Posts Tagged ‘Second Nature’

Is today’s Star Trek fiction guilty of “lazy” quasi-racism?

In what is generally a favorable write-up of Star Trek: Seekers #1 – Second Nature, reviewer Steve Donoghue of Open Letters Monthly makes an observation I find troubling:

“In this first volume in the Star Trek Seekers series, Second Nature, Captain Terrell heads a somewhat predictably multi-racial crew — there’s a Vulcan, a Trill, an Arkenite, a Denobulan, etc. — and, unfortunately, Mack tends to lean on these race-implications just as so many Star Trek fiction writers have done before him. (It lends itself to an egregious laziness that would be condemned as simple racism if it were being applied to people from Lithuania instead of Alpha Centauri; countless times, Mack designates these characters by their races – “the Vulcan” this, or “the Trill” that).”

seekers1Considering how eagerly I and other Star Trek authors of recent years have strived to create a more inclusive portrait of humanity and of diverse ideologies and lifestyles in the novels, this note of his gave me great pause.

Have we been guilty of perpetrating a “lazy” and “casual” form of racism by using species identifiers in our prose? I know that I and some other authors do it to avoid pronoun confusion in scenes where several characters are of the same sex, and to avoid resorting to physical attributes (“the blonde,” “the tall man,” etc), or overusing the proper names to the point of distraction.

But now I’m curious. Does Mr. Donoghue have a point? Are writers of speculative fiction (including but not limited to Star Trek) committing a sin against the inclusive philosophy many of us consider important by using species identification as a form of literary short-hand? Or is this reviewer overreacting to an innocuous trope of the speculative fiction genre?

I’m not looking to pick a fight or incite people to pile onto Mr. Donoghue. This is a serious inquiry: How can we improve this aspect of SF and Star Trek fiction without creating clunky prose problems in the process? Or is this not even really a problem at all?

Behind the Art of Star Trek: Seekers

The Trek Collective has posted a Q&A with Rob Caswell, the illustrator who crafted the covers for the new Star Trek: Seekers novels.

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They get Rob’s perspective on learning that his work had spawned a new officially licensed Star Trek novel series, and then he offers a look behind the scenes at the creative development process behind the cover art for the first two Seekers novels — which are now both on sale: Book 1 | Book 2.

It’s appropriate that Trek Collective should bring readers this exclusive peek behind the curtain. It was their articles — the first featuring Rob’s brilliant Blish Book Covers Remastered, and the second featuring his Lou Feck-inspired covers for the fictitious adaptations of an imaginary Star Trek spinoff series called The Seekers — that made me, Dayton Ward, and Kevin Dilmore aware of Rob’s outstanding work, and set the wheels turning in our cycle of inspiration, culminating in the new Star Trek: Seekers book series.

So, a tip of the hat to The Trek Collective!

 

Another SEEKERS podcast!

seekers2_croppedI know what you’re thinking:

“Dave, I don’t think you’ve recorded enough podcast interviews about Star Trek: Seekers. Could you post another?”

I sure can! Listen to me, Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore, and artist Rob Caswell discuss the new series with host Jason Hunt (aka scifi4me) of Live from the Bunker.

We taped the show on Monday, August 18; it will be available for streaming playback and download here starting tonight, Tuesday, August 19, at 11:30pm EDT.

Meanwhile, be on the lookout for STAR TREK: SEEKERS #2, Point of Divergence, by New York Times bestselling author Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore. It should be starting to appear in your local book retailers any day now, and its official release date for e-readers and online retailers is Tuesday, August 26!

 

Yak at me, brah!

seekers1If you’ve ever thought, “I wish David Mack would participate in a live Internet radio show with a call-in option so I could bug him with an annoying question and have it and his stymied reaction recorded for posterity,” now is your chance.

I’ll be chatting =LIVE= about the new Star Trek: Seekers series with the folks at BlogTalk Radio’s Writers Alive program on Saturday, August 16, from 8pm–9pm EDT.

Point your browsers our way, and call in if you think of something sufficiently irritating to yak about.

 

Other Upcoming Podcasts

Along with my partners in literary crime Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore, I recorded a lengthy chat with Nick Minecci, Terry Lynn Shull, and Mike Medeiros of The G&T Show. That gabfest should be live very soon is now live at this link!

