45: Out of Your Comfort Zone

James Swallow: The Poisoned Chalice. Over the past decade the prime universe has grown richly complex as print adventures have taken over where television left off. Now, in a new five-book series titled "The Fall," some of Star Trek's greatest authors are going to rock the Federation to its core with an adventure that takes place over a period of sixty days and involves TNG, DS9, and Titan. In this episode of Literary Treks hosts Matthew Rushing and Christopher Jones continue our series of interviews with the authors of The Fall as James Swallow joins us to discuss the fourth book in the series, The Poisoned Chalice. James is returning to the world of Titan for the first time since Synthesis to get Riker and his crew out of their comfort zone. We learn about the real-world politics behind The Poisoned Chalice, how the world view of Federation citizens and leaders has changed in the aftermath of war, and what it was like to write the first ever meeting between two onscreen favorites—Tuvok and Nog. We also find out what James has in store for us on the Star Trek front in 2014. In our news segment we get a first look at the cover art for Greg Cox’s No Time Like the Past, find out more about David R. George III’s John Harriman-Demora Sulu novel One Constant Star, and also check in on Jeffrey Lang’s Light Fantastic. In comics we take a peek at IDW’s early-2014 slate, which includes Ongoing #31—the first part of I, Enterprise—and a reissue of the first six classic Gold Key comics. And to top it all off, we close out the year with a review of Ongoing #28, the final chapter of The Khitomer Conflict.