It's been awhile since I read it, but I don't recall there being any romance involved there. Like, it's pre-slash, so the stories after it go in that direction, but that one IIRC did not.
Kraith can get a bit weird (says someone who collected it in print form before realizing it's available online). Valjiir was originally published from issue #8 onward in In A Different Reality. I got them through mail order in the '80s, lost track of them in the '90s, posted a plaintive cry for help here 15 years later, and Cheryl Petterson's husband contacted me and gave me their website address, which I've included in my sig ever since. While the main characters are Ruth Valley and Jilla Majiir, there is plenty of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy interwoven among the stories. It's my understanding that Petterson & Sizemore parted ways a long while back and some of the stories on the website were rewritten somewhat from the versions that appeared in IADR. In some cases it appears to have clarified some parts of the earlier stories that didn't quite make sense, and in other cases the stories have been greatly expanded. Some characters were given expanded backstories and stories and poems to go along with it. And we finally get to know exactly how Ruth got so addicted to coffee (she and Janeway would be kindred spirits in that respect, since in both cases there's no such thing as too much coffee!).
I collected Kraith because there was no internet. Yes. It did get weird. Not sure if I will get far with the Valjiir universe as I usually can’t get into stories which are mainly about OCs. Except for Sahaj. Those were very, very good. Does anyone remember Rayelle Roe? I was reading “Kirk Enslaved” the other day. Too funny.
Since you are an aficionado of the original trio, here's one for you: The Transplant And here's one about Scotty: Scotty's Birthday Challenge Both short, light-hearted reads.
If you are interested in triumvirate with no slash, there's "Home is the Sailor". Kirk Spock McCoy character centered novel https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3053794/1/Home-is-the-Sailor
Hi, Holopat. I have actually read this story. It’s a real favorite of mine. I think that out of all the writers of TOS fanfic on FanFiction.Net, you have captured Spock, his family, and Vulcan culture the best. I’d go so far as to say that it’s right up there with the original series for quality. I also like the fact that your Amanda is a mature, intelligent woman that Sarek would be attracted to. So often, she’s written as an emotional teenager or twenty-something. I hope that you will be able to finish ‘Final Days,’ since I never liked where ST:TMP took us. It (the movie) left me with more questions than answers. I’ve also always wondered what happened with Spock and McCoy after ‘To Begin Anew.’ That was a really different kind of story, but believable. McCoy grew on me a lot more as a result of this story and ‘Sailor.’ Dear everyone here, please check out ‘Home Is the Sailor’ if you have a chance. You honestly won’t regret it.
Here are my best: The Best Robe - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11144477/1/The-Best-Robe Image Of The Invisible - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11216987/1/Image-Of-The-Invisible Playthings - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11281218/1/Playthings I also like KCS's stories. https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1464384/KCS
I wrote To Begin Anew in the 80s, and over the years, the discs it was stored on corrupted. Parts one and two (now on fanfiction.net) survived more or less, but parts three and four I lost the beginning and endings of chapters so it has to be not just posted but partially rewritten. The last two parts were more with Sarek/Amanda than with McCoy and Kirk. Though they are in it. But the first two parts I think stand alone pretty well. Thanks for the plug for Home is the Sailor. It is a massive novel, so more readers at least justify the huge effort to get it up. Did you like anything else? Comments are welcome. I recently moved, which is a major interruption. I did bring my writing, in a box in the utility building, along with 20 yard long tubs of old Star Trek zines. But I haven't settled enough to get back in that mindset or drag anything out.
