Star Trek novelist Michael Jan Friedman chatted yesterday about the Stargazer novels, Strange New Worlds, his work in comics and how his favourite aliens are people from New Jersey, but he refused to take bets on whom Picard would vote for in the upcoming US elections.

At the official site, Friedman and Pocket Books editor Margaret Clark said that the Stargazer books were on hold for now while Friedman finished Death in Winter, which Clark described as the first book focused on the relaunch of the Enterprise-E after the events of Star Trek Nemesis. "This story takes place just prior to repairs being completed on the 'E,' when Picard is sent on a secret mission to a Romulan world, where he presumes Starfleet's Chief Medical Officer, Beverly Crusher, has been killed," she explained.

Friedman revealed that some Stargazer characters will appear in Death in Winter but said that the Titan crew will not appear - though the Romulans, a favourite of Friedman's along with the Klingons, will feature prominently. Clark also noted the need to establish the new Enterprise-E crew on their own before considering the Titan characters.

A writer of Star Trek fiction since the late 1980s, Friedman said he had a hard time choosing whether he preferred to write the established series characters or his own original characters, saying original characters permit an author to utilize situations that would be impossible with established characters, but the familiar faces "are fun because you know who they are and it's fun to put words in their mouth and have them do things they can't do on screen for various reasons."

Clark said she wished that Deep Space Nine had gotten the respect it deserved "instead of being the middle child caught between TNG and Voyager", while Friedman added that he wished Voyager had kept the tension between Starfleet and Maquis officers for dramatic effect.

For more, including Friedman's best friends among the Star Trek novel-writing community, see the full interview at StarTrek.com.

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