Every Trekkie knows this is a great time to be a
Star Trek fan. More and more details are released every day about the new
Picard series. Star Trek: Discovery is soon to have a third season. There are
two animated series in the works. There is a Section 31 series coming. And the
huge turnout at Shore Leave convention shows that Star Trek is still alive. Shore
Leave is a fan-run Star Trek convention that focuses not only on guest actors,
but also the writers who round out the fandom with their own original Trek stories.
Not only that, but Shore Leave likes to add in a few actors from other genre
shows, just to attract more fans and make it more interesting. Shore Leave 41
was July 12-14, 2019 in Hunt Valley, Maryland, right outside of Baltimore. This
was my first time going to this one. (Actually, I went once, 12 years ago, but
that was so long ago that I hardly remember any details, so I think I still
qualify as a newbie.) The spacious convention hotel seemed pretty packed all three days. At its
peak, I estimate attendance probably hit one thousand people. With headline
guests Ethan Peck and Anson Mount from Star Trek: Discovery, who could expect
any less, right?
This con is well known for being the mecca of Trek novelists
and comic writers, having over 40 guest writers
this year. I have been a huge fan of Trek comics and books since the '70s. It's
one of the main reasons I wanted to come back to Shore Leave. At the big Friday night writers panel, hot new
announcements were made.
·
David Mack will be the advisor for the two new
Star Trek cartoons. He said they will be good Star Trek, smart and compelling.
·
John Jackson Miller wrote the Prey series for
the 50th anniversary of Trek. The series had everything he knows about Star
Trek. He wroteStar Trek: Discovery: The Enterprise War about Pike and what the
Enterprise was doing during season 1 of Discovery. The book had not been
released yet , and he brought advance copies with him to sell at the con.
·
Dayton Ward was just named the consultant for
licensed narratives of ST, overseeing how they tie in to the new shows. The
stories have to be consistent with the shows and not repeat the same stories in
different media.
·
Upcoming Star Trek books from Simon and
Schuster:
·
TOS: Antares Maelstrom by Greg Cox, release date
8/13/19
·
Star Trek: The Motion Picture novelization
re-release and unabridged audio, release date 10/1/19
·
TNG: Collateral Damage by David Mack- followup
to Control by David Mack, release date 10/8/19
·
Discovery: Dead Endless by Dave Galanter will be
about Stamets, release date 12/17/19
A few hours later was the "Meet the Pros"
event where all the authors were sitting at tables for 2 hours. I had some nice
chats with the writers and got autographs for books and comic books and took
some selfies with them. It turned out I didn't have time to meet all of the
writers that I wanted to get autographs from. I didn't know they wouldn't be as
readily available during the rest of the con. The next day there were no designated
tables or times when I could get autographs. They were on some scheduled
panels, but oftentimes they didn't have time to sign between panels, because
they were in a hurry to get to their next panel.
All that aside, all the authors were really nice. My husband Nayr and I also got some of them to record bumpers and interviews for our podcast. John Jackson Miller laughingly said "You have to have the initials JJ to do both Star Trek and Star Wars!" (And of course, we know Miller has written for both, just as JJ Abrams has directed both.) He brought copies of his new book, "Star Trek: Discovery: The Enterprise War", which won't be available in stores for another week, and, naturally, we bought one and got him to sign it.
We were wearing our Star Trek Cruise t-shirts when
we spoke with Dayton Ward, and he told us all about the Disney Cruise he did
with his wife and kids. I told Greg Cox I really enjoyed his "Q Continuum"
series. He said he loved that one, and usually everyone mentions his Khan
books. David Galanter signed our "Troublesome Minds" book, and he
said his book "Crisis of Consciousness" was like "Troublesome
Minds" in that it is also very much a Spock story. Now I definitely want
to read that one too!
I tried to catch Keith DeCandido as I passed him in the hallway, and he said, "I'm going to a panel. I will sign later." I saw him later when I was going up the escalator, and he was going down the escalator. He said, "Oh, yeah. You wanted an autograph." So he turned around and ran upwards on the down escalator! I got him to sign my copy of "Klingon Art of War" and took a selfie with him.
