The force is with readers

NEW YORK — No more voyages of the Starship Enterprise. No more intergalactic shootouts for the Millennium Falcon. “Star Wars” and “Star Trek,” the two most lucrative franchises in motion picture and TV history, are near the end of their runs.

But the novels and literary spinoffs will be flooding the galaxy for years to come.

As far as the publishing industry is concerned, it doesn’t really matter that the last episode of “Enterprise,” the fifth TV series set in the “Star Trek” universe, will be broadcast May 13. Or that “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,” debuting in theaters May 19, is the sixth and final chapter in George Lucas’ epic space opera. The appetite for “Wars” and “Trek” books continues unabated, making two publishers cosmically happy.

The demise of “Star Trek,” which has spawned five TV series and 10 feature films, “won’t change the way we do business,” says Scott Shannon, vice president and associate publisher at Pocket Books, which publishes all things “Trek.” “We’ve kind of been here before. We started publishing in 1979 and published for years without a TV show or film.”

“It was known for years” that “Sith” would be the last “Star Wars” film, says Shelly Shapiro, editorial director at Del Rey Books, the home of “Star Wars” literature. “We made our latest deal with Lucasfilm knowing George would never do an Episode 7, 8 or 9. It’s never been an issue, and in some ways it could work to our advantage -- our books will be one of the only places people will be able to get new ‘Star Wars’ stories.”

It’s not a case of squeezing books out like sausages. Each new volume must stay true to the original visions of the series while providing new story lines and worlds to explore. But make no mistake -- these audiences are as hungry for the “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” worlds as a Klingon lusting to spill human blood.

Since Pocket Books began issuing “Trek” novels in the late ‘70s, for example (Bantam and Ballantine published a handful of originals and adaptations earlier in the decade), more than 500 “Star Trek” titles have hit the nation’s bookshelves, selling tens of millions of copies. During the series’ height in the 1980s and ‘90s, many of these made regular appearances on national bestseller lists, and even today, Pocket Books releases nearly 20 new titles every year, targeting all five series (“Star Trek,” “The Next Generation,” “Deep Space Nine,” “Voyager” and “Enterprise”).

“The strength of the books is that they are written and edited by people who care about them very much,” says David Mack, who has written eight “Star Trek” novels. “What impels people to extend the ‘Star Trek’ experience in other media is that the ‘Star Trek’ universe is one they enjoy living in, one they’d like to live in for real. ‘Star Trek’ is idealistic and optimistic about what the future could be, and I think that inspires people.”

The motivation for “Star Wars” fans is similar -- a wish to stay connected to a world they love and enjoy. This also translates into huge sales: “Revenge of the Sith,” published earlier this month, debuted at No. 2 on the New York Times and the Publishers Weekly hardcover bestseller lists.

“We’re now going into our third generation of ‘Star Wars,’ and it’s renewed itself with every generation that comes along,” says Howard Roffman, head of Lucasfilm’s licensing division. “ ‘Star Wars’ is an allegorical story; you can relate to it on lots of different levels. It’s the basic elements of mythology; it’s a platform for dealing with the fundamental issues of being a human being.”

In order to keep these publishing lines vital, however, a delicate balancing act has to take place. It’s important to pay homage to the story lines laid out in the visual media while coming up with new tales that fill in otherwise unexplored territory.

“You cannot contradict in print what has been established on the screen,” says Mack.

But, adds Shapiro, there is still plenty of wiggle room. “The parts between the movies are holes,” she says. “The parts between the past and future are part of a wide-open continuum. In the past we were limited in what we could do. We couldn’t risk ruining continuity and had to wait until George finished his part of the story. Now we can go into the past and talk about the Sith or continue going into the future and into the times between the various movies.”

What this means for the near term is that the “Star Trek” folks are developing a new line of books called “Star Trek Vanguard,” which will take place during the same time frame as the original TV series (the Kirk-Spock years) but will be set on a different spaceship. The first novel in this spinoff, written by Mack, is due out in August.

In the meantime, the “Star Wars” people are putting together what Roffman calls “a story arc for the post ‘Episode III’ period, and we’re also working on a collection of ‘nonfiction’ books that explore the creatures and locations and political factions” of the Sith universe.

Given the expansive nature of the mythologies both series have created, the permutations seem endless. Yet there are cracks in the structure. Even though Pocket Books is acquiring “Trek” titles for 2007, Mack admits that without a TV series or movie to accompany them (Paramount has announced tentative plans for a new “Trek” film due out in two years), the books cannot continue indefinitely. A new generation of readers would at a certain point “have lost touch” with the original concept, he says, “and it would be hard to reintroduce it.”

Del Rey’s Shapiro also worries that the audience for “Star Wars” is fragmented: science-fiction readers who go to the “Star Wars” movies but never pick up the books; “Star Wars” fans who love the movies and read the books but not other forms of sci-fi; and moviegoers who love the flicks but don’t read science fiction at all. “The challenge,” says Shapiro, “is how we get [the first and last categories] to try some of the books.”

For now, no one’s too worried. Pocket Books’ Shannon, noting that “Star Trek” has been around for nearly 40 years, says, “What’s another 20? There’s still a very active convention scene; the fans are still out there.”

And Shapiro, while admitting that there may come a point when “people can’t face entering into the series from scratch,” still sees this as an enjoyable challenge. “I’m not worried. It will just be more and more incumbent on us to make the books as good as they can be.”