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Trek Lit: Adult only?

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It's not even explicit scenes that are annoying. I was reading one book the other day where there was some rogue crew who had turns having sex with somebody on their ship. I think there was even a line somewhere along there like "Let's have sex tonight" or something.

I don't mind the books being aimed at a more mature audience, but the recent Trek books have come off as having a pretention to maturity. It's like reading a story by a 14-year-old who's trying to be edgy.
Really, which book was that in?

One of the later A Time To books. They were trying to smuggle evidence to frame somebody or other. I've tried to put that series out of my mind, but I remember that bit.
 
I think it was in Mack's duo, Kill/Heal, at some point. And I see where you're coming from, it was a little over the top.

Everything Mack has done since that duo, I think, has been absolutely top-notch brilliant, but I'll say that that duo was a bit uneven at times. It's kind of interesting to see how he matured as a writer after he got his first couple of novels done.
 
There was an interesting book published - maybe 10 years ago - that had Trek stories told in various different styles. I thought I'd still got it but can't see it now. Some of them were appalling, but there were some (a James Joyce homage as I recall) that was good. Steve R - do you know the one I mean?

Paul
 
Treks Not Taken. I never bought it, but I did skim it in the bookstore. I remember the Crichton one as amusing. I'd probably get more of them now that I've experienced more literature.
 
Yep, that's the one. Definitely fun.

The Crusher in the Rye, Not By J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Data, Not By Anthony Burgess
One Beamed onto the Cuckoo's Nest, Not By Ken Kesey
Jurassic Trek, Not By Michael Crichton
The Ship Also Rises, Not By Ernest Hemingway
Less Than Data, Not By Bret Easton Ellis
Trek-22, Not By Joseph Heller
All the Pretty Humans, Not By Cormac McCarthy
Lady Fed, Not By Jackie Collins
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fan, Not By James Joyce
The Vampire LeForge, Not By Anne Rice
Even Captains Get the Blues, Not By Tom Robbins
Q Clearance, Not By Tom Clancy
Moby Trek [abridged], Not By Herman Melville
The Trekking, Not By Stephen King
Fandom Shrugged, Not By Ayn Rand
Holodeck-5, or, God Bless You, Mr. Roddenberry, Not By Kurt Vonnegut
Trek of Darkness, Not By Joseph Conrad
On the Bridge, Not By Jack Kerouac
Oh, the Treks You'll Take!, Not By Dr. Seuss
 
I'm not one for explicit sex scenes in Star Trek because to be honest, we've never had that on screen and thus explicit sex just does not occur in the Trek Universe because it's not canon. :rommie:

On a more serious note, sex, like death happens, whether it's a casual friend with benefits or in a long term relationship and if the characters in Trek shag like bunnies I'm not too fussed, I'm really not. Yes I was sickened by Gul Dukat's actions in Fearful Symmetry but that wasn't sex, it was an act of physical abuse and domination by a very twisted bastard to start with and unfortunately that happens in reality and I found it more potent coming from a female writer than a male one.

Now one of the best things of the New Doctor Who for me is Captain Jack Harkness; He outragously flirts with anyone, regardless of sex or species and he'll probably do more than flirt given half a chance, ok, he's from a few years after the 24th Century, but by then, humanity I would have become more diverse in it's out look on sex, espcially with many of the "moral" compasses gone or not as prolific as they are now. So why not allow that into the fiction, if you don't agree with it, then fair enough, we're not all the same and things would be really boring if we all had the same opinion.

As for violence, I'm more a fan of implied violence so your imagination can fill in the gaps.

Oh, finally, I've recently reread A Time to Kill/Heal and although I found the events on Tezwa with the occupation and insergancy a bit close to the bone when it comes to any number of world events for the past thirty or so years and some of the moments were "holy shit" type moments but as far as I'm aware it did portray the reality of wars, espcially those that means the ones doing the peace keeping have thier hands tied by rightly impossed protocal's of war. What was your problem for whom who had it with the smugglers ship and the crew having exceptionally casual sex? I only ask as I didn't have any problem with it and I felt it added a form of realness to thier situation.
 
I think the books that are produced now are mostly considered to be 'rated E for Everyone' or at worst rated 'T for teen' (to steal from the gaming industry rating system).

I think Vanguard might be a tad more adult than the others, but even that is mostly harmless.

