Undeveloped novels and reference books

Numerous undeveloped novels and reference books were written based on various Star Trek series, but for myriad reasons were never produced, as was the case with several other undeveloped Star Trek projects.

A Time to...

 * Main article: Star Trek: A Time to...

The nine-book series was originally devised as twelve, divided into six duologies. Dafydd ab Hugh's A Time to Create/A Time to Destroy was cancelled (having originally been scheduled after the ...Love/...Hate duology), and Keith R.A. DeCandido's A Time for War/A Time for Peace duology compressed into a single volume to close out the storyline. 

Crucible omnibus

 * Main article: Star Trek: Crucible

A hardcover collection of the three books making up the Crucible series was planned for release in. Author David R. George III had written additional material for the omnibus release - five short stories and a preface. However, just short of completion, with the additional material finished, the compilation was cancelled - the official announcement coming on.

Music of the Spheres

 * Main article: Probe

The novel that was ultimately released as Probe began life as an almost-entirely different story, entitled Music of the Spheres. The author, Margaret Wander Bonanno, details the full story of how the novel was ultimately taken out of her hands and rewritten to conform to the requirements of the Star Trek office at Paramount in a document at her website. Bonanno has completely disclaimed the released version of Probe, noting that only 7% of her original manuscript ended up on the book that carried her name.

The God Thing

 * Main article: Star Trek: The God Thing

The Last Round-Up
As the Pocket TOS numbered novels approached the one hundred mark, it was decided that this method of releases would be phased out, to avoid reader confusion. Editor John Ordover tentatively annouced that following #97, In the Name of Honor, a three-book trilogy by Diane Carey, entitled The Last Round-Up would close out the numbering. This ultimately did not materialise, and an unrelated book by Christie Golden was released under a similar title as a hardback.

The Millennium Bloom

 * Main article: The Millennium Bloom

The Millennium Bloom was a planned Pocket TOS novel, to be written by Mike W. Barr, and feature Robert April during his tenure as captain of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701). Tentatively announced for the schedule in, it was not included in the full schedule a year later, and the project never went beyond the outline stage.

The Lost Era - Tzenkethi War
A further book in The Lost Era series had been mooted by editor Marco Palmieri for several years. It would have been set aboard the USS Okinawa, featuring Benjamin Sisko and then-Captain Leyton, during the Tzenkethi War. With Palmieri's departure from Pocket Books, it was believed that the title was now cancelled. Elements of the novel appear in the Star Trek: Typhon Pact novel Rough Beasts of Empire, with scenes featuring Sisko and Leyton aboard the Okinawa during the war.

Walking Wounded
A Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel by Bradley Thompson, one of the writers of the series, that was to focus on veterans of the Dominion War and be part of the "DS9 relaunch" novels. First proposed in 2001 by Marco Palmieri, it was announced in 2005 it was not going forward, probably due to Thompson being a writer on Battlestar Galactica at the time. 

Return to Tomorrow: The Filming of Star Trek - The Motion Picture

 * See main article: Cinefantastique

The Making of the Special Effects of Star Trek: The Motion Picture
The Making of the Special Effects of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the tentative title given by Susan Sackett, Gene Roddenberry's personal assistant for seventeen years, to the intended spin-off book publication of her The Making of Star Trek The Motion Picture book, which was published by Pocket Books. The title was canceled due to disappointing sales of other book titles on. (Enterprise Incidents; special edition on the technical side, p. 50). Sackett was planning to expand on her series of Star Trek Reports she wrote for Starlog magazine in the years 1977-1979, during which she closely followed the production of The Motion Picture.

Charles Washburn's reference book
Around, assistant director Charles Washburn planned to write a book detailing the production of Star Trek: The Original Series and some of his other television projects. However, this book never materialized. That same year, he submitted a preliminary feature article to the magazine Starlog (issue 112), detailing his career.

Star Trek: The First 25 Years

 * From the dust jacket
 * A stunning visual celebration of one of the most beloved television series of all time, Star Trek: The First Twenty-Five Years is also the inside story of the show that boldly went where no science fiction series had gone before-as only creator Gene Roddenberry could tell it.


