Randy Guy n Gal
03-02-2008, 01:21 AM
Hailing Frequencies Open!
Real life's sometimes quite the intruder, and many of our contributors have been dealing with the complications that life throws at us. As a result, this update's a bit limited in several ways, but trust me, we're all hard at work on the April update already. The next update will include additional fan fiction as well as a few more articles. Next month we will also be releasing ANTARES 17, and we are desperately looking for pen and ink artwork. If you'd like to contribute your artwork, please contact Randy immediately!
On a personal note, Linda and I and the rest of the Orion Press family wish to extend our deepest heartfelt condolences to Jim Ausfahl on the passing of his mother. In addition to this, both Josephine Tucker (one of Jim's patients) and actor Heath Ledger passed away since our last update. These two individuals were the inspiration for HYPERION's Joe Tucker.
This Month's New Fiction Offerings...
Our On-Line Exclusives (January 2008):
"Whatever Became of Me?" by Rob Morris: Captain Sulu takes his problems to his ship's counselor, Dr. Helen Noel, who begins to wonder if she's the right person for the job.
Presently, I'm reviewing several novel-lengthed submissions to see whether or not they can be added into the Orion Universe. I'm also reviewing Classic Trek stories from our long-defunct X-rated fanzine, BEYOND THE FARTHEST STAR, to see if they could be added. Some of those stories already appear on the website ("The Lesson," "Tryst" and "Southern Comfort"), and a few others may join them.
This Month's New Non-Fiction Offerings...
In addition to our monthly Star Trek News & Rumors update by Diane Doyle, we have several new articles...
From our UNSEEN ELEMENTS and ORIGINS pages, the following NEW article:
Dave Eversole's article on the source of "The Conscience of the King," namely the Nazi-hunting of the 1950's and 60's. The parallels are unmistakeable, as you yourself will see when you read "Adolf Kodos Is Alive"...
From our page on the professionally published STAR TREK NOVELS, we have the following NEW reviews:
Diane Doyle's review of Sarek and Kobayashi Maru
Carolyn Kaberline's review of The Price of the Phoenix
From our FAN FILMS page:
There are six fan film productions with updates, including He Who Draws the Sword, Star Trek: Lexington, Star Trek: New Voyages (aka Star Trek: Phase II), Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, Starship Exeter and Starship Farragut
Fred Dixon also contributed a review of the Star Trek: New Voyages episode, "Come What May" and a review of Starship Exeter's "The Savage Empire." Again, this is the most extensively updated webpage this month.
ORION PRESS LEXICON UPDATE
APPENDIX A (Starships) of the is 99% done. All I have to do is complete the write-ups on Tholian and Orion starships, and commit the designs for the Orion starships into the document. Once I've done that, we'll be releasing the material both by mail order and by PDF on the website. I won't promise next month because ANTARES 17 is in the works, but I will promise that by May's update, fans will finally have access to this material.
APPENDIX B (Aliens) will be my next major project. I've been collecting various photos and illustrations of the aliens featured in the ORION UNIVERSE, and hopefully it won't take nearly as long as APPENDIX A did. If you'd like to contribute your alien artwork, please contact Randy immediately! We have plenty of hitherto unseen aliens we'd be glad to have illustrated. Contributors will receive a complete copy of the entire lexicon.
APPENDIX C (Uniforms, Insignia, etc.) will be relatively easy. We've already got the Romulans and Klingons taken care of, and completing the uniforms for the rest won't be very challenging. If you'd like to contribute your uniform art, please contact Randy immediately! As noted above, contributors will receive a complete copy of the entire lexicon.
APPENDIX D (Star Charts) is having some success now that the math has been nailed down, and we have one chart ready for preview with this update. Jim Ausfahl and I are now nailing down what works and what doesn't work in terms of producing the charts. The data is sound, and Jim's even considering a STAR SEARCH program (similar to his other utilities) which will allow an author to pick a REAL star for their stories.
APPENDIX E (Crew Lists) is about 90% done. Diane Doyle has done an outstanding job putting up with all the formatting requirements in order to create a chart in HTML. Her diligence is well-appreciated, and the work continues on ironing out any minor inconsistencies she's finding in the source material. Also, a personal apology to Diane: I was unable to format the two crew lists submitted for this month. We will be adding them to the website in the next day or two.
