Goodbye, stellar cartography: STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS novel features maps

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The High Country by John Jackson Miller arrives on February 21^st, 2023 from Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books. When it does, it will include in-world maps that will allow readers to follow along as Captain Christopher Pike and the crew of the USS Enterprise navigate a planet where they find themselves unable to access technology. 

Cartographic Trip

Miller announced the maps on Twitter, where he explained that they occurred partly as a result of supply chain-related printing delays. Now that’s what I call a latinum lining!

The High Country will include maps in three different styles, “reflective of how the locals see their world; and a triptych follows the action.” Miller subsequently clarified that the maps will be printed at relevant points in the story, and will not be fold-out pages.

Thanks to a suggestion by narrators Robert Petkoff and January LaVoy, the maps will be included as a PDF with audiobook purchases. First drawn by Miller during the writing of the novel, the maps were then refined with help from his friend, game designer James Mishler.

According to the excerpt included on the back cover, the novel will be set during SNW’s first season, meaning Chief Engineer Hemmer (played by Bruce Horak on the Paramount+ series) will be included on the crew manifest.

While The High Country is the first prose novel to be based on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, it is not the first Trek novel to include maps. A map included in the cult classic 2000 epistolary novel Deep Space Nine: A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson (Garak, just a simple tailor) featured Cardassia Prime’s capital city.

The High Country

If you’re interested in purchasing a signed copy of The High Country, details are currently available on the Faraway Press webpage.

Will you be picking up a copy of The High Country when it arrives? How do you feel about including maps in genre prose stories?

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