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In which I cannily pretend to talk about Star Trek, but am actually talking about fanfic instead.
So things conspired against me - which is to say, ST coming up in a bunch of online conversations, and me finally getting my hands on "The Empty Chair" and my sister buying all the DVD sets and carrying them about like a security blanket - and I ended up spending much of the evening putting Star Trek books into LT. The number of more useful things I could have been doing instead is as myriad as ... well, as myriad as the Star Trek books, but Used Book Sale Season is coming up. And anyway, sometimes a girl just needs to spend some time with her Star Trek books.
Don't judge.
So there's now 154 books in LT tagged "star trek" and that's only three out of four boxes (I didn't tackle the TNG ones) and doesn't include the ones that are scattered elsewhere in the house. We've got to the point where the list of "Star Trek Books We Don't Have" fits on a half-sheet of notebook paper. Of course I haven't read them all - in fact, going down and tagging, there's a lot that I have no idea if I ever even read them because they made so little impression on me (interspersed with ones that I practically have memorized, and ones that I don't remember but I remember my sister liked them.)
It's also really obvious looking down the list, sorted by publication date, exactly when I lost my consuming interest in Star Trek books - 1997, which just happens to be the year I started high school. (I can't help but wonder if part of the reason I've been going back is how much time I've been spending in my old middle school lately --) But I really don't think that my loss of interest had anything to do with my age, so much as a visible change in editorial direction in the franchise. You can see it in when you look down the lists of books - for twenty years, they're happily churning out book after book of the Enterprise crew going where no man has gone before and having adventures and finding things out, and when you picked up a Star Trek book you more or less knew what you were getting. After 1997 or so, though, it's all miniseries! And New Frontiers! Every new book had to be a Great Event that did something different than they had ever done before!
...yeah, not interested. I want *more of the same*, goldangit! Which, okay, at first glance seems almost heretical: this is Star Trek, it's all about the spirit of exploration, new horizons, taking risks! Let's move on! But ... on the other hand, it felt to me like they were saying that the old-fashioned Enterprise adventure stories were played out. Like there was nothing more to say with them, like we should be *bored* with them. And explorer should *never* be bored, because there's *always* something more to learn to see. Saying "there's so much more to see, we can't afford to stay here when there's a horizon over there!" - that's one thing. Saying "We've done everything there is to do here -" You can *never* do everything there is to do. If you think you have, it's a defect of your own vision, not in what you're looking at.
Sure, to your average publisher, a hundred novels about the same few characters doing the same few things *seems* like it could get old - especially when the characters don't even get to *grow* and *change*, because every story has to start and end more-or-less in the status quo. But it *doesn't*, because characters are *infinitely* complex, and the forty-leventh time that Captain Kirk sets foot on an alien planet that looks suspiciously like Earth, there's *just* as much new things to learn and new ways to see as there were the *first* time. And I think Captain Kirk would agree with me, because that's *why* he keeps doing it.1
I think it's really interesting that *both* of the TOS pilots made an analogy between outer space and inner space, that going out and exploring is also expanding the limits of your *self* (and that being trapped is as much being trapped in your own head as being trapped in a cage.) And that the original pilot - canned for being 'too cerebral' - was about getting *out* of the headspace that kept you trapped and going and doing the physical exploration - and then the series re-used the footage but *switched* the moral, giving Captain Pike the change to take on that inner world and a consolation prize for losing his starship, and maybe it's a consolation prize but a prize nonetheless.
Because for all that Trek was supposedly about New Worlds and New Civilization, when it was at its best it was always about understanding youself by seeing yourself through new eyes. IDIC isn't about notching some kind of cosmic bedpost, it's about the way that listening to a thousand different viewpoints is still not enough to tell the whole story - but that doesn't mean you stop asking.
Now excuse me, I need to go moon over the kissing scene in "The Empty Chair" some more.
1Er, and all that talking about Kirk is completely ignoring for the purposes of this post that part of the reason I missed out on so many of the classic slashy K/S novels is that I refused to read anything that didn't have your basic Recommended Daily Allowance of McCoy goodness in it.
