Literary Treks: A Star Trek Books and Comics Podcast

Mission Gamma: Lesser Evil. Season 8 of the DS9 relaunch is quickly coming to a close as Mission Gamma comes to an end. On their way home, Elias Vaughn and the crew of the USS Defiant make a shocking discovery. Meanwhile, Kira Nerys pursues Shakaar Edon's supposed assassin to Trill, while Ro Laren, Admiral Akaar and General Lenaris investigate why Hiziki Gard assassinated the Bajoran leader. In th...

Keith DeCandido: Slings and Arrows: Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment. From the moment First Contact hit the screens and Geordi mentioned the Enterprise-E had been in space for a year, fans wondered what transpired that year. With huge events on DS9, fans knew the crew of the Enterprise had to be involved somehow. Luckily Treklit came to the rescue with the Sings and Arrows series.  In this ep...

The Gorn Crisis. The Original Series of Star Trek gave us many aliens that became iconic, even though they may have only been seen once or twice. Andoians, Tellarites, Tholians and of course, the Gorn. Seen only two times in Star Trek, the Gorn have become fan favorites. In this episode of Literary Treks Matthew Rushing and Dan Gunther talk about the comic series, The Gorn Crisis. We discuss the s...

John Jackson Miller: Takedown. Star Trek fans have been pitting captains against each other since Picard came on the scene in 1987. The debate on whether Kirk or Picard is better still rages on internet message boards or any given weekend, in any city hosting a sci-fi convention. But what if Picard went up against his protege, William Riker, who would be the victor? In this episode of Literary Tre...

Una McCormack: The Missing. The end of "The Fall" left the Star Trek universe in a little more hopeful place than it was when the series began. There is a new focus on exploration in the Federation and even with all that the characters have experienced there is still the drive to boldly go. In this episode of Literary Treks hosts Matthew Rushing and Dan Gunther are joined by author Una McCormack t...

Fade In: The Writing of Star Trek Insurrection When the lights went down in the theater in 1998, we all sat there with trepidation. We hoped that the new Star Trek movie would live up to it's predecessor First Contact and when it didn't, many of us wondered what had gone wrong. Jonathan Frakes had directed and Michael Piller had written the script, this should have been a dynamic duo. In this epis...

Slings and Arrows: A Weary Life. The TNG episode Second Chances gave us a duplicate of William Riker and the DS9 episode Defiant left that duplicate, Tom in a Cardassian prison. What we never got a chance to see was the effect all of these things had on Will until the Slings and Arrows' entry, A Weary Life.  In this episode of Literary Treks hosts Matthew Rushing and Dan Gunther talk about this pe...

The Q Gambit. Star Trek Ongoing has finally made it to the five year mission and their first experience is completely unexpected when an "Old Friend" from the prime universe shows up and it's Q. What happens next sends the Enterprise to Terok Nor and mixes the crew with some of our favorite characters from Deep Space Nine. In this episode of Literary Treks hosts Matthew Rushing and Dan Gunther tal...

Mission Gamma: Cathedral. Things on Deep Space Nine and in the Gamma Quadrant are heating up. Bajor looks to finally join the Federation while at the same time talks with Cardassia about formal relations have stalled. On the Defiant Bashir, Nog and Ezri all face issues that may radically alter their lives forever after an encounter with an alien object in space.  In this episode of Literary Treks...

Harlan Ellison's City on the Edge of Forever. Since 1967 fans have loved The City on the Edge of Forever yet from the beginning there was controversy with writer Harlan Ellison over rewrites and was not resolved till 2009 when Ellison's lawsuit was finalized to his satisfaction.  In this episode of Literary Treks Matthew Rushing and Dan Gunther are joined by TOS expert Drew Stewart from Trek.fm's...

Department of Temporal Investigations: The Collectors. The first time we met agents Lucsly and Dulmer in Trials and Tribble-ations no one expected them to star in their own novel series, yet that's exactly what Christopher L. Bennett did. He took these dull, funny men and created some of Treklit's most memorable adventures in Watching The Clock and Forgotten History . In this episode of Literary T...

Greg Cox: Foul Deeds Will Rise The last time Lenore Karidian was seen, Dr. McCoy was promising that she would receive the best medical care the Federation could provide. This makes her the last person that Captain Kirk would think he'd run into, 20 years later on a peace keeping mission. Yet he does and she again becomes embroiled in a murder investigation aboard the Enterprise . In this episode o...

