ahpookalele

[ahpookalele]

No, it’s not a musical. Though it could be.

So, the book starts with an interesting idea, jumping off from something that always confused me about the “map” of three-dimensional space. I’ve never been clear just what the Romulan Neutral Zone looks like, a matter made even more confusing by the egg-shaped area shown in Star Trek II as the Klingon Neutral Zone, which doesn’t jibe with the big old line through space shown on the screen in the episode “Balance of Terror.” Where does this line extend to? If there’s no up or down in space, how is it demarcated?

Anyhow, Vulcan! starts with the Enterprise heading towards the plant Arachnae, because, as it turns out, the Romulan Neutral Zone has been drifting over the years, and soon the planet will be in Romulan territory. And there’s concern about the natives of Arachnae (come on, just guess what they look like, and don’t look at the cover) may be put in harms way by this. So the Enterprise is sent to figure out if the Arachnaeans are sentient enough to save. There’s some business about how they get around the Prime Directive that I’ve already forgotten because of this book’s precipitous decline into the sillies.

You see, Spock and McCoy are all in a tizzy of a competition, and Kirk is in full eyeroll mode. Why? because a certain Dr. Katalya Tremain is coming to help with the mission, because she’s an expert on all things Giant Bug, and both these fellows think she is just the totes best thing to come aboard since Harry Mudd unloaded his “cargo” that time.

So we meet Dr. Tremain. And she is brilliant. And beautiful. And the author likes to keep reminding us that she has big boobs.

But here’s the kicker: she hates Vulcans. Hates. I’m not saying that kind of low-level bigotry that McCoy will blindside us with when the writers of the original series need to come up with some conflict to keep the dialogue going. I mean she is an out-and-out Vulcanophobe, and demands to be taken off the mission when she catches sight of Mr. Spock, whose human side is secretly crushed by this, but whose Vulcan side wants to study this like some kind of unknown fungus.

And here’s where the book starts to unravel for me. There’s a decent novel in here somewhere, or at least a short story. But it turns out that the why-does-this-woman-hate-vulcans plot, which should be the B plot completely takes over the first half of the book, grinding the story to a halt, and it takes a long time for what should be the A plot, the adventures on Planet of the Ant People, to get revving up again.

Gee, I wonder why they call the place Arachnae

So the patient reader will plod on through the story. We learn that there’s a little cadre of bigots on the Enterprise who all have petty beefs with Spock, who hope to enlist Tremain in their plan to get Spock booted. She rebuffs them, apparently concluding that her hated of Vulcans, the cause of which is still a mystery at this point but a surprise to no one later in the book, is a more worth hate, or something.

I kept hoping there was a good back story to explain her hatred of Vulcans, some horrible Hitchcock-like reveal involving her mother being killed by a pon-farr-crazed Vulcan, but no, it’s nothing that interesting.

And then, of course, we get the whole enemies-have-to-join-forces-to-survive story between her and Spock, which goes exactly where you know it will go, this being 70s Trek.

Oh, and I haven’t mentioned yet that McCoy has gone about wooing Tremain, and there’s several skin-crawly scenes where he is trying to analyze her and bed her at the same time.

As he unpacked a drawer full of soft, sheer night-robes, McCoy felt that he had to know more about her phobia. The transparent garments, scented with lavender, were telling him a great deal about her romantic nature, and he wanted to know what sort of mental mine field he might have to walk through on the way to seeing her model those delicious bits of silk and lace. Spock and Vulcans were no competition for a pretty woman, nightgowns, and a bedroom.

‘Tell me, Katalya,” he said, tucking the last of the negligees away, “just why do you hate Vulcans so much? It’s a sad flaw in a lady as nice as you are. It’s a downright pity, too.”

Ewwwwwwwww.

Ultimately, this isn’t a good one, but it has a certain bad-but-good element to it, like parts of Spock Messiah, to keep the reader going, unlike Price of the Phoenix, say.

The ending gets very trippy and yet anticlimactic, and it gets incredibly talky. Kirk doesn’t get a ton to do except yell at the Romulans. Oh, did I not mention that the Romulans show up for the first time in an original novel? They don’t come off very well.

And there’s not enough ant people.

    in an alternate timeline, Edith Keeler has been to Arachnae,              and she still gets killed.

Bantam Book Club: Vulcan! No, it's not a musical. Though it could be. So, the book starts with an interesting idea, jumping off from something that always confused me about the "map" of three-dimensional space.

[ahpookalele]

Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Or Leo Walsh if you’re nasty.