Ah. That’s too bad about the discs. I agree that what you have posted can stand on its own. It was intriguing to watch McCoy be a father/guardian to Spock, and I think he did a very good job, considering how little he knew about caring for a Vulcan child. I think I felt as much tension and anxiety as McCoy did. I wasn’t sure what Sarek was going to do after he arrived. One thing that I wanted to ask because I know this was an AU kind of story: was Spock dreaming about actual abuse or were the dreams worse because of not having a parental bond? I ask because, by the end of part 2, I didn’t see you painting Sarek as an abusive father, and I was glad. Maybe one day you will feel like finishing the other two parts. I’d like to find out what transpires back on Vulcan. “Sailor” is my favorite story. I’ve read it more than a few times, but I adore all your TOS stories, from “To Begin Anew” to “Survival Test” (I think TBA was the first story you posted and ST was the last). Your Spock, Amanda, Sarek, T’Pau, and McCoy are in perfect character (I’m not including Kirk here, but only because he’s not in the best frame of mind in “Sailor” or “To Begin Anew”). Also, you have brought Vulcan culture to life. People should read “Sailor” if only for the scene of the Council opening. That was truly inspired. The characters and culture are so very alive and have so many layers to them that it becomes more difficult to remember that they are fictional. Moving can be an upsetting process sometimes, even if you are doing it by choice rather than having to do it for work or family, but I am happy to hear that you have saved your writing. Perhaps you will find the energy and joy you once had and be able to return to it. It would be nice to have something like a “book club” on here for dissecting or discussing our favorite fanfics, but I don’t think I’ve seen that.
Re the book club, I'm willing to talk about old fanfics and zines. I started collecting in the late sixties, early seventies, if I remember correctly. There was no greater thrill (certainly mid teens as I was then) to getting a bulky brown envelope in the mail, dotted with stamps, containing Babel, or Spockanalia, Despatch,or any of the other zines, often printed by mimeo on what looked like colored construction paper, if I remember right. This was long before the movies and after the series ended and fanfiction was all we had. Except for the Blish series adaptations in paperback. Those were notable only for the rare cases where Blish was working from a script slightly different than the aired script, and we got a few new lines of dialogue or a slight characterization different than the aired version. Blish wasn't much on adding characterization of his own, his adaptations were bare bones and very very little meat added to the bones. I liked the early Federation and Empire series in Babel, at least the TOS parts. Spockanalia that later became Masiform D (I had a few stories in Masiform D). Nu Ormenol for Klingons. I read Kraith when it first came out. It did get weird as it went on. And the satire piece that talked about the Vulcan High Council meeting in Monsey New York. I remember the author solemnly promising to not leave Kraith unfinished - well she still has time, hasn't she? And probably the best typo in fandom was in Kraith collected when Carol Lynn carefully corrected a typo in "demonstarting" to be "denonstarting". I liked Sahaj (she is still writing, has a facebook page up and is or was selling her latest pieces). And I especially like Eileen Roy's fiction, whether Star Trek or MFU (so sad about David McCallum - he was my first love, at seven, long before I got hooked on Star Trek). Anyway, I'm willing to chat about old trek fic. I think it was better then. Livelier anyway. If you write something now, you get complaints about readers being "triggered" which I don't ever remember readers complaining about back in the seventies. After all, it was science fiction. SF readers were stomaching Harlan Ellison. And Issac Asmov roaming cons pinching derrieres (including mine). People seemed more interested in exploring boundaries and very far from policing safe spaces. That was part of the excitement of getting a big brown envelope in the mail stuffed with mimeo printed zines.
My collection of zines (or what I have found so far by partially going through a closet) is not very extensive. I couldn’t afford a lot as it was a bad time for me financially. I also was never sure what I would be getting, so I shied away from investing too much. Sometimes, I would buy one at a con that caught my attention, but I think that I got most through the mail. And it was exciting. Here’s my unimpressive list. I didn’t realize how many were short novellas until I put it together. Saurian Brandy Digest - No More Tomorrows Kraith Collected - Vols. 1 and 6 The Sourdani Journal The Morning After the Sixth Day Contact 5/6 Kobayashi Maru Interphase #2 Vault of Tomorrow #4 and #5 Galactic Discourse #3 and #4 Only Trek The Gallian Nuages One The Beast ShiKahr Spin Dizzie #5 and #6 Don’t Tell the Captain Get That Lollipop Out of My Computer And the South Shall Fall Again Not sure if I have any others stashed away. I do know that we used to share zines between friends, so I have read much more than what’s listed. I agree that it was a better time to be writing. Writers wrote what they did, and weren’t getting letters from readers who acted as if they’d been scarred for life. At least, not that I know of. I don’t think it would have entered anyone’s head. Much more a kind of “live and let live” or “let’s just try to get along” kind of atmosphere. (I sometimes wonder if it’s because so many of us grew up watching things like the Vietnam War at dinner every night.) Although I wasn’t a hard core sci fi reader, I did my share of reading various well known novels. It seemed to be something a lot of teenagers and 20 somethings did. Now everyone is glued to their phones. I’ve seen a lot of zines for sale on eBay, and I have to say, I’m tempted. It’s sad in a way, though. It may be that they’re being sold as their owners have passed on or are having to downsize. Now there’s a depressing thought.