 * The year was 1966 - and all across America, people were gearing up for another season of shows like "Bonanza," "The Beverly Hillbillies," and "Bewitched." The country was facing war in Vietnam, a nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union, and a civil rights struggle at home. The future looked bleak, at best. 


 * Then on September 8th, Star Trek gave viewers across the country a glimpse of what tomorrow could bring. That date we took the first step in a twenty-five year odyssey across imagination's final frontier, a step that brought us four hundred years into the future, and landed us aboard what would soon become the most famous spaceship of all time. Led by Captain James T. Kirk, his eminently logical science officer Mr. Spock, and chief medical officer Dr. Leonard McCoy, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise blazed a trail across the galaxy on a wagon train to the stars -- and invited us along on their voyages to seek out strange new worlds, new life and new civilizations. 


 * Here is the story of how creator Roddenberry and his talented team of writers, actors, and behind-the-scenes personnel brought their vision of the future to vivid, unforgettable life. In hundreds of specially selected photographs, you'll relive those voyages, and rediscover the essence of Star Trek: that optimistic vision of the future that captured a legion of fans unprecedented in entertainment history. From the show's initial conception to the record-setting series of motion pictures, from the first television pilot "The Cage" through the smash hit series Star Trek: The Next Generation. 


 * Coauthor Susan Sackett conducted literally hundreds of hours of interviews with the show's creative personnel, including stars of both the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation, to provide a glimpse into that future at work. The over two hundred fifty spectacular photographs (over two hundred in full-color) in Star Trek: The First Twenty-Five Years are the result of months of exhaustive research on the part of Richard Arnold, who literally trekked around the world to gather photographic material from private collections, including rare behind-the-scenes photos and publicity shots. 

Slated for release in 1991 on the occasion of Star Trek's 25th anniversary, Star Trek: The First 25 Years was intended to be a coffee-table sized hardcover book, priced at $45,00, celebrating the franchise. Written by Susan Sackett, the book was to be filled with exhaustive interviews with the creative staff and actors of both Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation, heavily illustrated throughout with pictures garnered by project assistant Richard Arnold. Originally, Sackett wanted the book released for the 20th anniversary, but protracted negotiations between Pocket Books and Paramount Pictures delayed the release for five years. The book came very close of being actually released, as solicitation dust jackets were already printed and distributed to booksellers and sales representatives alike, as well as a few press review copies. It also received listings, complete with assigned ISBN number, in the inventories of booksellers (for example, Amazon.com lists the book, even though it was cancelled four years before the company began trading ). At the very last moment however, the project was canceled.

As to the reasons why the book was canceled, Sackett later elaborated that Leonard Nimoy was responsible for the book's cancellation. He was late in signing off on photos of him in the book, and subsequently he wanted editorial changes made to the text of the book. A closed-doors meeting was held with Roddenberry, his lawyer Leonard Maizlish, Nimoy and his attorney, but excluded Sackett, who was afterwards informed by Maizlish "that the book was on hold because Leonard Nimoy didn't think the prose 'lofty enough,' as Maizlish put it, and wanted it more in the style of someone like Bill Moyers." Yet, that did not prevent Pocket Books from using large parts of Sacket's manuscript to be utilized in the later Star Trek - Where No One Has Gone Before book. "An extensive amount of the copy was taken from my manuscript (which Paramount owned outright, since I was paid as a writer for hire). When I learned of the proposed book, I contacted Pocket Books, and they hastily cut me a small check and added my name on the front page in the first space under 'Additional Material by'", Sackett commented. (Inside Trek: My Secret Life with Star Trek Creator Gene Roddenberry, pp. 181, 190)

Fade In: From Idea to Final Draft, The Writing of Star Trek Insurrection
During the production of, writer Michael Piller wrote a book chronicling the process of developing the script of the film, outlining the various stages of development and the evolution from the original story concept to the final changes in post-production. The book included feedback and notes from Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, as well as the original story notes and outlines, and a complete early draft of the script. Eric A. Stillwell served as Piller's typist and research assistant on the book. He commented, "I think that was more work than the movie itself. In the end, Michael wrote a wonderful book, from the heart, something he considered a gift to young, aspiring writers."