Who would have thought our beloved space pimp could inspire such controversy, but apparently the whole concept of a flesh-peddling rogue has not aged well, and Harry Mudd continues to inspire debate, as could be when social media erupted with the rumor/news/hoax that the latest incarnation of the franchise, Star Trek Discovery, will include Mudd as a reoccurring character.

Harry Mudd is certainly an oddity. He makes two appearances in TOS and a return in TAS, and none of those episodes are exactly the series at its finest. But some people love a lovable confidence man, so take from that what you will.

As things turned out with the Bantam line, “Mudd’s Women” and “I, Mudd” were the last two episodes out the gate from the series of adaptations penned by James Blish. Sadly, Blish died before the task was completed, and his widow J. A. Lawrence finished his legacy.

Bantam published the two stories in 1978 in a package that includes an original novella by Lawrence, “The Business, as Usual, During Altercations,” presenting the collection as Mudd’s Angels.

The credit goes to Bob Larkin for painting probably the most entertaining cover of the Bantam line:

don’t hate the playa, hate the game

In the interest of full disclosure, I did not finish the episode adaptations for this review. Not that they aren’t enjoyable, but I just wanted the look at the original story. What I read  would indicate that Lawrence does a great job of preserving Blish’s particular voice. If you haven’t read the Blish adaptations, I strongly encourage it. They provide an original look into stories we know backwards to forwards, sometimes including details that were abandoned or cut from production. Blish has a great traditional sci-fi tone that makes the stories a joy to read. Barnes & Noble currently sells a lovely hardback edition of 40 of the best episode adaptations.

But back to Mudd’s Angels. The reprint would redub the volume Mudd’s Enterprise, possibly because Charlies Angel’s was a distant memory by then? But neither title is quite accurate. Mudd never takes over the Enterprise, and as for his angels … um …

“The Business, as Usual, During Altercations,” as the story is actually called (and Bantam can be forgiven for not putting that one on the cover) is an odd one. It has some of the not-quite-TOS-that-we-know feel of Blish’s stories. Some of the characters seem off. Spock smiles. McCoy seems a little panicky. Kirk ultimately doesn’t get a ton of things to do. Prayer is mentioned when all hope looks lost.

The plot starts off interesting enough, involving Mudd having escaped the planet of the androids (the TAS sequel “Mudd’s Passion” is not referenced at all here, apparently for legal reasons) and somehow getting a monopoly on the galaxy’s supply of dilithium. What ensues includes the Federation teaming up with Klingons and Romulans, a chase across the galaxy, tracking down the real Stella (and her mom), time travel, android Mudds and Uhuras, Chekov hallucinating that he is the Mongol Tamerlane, and there’s possible destruction of the galaxy by replicating dilithium crystals. Whew. It all starts feeling like there could be a decent post-2009 movie in here, what with all the chasing and loosely-canonical fan service.

All this breakneck action and plot ultimate comes to a climax …  with a trial sequence. Over the civil rights of androids, who sue Mudd for damages. Like seriously, discussions of interstellar law, like you were zooming through hyperspace only to completely stumble over the opening crawl of The Phantom Menace. A debate about the rights of androids, years before The Next Generation tackled it in a much better fashion.

Oh, and in all this, a new character is introduced, Yeoman Weinberg, a psychohistorian whose presence in the story is baffling. I think the intention was to provide a little comic relief or to provide exposition and reaction, but in actuality he’s not really given much to do, as I recall, and his observations in the story feel like an intrusion and digression taking screen time away from the main characters. Not really a Marty Stu or an effective comic relief, he could have been easily edited out.

It’s kind of a fun story, but the end sequence completely takes the steam out of things. Also, Mudd comes off a bit dark, as evidenced by his treatment of the androids, which elicited a whew laddie buck from me as I read it. His ultimate fate will please the Mudd-haters, but I doubt they would be reading this book to begin with.

That original cover is fantastic, though. Really, that cover needs to be its own show premise. You listening, CBS? Let’s talk spinoff, a la “Better Call Saul.”

  Bantam Book Club: Mudd’s Angels Harcourt Fenton Mudd. Or Leo Walsh if you're nasty. Who would have thought our beloved space pimp could inspire such controversy, but apparently the whole concept of a flesh-peddling rogue has not aged well, and Harry Mudd continues to inspire debate, as could be when social media erupted with the rumor/news/hoax that the latest incarnation of the franchise, …

[ahpookalele]

  And back to the fan fiction. The success of the enjoyable first New Voyages collection clearly left its editors feeling they had a mandate, and that they could do no wrong. At least that is my takeaway from this lesser collection, which has even more of an indulgent fanfic feel. I do have to read some more modern fanfic, because reading this one has left me with a sour attitude about it.

