So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[Christopher]

Greg Cox wrote:

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In fact, I suspect that lots of Trekkies have read and enjoyed the book without being aware of the "Here Comes the Brides" connection.

Quite true. I don't think it was until I read Bjo Trimble's book On the Good Ship Enterprise, with a chapter where she talks about Here Come the Brides, that I realized Ishmael was an unauthorized crossover between the shows.

The reason HCtB was of interest to Trek fans, and no doubt the reason why Ishmael crossed them over, was because its regular cast included several Trek guest stars, including Robert Brown, David Soul, and most notably Mark Lenard as the series' main antagonist. Ishmael portrayed Lenard's character in a more sympathetic light and, as an in-joke, made him a surrogate father figure for the amnesiac, time-displaced Spock.

[ronny]

Relayer1 wrote:

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What is "Here Comes the Brides" and could I enjoy the novel without getting the reference(s) ?

If I ever watched an episode of the show as a kid I don't remember it. I checked Netflix to see if it was available streaming but no luck, disk only. I read the Wikipedia entry for the series and that told me everything I needed to know to get what was going on. And Barbara Hambley explains everything anyway so I'm sure you don't even need that.

It looks like someone put up one episode, or at least chunks of it, with Steve Ihnat as a guest star on Youtube.

[Use of Time]

Well suffice to say, I had no idea what the tie in was and enjoyed the book on its own. Hambley did a nice job of making it a seamless read for those unaware of the HCtB tie-in.

[Christopher]

Indeed, I wonder if people who were fans of HCTB might have a problem with the book's portrayals, since it turns the show's villain into the hero (or at least antihero).

[Brit]

Christopher wrote:

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Indeed, I wonder if people who were fans of HCTB might have a problem with the book's portrayals, since it turns the show's villain into the hero (or at least antihero).

I was a fan of HCTB and I didn't have a problem with "Ishmael" at all, I thought it was a lot of fun. The thing is, there was a lot of females that liked Mark Leonard's character more than the others. He was the only reason my Mom watched the show in the first place. (She was also a Dr. McCoy, Scotty, Sarak fan in that order.)

[ronny]

Christopher wrote:

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Indeed, I wonder if people who were fans of HCTB might have a problem with the book's portrayals, since it turns the show's villain into the hero (or at least antihero).

I wondered about that a little myself. But I get the impression HCTB wasn't too serious of a show so I'm not sure how bad of a villain Aaron Stemple could have been. After all, he was just trying to prevent some women from marrying so he would get a mountain and I'm guessing there was trickery involved but he wasn't resorting to murder, threats or the like. But hey, I could be totally wrong, it's guess work on my part.

[T'Bonz]

I saw HCTB first-run as a kid, and before I saw any Star Trek. It was a fun little show.

I enjoyed the crossover book. It made me want to rewatch HCTB. Wonder if it's available for streaming.

[CorporalCaptain]

Greg Cox wrote:

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"Here Comes the Brides" was an old TV series (1968-1970) about mail-order brides in frontier Seattle. It's been decades since I read Ishmael but I imagine that it's perfectly possible to enjoy the book as a fun time-travel adventure in which Spock ends up in old Seattle even if you've never encountered the "Here Comes the Brides" characters before.

In fact, I suspect that lots of Trekkies have read and enjoyed the book without being aware of the "Here Comes the Brides" connection.

* raises hand, too *

[Endgame]

I got "Ishmael" as an e-book copy last year since I heard so much about it at this site and enjoyed it immensely and sort of ignored the HCTBs references. I guess it is by Barbara Hambly. I thought I had previously read it long ago because I failed to disambiguate it from the book with the same title by Quinn which is also something of an entertaining read.

[Patrick O'Brien]

Reading First Shift:Legacy by Hugh Howey. I enjoyed WOOL so much I thought I'd read a bit more of the series.

[wahwahkits]

Just started a re-read of 'Paths Of Disharmony'

[Greg Cox]

ronny wrote:

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I wondered about that a little myself. But I get the impression HCTB wasn't too serious of a show so I'm not sure how bad of a villain Aaron Stemple could have been. After all, he was just trying to prevent some women from marrying so he would get a mountain and I'm guessing there was trickery involved but he wasn't resorting to murder, threats or the like. But hey, I could be totally wrong, it's guess work on my part.

