as an homage to the late Neil Peart.

Oblivion’s Gate ends on an epilogue that I call a “Grace Note.” Its title is “What Remains to Be Seen,” an allusion to a lyric from “The Garden” — “Hope is what remains to be seen.”

The Grace Note of Oblivion’s Gate, which occurs on the date of Star Trek‘s 1966 TV premiere, on W. 136th St. in Harlem (“Far Beyond the Stars” was the 136th episode of DS9) is represented by Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”

Finally, if a novel trilogy could have ironic end-credits music, Star Trek: Coda would conclude with a hat-tip to the franchise’s newly expanding canon, with “(Just Like) Starting Over” by the great John Lennon.

Postscript: If you’re just looking for suitable background music for reading, check out my Star Trek: Coda – Reading Music playlist on Spotify.

Nominate Oblivion’s Gate for a Dragon Award

Star Trek Coda, Book 3, Oblivion's Gate, by David MackHello, everyone. This post is just a quick note to let y’all know that nominations are open for the 2022 =DRAGON AWARDS=.

It’s free to sign up and nominate works for the Dragon Awards. All you need is a valid email address!

I’d feel truly honored if you’d nominate my novel Star Trek: Coda, Book III:Oblivion’s Gate for BEST MEDIA TIE-IN NOVEL.

The URL for nominations is here: https://application.dragoncon.net/dc_fan_awards_nominations.php

The nomination period ends July 19, 2022 at 11:59pm EDT.

STAR TREK novels I’ve written

I started writing books for Star Trek in 2000, when I was hired by Pocket Books editors Margaret Clark and Jessica McGivney to write The Starfleet Survival Guide. My first prose fiction for Star Trek was the two-part Star Trek: S.C.E. (aka Corps of Engineers) novella “Invincible,” which I co-wrote with series editor (and my pal) Keith R.A. DeCandido. Shortly after that saw publication, I undertook my first solo work of prose fiction, the two-part short novel Star Trek: S.C.E. #23/#24 – Wildfire.

The success of Wildfire led to me being invited in 2003 to write a pair of back-to-back full-length mass-market paperback novels for a 9-volume The Next Generation miniseries called A Time to…. Those two novels — A Time to Kill and A Time to Heal — earned me a lot of critical acclaim, and the latter title landed a spot on the USA Today extended bestsellers list.

Nearly all of the 29 novels I’ve written for Star Trek have been part of its shared, serialized literary post-finale continuity. (You can read more about that in this other blog post.) In a little over two months’ time, Gallery Books will publish my newest Star Trek novel, CODA, Book III: Oblivion’s Gate — which will be the last novel in that 20-year-long serialized continuity.

For those who are generally interested in immersing themselves into that massive creative undertaking, I recommend using the Trek Collective’s Trek Lit Reading Order Flow Chart as a guide.

However, for those who are merely curious about where and how my 29 Star Trek novels (plus 3 novellas and one non-narrative book) fit into this ambitious, multi-author shared universe, I present here a brief primer (i.e., introduction) to my oeuvre in the universe that Gene Roddenberry built. (more…)