Next week, the entire Star Trek: Seekers team — Dayton, Kevin, myself, and artist Rob Caswell — are scheduled to record an interview with Jason Hunt for Live from the Bunker (another fine show on BlogTalk Radio), and I’ll be flying solo on a pre-recorded interview about the new books with Matthew Rushing and his always entertaining co-hosts at Literary Treks on Trek.fm.

As always, I’ll disseminate links to all those shows as soon as possible after they go live!

 

Seek and Ye Shall Find … Seekers!

The long wait is ended, friends — Star Trek: Seekers #1 – Second Nature makes its official debut today!

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From the back cover:

A NEW MISSION

The late twenty-third century — Starfleet’s golden age of exploration. Desperate to stay one step ahead of its rivals, the Federation sends two starships, the scout Sagittarius and the cruiser Endeavour, to plumb the secrets of the vast region known as the Taurus Reach.

A DOOMED RACE

Drawn by mysterious energy readings to a lush green world, the crew of the Sagittarius find the Tomol: a species whose members all commit ritual suicide just as they reach the cusp of adulthood.

AN OLD FOE

The crew of the Sagittarius want to save the Tomol from their cycle of self-destruction, but first they’ll need to save themselves — from the most nefarious Klingon starship commander in history.

THE START OF AN EXCITING NEW SERIES BY
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
DAVID MACK

Remember, Trek fans, Second Nature is just the first part of the series’ exciting two-part opening story. Its cliffhanger will be resolved in next month’s riveting new release, Star Trek: Seekers #2 – Point of Divergence, by New York Times bestselling author Dayton Ward & acclaimed author and scriptwriter Kevin Dilmore!

seekers2_cropped

Plus, stay tuned for more exciting Seekers news, because our return to Starfleet’s “Golden Age of Exploration” has only just begun….

Star Trek: Seekers is primed for liftoff…

As my literary co-conspirator Dayton Ward reported earlier today on his blog, the first two books of Star Trek: Seekers, our new (hopefully) ongoing series set in the era immediately following the events of the original series, have been listed on the Simon & Schuster website for pre-orders. Sort of.

I’ll let Dayton explain, with this excerpt from his blog post:

Star Trek: Seekers #1 – Second Nature, by David Mack – July 29th, 2014

Star Trek: Seekers #2 – Point of Divergence, by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore, August 26th, 2014

Now, there’s a few things to note about these:

First, they’re listed as being only available in Kindle e-Book format. For those wondering, rest assured that the books also will be available as mass market paperbacks, along with all the various other e-Book formats.

Next, they’ve appended “Star Trek: The Original Series” to both titles. I suspect this is just related to whatever sales/marketing copy was sent out, as “Star Trek: Seekers” remains the series title. For whatever it’s worth, they did the same thing with Harbinger, the first book in the Star Trek: Vanguard series.

At the moment, Kevin is listed as the sole author of Book #2, which is just another example of how Amazon tends to dick up entries with more than one author. I imagine this will be updated/corrected in due course.

Eagle-eyed readers who remember the original pitch for the Seekers concept might be scratching their heads right now. Because Dayton and I have already been asked about this on Twitter, I might as well address the inevitable inquiries now. SEEKERS_promo_with_klingonsWhen we first announced the series, our vision was that the books would not have regular titles, only numbers, in order to evoke the retro look and feel of the old James Blish anthologies published by Bantam in the 1970s.

Long story short, we were overruled on this by the publisher. I’ll spare you the book-industry technobabble, but the simple explanation is that we were told the automated, meta-tagged, keyword-driven sales system that connects publishers, wholesalers, and retailers, would have suffered some kind of cyber-seizure if we had denied it titles. So, the books will now have titles. Win some, lose some.

In other Seekers-related news, we have been working during the past few weeks with artist Rob Caswell, whose mock covers inspired this whole project. We’ve prepped the cover templates for Simon & Schuster’s art department, and now Dayton and I are collaborating with Rob on the content and design of the cover art for the first two books.

For my own part, I expect to have a first draft of the book one manuscript completed in a couple of weeks and turned in to the editors before Thanksgiving, comfortably ahead of schedule. Then I can help my wife sort out our holiday obligations, and then I’ll get to work on my next Star Trek novel, Section 31: Disavowed, which will be a direct follow-up to A Ceremony of Losses, my just-released installment of The Fall.

Onward and upward, Trek fans!