I'll concede the point, except that you're leaving out, I think, the most striking similarity, which is that the Romulan time travel results in a Kirk who is somewhat of a loser/delinquent (although perhaps in differing degrees), and who ends up serving on an alternate-history Enterprise in a very low rank.
Killing Time question.
- Thread starter The Laughing Vulcan
- Start date
I have to admit, I was looking forward to reading the author's thoughts in Voyages of Imagination a few years back. Unfortunately, the author "could not be contacted."
Check Amazon for some old "Enterprise Incidents", perhaps. Della's husband, James Van Hise, was the editor. Della and her writing partner, Wendy Rathbone, discussed some aspects of "Killing Time" in an interview, IIRC.
Yep. PsiPhi's never had a website listing for her.
Scary site!
Since no one else has mentioned this..am I the only one who finds her behavior to be incredibly unprofessional? Seriously, write Kirk/Spock porn on your own time.
I have absolutely no problem with gay characters in Trek lit, but at least use a character with no history or just make up a new one. Putting in references to something that doesn't exist and that goes against everything we have seen onscreen to fulfill some sort of bizarre personal fantasy is very strange to say the least.
I have absolutely no problem with gay characters in Trek lit, but at least use a character with no history or just make up a new one. Putting in references to something that doesn't exist and that goes against everything we have seen onscreen to fulfill some sort of bizarre personal fantasy is very strange to say the least.
Ms. Van Hise's behavior was completely professional. She wrote a draft, her editor requested that she make changes to tone that element down (and just because you and I don't see K/S onscreen doesn't mean others don't; besides which, have you seen "Plato's Stepchildren"?????), and she made those changes like a good professional.
It was the editor who sent the wrong draft through production that was unprofessional.....................
Or perhaps merely unlucky. "Shit Happens," right? Even to the most professional of editors?
Not that I'm an expert but those early K/S zine writers started from a very strong, well-defended "What if...?" premise. A perhaps extreme idea but what if... the Enterprise did as it was ordered and did not return to Vulcan to cure Spock's mysterious pon farr in "Amok Time"?
Christine Chapel was one, perhaps flimsy, option - and someone with a strong mental bond to Spock (and strong physical constitution) was the other. Homosexuality wasn't necessarily the focus, but the bonds of friendship, honor, duty, and pre-existing mental connections were. ie. How far would a captain go to help a friend?
That numerous K/S and other "slash" writers graduated from amateur porn to published pro authors is well-documented. They didn't all go on to write ST novels or even more erotica, but they certainly honed their craft and garnered many fans.
Only a month apart from the "Ishmael" scandal.
I don't see how Plato's Stepchildren enters into it. Yeah they are some parts people see as funny or silly in it, but any homosexual overtones involved obviously went over my head. Are you talking about the "horse" parts? Or their clothing? I always saw that as an exercise in humiliation. Maybe you could suggest that the people controlling them had some sort of homosexual intent, but the characters certainly didn't. They had no control over themselves and were obviously in pain and completely humiliated in every possible way. I suppose that says something for seeing things in different ways.
You're a professional writer KRAD so I suppose you have a lot more insight into this..but I must humbly disagree. Sure the editor is at fault, but I don't see how that absolves the writer of blame since the cleaned up version seems to still have veiled references to Kirk and Spock having some sort of gay love going on. I see this as the author allowing her personal feelings about something to interfere with doing her job. It is in the same realm as suggesting that Luke Skywalker and Han Solo have a homosexual relationship.
Kirk and Spock were obviously both attracted to women throughout the series, especially Kirk. Are we saying that every character must come out and state "I am not gay" or the door is open to that? Even if every single one of their actions suggests the opposite? What if in a future TNG novel Riker and Picard are suddenly portrayed as being gay lovers because "somebody sees it that way" It makes no sense.
I find kind of silly that any instance of two men being close friends and caring about each other opens the door to someone saying "they were gay". This is really about a group of people who WANT Kirk and Spock to be gay (despite everything onscreen ever seen suggesting that they are not) because they get a charge out of it. Not my cup of tea, but that is fine. Fan fiction and slash is one thing, but if you lack the self control to include ideas like this in a profesisonally written story I think that you are cheating your readers and being disingenuous.
Just my feelings about it, feel free to disagree folks!
You're a professional writer KRAD so I suppose you have a lot more insight into this..but I must humbly disagree. Sure the editor is at fault, but I don't see how that absolves the writer of blame since the cleaned up version seems to still have veiled references to Kirk and Spock having some sort of gay love going on. I see this as the author allowing her personal feelings about something to interfere with doing her job. It is in the same realm as suggesting that Luke Skywalker and Han Solo have a homosexual relationship.
Kirk and Spock were obviously both attracted to women throughout the series, especially Kirk. Are we saying that every character must come out and state "I am not gay" or the door is open to that? Even if every single one of their actions suggests the opposite? What if in a future TNG novel Riker and Picard are suddenly portrayed as being gay lovers because "somebody sees it that way" It makes no sense.
