Star Trek: The Fate of the Phoenix by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath (1979)

[Damian]

Trek to Madworld was a fun romp

You know, I didn't care to much for that one. I read it last summer and I sort of lost interest in it about halfway through. I think partly because it started with one story, the colony facing catastrophe, and became something completely different and the original storyline was largely forgotten. It wasn't as bad as the Phoenix novels, it just didn't hold my interest.

"The Galactic Whirlpool" is something I'll have to add to my re-read list. I remember very little about it so it will almost be like new. I don't recall if I read "Planet of Judgment" now. I'll have to skim through it quickly to see if I read it or not already. I thought I did but when I read the summary on Memory Beta I'm not so sure.

 

[Daddy Todd]

You definitely should give it another look. For my money, the best of the Bantam books.

It IS the best of the Bantams (only Planet of Judgment even comes close). But that’s pretty faint praise, considering the competition.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I've never read any of the Marshak/Culbreath Trek novels and, judging from the descriptions I've read, I'm sure I never will, but dear God, do I love reading TrekBBS threads talking about how insane they are.

 

[JD]

I've seen them discussed on here a few times, and pretty much everything I've heard has convinced me to stay very far away from them.

 

[ClayinCA]

I've never read any of the Marshak/Culbreath Trek novels and, judging from the descriptions I've read, I'm sure I never will, but dear God, do I love reading TrekBBS threads talking about how insane they are.

I've seen them discussed on here a few times, and pretty much everything I've heard has convinced me to stay very far away from them.

If only I'd had someone to warn me away from their books back in the 70s...!

 

[RonG]

I read the books in part *because* of the warnings and talk on trekBBS
I like to understand and know firsthand the full range of Trek writing styles, eras etc., and this was quite tempting (weird, I know)..

These are not the most.. engaging of Trek novels but it did lead me to read their Pocket Books entries. The plot and prose are.. unique among TrekLit, to say the least

 

[Ovation]

This thread is like a trip down memory lane. I read (and bought) just about all the Trek lit from the late 70s to the mid 80s, though I’ve not revisited them since then. I have only vague memories of them individually but I do certainly recall the...unusual...flavour of the Marshak/Culbreath collaborations.

 

[Daddy Todd]

This thread is like a trip down memory lane. I read (and bought) just about all the Trek lit from the late 70s to the mid 80s, though I’ve not revisited them since then. I have only vague memories of them individually but I do certainly recall the...unusual...flavour of the Marshak/Culbreath collaborations.

Find a copy of the “autobiography” they wrote for Shatner, “Shatner: Where No Man...” to experience that unusual flavor in its fullest flower. It just doesn’t get any worse than that book.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Find a copy of the “autobiography” they wrote for Shatner, “Shatner: Where No Man...” to experience that unusual flavor in its fullest flower. It just doesn’t get any worse than that book.

Didn't Shatner supposedly buy up all the copies of that book to have it destroyed or taken out of circulation?

 

[Daddy Todd]

Didn't Shatner supposedly buy up all the copies of that book to have it destroyed or taken out of circulation?

He may have tried, but I’ve got a good half-dozen copies sitting on my shelf. They show up on eBay on the regular.

Far more likely, once it went out of print with the original publisher (Ace Books, who only did one printing, AFAIK) and reverted to Shatner, he buried it, and never sold it to another publisher. Even Koenig’s Chekov’s Enterprise was republished in the ‘90’s, so there was definitely a market.

 

[Commishsleer]

I'm going to give these books some love.

I really like them.

They'd be in my top 10 Star Trek books. At least early books.

I find the plots interesting, Omne fascinating and I love the inclusion and characterisation of the Romulan Commander. I like the details such as water being too hot or door handle's too hard for Kirk to turn on a Romulan ship.

I read the early books (as a child) as they were published anxiously waiting for any Star Trek. The two previous novels "Spock Must Die" and "Spock Messiah" were (to me) absolutely awful in characterisation. In these novels it looked like Kirk and Spock were merely colleagues and Kirk wasn't worried out killing Spock off to save the day. The early novels generally were written by people who didn't understand or care about the characters. So the Marshak/Culbreath novels came as a welcome change.

However when I read them as a young teen I didn't get the slash implications and now I'm a "sophisticated" adult I can see that they're there. So what. I'm just taking the novels as a tale of "friendship" dialed up to 10.

My favorite Bantams are The Galactic Whirlpool and Planet of Judgment.

Planet of Judgement is my favourite early novel.
I like the characterisations and even the additional characters are interesting and don't take away from the Star Trek feel.

...
That's the most self-indulgent and romance-novelish one of the whole lot, with a plot involving Spock's second pon farr and a female lead who's one of the two most archetypal Mary Sues in Trek Lit (the other being Elizabeth Schaeffer from Death's Angel).

Death's Angel - worst Star Trek novel I've ever read. Actually half-read because I couldn't stand it anymore.

