Greg Cox is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous Star Trek novels including the Khan Trilogy. He has also written novelizations and licensed material for everything from Underworld to C.S.I. to Batman to Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
A contributor to dozens of anthologies, Cox has become one of the more beloved Trek novelists and also works as a Consulting Editor for Tor Books.
He took some time to chat about Star Trek with Forces of Geek!
FOG!:Your Trek novels tend to gravitate toward secondary or tertiary characters such as Khan or Gary Seven. What attracts you to chronicling these more obscure characters?
COX: Gary Seven appealed to me because of the unfulfilled potential of the original concept. I always regretted that Seven and Roberta never got their own tv series as was originally intended. The open-ended nature of "Assignment: Earth" seemed to cry out for a follow-up.
The Khan books were a lucky accident.
My first Gary Seven book had contained a throwaway line about Seven being instrumental in Khan's downfall, which intrigued my editor. "You want to write that book, Greg?"
Little did I expect that one short bit, which I had conceived as just a cute little in-joke, would spawn an entire trilogy!
You've also written several Next Generation books. Do you approach the properties differently and if so, how do you approach each of them?
I don't deliberately set out to write them differently, but I do find that, like the tv versions, NextGen has more of a ensemble feel than TOS. I always intend to do more with Chekov and Sulu and Uhura, but all my TOS novels have turned out fairly Kirk-centric--much like the original series.
Is there a specific Trek character that you identified with?
Spock is probably my favorite Trek character, which is why it's odd that I keep writing about Kirk. I think Spock is the classic Trek character, but I'm happy to let other people tell his story.
Are there any Trek stories that you've wanted to tell that you haven't been able to?
Not really, although I lobbied for years to write a return of Gary Seven book, and actually had two or three previous outline rejected before we settled on a story that everybody liked. I have a file full of rejected VOYAGER tv pitches, but most of them are pretty out of date now. Still, I wouldn't mind turning one or two of them into a short story the next time a Voyager anthology comes around, especially since I haven't had a chance to write Seven of Nine yet. (My one and only DS9 novel was back in the Kes era.)
And I have a new TOS outline sitting on my editor's desk as we speak. I'm not going to say anymore about that for fear of jinxing it!
You primarily write licensed characters. What attracts you to working on a known property?
I'm a lifelong fanboy at heart. My not-so-guilty secret is that I would still be lining up to see the new STAR TREK or BATMAN movies on opening night even I wasn't a professional nerd. Even though it's my job these days, my inner fan still gets a thrill every time I realize that "Ohmigod, I'm actually writing STAR TREK!"
Or Superman or Captain America or Frankenstein . . . .
Now as Trek prepares for it's re-imagining, what do you think makes the voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise still pertinent 40 years since it's initial launch?
What distinguishes Trek from pretty every other major sf franchise is that it is NOT a dystopia. It's not PLANET OF THE APES or THE MATRIX or TERMINATOR, even though I like all those series and would kill to write a PLANET OF THE APES novel. Even STAR WARS, which has plenty of humor and swashbuckling adventure, is set against an oppressive interstellar empire. Trek, on the other hand, says that the future will be better than today--and not in a cold, sterile, antiseptic way. It's a future of boundless hope, excitement, and exploration--and I think that's always going to appeal to people.
To put it another way, Trek is the only fictional future that someone would actually want to live in!
What are you currently working on?
I have a new 4400 novel and another DC Comics novelization, Countdown, coming out in July. In the meantime, I'm waiting for some new outlines to be approved before diving into my next big book project.
What do you currently geek over?
Needless to say, I'm counting the days for the new STAR TREK and TERMINATOR movies, not to mention the WOLF MAN remake in the fall. TV-wise, I'm praying to Nielsen gods that CHUCK and THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES get renewed. I also just finished reading THE TEN CENT PLAGUE by David Hadju, which is a really fascinating non-fiction book on the anti-comic-book hysteria of the 1950's.
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