Piller himself made these observations about his work remaining unpublished, "''"Let me clarify this and make it very clear. With the approval of Viacom Consumer Licensing and Pocket Books, I wrote a book during the writing of Star Trek: Insurrection which was meant to be a text book for screenwriters. My pitch to the publisher was to take the reader through the entire process of the development of the film, starting with the idea and showing how changes, problems, opinions, studio requests, financial considerations, would effect the final product. And, in essence, to see if the reader would make the same decisions that Rick and I made as the script evolved. The book was by no means critical, nor did it burn any bridges, it just showed an insight into the behind-the-scenes of making a Star Trek movie that had never been told before. For reasons I won't go into here, decisions were made at a very high level not to publish the book, which was greatly disappointing to me. However, it does not reflect any dissatisfaction that I had with the final product. I think Star Trek: Insurrection holds its own when compared to other Star Trek movies. The goals of this particular film were quite different from the ones that preceded it. And for the most part, we met those goals.''"

An extract from the book was published in Star Trek Magazine issue 126. An incomplete draft was released by the Star Trek website TrekCore on but was later removed at the request of Piller's family. Another website, Seb'Web Archive, also planned to publish excerpts of the book, but was reigned in by the studio itself, whose formal reply was posted instead, citing copyright infringements.

In 2013, Piller's widow, Sandra, revealed that she was looking into the possibility of having the work yet published in print format. She also disclosed why the book, being "brutally honest" as she has put it, was originally not given the go-ahead, "Well, when he first got the go-ahead from the studio to write the book, and he got it signed-off with all the actors and everyone... when he finally turned it in, he was shocked! They said, "We can't let the public know what we do here, what goes on behind the scenes!" So I'm hoping that everybody's evolved and grown a little bit, and they're ready for it. As I said, it's on the Internet, but I'm hoping I can add some special things to it and make it..."

Starship Enterprise
Starship Enterprise was the tentative title of a book proposed in 1999, slated for a 2000 release, to Pocket Books by would-be authors Mike and Denise Okuda, and would have featured artwork by Doug Drexler.The intent was a reference book that showcased the historical lineage of all starships that had carried the name Enterprise, or as then Chief Editor Margaret Clark put it, "The millennium art book will be Starship Enterprise, that's Mike Okuda, and Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler. Every Enterprise-from no letters to E, and all its cousins in between." (, p. 61) The proposition was however nixed by Clark, due to perceived lack of interest because of the price tag the work would entail. Drexler has commented on the subject, "I wrote up some notes for them, and was in discussion about providing some images… but haven’t heard from them in some time."

A book, conceived along similar lines, USS Enterprise Owners' Workshop Manual, was published in 2010 by Haynes Publishing.

Unseen Frontier
Unseen Frontier, or Star Trek: The Unseen Frontier Declassified Images from the History of the Federation as the full title of the work read, was the brainchild of Adam "Mojo" Lebowitz and Robert Bonchune, which they came up with while working on the CGI version of the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards sequence for in 1999. "In fact, the whole time we were working on the episode, we thought it was a shame that the people at home would only see this stuff on blurry TV screens, and not in the high-resolution glory we had created them in", Lebowitz said. (, p. 102) Thought at the time to be a potential offshoot of the highly successful Star Trek: Ships of the Line (2001) calendar, it was actually the other way around, since the book was already announced in that publication, as was explained by Lebowitz in the Star Trek: The Magazine article. The intent was the publication of a coffee table book filled with high-resolution, high-gloss CGI images, based on the existing CG-models actually used for the Star Trek productions. With the assistance of Bonchune, Lebowitz produced a portfolio of images to clarify his intent to then chief editor of Pocket Books, Margaret Clark. Clark, not convinced of the viability of a book in this format, coming hard on the heels of the dismal performances of the likewise conceived books Star Trek: Action! (a project of Clark herself) and New Worlds, New Civilizations, proposed a calendar format instead, as a testbed for a book to be potentially produced later.