 

[Damian]

Death's Angel - worst Star Trek novel I've ever read. Actually half-read because I couldn't stand it anymore.

That's one of the Bantam novels I have yet to read. I guess I should consider myself warned.

But like I noted before, none of the Bantam novels have blown me a way thus far, and I only have about 3 left. I've tried to avoid comparing them to later novels and that sort of thing. I don't think it's that I expect them to follow current standards.

But I've found them to be at best, average, from even a basic story perspective. I thought Vulcan! was ok from a story perspective, but I get the criticisms of it. Spock Must Die was sort of meh. Not terrible, but I was a bit disappointed since it was a James Blish original. I thought it would be better than it was. A Starless World was interesting enough and I guess that was ok. I didn't care for Trek to Madworld all that much, which seems to have it's fans so I guess I'm in the minority there. And obviously I didn't have a lot of love for the Phoenix novels---I'd rank Price slightly higher only because the plot was a bit more straightforward. But the slash elements can put the first edition of Killing Time to shame.

At some point I have to read "Mission to Horatius". I found a first edition at an antique store for a couple bucks in good condition so I picked it up. As I understand it, the novel is written for young adults so I'll have to consider it accordingly. But I should be interesting to read a novel with so little background to work with, since it was written contemporaneously to the show.

I also will have to read my copy of "The Making of Star Trek". While nonfiction I've found out here that was the basis for a lot of what we saw and read in the early years of Star Trek. I found a first edition version of that but I have yet to read it.

 

[JD]

I'm going to give these books some love.

I really like them.

They'd be in my top 10 Star Trek books. At least early books.

I find the plots interesting, Omne fascinating and I love the inclusion and characterisation of the Romulan Commander. I like the details such as water being too hot or door handle's too hard for Kirk to turn on a Romulan ship.

I read the early books (as a child) as they were published anxiously waiting for any Star Trek. The two previous novels "Spock Must Die" and "Spock Messiah" were (to me) absolutely awful in characterisation. In these novels it looked like Kirk and Spock were merely colleagues and Kirk wasn't worried out killing Spock off to save the day. The early novels generally were written by people who didn't understand or care about the characters. So the Marshak/Culbreath novels came as a welcome change.

However when I read them as a young teen I didn't get the slash implications and now I'm a "sophisticated" adult I can see that they're there. So what. I'm just taking the novels as a tale of "friendship" dialed up to 10.

I think you are literally the only person I have ever seen on here who actually likes the M&C novels.

 

[Commishsleer]

I think you are literally the only person I have ever seen on here who actually likes the M&C novels.

The only one who has the guts to admit it.

Actually I understand the hate.
I'm thinking some small part of it might be that these novels are equivalent to an adult rated movie while most Star Trek books would be PG at worse, You'd be happy for your young teens to read them.

Star Trek isn't a franchise that has realistic, gritty portrayals of the extremely negative aspects of life like Walking Dead or Silence of the Lambs so it would be strange to see stuff like murder, rape, domination in Star Trek novels.

Still the M&C novels to me are a bit different and I suppose the early authors had a certain freedom so you weren't sure what would happen. Still I didn't like say "Spock:Messiah" because of its sexism and character portrayals and its adult concepts.

 

[Skipper]

My first Star Trek was The Price of the Phoenix and almost the last. Did the the authors at the time have any sort of guideline?!? It almost seems to me that they could write anything they wanted except killing main characters...

 

[Damian]

My first Star Trek was The Price of the Phoenix and almost the last. Did the the authors at the time have any sort of guideline?!? It almost seems to me that they could write anything they wanted except killing main characters...

I wondered that myself, particularly with Price of the Phoenix. I guess back in the 1970's there wasn't as much oversight over tie ins by Paramount like there is these days by CBS (or even Paramount in later years). That seemed to change in the late 80's or early 90's.

Though I do wonder if someone back then did notice the 'slash' feel of Price and told M/S to tone it down because in Fate it was much more subdued, almost nonexistent (though there was a lot of female domination present--maybe as an alternative to male-male domination---M/S seemed to have a fetish with some sort of domination). It's a shame in a way because they did present some interesting ideas at times, that if developed could have made for a good story. Worlds wanting to secede from the Federation, arguments over the Prime Directive, I even thought Omne had interesting potential---but M/S seemed so focus on their dominatrix themes and pushing some sort of agenda those story ideas got lost, and sometimes forgotten.

 

[Christopher]

Actually I understand the hate.
I'm thinking some small part of it might be that these novels are equivalent to an adult rated movie while most Star Trek books would be PG at worse, You'd be happy for your young teens to read them.

Oh, hardly. For one thing, they don't contain any graphic material, just suggestiveness and some degree of nudity. There are equivalent scenes in plenty of Trek books, and the only difference in M&C's books is the implied homosexuality in some of them. And it's homophobic to think that implied same-sex content is any more "adult" than implied heterosexual content.