Don't judge.
So there's now 154 books in LT tagged "star trek" and that's only three out of four boxes (I didn't tackle the TNG ones) and doesn't include the ones that are scattered elsewhere in the house. We've got to the point where the list of "Star Trek Books We Don't Have" fits on a half-sheet of notebook paper. Of course I haven't read them all - in fact, going down and tagging, there's a lot that I have no idea if I ever even read them because they made so little impression on me (interspersed with ones that I practically have memorized, and ones that I don't remember but I remember my sister liked them.)
It's also really obvious looking down the list, sorted by publication date, exactly when I lost my consuming interest in Star Trek books - 1997, which just happens to be the year I started high school. (I can't help but wonder if part of the reason I've been going back is how much time I've been spending in my old middle school lately --) But I really don't think that my loss of interest had anything to do with my age, so much as a visible change in editorial direction in the franchise. You can see it in when you look down the lists of books - for twenty years, they're happily churning out book after book of the Enterprise crew going where no man has gone before and having adventures and finding things out, and when you picked up a Star Trek book you more or less knew what you were getting. After 1997 or so, though, it's all miniseries! And New Frontiers! Every new book had to be a Great Event that did something different than they had ever done before!
...yeah, not interested. I want *more of the same*, goldangit! Which, okay, at first glance seems almost heretical: this is Star Trek, it's all about the spirit of exploration, new horizons, taking risks! Let's move on! But ... on the other hand, it felt to me like they were saying that the old-fashioned Enterprise adventure stories were played out. Like there was nothing more to say with them, like we should be *bored* with them. And explorer should *never* be bored, because there's *always* something more to learn to see. Saying "there's so much more to see, we can't afford to stay here when there's a horizon over there!" - that's one thing. Saying "We've done everything there is to do here -" You can *never* do everything there is to do. If you think you have, it's a defect of your own vision, not in what you're looking at.
Sure, to your average publisher, a hundred novels about the same few characters doing the same few things *seems* like it could get old - especially when the characters don't even get to *grow* and *change*, because every story has to start and end more-or-less in the status quo. But it *doesn't*, because characters are *infinitely* complex, and the forty-leventh time that Captain Kirk sets foot on an alien planet that looks suspiciously like Earth, there's *just* as much new things to learn and new ways to see as there were the *first* time. And I think Captain Kirk would agree with me, because that's *why* he keeps doing it.1
I think it's really interesting that *both* of the TOS pilots made an analogy between outer space and inner space, that going out and exploring is also expanding the limits of your *self* (and that being trapped is as much being trapped in your own head as being trapped in a cage.) And that the original pilot - canned for being 'too cerebral' - was about getting *out* of the headspace that kept you trapped and going and doing the physical exploration - and then the series re-used the footage but *switched* the moral, giving Captain Pike the change to take on that inner world and a consolation prize for losing his starship, and maybe it's a consolation prize but a prize nonetheless.
Because for all that Trek was supposedly about New Worlds and New Civilization, when it was at its best it was always about understanding youself by seeing yourself through new eyes. IDIC isn't about notching some kind of cosmic bedpost, it's about the way that listening to a thousand different viewpoints is still not enough to tell the whole story - but that doesn't mean you stop asking.
Now excuse me, I need to go moon over the kissing scene in "The Empty Chair" some more.
1Er, and all that talking about Kirk is completely ignoring for the purposes of this post that part of the reason I missed out on so many of the classic slashy K/S novels is that I refused to read anything that didn't have your basic Recommended Daily Allowance of McCoy goodness in it.
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This sounds very familiar. It's basically what the TNG-based movies were doing; trying to be so much better than anything before it.
I was also going to bring up how some franchises that use multiple authors can get into this kind of one-upmanship, but then I looked on Amazon and noticed that the New Frontiers series was done by one guy. I suppose I could've just left this part out.