I find kind of silly that any instance of two men being close friends and caring about each other opens the door to someone saying "they were gay". This is really about a group of people who WANT Kirk and Spock to be gay (despite everything onscreen ever seen suggesting that they are not) because they get a charge out of it. Not my cup of tea, but that is fine. Fan fiction and slash is one thing, but if you lack the self control to include ideas like this in a profesisonally written story I think that you are cheating your readers and being disingenuous.
Just my feelings about it, feel free to disagree folks!
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1998 called. They want the Quantum Shaman site back.
*Runs*
That wasn't the message of the first K/S stories anyway. It was how far would Kirk go to prevent his friend and first officer from dying of pon farr?
And, who knows, perhaps everyone in the 23rd century is bisexual? No need for labels.
That's really a stretch. For one thing, the "alternate history" isn't remotely as different, and serves a totally different narrative purpose. In KT, the whole reality is drastically altered and the difference in Kirk is merely a consequence of the global change. In STJJ, the primary change is targeted specifically (or so it appears) at Kirk himself, and his life is the main thing that's changed, while most everything else (aside from minor variations like the look and construction location of the Enterprise) is reasonably similar. Also, in STJJ, Spock is not the captain of the ship. And about a million other differences.
It's always possible to cherrypick and find a few similarities between two given things. But those similarities aren't meaningful if they're hugely outnumbered by the differences. You've cited nothing that couldn't very easily be coincidence.
Heck, if you ask some fans, Roddenberry himself alluded to such a relationship, in his novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
I think it's easy to lose sight of how different the boundaries of Star Trek as a fictional universe were in the early 1980s- looking at some of the early novels that were evidently acceptable to all concerned, one can see how van Hise might have honestly believed K/S material was fair game. And if she did, then there was nothing unprofessional about including it in her first draft. Unwise, perhaps, but not unprofessional.
^ Or even of the K/S phenomenon. It's hard to be active on the Internet today and not be aware of it; and, by the same token, not to associate the concept with the realms poor fanfic and the emoticon- and lolspeak-addicted fangirls who write it. An editor in the early 80s would not have had the opportunity to become sensitized to such subtext; conversely, those who wrote it did not carry the stigma of the amateurish angst-porn slash is know for today.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Only in order to debunk it. He presented the novel as a dramatization based on actual events, with an introduction written by James T. Kirk himself. On p. 22, there's a footnote in which Kirk responds to the rumor (apparently existing in the 23rd century among some people who've followed the real-life exploits of these explorers) that he and Spock are lovers. He says:
Great going there, Jimmy -- you just casually blabbed the Vulcan's deepest, darkest secret to the whole galaxy! Whatever happened to "I haven't heard a word you've said?" It's a good thing he wasn't sleeping with Spock, or that relationship would've surely been sunk by this one thoughtless betrayal of trust.
And I just noticed: "I have always found my best gratification" in women. Which doesn't rule out the possibility that he's found gratification with someone other than women.
^ Good points people. Perhaps unprofessional wasn't the best way to put it. I still consider it to be ridiculous, silly and bad judgment though.
There were so many "blank slate" characters available to play around with in the original series. Something like this would have worked much better with a couple of them, where the evidence wasn't completely against it.
There were so many "blank slate" characters available to play around with in the original series. Something like this would have worked much better with a couple of them, where the evidence wasn't completely against it.
The problem is that the evidence is not, by its nature, going to be "completely against" anything. It's inevitable with a fictional universe that people will interpret it in wildly different ways. Take the quote from the TMP novelization Christopher offers above. Like I say, I'm not into K/S, but I know that if I were I'd interpret Kirk's statement as a case of "the lady doth protest too much." That's not what Roddenberry meant (I doubt he was enough of a novelist to think of using unreliable narration, for one thing), but as every fan has concluded at one time or another, intentions ain't everything.
As Trent says, K/S has, for lots of reasons, a really bad reputation these days. But it probably wasn't always like that. There's no reason to assume that the assumptions behind some of the current fiction will continue indefinitely either. Maybe 25 years from now message board posters will wonder in amazement how those crazy novelists ever thought the Picard/Crusher relationship could be anything other than an unrequited attraction.
As Trent says, K/S has, for lots of reasons, a really bad reputation these days. But it probably wasn't always like that. There's no reason to assume that the assumptions behind some of the current fiction will continue indefinitely either. Maybe 25 years from now message board posters will wonder in amazement how those crazy novelists ever thought the Picard/Crusher relationship could be anything other than an unrequited attraction.
Yes, I know all of that, which is why I said, "According to some fans," who've chosen to interpret things differently. After all, "according to some fans" and despite the evidence, Kirk sleeps with Uhura in the new movie, and the Aventine is about to get its own series.