I do think, however that it would be nice to have a diversity of target audiences in Trek where there be the YA books geared specifically toward the younger crowd, as well as books that tend to be more adult in nature, as well as those like we have now where they can be read by anybody.

I've long thought Star Trek would benefit from being on channels like Showtime or HBO and having more adult themes (and same goes for the books). Of course the first time you mention such a thing in a setting such as this the first response you get is "I don't want Star Trek Porn" or "I don't want Star Trek: Saw". Neither of which is what I mean when I say more adult themes. I just mean Star Trek stories that are still Star Trek where more adult scenes don't have to be either completely skipped or glossed over (because they can and do have a place in story telling) or be made utterly unrealistic or cartoonish in an effort to not show blood or what really happens when you are hit with a high powered disruptor.

Ive also thought Star Trek would be great if it were on a channel such as HBO. I think the creative freedom a channel like HBO would give would benefit the show and not hinder it.
 
I'm not one for explicit sex scenes in Star Trek because to be honest, we've never had that on screen and thus explicit sex just does not occur in the Trek Universe because it's not canon. :rommie:

XI may have some surprises for you.
 
I'm not one for explicit sex scenes in Star Trek because to be honest, we've never had that on screen and thus explicit sex just does not occur in the Trek Universe because it's not canon. :rommie:

XI may have some surprises for you.

I was joking given the whole if it ain't canon then it don't matter non argument that seems to come around every so often.

As for explicit sex scenes in Eleven, I suspect to get a wide enough demographic to sit in and watch it at the cinema it will be rated 12A over here and what ever rating corresponds to that in other territories (PG13 in the States?) which would include implied sexual content and if the BBFC are generous enough like the Dark Knight last year, maybe a hint of nipple for example! Which in my books isn't explicit at all.
 
Trek has technobabble, but that's never really been seen as a good thing. Is there any chance getting some novels geared more towards less homogenous use of language? I don't know about the rest of you, but the primary reason I read is for the words. Once you've read a novel one or more times, you know the plot, you know how the characters react. Then, the only thing that brings me back is how the story is told - look at what George Orwell did with language in Nineteen Eighty-Four, for instance, or that gorgeous dense prose of Mervyn Peake in Gormenghast, or Molly's soliloquy in Ulysses. Yeah, kids don't always read this kind of stuff (I did), but adults do. Even if you don't think much of the plot or characters, you can still read for enjoyment of language - for instance, Gravity's Rainbow didn't grab me for anything other than the way it told the story.

Any chance of cracking Trek's language mould in this direction?

I enjoy experimenting with language, and I try to work it into my fiction from time to time. In Ex Machina I had an alien who spoke in verse, and there's something similar in Over a Torrent Sea. And there were portions of The Buried Age where I did some experimental things with the printed text in an Alfred Bester-ish fashion.

A side note for brutal fight scenes: Interestingly enough, now that I've been boxing for a while, I know what kind of energy and intensity even 2-3 minutes in a ring brings. Given most TV & movie fights involve no protective gear, plus smashed glass or furniture, and etc. -- AND they generally last longer than 2 minutes -- I actually have a harder time NOW suspending my disbelief watching fight scenes than I do when watching lasers/phasers or transporters or etc. Talk about REAL fiction...

I recently saw something about stage/screen swordfighting vs. the real thing, and someone said that a real swordfight usually lasts for just one swing -- because in stage fighting, the combatants are aiming for each other's swords, while in reality they're aiming for the body, and it's not easy to block a sword with another sword (which is why soldiers have shields, come to think of it).

And years ago I saw something similar said about fistfights -- that they generally last a total of one blow. If you punch someone in the jaw, you might break their jaw and you'll probably break your fist.

I'm thinking of doing a massive cross-series Kzinti invasion story using nothing but LOLcat-Speak. Does that count?

0004s2p1

I'm sold.
 
The [new featured] aliens in Sword of Damocles not only have idiomatic quirks but incorporate various scents into their language such that the Universal Translator can't always do its job.

Fist fights can be of any duration but generally don't last nearly as long as they do in the movies.
 
Anyone else think that the sex scenes in Crucible between Kirk and Keeler actually cheapened their relationship? Not that they were explicit at all, but I felt it really undermined her character and made the relationship seem even weaker - which was a problem given how much the books already stretched it.