As anyone who's read my Trek and original fiction (especially Only Superhuman) knows, I've got nothing against adult content. I dislike the M&C novels because they have terrible writing. The characters are twisted out of character to fit the authors' fetishes, which are a warped interpretation of male homosexuality that I gather real gay men (certainly David Gerrold, at least) find offensive and degrading, and that have an unhealthy degree of nonconsensuality built into them. (The moment I permanently soured on The Price of the Phoenix was the moment when I realized that a scene of Omne forcing Kirk to his knees before him was implicitly an attempted oral rape.) The stories drone on for dozens of pages about the authors' philosophical notions, which are interesting in some ways, but then they trail off without ever resolving any of the issues they raise. And the characters other than Kirk, Spock, and occasionally McCoy are overlooked or virtually absent.

 

[Commishsleer]

Oh, hardly. For one thing, they don't contain any graphic material, just suggestiveness and some degree of nudity. There are equivalent scenes in plenty of Trek books, and the only difference in M&C's books is the implied homosexuality in some of them.

The moment I permanently soured on The Price of the Phoenix was the moment when I realized that a scene of Omne forcing Kirk to his knees before him was implicitly an attempted oral rape.)

I've read lots of TOS novels (obviously not as many as you) but I'm looking at 60 right now on my bookshelf and don't remember much adult content except in Spock:Messiah - yuk or the TMP novelisation - rolls eyes.
I remember a few novels talking about pon farr but IMO they have a different tone not menacing like the M&C stories. Maybe I've mentally skimmed over them.

Well I didn't get the implication of the scene so perhaps a re-read with more critical eyes is in order.Yes that crosses the line.

And I don't mean adult content like in sex or nudity but more along the lines of torture , kidnapping, trying to get Spock to betray everything he stands for, disenfranchise Kirk, blackmail, murder etc. I'm not explaining myself well enough, I'll try to explain it better but I'm probably just digging a hole for myself.

In most novels, most episodes, the crew get into some mortal danger. Kirk, Spock, Scotty maybe with some alien help work out a solution and save the day. Kirk and Spock rarely look at themselves and risk their reputations, their way of life, their beliefs.They may risk their lives but not who they are.

In the M&C novels Kirk and Spock risk more than their lives and this makes them interesting to me. Despite their other flaws.

I wondered that myself, particularly with Price of the Phoenix. I guess back in the 1970's there wasn't as much oversight over tie ins by Paramount like there is these days by CBS (or even Paramount in later years). That seemed to change in the late 80's or early 90's.

Though I do wonder if someone back then did notice the 'slash' feel of Price and told M/S to tone it down because in Fate it was much more subdued, almost nonexistent (though there was a lot of female domination present--maybe as an alternative to male-male domination---M/S seemed to have a fetish with some sort of domination). It's a shame in a way because they did present some interesting ideas at times, that if developed could have made for a good story. Worlds wanting to secede from the Federation, arguments over the Prime Directive, I even thought Omne had interesting potential---but M/S seemed so focus on their dominatrix themes and pushing some sort of agenda those story ideas got lost, and sometimes forgotten.

Yes they had some good story ideas IMO.
I thought the female domination aspect was a pleasant change for Star Trek.
OK no-one should dominate but tell that to T'Pring - the property of the victor.

 

[Christopher]

I don't disagree that the M&C novels are more daring in a lot of ways than your typical Trek novel, that they try to put the characters through intense emotional journeys and challenge their beliefs rather than just telling typical adventure stories. What I disagree with emphatically is your premise that readers dislike them because of that. I'm sure readers would love that sort of thing if it weren't so badly written and trashy. M&C tried to do something ambitious, but they simply didn't do it well.

 

[Damian]

Yes they had some good story ideas IMO.
I thought the female domination aspect was a pleasant change for Star Trek.

I think it's just the whole domination thing overall was a bit overboard in Price and Fate. In the first it was male-male domination, then in the 2nd it was female-male domination. And with multiple characters.

And the other issue I had particularly with Price is some of the slash elements involving Kirk and Spock. It seemed way out of character for me. I never, ever got the impression that either character had any homosexual or homoerotic tendencies. I hope it's not homophobic to say that, but as some people are homosexual, there are also some that aren't. And I never saw that with Kirk and Spock and it feels unnatural to me to see that for that reason. It also goes back to that idea that people can be close friends, even have a certain loving friendship without it being one secretly longing for the other. That goes for guy-guy, girl-girl and guy-girl. We all know those people who are close friends like Kirk and Spock were, but if someone suggested maybe they'd make a good couple you think 'Them?!?!'

I'm sure readers would love that sort of thing if it weren't so badly written and trashy. M&C tried to do something ambitious, but they simply didn't do it well.

I think that's it really in a nutshell. With Price and Fate it wasn't so much the ideas they presented. It was the poor way they tell the story. And esp. with Fate the story was a meandering mess for me. I would rank Price slightly higher only because it was easier to follow. But both were a chore to read, and a book shouldn't be a chore, reading one of my college textbooks would probably be better