This Month's Fanzine Update:
ANTARES 17 is now accepting submissions. We've got Chekov short stories from Patricia Wright and Diane Doyle, a diplomatic mission for the Enterprise by Jim Ausfahl, Peter Kirk takes the Kobayashi Maru and a sequel to "All Our Yesterdays" by Rob Morris, but we're going to need a whole lot before this zine will be printed. We're only interested in Classic Star Trek stories for ANTARES. Secondary and tertiary character stories will be accepted for on-line exclusives consideration, but not for publication at this time. ANTARES 17 is scheduled to be published in April 2008.
We're still working hard at converting our digest-sized anthology collections into full-size fanzines. This month, we've finished the following fanzines. Just click on the title below for ordering information.
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 1 (RE-RELEASE with some of the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 2 (RE-RELEASE with some of the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 3 (RE-RELEASE with a NEW story and the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 4 (RE-RELEASE with two NEW stories, the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 5 (NEW RELEASE with some of the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273: THE DORIAN SOLUTION (RE-RELEASE)
ORION ARCHIVES 2275: THE DAYSTROM PROJECT (RE-RELEASE with some of the original artwork included)
Other Related News:
From Patricia Wright: For those of you who aren't aware of it yet, and are interested, the Chekov 40th Anniversary Magazine created as a gift for Walter is now available to view, download, etc at either www.walterkoenigsite.com or www.chekovsite.com. You can also order a copy of the magazine from her as well.
Nico Declerck's ERIDANI archive site now has over 295 stories on the site from our Star Trek: The Next Generation offerings such as ERIDANI, IDYLLS, INVOLUTION, TANTALUS and others. Nico is always looking for help with his site, so please contact him if you can help out with the proofreading and that sort of thing. He's updating it monthly. This month's updates include quite a few stories from our hurt-comfort fanzine, TANTALUS.
Guess that's all for now. Next update will be on our about March 31st or so. Please drop me an email and let me know what you think of the website.
Randy Landers
editor-in-chief
ORION PRESS
For Excellence in Star Trek: The Original Series Fan Fiction
Real life's sometimes quite the intruder, and many of our contributors have been dealing with the complications that life throws at us. As a result, this update's a bit limited in several ways, but trust me, we're all hard at work on the April update already. The next update will include additional fan fiction as well as a few more articles. Next month we will also be releasing ANTARES 17, and we are desperately looking for pen and ink artwork. If you'd like to contribute your artwork, please contact Randy immediately!
On a personal note, Linda and I and the rest of the Orion Press family wish to extend our deepest heartfelt condolences to Jim Ausfahl on the passing of his mother. In addition to this, both Josephine Tucker (one of Jim's patients) and actor Heath Ledger passed away since our last update. These two individuals were the inspiration for HYPERION's Joe Tucker.
This Month's New Fiction Offerings...
Our On-Line Exclusives (January 2008):
"Whatever Became of Me?" by Rob Morris: Captain Sulu takes his problems to his ship's counselor, Dr. Helen Noel, who begins to wonder if she's the right person for the job.
Presently, I'm reviewing several novel-lengthed submissions to see whether or not they can be added into the Orion Universe. I'm also reviewing Classic Trek stories from our long-defunct X-rated fanzine, BEYOND THE FARTHEST STAR, to see if they could be added. Some of those stories already appear on the website ("The Lesson," "Tryst" and "Southern Comfort"), and a few others may join them.
This Month's New Non-Fiction Offerings...
In addition to our monthly Star Trek News & Rumors update by Diane Doyle, we have several new articles...
From our UNSEEN ELEMENTS and ORIGINS pages, the following NEW article:
Dave Eversole's article on the source of "The Conscience of the King," namely the Nazi-hunting of the 1950's and 60's. The parallels are unmistakeable, as you yourself will see when you read "Adolf Kodos Is Alive"...
From our page on the professionally published STAR TREK NOVELS, we have the following NEW reviews:
Diane Doyle's review of Sarek and Kobayashi Maru
Carolyn Kaberline's review of The Price of the Phoenix
From our FAN FILMS page:
There are six fan film productions with updates, including He Who Draws the Sword, Star Trek: Lexington, Star Trek: New Voyages (aka Star Trek: Phase II), Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, Starship Exeter and Starship Farragut
Fred Dixon also contributed a review of the Star Trek: New Voyages episode, "Come What May" and a review of Starship Exeter's "The Savage Empire." Again, this is the most extensively updated webpage this month.