I babysat starting at 12, so I had some disposable income. And zines were relatively cheap in the late sixties, early seventies, before offset replaced mimeo printing. A lot went for 50 cents though the postage costs often doubled the price of a package of zines. By the early 80s zines were up to 20$ for some, even before postage. And most of the individuality and creativity had gone. A lot was was mediocre slash by then, and I suspect written to make a quick buck due to the high prices, wide margins etc. As I left home, paid rent, then bought a house, zine purchases were generally a once or twice yearly splurge since most editors scheduled their zines to come out at cons, and being in MD, there was ShoreLeave and Clippercon, etc., where I would go and buy zines. Still buying zines was a worrisome thing, since disposable income was always scarce, and often you had to prepay. Sometimes waiting years for the zine to finally be produced. And if you didn't prepay, it would often be sold out. I have heard a lot of older fans just trashing their zines, because they can't be bothered with selling them, and they may not want their relatives to have to deal with them. It can be sad. Re the "scarred for life" comments, that was one of the things that shocked me when I decided to put some of my fiction up on ffnet. I got comments accusing me of "triggering" them. That I think would have been unheard of back in the 60s, 70s, when I think most editors thought if you were buying a Trek zine, (apart from those that required an age statement which came later, I think) you were a SF fan, not a hothouse flower. I have most of the ones you listed. I knew Marion McChesney, who published some of them, if I remember right. I remember The Sourdani Journal - that was an unusual one. This winter, when I am snowed in, I'll have to drag a few of those two dozen plastic tubs of zines up to the house and go through them. I think you mentioned In A different reality. Did you ever read any of Suzanne Sizemore's pro fiction - not Star Trek. It was mostly vampire related. I am not a vampire genre fan, but tried them. One of them to me had a very Pride and Prejudice feel and I think was the best of them -- Companions, laws of the blood, book 3. Sad that she is gone. Gayle Freyar (probably spelling her name wrong) she wrote some pro fiction as well in the romance genre. Interphase certainly was a great zine. And Metamorphosis. So many great zines. With unbelievably great stories that could leave one in shreds. I certainly spent a lot of time pursuing and reading those things (and got knows how much disposable income!)
I definitely never got a zine for .50! I wish. I paid more like $10 to $20. Would have loved to have seen the earlier ones. It breaks my heart that people are actually throwing theirs into the trash. With few exceptions, I, like you, feel the writing was better, even if what I read came after the 70’s. And I thought slash was everywhere then. Compared to AO3 and ff.net, it hadn’t even gotten started. It’s very difficult to find stories that aren’t slash now, and there is very little that is worth reading of what remains. “Triggering” *was* unheard of. We weren’t so fragile. I mean, I can understand how having some things actually happen to you in real life can make you sensitive to/want to avoid a topic, but I’m talking really horrible things. I haven’t read anything like that in your stories. I’ve got to go back and read the zines I listed. I already read the Spin Dizzies and Leslye Liliker’s stories. Think I have everything she’s written with what I have downloaded. Thankfully, she is working on another Sahaj story at the moment. I never read any of Susan Sizemore’s vampire stories. Didn’t she write a Trek novel or two? Or am I thinking of someone else? Speaking of Trek novels, a lot of those have been churned out, but I have been impressed with very few of the later ones. I loved them in the 70’s because that’s all I could get, and I was ravenous for anything I could lay my hands on. Unfortunately, most of the good writing has been done in the fanfic world (as you said, some stories would leave you in shreds). Books now are like nuTrek, i.e., we have the names of the characters and the technological devices; all we have to do is plug them into this unimaginative plot. My opinion, at any rate.
I love KCS's stories. You can also find her as kcscribbler on An Archive of Our Own. I just read this story by Pat Foley (who was recommended elsewhere in this thread), and I highly recommend it as it gives a realistic explanation as to why the Spock of "The Menagerie" is more expressive than the Spock of TOS (that is, Kirk's Spock): https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4095990/1/For-the-Good-of-the-Service