It bears repeating that fans and fanfic are part of what kept Trek alive during these early years. That said, this collection has not aged well, except as an artifact of the times.

So, in sum, this volume offers more glimpses into fandom of a certain period, but with a couple of exceptions, they just aren’t very good, and are not good representations of the Trek story.

I will go through the pieces one by one.

‘”Surprise'” by Nichelle Nichols, Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath

I love Nichelle Nichols. I adore her. She is one of the classiest ambassadors of the franchise, and her personal story is an inspiration. This story, about Uhura and Spock arranging a surprise birthday party for Kirk, generally feels like the creation of someone who knows the characters, partly. That’s the part I will attribute to Nichols. There’s a slashy subtext which I can completely attribute to the infamous editors. All in all, it’s one of those stories about below decks, off shift Enterprise that is just a little too cute, but may still appeal to some fans.

‘”Snake Pit” by Connie Faddis

We don’t get to see much of Nurse Christine Chapel in the series or movies, but we get to “see” everything in this action-based story, in which Chapel takes on a pit full of alien snakes, armed only with a knife, to save Kirk, who’s been bitten by one in some native ritual. Did I mention she does this naked? Yeah, she naked.

It’s actually a pretty good story, one of the more enjoyable ones in the volume. Well written, though it does meander into some racist tropes about indigenous people. We get to learn a little bit more about Chapel’s past with Roger Corby, which gets “authenticated” in a footnote as having come from Majel Barrett herself. Oh, you tricky canon. Oh, and we learn that Chapel is actually already a doctor, and it’s still some time before that gets a nod in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

“The Patient Parasites” by Russell Bates

Offered in script form, this is a story that Bates wrote for the animated Star Trek series. Bates would later go on to co-author the animated series episode “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth,” which netted the series an Emmy Award. That episode featured crewman Dawson Walking Bear, a Native American, who actually first appeared in this story. This story was rejected as being too generic, apparently, and for the Bantam collection Dawson Walking Bear was changed to Sulu, and it’s not even noticeable.

This story comes off as something that could have been a filmed episode, but a particularly bland one. It involves a race of aliens, probably long dead, which steal the intelligences of aliens to make use of technology it did not invent. It comes across as a mix of elements from “Spock’s Brain,” “Return of the Archons,” and maybe a dash of “The Empath.”

It possibly would have been a so-so episode, but as a story it lacks suspense, or even a point to make.

“In the Maze” by Jennifer Guttridge

This one was kind of close in story to “The Patient Parasites.” A little better, involving weird aliens doing experiments on Enterprise crew in a setting that reminded me even more of “The Empath” than the last one. I like the thoroughly weird aliens, but it suffers an abrupt resolution of the “whoops we didn’t realize you were sentient, sorry, bye” variety.

“Cave-In” by Jane Peyton

A confusing piece written as a stream of consciousness monologue/dialogue that just didn’t hold my interest long enough to figure out what was going on.

“Marginal Existence” by Connie Faddis

This one actually feels like an episode of TOS and is fairly well-written. It’s possible there’s a message in it about drug abuse or the more generalized pitfalls of seeking pleasure without a mind to the consequences, seen here in a society that keeps people in a “pleasurable” suspended animation that may actually be torture. There’s elements that are very close to “Miri” at play here. Not the best in the collection, but up there.

“The Procrustean Petard” by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath

Oh dear. So the concept of the story is, Kirk, McCoy, Uhura and a number of the rest of the Enterprise crew switch genders. Even putting aside current ideas about gender being more than binary, this story is a train wreck a la The Price of the Phoenix. Like that book, this is a story that isn’t very interested in plot setup, conflict or resolution. Once again, there is a lot of flirty wink-winking about slashy unmentionables. But while Phoenix manages to be dull, this one manages to be truly offensive. You see, femme Kirk is apparently too pretty to command, and then there’s this whole bit where Spock protects Kirk from the unwelcome advances of Kang from “Day of the Dove.” The whole premise of how this gender-swap happens is then dismissed in as off-screen and desultory a fashion as it was introduced, amid much satisfied laughter. It makes no sense to any era’s ideas of Klingon culture, and it manages to be oddly sexist, for a story written by two women.