The second outing in the calendar series, Star Trek: Ships of the Line (2002), was not nearly a commercial success as the previous one, and convinced Clarke not to go ahead with the project. "As a large, coffee table book, it would have carried a price tag approaching $50. During production, their sales staff found it to be a very tough sell to the various book chains' buyers. Invariably, they elected to halt the book rather than risk spending a lot of money they weren't sure they'd recoup. Pure economics.", Lebowitz stated Consequently, all references to the book were dropped after the 2002 calendar. Clark herself, however, took a slightly different view on the matter as she put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the authors. In a posting of 6 March 2003 on the TrekBBS blog, Clarke stated "Unseen Frontier was brought when we were selling a respectable number of non-fiction books. It had a healthy advance and there was some money in the budget for additional plant (book) costs. But, one thing or another and the author/s could not make the first delivery date, then the second. When it looked like the third date (three years later) was possible, I had to run the numbers on the worksheet again. Not good, our sales had dropped to the point were the book would maybe, after two or three years, make back the advance. But then there were additional plant costs that was wanted, to pay for more art, yet to be delivered. The book numbers dropped into the negative numbers. We tried to see if there was anyway to save the book. No go."

A far less ambitious book entitled Ships of the Line was published instead in 2006 for Star Trek's anniversary, where (cropped) images from all the calendars (with the exception of the 2002 calendar) were collected, with a brief description of each by Mike Okuda. The first printing of that title, according to Editor Clark, in Co-editor Doug Drexler's Trek Radio Q&A interview session of 22 January 2011, sold out in four days, and somewhat belied Clarke's earlier assessment for Unseen Frontier.

Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual
Slated for publication around 2001, the project was proposed by would-be author Rick Sternbach and would-be illustrator Tim Earls. Sternbach stated optimistically in October 2000, "Tim Earls and I proposed an all-inclusive Voyager technical manual to Pocket Books some time ago, but we and the publisher have not yet come to an agreement on the project. I'm hopeful that eventually a detailed manual will come out of the seven years we've spent developing new technology and starship systems; in the meantime, we'll work up a few articles on these issues for Star Trek: The Magazine.", the latter eventually becoming the Starfleet Technical Database articles for that publication. Conceived along the lines of its predecessors, Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, the manual was to have as starting point the like-wise titled internal document used for the Star Trek: Voyager series, Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual.

A year later, however, Sternbach's enthusiasm was substantially dampened as he observed, ''"Since Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster has the license for Star Trek books, they're the only ones who could publish a potential Voyager TM. I'm not inclined at the time to work with them, due in part to the editorial differences of opinion I had with them over the 1701-D blueprints and DS9 TM. With ENTERPRISE now on the front burner and Pocket Book's publishing directions changed to mostly fiction and a few specialty items like the calendars, I rather doubt the Voyager TM will ever see daylight. I would not be at all interested in taking on a private press effort because of the license infringement issue and the costs involved; likewise I will not be able to lend my name or expertise to any fan-originated TM, web-based or not. (...)Not having my finger on the pulse of the fan viewing community, I couldn't honestly say what the level of interest in Voyager became, or what steered Pocket Books away from the tech books. It may have been a combination of waning interest and the harsh economic realities of doing big flashy publications.''"

In regard to the "harsh economic realities", Sternbach referenced to, Clarke herself has stated in Doug Drexler's Trek Radio Q&A interview session of 22 January 2011, that the previous manual outing, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, never broke even.

As to the "editorial differences", Sternbach referred to, he went into some more detail when elaborating in 2009, "As for not doing a Voyager TM, I had a contract in hand from Pocket Books but decided not to go ahead because the advance was simply not adequate to do what could have been the best TM ever. Tim Earls was set to do some kick-ass Illustrator and art, but I thought it would have been better to walk away than to slave over the project for diminishing returns. I was also not entirely pleased with what Margaret Clark had done with the editing on the DS9 TM; I may be in the minority, but I believe her text changes dumbed down the tech nature of the book; e.g., where I had written an entry like "150+ troops" the text was changed to "150 plus troops" which to me altered the meaning. The TNG TM came across much better."

The Official Star Trek The Next Generation: Build the Enterprise NCC-1701-D

 * See main article: The Official Star Trek The Next Generation: Build the Enterprise NCC-1701-D