"If Enterprise were ever interested in using me freelance, as Babylon 5 did, I would certainly answer the call," novelist Peter David said in a chat last week.

Talking to fans at StarTrek.com along with Paula Block, Executive Director of Publishing for Viacom Consumer Products, David named Imzadi as his favorite of his own Star Trek books and said he was working on the first of a new trilogy of New Frontier novels.

David said he would not be interested in becoming a staff writer for Enterprise "because to do so would require me to move to California. I'm happily residing in New York and have no interest in relocating to the West Coast."

New Frontier, he said, came about because he and editor John Ordover wanted to create characters who could grow and change significantly over the course of several novels.

"As much as I enjoy writing about Jean-Luc Picard, at the end of the day, he naturally has to be just as he was at the beginning of the day," David explained. "Paramount suggested that we incorporate several existing characters from the Star Trek universe who were not actively in play. As a result, Shelby, Selar and Robin Lefler were the first characters in the series that we settled on."

David said that the new trilogy, After the Fall, would leap several years into the future to show the characters in changed circumstances.

He also expressed appreciation to fans for the fact that Stone and Anvil has gone back to press for another printing, and spoke a bit about the characters he has been developing.

"The Beings were supposed to be my version of the classic Star Trek super-powered individuals...in keeping with the New Frontier tradition, I tried to make them as skewed as possible," he said.

Calhoun, he noted, was modeled most closely on Kirk and would change least at the start of the new books. Yet David said that he would want Mel Gibson to play the character if a film were made of the books. "To some degree, Calhoun was based on "Braveheart." That much should be obvious; a young warlord who winds up freeing his people from an oppressor."

Block added that her character Tania from the StarFleet Academy series would be appearing in After the Fall and joining the crew of the Excalibur.

The full chat transcript, which includes some discussion of David's non-Trek work and advice for writers, is here.

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