“The Sleeping God” by Jesco von Puttkamer

And from an aerospace engineer and NASA program manager, who would eventually be technical advisor for the first Star Trek movie,  a novella-length story that is actual science fiction. While the resolution of the conflict is a little muddled for me, this may be my favorite piece in this collection. Dealing with a Borg/V-ger-like ancient computer and a superbrained mutant kept in suspended animation, this reads, frankly, like a better story concept for the movie that von Puttkamer was eventually involved with. A little slow but worth the read.

“Elegy For Charlie” by Antonia Vallario and “Soliloquy” by Marguerite B. Thompson

The book ends with a cutesy wrap-up referencing the first story, but not before we get a couple examples of fan doggerel.

The first poem, while not great poetry in my opinion, still manages to be a emotive look at “Charlie X”and it consequences.

The latter poem, told from Spock’s perspective, ends with the lines, “What will they find when I am ripped apart? ‘I love you, Captain,’ written on my heart,” and that’s all you need to know.

Bantam Book Club: Star Trek The New Voyages 2 And back to the fan fiction. The success of the enjoyable first New Voyages collection clearly left its editors feeling they had a mandate, and that they could do no wrong.

[ahpookalele]

  Bantam, 1977. In which someone at Corgi apparently finally got the “Geez, can you tone it down” memo about the covers. In our fifth Bantam original: giant bugs! Illusion! Writing from an actual sci-fi writer!

What a great way to wash the bad taste of the craptastic Price of the Phoenix out of my brain.

Finally, no fanfic, finally no slash. Just a good solid story from a real science fiction writer who knows how to put together a story. Haldeman hits all the right character notes, in my judgement, showing off his knowledge of astronomy at the same time.

For a very slim volume, there’s a lot to enjoy here. A very Star Trek-y story involving a strange superior race that puts our crew in a tough situation, involving some mind tricks and some horrific modifications to a crew member. Some new characters get added but then oddly are not given much to do, but it still lends a layered novelistic quality to it. Includes some “clip show” style flashbacks to TOS episodes ( a la Blish ) and gives a peek into Spock’s childhood and McCoy’s divorce! Head canon fodder!

This is a kind of Trek novel that you might have read in the 70s and thought, gee it would be great if that movie coming out was about this. I highly recommend this one. Nothing fancy, but a great read, though because of the length the end feels a little abrupt.

Bantam Book Club: Planet of Judgment Bantam, 1977. In which someone at Corgi apparently finally got the "Geez, can you tone it down" memo about the covers.

[ahpookalele]

  I apologize for the long pause. Part of it was induced by election-related distractions, but also because I hit this book. Let’s resume.

The Price of the Phoenix was simply an endurance test, not a reading experience.

The Price of the Phoenix is, hands-down, by far, by a parsec, by 80AUs, the single most terrible Trek novel I have ever read in my life. I’m stunned that the novel line was able to continue after this steaming log of slashfic was dropped on an unsuspecting public.

I have long defended and supported “shippers” and writers of slash as just another element of fandom, but it is not simply the utterly unconcealed man-on-man love of this novel that sets my teeth on edge. Nope. I’m actually a little fond of the later slash novel, Killing Time, which snuck past the Pocket Books censors only to suffer a hasty reprint with the more slashy parts expunged. You can still find the first pressing around: it’s the one with the embossed cover title.

No, the problem with The Price of the Phoenix is it’s just horribly written. Close to nothing happens in this book. It could have easily been a quarter of its actual length, if you took out the arch banter between Kirk and Spock and the Romulan Commander, a clone of Kirk and the villain Omne, who comes across as a General Zod-ish Marty Sue as imagined by Tom of Finland.

NOTHING HAPPENS. Kirk “dies,” is cloned, is found alive, and then the bulk of the book is some sort of 50 Shades of Kirk claptrap about dominance and submission and the fear of death or something. I have since moved on and am reading their other books, and there is a pattern: long-winded porn without the porn, dominance and submission, homosexuality that seems to have no actual gay experience informing it, global threats that sputter out with vague resolution.

This book, and its authors, have apparently maintained an infamous reputation that is entirely deserved. Trek author David Gerrold, an actual gay man who finds the genre insulting, has shared some good insights about this here and on his Facebook page. I’ll direct you there, as the history is disputed, ugly and ultimately not relevant, as the book is best skipped over.

I have to apologize to the ten-year-old me who read this. I’ve long assumed that I was completely confused by this book because of my tender years, but no, ten-year-old me, you are off the hook: this is incomprehensible garbage.

***

Bantam Book Club: The Price of the Phoenix I apologize for the long pause. Part of it was induced by election-related distractions, but also because I hit this book.