Billy Van Zandt (right) as the Rhaandarite Ensign Vaylin Zaand by Ian McLean, on Flickr I also like how Christopher's work on the Rhaandarite species in "Ex Machina" led to us seeing quite a few more in novels over recent years.
I feel like it's a little weird that this novel hasn't come up in the thread beyond this one quick mention but, to elaborate, the titular Body Electric is the machine civilization that found Voyager VI and turned it into V'Ger (well, set it on the path to becoming V'Ger, if Kirk's supposition about its development is correct), and that novel has the most detail on what their whole deal is of anything in off-screen Trek (aside, I suppose, from "The Return," but that book supposes that the Borg were the machine civilization that the probe encountered, and handwaves away the issue that the Borg as we know them would either assimilate Voyager, or disregard it as too primitive to be worth their time, and not do something as altruistic as to plug it into a giant spaceship to return-to-sender).
IIRC, The Return tried to rationalize its V-Ger/Borg link despite the massive contradictions between the two by postulating that there were several separate, independent branches of Borg that had different attributes and weren't in contact with each other -- which is silly, because in that case, why even bother to postulate a link at all? I get the impression that Shatner wanted to link the two (perhaps because Roddenberry suggested it) while the Reeves-Stevenses recognized that they just didn't go together and tried to fudge it as best they could.
did that female officer have a name? I liked how involved and passionate she seemed “What’s the problem...blah blah”
Not in the movie, but in my post-TMP continuity, she's Reiko Onami, a xenopsychologist. She returns in my upcoming The Higher Frontier.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned it, but the TMP novelization is probably the top book for V’Ger. And it was just reprinted for TMP’s 40th anniversary.
I've been looking forward to getting this book I like stories that place during the Star trek Tos movie era.
In real life, Momo Yashima was the featured child character in a notable children's picture book, "Momo's Kitten", written by her parents! Momo's Kitten by Mitsu & Taro Yashima by Ian McLean, on Flickr
And she was the sister of the gravelly-voiced actor Mako Iwamatsu (better known as just Mako). Interesting story there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taro_Yashima#Early_life