35: The Hiki Room

The Khitomer Conflict Begins. Star Trek Into Darkness was built around the belief that war with the Klingons was inevitable—at least in the eyes of Admiral Marcus. The prospect itself served a plot focused on the inner workings of Starfleet. And while the film didn't deliver this galactic conflict, IDW's Star Trek Ongoing series will. The big-screen story was continued in the uninspiring After Darkness and now, with that out of the way, a new four-part story titled "The Khitomer Conflict" begins in Ongoing #25. In this episode of Literary Treks hosts Matthew Rushing and Christopher Jones dive into the first part of this war story to find out just what is going on between the Klingons and Romulans, how the Federation and Section 31 are involved, and why this story should have been After Darkness in the first place. In our news segment we look at a flood of books and comics news including John Jackson Miller's upcoming Titan novella Absent Enemies, Michael A. Martin's Seasons of Light and Darkness, Scott Harrison's Shadow of the Machine, and two yet-to-be-titled books coming from Scott Pearson and the writing team of Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann. We also talk cover art for Dayton Ward's Peaceable Kingdoms and the rest of The Fall, IDW's Stardate Collection Volume 2, and we discuss Dayton's recent Ten For Ward post about Star Trek novels for the new reader.