David Mack: Section 31: Disavowed. Doctor Bashir's entanglement with the Federation's secretive rogue agency has not turned out well for him over the years, and  he even sacrificed his career for a chance to infiltrate the group and destroy it from within. Now, in a direct follow-up to the events of The Fall, Section 31 is back to take Bashir on one more ride to save not only the Federation but th...

Mosaic. When it comes to Star Trek books, few fans consider them canon. It's understandable, especially with novels written during the run of a series on television. But sometimes a book comes along that almost has to be taken as canon because of who wrote it. During Voyager's third season, series co-creator Jeri Taylor penned the back story of Captain Janeway in Mosaic. As the creator of the char...

Romulans: Schism What started as a simple Romulan entry in IDW's Alien Spotlight series led to one of the most epic Star Trek comic storylines. With direct ties to one of the great onscreen mysteries—the sharing of ship designs by the Romulans and the Klingons—John Byrne's yarn enriches the Star Trek universe, delivers engaging storytelling, and wraps it all in great art. In this episode of Litera...

Q Are Cordially Uninvited. If you've been reading the post-Nemesis world of Star Trek, you know that Jean-Luc Picard and Beverly Crusher are married. And we mean for real—none of that "All Good Things…" alternate future stuff. But the wedding itself has gone missing as the story has unfolded. Just what happened on their wedding night? It seems Worf and Geordi really want to know, and in Rudy Josep...

Kirsten Beyer: Acts of Contrition. When we last left the Full Circle Fleet, Admiral Janeway had just assumed control. Her first order of business is to open diplomatic negotiations with The Confederacy of the Worlds of the First Quadrant, a potential ally for the Federation in the Delta Quadrant. At the same time, Seven is back on Earth to assist Starfleet Medical with the catomic plague while Tom...

Kevin Dilmore and Dayton Ward: Seekers 2: Point of Divergence. The writing trio of David Mack, Kevin Dilmore, and Dayton Ward brought us some of the most memorable 23rd-century adventures with their  Vanguard  series. While the story of Starbase 47 has concluded, the exploratory missions of the  Endeavour  and the  Sagittarius  continue on in the new series  Star Trek: Seekers . Capturing the fun...

Lust's Latinum Lost (and Found). Ladies and gentlemen, Vulcan Love Slave as we know it has now been in existence for three versions, and a fourth will be added just as soon as Quark can figured out to get his hands on it. Yes, when business at Quark's Bar, Grill, Gaming House and Holosuite Arcade began to dry up, a big move was needed to get things back on track. Something bold, something exciting...

Romulans: The Hollow Crown. In Alien Spotlight: Romulans, John Byrne explored the aftermath of the events seen in the TOS episode "Balance of Terror." It was an interesting take, but it left us wanting more. Later that year (2008), Byrne expanded the tale with The Hollow Crown. This two-parter continues the story of the Klingon-Romulan alliance, which explains, among other things, why Klingon ship...

Slings and Arrows: That Sleep of Death. In 2007 Pocket Books decided to honor the 20th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation with a six-part eBook series that bridged the gap between the destruction of the Enterprise-D in Generations and the next time we saw the crew on the big screen in First Contact. Penned by J. Steven York, Christina F. York, Phaedra M. Weldon, William Leisner, Terri O...

Mission Gamma: This Gray Spirit. When Deep Space Nine premiered, the stated goal of the Starfleet presence on the station and the purpose Sisko's mission was to prepare Bajor for Federation membership. As the series went on, this came close to happening once; but a warning from the Emissary put the issue on the backburner. Then the Dominion War happened. With all of that now in the past—and with o...

David Mack: Seekers 1: Second Nature. The writing trio of David Mack, Kevin Dilmore, and Dayton Ward brought us some of the most memorable 23rd-century adventures with their Vanguard series. While the story of Starbase 47 has concluded, the exploratory missions of the Endeavour and the Sagittarius continue on in the new series Star Trek: Seekers. Capturing the fun and wonder of The Original Series...

Intelligence Gathering, Part 2. On the timeline of The Next Generation, "The Next Phase" took place on Stardate 45892.4 and "The Inner Light" on 45944.1. So what happened during the days and weeks in between? As we learned in the first part of Intelligence Gathering, there's another dam story to be told. But not all of it takes place at an actual dam. Once that labor dispute was put to rest, the E...

Intelligence Gathering, Part 1. While each season gave us a glimpse at numerous missions of the Enterprise-D, there were no doubt many more eventful days for the crew that we never heard about. Set between the fifth-season episodes "The Next Phase" and "The Inner Light," IDW's Intelligence Gathering fills in some of the blanks from mid-to-late TNG. Penned by the writing duo of Scott & David Tipton...