Then again, this was the same series that mentioned characters "exploring each other's bodies", which is one of the funniest things I've ever read.
 
Anyone else think that the sex scenes in Crucible between Kirk and Keeler actually cheapened their relationship? Not that they were explicit at all, but I felt it really undermined her character and made the relationship seem even weaker - which was a problem given how much the books already stretched it.

With the caveat that I never actually read the third Crucible book....

... why, exactly, does sex cheapen the relationship between two people who are in love?
 
Anyone else think that the sex scenes in Crucible between Kirk and Keeler actually cheapened their relationship? Not that they were explicit at all, but I felt it really undermined her character and made the relationship seem even weaker - which was a problem given how much the books already stretched it.

With the caveat that I never actually read the third Crucible book....

... why, exactly, does sex cheapen the relationship between two people who are in love?

I found it made her seem like another one of Kirk's conquests, and thought it would be more powerful if it were unconsumated. It also didn't feel right with the time period and Edith's character. All IMHO, of course.
 
I found it made her seem like another one of Kirk's conquests, and thought it would be more powerful if it were unconsumated.

I don't get that. Sex doesn't cancel out love. Sex between people who love each other, like any shared experience between people who love each other, is far more meaningful than between people who are just friends or casual acquaintances. It's the love itself that makes it special, not the lack of sex. Sex isn't a cheap or dirty or disreputable thing. It's a very healthy and natural way for human beings to share affection and pleasure, and there's no way that can't be special when it's an expression of love.

Besides, Kirk didn't make "conquests." As often as not, it was the women who pursued him. And he often rejected their advances for the sake of duty, or was only seducing them in the first place in order to advance his mission, again acting out of duty. His reputation as a womanizer is greatly caricatured, like everything else about his character. We saw repeatedly -- with Ruth, with Edith, with Miramanee, with Rayna -- that Jim Kirk was capable of deep, devoted love, and if anything had a tendency to fall too hard and too fast, to get too emotionally attached and vulnerable. A man like that doesn't see women as "conquests."

It also didn't feel right with the time period and Edith's character.

Agreed, one would expect someone calling herself "Sister Edith Keeler" and running a mission to be celibate -- but expectations aren't always accurate when it comes to individuals. Edith was portrayed as a very progressive woman for her time in a number of ways. And 1930 was actually a pretty liberal time in terms of sexuality, at least in some segments of the populace -- the flapper era and all that. Movies in that time actually got pretty risque, courtesy of the likes of Mae West and Jean Harlow, and that helped prompt the censorship of the Hays Code a few years later. Just because people back then didn't talk openly about premarital or extramarital sex didn't mean they weren't having it.
 
This came up in another thread. Is Trek Lit currently considered a series for adults or is the aim to make it readable for both adults and young people?

The concern was there shouldn't be any sex scenes since young people would read them. However, I had thought that the current relationships were acknowledged without explicit sex scenes.

How explicit should sex and relationships get in Trek Lit? Also, as long as we're discussing material suitable for younger readers how explicit should the violence be?

Sorry this is a bit rushed - I have to go to work!

Data Does Dallas. Better yet, Donatra Does Dallas.
 
Anyone else think that the sex scenes in Crucible between Kirk and Keeler actually cheapened their relationship? Not that they were explicit at all, but I felt it really undermined her character and made the relationship seem even weaker - which was a problem given how much the books already stretched it.

With the caveat that I never actually read the third Crucible book....

... why, exactly, does sex cheapen the relationship between two people who are in love?

I found it made her seem like another one of Kirk's conquests, and thought it would be more powerful if it were unconsumated. It also didn't feel right with the time period and Edith's character. All IMHO, of course.

Um, yeah ok then, now I know you said it's all in your humble opinion, but you are aware that the year is 2009 and that we are in the 21st Century and NOT 1859 and the middle of the Victorian era don't you?

I would have to agree with what Chris says, sex does not cancel out love, if anything, love can make that act far better than someone you just like and I don't think that Jim Kirk having sex with Edith Keeler ruins there relationship, it makes it, more real and believable.
 
hum... must be sort of tricky when the Doctor is your best friend.

Picard: I haven't felt well for a couple of days Beverly, did I pick up tarkilian flu?

Crusher: No... it's Denobulan clap.

Picard: ah...
 
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