Spoilers Dread Pirate Spock: A Review of “Black Fire”

[Cake Is Eternal]

I had so much fun writing this review of this rollercoaster ride of a novel!

https://treksphere.com/merchandise/...EkeZpSg60cL07Bk0FOX6kqm0RUK8eeUotR-Bg7Bvjs7P0

 

[Reanok]

Great review of Black fire it was fun reading the book and the story for Spock and Scotty and the Romulans in this books.

 

[Christopher]

I'll give Black Fire credit for one thing: It's the book that introduced me to the word "depilatory."

But seriously, yes, it's a ridiculous but fun book, completely over the top and impressive for its sheer scope and chutzpah. It's enough story to support an entire modern season arc crammed into a compact space, and it puts the characters through major, extensive changes and far-ranging interstellar journeys (while eventually hitting the reset button) at a time when most novels were just about the latest planet of the week.

 

[Cake Is Eternal]

I'll give Black Fire credit for one thing: It's the book that introduced me to the word "depilatory."

But seriously, yes, it's a ridiculous but fun book, completely over the top and impressive for its sheer scope and chutzpah. It's enough story to support an entire modern season arc crammed into a compact space, and it puts the characters through major, extensive changes and far-ranging interstellar journeys (while eventually hitting the reset button) at a time when most novels were just about the latest planet of the week.

I agree. I file this book under “comfort Trek.” I had to engage thoughtfully with the text in order to write this piece, but it is a book I turn to for a “hug” from early Star Trek. I do think that if Sonni Cooper had written this novel at the height of her powers as a writer and with a really good dev editor like Marco, it would have been a top ten list Trek novel of all time.

 

[publiusr]

I bought this novel for the cover art as a teen…thinking Black Fire was that Klingon ship…a new model…thinking it would be a TMP Balance of Terror deal.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'll give Black Fire credit for one thing: It's the book that introduced me to the word "depilatory."

Hmm. Now if you'd been watching daytime television during the 1960s and 1970s (I watched game shows and variety-talk shows like Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore, but NOT soaps!), you'd have seen a goodly number of commercials for Nair and Neet (the latter now known as "Veet").

And likewise, for a few months in either late 1985 or 1986, I was the token Honkie (and while I don't invite anybody to refer to me by my ethincity, I do prefer "Honkie," or even "Blue-Eyed Devil" to the rather bland, colorless, "white guy"; it reminds me of just how much I need to atone for the misdeeds of my ancestors) on an otherwise all African-American crew of Maintenance Workers, working for the south and south-central portion of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and heard a few references to a product called "Magic Shave."

 

[Christopher]

Hmm. Now if you'd been watching daytime television during the 1960s and 1970s (I watched game shows and variety-talk shows like Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore, but NOT soaps!), you'd have seen a goodly number of commercials for Nair and Neet (the latter now known as "Veet").

Of course I was aware of the products, I just didn't know that word for them.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Truth be told, I probably only knew the generic term because some commercial for one of the products, or maybe some commercial for a safety razor optimized for legs and armpits, mentioned it.

And I wasn't kidding about preferring "Honkie." Or "Gringo." If you must refer to me by my ethnicity, I'll thank you to do so in the most dysphemistic way possible. (And if anybody here is from off-planet, then please refer to me as an "earther," rather than as a "human" or a "Terran.")

As to the opus that's the subject of this discussion, I rather enjoyed it, and it actually holds up rather well, as of the last time I read it (which wasn't all that long ago), although I did (and do) nonetheless regard it as a "guilty pleasure." In the sense of something I'd give up for Lent.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'm now about 75% of the way through re-reading the present opus. I'd mostly forgotten the part about Spock getting

Spoiler

thrown in a penal colony

, and I'd completely forgotten the part about Spock

Spoiler

getting a commission in the Romulan fleet, and Desus turning out to be some kind of admiral.

I'd also forgotten about how many parts of it, especially in about the first hundred or so pages, were verbose and tedious.

And BTW, I'd classified this opus as a "guilty pleasure" long before the OP's review was even written.