ORION PRESS LEXICON UPDATE
APPENDIX A (Starships) of the is 99% done. All I have to do is complete the write-ups on Tholian and Orion starships, and commit the designs for the Orion starships into the document. Once I've done that, we'll be releasing the material both by mail order and by PDF on the website. I won't promise next month because ANTARES 17 is in the works, but I will promise that by May's update, fans will finally have access to this material.
APPENDIX B (Aliens) will be my next major project. I've been collecting various photos and illustrations of the aliens featured in the ORION UNIVERSE, and hopefully it won't take nearly as long as APPENDIX A did. If you'd like to contribute your alien artwork, please contact Randy immediately! We have plenty of hitherto unseen aliens we'd be glad to have illustrated. Contributors will receive a complete copy of the entire lexicon.
APPENDIX C (Uniforms, Insignia, etc.) will be relatively easy. We've already got the Romulans and Klingons taken care of, and completing the uniforms for the rest won't be very challenging. If you'd like to contribute your uniform art, please contact Randy immediately! As noted above, contributors will receive a complete copy of the entire lexicon.
APPENDIX D (Star Charts) is having some success now that the math has been nailed down, and we have one chart ready for preview with this update. Jim Ausfahl and I are now nailing down what works and what doesn't work in terms of producing the charts. The data is sound, and Jim's even considering a STAR SEARCH program (similar to his other utilities) which will allow an author to pick a REAL star for their stories.
APPENDIX E (Crew Lists) is about 90% done. Diane Doyle has done an outstanding job putting up with all the formatting requirements in order to create a chart in HTML. Her diligence is well-appreciated, and the work continues on ironing out any minor inconsistencies she's finding in the source material. Also, a personal apology to Diane: I was unable to format the two crew lists submitted for this month. We will be adding them to the website in the next day or two.
This Month's Fanzine Update:
ANTARES 17 is now accepting submissions. We've got Chekov short stories from Patricia Wright and Diane Doyle, a diplomatic mission for the Enterprise by Jim Ausfahl, Peter Kirk takes the Kobayashi Maru and a sequel to "All Our Yesterdays" by Rob Morris, but we're going to need a whole lot before this zine will be printed. We're only interested in Classic Star Trek stories for ANTARES. Secondary and tertiary character stories will be accepted for on-line exclusives consideration, but not for publication at this time. ANTARES 17 is scheduled to be published in April 2008.
We're still working hard at converting our digest-sized anthology collections into full-size fanzines. This month, we've finished the following fanzines. Just click on the title below for ordering information.
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 1 (RE-RELEASE with some of the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 2 (RE-RELEASE with some of the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 3 (RE-RELEASE with a NEW story and the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 4 (RE-RELEASE with two NEW stories, the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273-2275: THE SECOND MISSION 5 (NEW RELEASE with some of the original artwork included)
ORION ARCHIVES 2273: THE DORIAN SOLUTION (RE-RELEASE)
ORION ARCHIVES 2275: THE DAYSTROM PROJECT (RE-RELEASE with some of the original artwork included)
Other Related News:
From Patricia Wright: For those of you who aren't aware of it yet, and are interested, the Chekov 40th Anniversary Magazine created as a gift for Walter is now available to view, download, etc at either www.walterkoenigsite.com or www.chekovsite.com. You can also order a copy of the magazine from her as well.
Nico Declerck's ERIDANI archive site now has over 295 stories on the site from our Star Trek: The Next Generation offerings such as ERIDANI, IDYLLS, INVOLUTION, TANTALUS and others. Nico is always looking for help with his site, so please contact him if you can help out with the proofreading and that sort of thing. He's updating it monthly. This month's updates include quite a few stories from our hurt-comfort fanzine, TANTALUS.
Guess that's all for now. Next update will be on our about March 31st or so. Please drop me an email and let me know what you think of the website.
Randy Landers
editor-in-chief
ORION PRESS
For Excellence in Star Trek: The Original Series Fan Fiction