My (fuzzy) memory is that Aaron Stemple was more of a rival to our heroes than an out-and-out villain. He worked against our heroes' interests, and wanted to see them fail, but, no, he wasn't tieing the Brides to railroad tracks or anything. He was a competitor, not an arch-nemesis.

[Christopher]

I just finished re-reading Bantam's Star Trek: The New Voyages, the first professionally published Trek anthology from back in 1976, and one of the earliest books of original ST prose fiction ever published (only Mission to Horatius and Spock Must Die! preceded it). It's also probably the oldest surviving book in my personal Trek collection (I do have a couple that are physically older but that I haven't owned as long), and it's been ages since I actually read it. I read the stories so many times back in the early years that I still found them very familiar, but it was interesting to revisit them with a fresh perspective and see how well they held up.

The highlight of the volume is still the concluding story, "Mind-Sifter" by Shirley S. Maiewski. In concept it's a bit derivative of "City on the Edge of Forever" and "The Paradise Syndrome," but it's still pretty effective and emotionally engaging, and it's striking what a large and ambitious story it tells, spanning nearly 2 years of story time. (Although it has a couple of plot holes by virtue of being so focused on the personal consequences of its events that it glosses over the larger ramifications.) Another highlight is "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited" by Ruth Berman, in which Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelley are beamed aboard the real Enterprise and have to play their parts like never before (the flipside to a previous fanfic story, "Visit to a Weird Planet," which can be found online). It's a bit implausible how quickly the characters accept the incredible situation, but it's still rather fun. I also think "Intersection Point" by Juanita Coulson holds up very well; it feels like it could've been an episode of the show. Maybe not one of the best episodes, but it does capture that '60s-TV flavor very well.

The other stories are kind of a mixed bag, and a couple suffer from feeling too derivative of specific episodes. And while they're probably rather sedate for stories that started out as fanfic, there is one story ("The Enchanted Pool" by Marcia Ericson) that arguably falls into the "Mary Sue" category, and one or two that have a vague hint of slashiness. (And "Mind-Sifter" does somewhat fall into the classic "hurt-comfort" fanfic category.) Overall, though, the anthology does a pretty good job feeling like Star Trek rather than indulging in the excesses fanfic can be known for.

I don't still own The New Voyages 2, so I won't be moving on to that. I remember it being less satisfying overall, which is why I didn't keep it.

[kirk55555]

Greg Cox wrote:

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"Here Comes the Brides" was an old TV series (1968-1970) about mail-order brides in frontier Seattle. It's been decades since I read Ishmael but I imagine that it's perfectly possible to enjoy the book as a fun time-travel adventure in which Spock ends up in old Seattle even if you've never encountered the "Here Comes the Brides" characters before.

In fact, I suspect that lots of Trekkies have read and enjoyed the book without being aware of the "Here Comes the Brides" connection.

I didn't know it was related to a TV show until reading this thread. I read the book and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I did like the setting (since I live in Washington state, although I'm not near Seattle). The story overall was entertaining.

As for my reading right now, I'm almost done with To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh. Its a great book. It makes me want to read the other Khan books, except I can't stand Gary Seven (curse you, extremely boring mystery man. If only Assignment: Earth had never been written ). I like how this book portrays Khan and the others, and their story between the events of Space Seed and STII. It actually gave me some sympathy for Khan and his people. sure, they're not good guys, but they went through a lot, probably more than they deserved. I only have one question about something in the book, which I hope will be answered before the book is done

How did Chekov survive the ceti eel in STII? The book keeps stating that the host always dies. The movie made it look like the eel just comes out. Captain Terrell killed himself fighting the eel, like Khan's wife did in the book, but of the other people infected, they apparently just died eventually. Why would it leave chekov's head with no outside influence and without killing him, but everyone else (who didn't kill themselves) just died from the damage it inflicted to their brains? Its weird to hear that Chekov is apparently the only survivor of the eel.

Overall, its been a great book (I have less than 70 pages left, so I can safely say that, unless the last 70 pages totally ruin the book, which is unlikely). After this, I'll be rereading Star Wars: Republic Commando: True Colors, then probably reading some of the sT: Titan books (I've only read the first one, which I'll be rereading first before reading some of the others).

[NightJim]

Started New Frontier: Martyr last night. Now I know everything's on Kindle I think I'm going to burn through the series.