Watching the Clock

DTI: Watching the Clock is a Star Trek novel by Christopher L. Bennett to be published by Pocket Books in 2011. The novel will feature the Department of Temporal Investigations.

Publisher's description

 * From Simon and Schuster's online catalouge
 * ''In a universe where history could be erased, two of the most disciplined, obsessive government employees face the existential uncertainty of it all.


 * ''In a universe where history could be wiped out at any moment by time warriors from the future, misused relics of ancient races, or accident-prone starships, unflappable Agents Lucsly and Dulmur are the Federation’s unsung anchors in a chaotic universe. But when a series of escalating temporal incursions threatens to open a new front of the history—spanning Temporal Cold War in the twenty-fourth century—Lucsly and Dulmur will need all their investigative skill and unbending determination to keep the present and the future from falling into the kind of chaos they really, really hate.

Background

 * The book was first announced by the author in March 2010 with the working title Star Trek: DTI . The full title was announced in Star Trek Magazine #154; Bennett elaborated on his blog that he considered Star Trek: DTI on its own too vague and giving the full title Star Trek DTI: Department of Temporal Investigations - Watching the Clock too unwieldy, so went with the acronym and subtitle combination as comfortable compromise. Despite that, the first cover released for the book did indeed sport the expanded title Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations - Watching the Clock.
 * Bennett's aims with the novel included generating a unified theory to explain the various ways time travel has been portrayed in Star Trek. To that end he researched every instance of time travel in Star Trek and the use of time travel in other fiction.