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Actually I can't really comment on New Frontiers, because Peter David is made of 75% pure awesome and I haven't actually read any NF. They're supposed to be quite good. I'd just rather have either seen more of the same, or actual original SF by PD, instead of more Star-Trek-that's-just-barely-star-trek.
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These days, though, the editors and writers are huge fans of Continuity. Everything has to fit together, and instead of going off in individual directions, the novels are expanding in one giant pre-planned wavefront. It drives me crazy. However, I've taken part in many slightly less than friendly discussions on the subject on TrekBBS, and it's clear that I'm in a minority.
I also do agree with you that it is an admission of defeat and lack of imagination to say that traditional exploration stories are played out. How many sci fi novels are published every year? How many of them involve strange new worlds in exactly the Star Trek style? Clearly there's much more to do and to say about the human condition there.
Now excuse me, I need to go moon over the kissing scene in "The Empty Chair" some more.
Kissing scene? Ooooh. I haven't read "The Empty Chair" yet but I'm very relaxed about spoilers so I have to ask: who's kissing?
And finally: hurray for Kristoph Klover and "Witnesses Waltz". One of my favourite pieces of filk music. :)
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I'm not even sure it's so much the issue of continuity, although I adore the chaotic continuity of the Trek books - but I was reading the SW books at the same time as the ST ones, and they've always been officially in continuity with one another. But even then, it was much more a sort of continuity-by-consensus - it felt like a bunch of authors creating a shared fan universe, not an editorial trying to milk the franchise. (It even still approaches that sometimes in these decadent days) whereas Star Trek books are starting to feel like DC Comics, a bunch of lonely writers flailing valiantly under editorial fiat - and in desperate need of an Infinite Crisis. I think that's partly because the SW universe was always open-ended - the wreters were taking things forward into uncharted territory, and given freedom to do it - while ST has had it future and past so well-charted, but patchily so, that there's so little freedom left within continuity.
I'm not going to spoil you on Empty Chair because it's just so exquisitely done - I told
And I downloaded the whole virtual filksing awhile back and *adore* it! and I think that might be part of what got me wanting to go back to old Trek stuff, because it's so think with l'reve d'etoiles . (It doesn't help that they're sung by people like Leslie fish and Julia Ecklar.)
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Yes, that's exactly what it is. There was definitely something fannish about the older novels. Even down to having really great Mary Sues, like Ael in the Rihannsu novels and Evan Wilson in "Uhura's Song."
I'm not going to spoil you on Empty Chair because it's just so exquisitely done - I told stellar_dust that it was the absolute best resolution of longstanding UST that I had *ever* seen - but let's just say that it *wasn't* McCoy and Arrhae. :P
The mystery! The suspense! (Frankly it never occurred to me that there was any UST between McCoy and Arrhae, so I wouldn't have guessed that anyway.)
Could it actually be Kirk and Ael??? I'm not even sure that I can contemplate that. No, it must be Naraht and Ael. :)
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... no, it's not Kirk/K's't'lk either, much as I adore the completely-non-humanoid-UST.
I don't really see McCoy/Arrhae either, I was being very silly. Actually I kind of would like to see Arrhae/Ffairrl post-Empty-Chair, but going into that would be spoilerly too. :P
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Does that include all the NEW (-er than 2000 or so) ones we don't have, too? Because, ooooooooooooohhhhhhhh.
Recommended Daily Allowance of McCoy - +20 snarky goodness. Mmmm.
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And only 154? I think I had just over 300 when I sold the majority of mine to the used book store last year. I kinda regret it now . . . I should've just held onto them for sentimental reasons. They were my passion for so many years.
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We have at least 60 or 70 to go - I haven't put in the entire boxful of TNG tie-ins yet - so we may get appoaschin that. But mind, there have been very few added to the collection since 1997 - and who knows how many we'll get tomorrow! Yay! (We have over 250 Star Wars books, too, though, so our attention was split.)
