I apologize for the delay, I had a strange weekend.
Yes--this is Pilgrim Truth and we have it. HarperCollins couldn't do it, Baen couldn't do it... but I am proud to announce that WCNews is going to release this novel, fully authorized by Electronic Arts.
Let me begin by thanking Peter Telep. I can't thank him enough, really. He's a man who bothered to do his research and make sure his novels were faithful to the games even when Chris Roberts was saying not to bother. He's a man who stuck with our community through thick and through thin annd more than that he's a man who held onto these computer files for the TEN YEARS it took me to work out a deal for their release. Mr. Telep, whether it's tank warfare or emergency room dramas, I will continue to buy every book you ever write as long as I live.
What is Pilgrim Truth?
Pilgrim Truth is the tenth and hopefully not final Wing Commander novel.
In 1998, HarperCollins Publishers licensed the Wing Commander movie and commissioned five books: two novelizations (a regular and Young Adult versions), a 'fact book' (the Confederation Handbook, from the IMGS team that created the game manuals) and two 'continuity' novels which would be released in the year following the film and continue the movie's story. Peter Telep was contracted to write all four novels. Book publishing of this nature has a lead time of several months: the movie novel needed to go to print months before the film game out--and both continuity novels needed to be ready well before box office receipts were in.
The movie novelizations were released in March, 1999 to rave fan reviews but the first followup book, Pilgrim Stars, came out with a very small print run in September. Very little care taken in its presentation: the cover reused the movie poster and the editor's description was insane. Still, the plan at the time was to release the third book, Pilgrim Stars, within HarperCollins' one year contractual deadline.
It didn't happen. We can't say for sure if the movie's failure killed the book or not... in fact, the entire imprint responsible for publishing movie books, HarperEntertainment, was closed before the book was to be released. The manuscript, which concludes a major cliffhanger at the end of Pilgrim Stars and generally removes the 'Pilgrim' concept from the Wing Commander mythos, reverted back to Peter Telep and it didn't seem ilkely he would be able to legally release it.
Until now!
Let me pause to stress one thing: if you haven't read the movie novelization because you didn't like the movie then you are missing out. Peter wrote the book before he saw anything from the film itself, as publishing such things erquires... so he used Wing Commander I, Claw Marks and my brain for reference. It's full of Wing Commander continuity, probably more so than any book since Freedom Flight (to my knowledge only Mercedes Lackey, Ellen Guon and Peter Telep actually played Wing Commander before putting pen to paper).
Now you folks know I've done my share of work for Electronic Arts over the years--from the CIC initially being run on Origin's servers to a dozen cancelled games to a few that made it out, like Wing Commander Arena and the upcoming Wing Commander rereleases. When Chris Roberts wants a picture of himself from 1991, I'm there. I don't know if you've figured out my particular brand of craziness yet or not, but I can't see myself charging for any of this. I'm not a professional, I just love Wing Commander.
But you know what I do try to get out of these people over the years, every time? Every producer or creative director or Wing Commander God I've ever talked to should be able to confirm that I've asked for the right to release Pilgrim Truth online. Peter Telep had saved the book for us but wasn't willing to do it without a guarantee that he wouldn't be sued... and I didn't want to do it if it wasn't going to be part of the Wing Commander canon. So we fought and fought and fought with EA. Their legal department didn't want to spend money drawing up a contract for something that they weren't going to sue over in the first place and Mr. Telep didn't want to risk his writing career giving us something for free... which was completely understandable. So there was a stalemate.
Until now!
I can't tell you why or how or whereabouts yet, but Electronic Arts has drawn up the paperwork and given us permission to post the book. I forwarded their e-mail to Peter and in ten minutes I was looking at a zip of eleven year old Word files. The man has been as ready to pass the thing off to us as we have been eager to get it.
What happens now?
We're going to release the book online. Peter has asked that we do a copyedit (since Harper never got there) and format it in a pleasing manner for reading on the internet--we're going to have a cover made up, create a special website and put together some chapter graphics. It's going to be swell--look for it soon!