A ‘Star Trek’ Fiction Primer
Hitting shelves around the country is Star Trek: A Singular Destiny by Keith R.A. DeCandido, the first novel in the Star Trek universe after the status quo was shaken up in the just-complete Star Trek: Destiny trilogy by David Mack. When we spoke with Mack a few months ago, he said, “All I’m willing to share at this point is that characters who are dead before the trilogy starts stay dead; characters killed during the trilogy will stay dead afterward; there is no reset button at the end of the story; worlds we’ve heard of before will be destroyed; a species will cease to exist.”
For many intrigued by this, the prose works can seem daunting since they carry the storylines forward from the last season of Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and The Next Generation feature films. DeCandido provided ComicMix with a reading list for those interested in seeing what’s been happening:
Pre-Nemesis
There was a nine-book series that set the groundwork for Nemesis as well as many of the post-Nemesis books. None of them are critical. All nine provide some nice background, particularly on Christine Vale, the security chief on the Enterprise-E who goes on to become Riker’s first officer on Titan, and the final five books set up Riker’s captaincy and engagement to Troi (both established in Nemesis), as well as the political situation we see going forward. It’s also, in essence, Data’s final arc, which runs through all nine.
These books take place from late 2378 to late 2379 (the film took place in late 2379).
A Time to be Born by John Vornholt
A Time to Die by John Vornholt
A Time to Sow by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
A Time to Harvest by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
A Time to Love by Robert Greenberger
A Time to Hate by Robert Greenberger
A Time to Kill by David Mack
A Time to Heal by David Mack
A Time for War, a Time for Peace by Keith R.A. DeCandido
What does one hum on the way to the comic book store? If you’re a person of a certain age, with a certain history with certain illegal substances, you probably have a few songs about the original super-hero stuck in the part of your brain that should be storing French vocabulary words. 
First was a cute little book (about the size of those “impulse purchase” books you sometimes see in Hallmark stores by the cash register) called Micrographica by Renee French. According to the front flap, this originally appeared online, and each of the drawings (one to a page) was originally drawn at about one centimeter square, which French did to keep the drawing loose by not allowing any redrawing. The story follows three small rodents of some kind (maybe guinea pigs?) who discover a “crapball” and then have odder adventures. It reads a bit like a black and white, colloquial version of a Jim Woodring story – weird things happen in an entertaining way, but the voices of the rodents is very modern-American, unlike Woodring. The story also features a much larger rodent-thing, unexplained facial swelling, a giant mountain of crap, an abandoned sandwich, and more. Hey, it’s only ten bucks – how can you go wrong?
Jeremy Tinder’s Black Ghost Apple Factory is more like a normal comics pamphlet (despite being only about four inches by six); it’s stapled, 48 pages, and contains a number of different stories. The seven stories here are all pretty clearly “indy” – they feature odd characters doing twisted versions of real-world activities, and usually have something to do with interpersonal relationships. (Also, in time-honored indy-comics fashion, those relationships are sad, depressing and unfulfilling.) Only two of the stories are overtly autobiographical — and one of those features Tinder befriending a bear, so you know it’s metaphorical at best — which is a nice change. Some of these stories are funny and some are touching; all work well and strike true. And that’s darn good a for a five-buck comics pamphlet.
At the recent Wizard World convention in Chicago, Jim Starlin was part of the DC Nation panel. Starlin created the brilliant graphic novel, The Death of Captain Marvel, which was so well done that it made me cry like a little girl even though I wasn’t that familiar with the character. A running gag throughout the hour was that, in the upcoming Final Crisis, Starlin was going to let loose and kill a bunch more characters in the DC Universe.
I was combing through the Diamond catalog, placing my family’s orders for whatever month I’m ordering for. Oh, yeah: it’s April, so I’m looking at the March catalog do order stuff coming out in May, if at all. People who grew up at comic book cover dates have a hard time working a calendar.
Step-sibling 
The rule of thumb used to be that the only characters that stayed dead are Uncle Ben, Bucky and Barry Allen.
When you think of famous fictional females and hear "teen sleuth," I’ll bet only one name comes to mind. Well, other than Veronica Mars.