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One of the best arguments for gen fanfic I've seen in a while (if I had a quarter for every time I've heard someone say, "But how can you read three hundred Magnificent Seven h/c stories with the exact same plot? Doesn't that get boring?" I could buy a dozen Star Trek novels).
My mom (Trek fan from way back to TOS) had one of two of those old (dating from the 80s) tie-in novels, including one fun one involving Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and time travel, and one awesoem one about the history of Vulcan. I think they were the first fanfic I ever read, back when I was in elementary school.
I also read Dreadnought, bunny-hopping Ensign Piper and all. She's much more bearable when you're ten.
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The awesome History of Vulcan one is almost certainly "Spock's World", by Diane Duane, the *least* controversial Trek book. Everybody who reads Star Trek books adores everything Diane Duane ever wrote for it, because they are sheer beauty in genfic form. I would be perfectly willing to drop by the university and loan you some! Anytime! (Possibly with a pile of Iron Man back issues along, as a bribe...)
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Who is this by, so that I may find it?
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I second
Fond Memories of Pocket Books TOS media tie ins
Some of the early stuff was interesting and did not leave the ST universe and crew in the same state that they started off; later on the series got more boring because you knew the crew ended up exactly as they started. I have some fond memories of the books with the original characters. That's the one flaw with getting rid of my whole collection. I can't give up The Vulcan Academy Murders or The IDIC Epidemic.
** Damn, in retrospect those stories contain many of the same elements that my favorite fan fiction does now. I mostly read het ship too, and my two favorite stories contain just that. **
When I got to college and had read over 100 Pocket Book TOS novels, I had to quite. I realized this I purchased the latest novel and just could not manage to make myself read it. In part, I think I outgrew the series as a reader. I had begun to read Analog and Asimov's, and that, a science fiction themed book store with a wider selection than I had ever seen before, and the beginnings, of the internet led to me to discover there was more sophisticated science fiction novels that ST media tie ins. I also suspect that I had reached my limit for the the same old plot as the series had less original ideas and characters than in the beginning. And about that time there started to be more than one new novel a month so keeping up became impossible with my college lifestyle. I carried the last one I purchase but never read (something starring Chekov) with me through about 4 moves before finally getting rid of it. My parents have now forced my entire childhood library on me and I must figure out a way to get rid of it before I move.
So I think I stop reading ST media tie ins when I "grew up" as a reader. However I am oddly bothered by the trend of mini-series and brand new characters in the ST universe. If they are going to go for a media tie in, they should use the original characters, damn it. Because of the growth of the fan fic, I can get what the media tie in offers for free on the internet. Some of it's crap, but much of the fan fic I actually finish now-a-days matches or exceed the quality of the Pocket Book media tie ins.
The not-so-great American Novel?
It wasn't until 1976 that we got the next effort, the please-let's-forget-it-ever-existed SPOCK MESSIAH! by Cogswell and Spano. Then honest-to-ghu fan fiction entered the picture, as STAR TREK: THE NEW VOYAGES, volume one, was published in 1976--reprinting stories originally printed in fanzines (without, however, crediting the fanzines in question). The editors of that volume, Marshak and Culbreath (who also were fan-published) produced the next ST novel, PRICE OF THE PHOENIX (1977). Although these ladies always insisted they didn't write K/S, one could be forgiven after reading this (or any of their books) for thinking that they must be familiar with the phrase "slashy subtext."
It was after this that the trickle of pro novels turned into a small stream (and then opened up later into a positive deluge).
I still have a shelf full of ST novels; some for sentimental and/ or support-the-fans-gone-pro reasons, some for reasons of negative entertainment, and some because they are genuinely well-written. I will buy any ST novel by Diane Duane, Barbara Hambly, and Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (although I wish their arrangement to keep writing Shatner's Kirk novels would go away and they would go back to writing their own ST novels).
I was delighted that Diane finally brought her Rihannsu series to a conclusion. I'd been hanging onto SWORDHUNT and HONOR BLADE for seven years, unread, determined to not crack the pages until I had the end of the story in my hands. It was worth the wait. What a grand tale, well-told.
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