John Coffren, who wrote an award-winning story in "Star
Trek: Strange New Worlds", actually recognized my husband Nayr and I, and
said he likes our Mego Klingon cosplay that he was pictures of on Facebook. It's
always great to meet a fan!
There were people from the local library with a
display set up for people to have their picture taken in front of a green
screen, and a background could be chosen to be added in. We were wearing
Discovery shirts, so we chose the Discovery bridge for our background. Famed
Trek novelist Peter David happened to be walking by, so we asked him to be in
the picture with us. It was so cool!
Moving on to the "celebrities", (not that
writers aren't celebrities) we asked the information desk when Ethan Peck (Discovery's
Spock) would be signing autographs, as it wasn't in the program book or on any
signs, and they said the stars sign whenever they want. We would just have to
keep looking for them to be at their tables to sign. We were very disgruntled
at that. The con did the actors' autograph schedules like they did the writers'
autograph schedules, which was no schedule at all. Between Nayr and I, we've
been to over 200 cons, and we've never seen such a deliberate lack of planning.
Well, there were two Shore Leave 101 panels. Maybe we if we had gone to one of
those panels they would have explained such oddities.
But we did manage to get Ethan Peck's autograph
and speak with him. He was very nice. He seemed a little shy, which is expected
from someone so young and new to all this fame and attention. Ethan peck and
Anson Mount did their Q&A panel together. They seemed to have good camaraderie.
Anson said he originally auditioned for
the part of Lorca. He didn't get that part, but they called him back for Pike,
and he was perfect for that part. Ethan read a part at his own audition. They
didn't tell him it was Spock that he was auditioning for. Then they called him back
to play an Andorian named Tom. He could tell just by the lines that it was
really the part of Spock. Anson said the best part of that story was that the
Andorian's name was "Tom"!
The panel ended with a lady auctioning off a Spock
clock that she made. It had different pictures of Spock on it. "Spock
Around the Clock" as we like to call it! The money would go to charity.
The bidding went pretty high. When it got up to $350, Anson Mount said if
someone would bid $500 he would... He thought about it for a few seconds, then
announced he would record a message for their cell phone. Someone immediately
shouted out $600. And it was sold! Lucky lady!
Nichelle Nichols, Uhura, was there as part of her
farewell tour. She is getting up there in age, so she reportedly will not be
doing any more cons after this year. She was in a wheelchair. We saw her
several times being pushed down the hall in the wheelchair. She seemed to be
smiling and happy, though. She didn't do a Q&A, just autographs and
photo-ops.
There were so many other things going on. There was
a costume contest that we unfortunately missed. We went to a party called Trek-n-Toga,
which apparently is a staple at this con. They had togas for people to wear at
the party, if desired. There was a science track. There was a gaming room,
which Nayr always loves to visit. It was especially inviting to us because they
had some snacks, and there was no con suite, something we usually expect at
cons in the south. There were a lot of awesome fan discussion panels on Trek
and other subjects. There was a panel on "Buck Rogers' 40th Anniversary"
and "Big Bang Bye". Non-Trek actors at the con were Lexa Doig and
Michael Shanks from Stargate. Also from Smallville: Erica Durance, Aaron
Ashmore, John Glover, and Laura Vandervoort.
It was pretty crowded. The space seemed too small
for the all the people there. I did hear that one room the con normally
occupies was closed for remodeling. The host hotel and all the neighboring
hotels had jacked up prices, which, we heard, was due to a sporting event in
the area. Instead of paying inflated prices, we got a rental car and a hotel
thirty minutes away. Lack of autograph schedules was the real buzz killer. But
still, everything else was well-organized. Most of the fan discussion panels
were led by, what we understood, were veterans of the con. In other words,
people who knew how to keep a panel interesting and fun. All-in-all, it was an
awesome con! We made a lot of new friends and ran into some old friends. Seeing
Anson Mount and Ethan Peck for the first time was a real treat. And seeing all
my favorite writers in one place was the icing on the cake!
-by The Honorable Kavura
Dragon Con's Gary Mitchel joins us for a discussion of the TV shows of 1989. Yes, it's been that long since your favorite shows Quantum Leap, Alien Nation, and Seinfeld first came on the small screen. We continue our coverage of Tolkien's The Hobbit with Kelli Lynch. Our interview with the owner of Crazy Ed's Comics is insane!
