pocket-books posts

A while back it was revealed that the just launched MMO Star Trek Online would be getting a tie-in novel from Pocket Books. Now more info on that tie-in novel, The Needs of the Many, has been posted on the web site of Pocket Book's parent company Simon and Schuster.

The novel itself seems to center on a conflict between the Federation and Species 8472 (first introduced in the Star Trek Voyager TV series). Interestingly it looks like the novel will be co-written by a fictional character, Jake Sisko. He's the grown up son of Star Trek Deep Space Nine's lead character Captain Ben Sisko. The novel, who lists frequent Trek novelist Michael A Martin as the "other" co-writer, is due for release in late March.

During out BlizzCon 2009 coverage last week we checked out the Pocket Books booth where they were showing off their previous and upcoming novels based on Blizzard's games. Among the books featured was StarCraft: Heaven's Devils, an upcoming hardcover prose novel from author William C Dietz.

Now Pocket Books has posted up an except from that novel on its web site. Designed to be a prequel to StarCraft II, the novel will be tell the story of the first meeting between Jim Raynor (hero of the first StarCraft game) and Tychus Findlay (the space marine that's the subject of the first StarCraft II CGI trailer). The novel is due in stores in mid-December.

Pocket Books has had the license to publish novels set in Blizzard's Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo universes for some time and that will apparently continue for Blizzard's upcoming RTS sequel StarCraft II. Starcraftwire.net reports that Pocket Books will release StarCraft: Heaven's Devils in December.

This will apparently be the first hardcover StarCraft novel released by the publisher and will "reveal the origins of the enduring friendship between young upstart Jim Raynor and streetwise soldier Tychus Findlay." Raynor is one of the main characters in the original StarCraft game while Findlay is set to be a major part of StarCraft II. The novel is being written by William C. Dietz who has been a prolific author of many other game-to-novel tie-ins.