General Q & A Session For The Authors

[Christopher]

I believe to truly “get” the voice and texture of a given franchise, a tie-in writer needs to care about the world, characters and tropes of that IP; and that sounds like being a fan to me.

But the assumption of the people who usually say "Only a fan can write good X" is that you have to have a pre-existing fandom for the material, that being a fan to start with is the only way you can possibly know the subject or understand it, which is absurd, because it ignores the entire concept of learning. Yes, it's important to care about the material while you're writing it, but you can learn to love it. Bennett & Meyer weren't fans of Trek before they were hired to do the second movie, but they watched the whole series and found things in it that they loved and were glad to build on. I wasn't that fond of Enterprise in its original run, but when I was hired to take over the post-finale novels, I rewatched it twice and found things I valued in it.

Fans like to glorify and romanticize what they are, but really, learning to love media franchises is no different from learning to love any other subject you choose to write about. I researched the science of artificial space habitats for my novel Only Superhuman, read Gerard K. O'Neill's The High Frontier and the seminal research papers about space habitats from the '70s and the revisionist work that's been done since then, and I became a fan of space habitats, to the point that I now think colonizing and terraforming alien planets is silly and inefficient when you could build thousands of planets' worth of habitable surface area out of the asteroids and comets in our own Solar system.

So yes, you need to be invested in the material, but having already been a fan of it beforehand is not the only way to achieve that. A lot of the time, it comes naturally from throwing yourself into the research, immersing yourself in a subject to such a degree that it becomes intimately familiar and second nature.

And frankly, if you were not a fan of the IP, why would you even want to write for it in the first place?

As I mentioned, I was recently offered a shot to pitch for an IP I'd never even heard of, but it was a concept that was right in my wheelhouse, that aligned perfectly with the kind of things I'm interested in and with my skill set and focus as a writer. It's something I would've enjoyed writing novels for, even though I was unfamiliar with the media property the novels would've connected to. No IP exists in a vacuum; everything's part of a genre, of a wider style or category of storytelling, and you can be invested in the overall genre if not in the specific work.

Basically, I would've liked the gig because it would've let me tell the kind of stories I would've wanted to tell anyway in my original fiction. And to a large extent, that's what I've gotten out of Star Trek too. I wouldn't enjoy Trek writing if I'd had to follow the strictures of the '90s and just color within the existing lines of the franchise. I thrived as a Trek novelist because I had the freedom to fill in unexplored gaps in the timeline with concepts of my own, to explore the kind of ideas and themes I would've explored in my original science fiction if given the chance. The fact that it was in a universe I was already a fan of was nice too, but mainly I wanted to tell my own stories.

It's the same with Tangent Knights. While it's stylistically an homage to the tokusatsu shows I've been a fan of in recent years, the concepts and characters are largely recycled from old, unused comic book series premises I developed in the '90s. So the satisfaction is as much about finally getting to tell my own stories, in whatever form, as it is about paying tribute to a genre I'm a fan of.

 

[James Swallow]

But the assumption of the people who usually say "Only a fan can write good X" is that you have to have a pre-existing fandom for the material, that being a fan to start with is the only way you can possibly know the subject or understand it, which is absurd, because it ignores the entire concept of learning. Yes, it's important to care about the material while you're writing it, but you can learn to love it.

Nothing in my previous post puts a timeline on when or how a writer becomes invested in a given IP; my opinion is only that they must be, to write it well - and I feel to be invested in something is to become a fan of it, to some extent. That same metric can extend to genres, themes, etc.

 

[Christopher]

Nothing in my previous post puts a timeline on when or how a writer becomes invested in a given IP

Which is why I offered the wider context that the people who raise that question, in my experience, usually do presume that prior fandom is required. When they say "do you have to be a fan," they aren't thinking about learning to be a fan; they're talking about already being a fan beforehand. And to that, we agree, the answer is no.

 

[Greg Cox]

And frankly, if you were not a fan of the IP, why would you even want to write for it in the first place?

Part of the appeal, honestly, might be the challenge of being forced outside your comfort zone and getting to exercise new muscles. "Hmm, I've never written a police procedural before, or a historical romance, or a spy thriller, or a western, or whatever."

Like to think it keeps me fresh.

Granted, I did once turn down a chance to write a non-fiction kid's book on skateboarding -- because what on Earth qualified me to write about that? And it wasn't a topic I was willing to risk breaking my neck to research.

And, if you're lucky, you can become a fan once you delve into a show. The incident I referred to earlier involved LEVERAGE. I'd never watched the show before being hired to write one of the tie-ins, but ended up loving it. And, yes, I eagerly binge-watched the new revival series even though it's unlikely I'll ever write another LEVERAGE novel.

 

[James Swallow]

Part of the appeal, honestly, might be the challenge of being forced outside your comfort zone and getting to exercise new muscles. "Hmm, I've never written a police procedural before, or a historical romance, or a spy thriller, or a western, or whatever."

Yeah, I can see the merit in that. It's a good idea to stretch yourself as a writer now and then. I had the "out of your comfort zone" experience when I started writing my original Marc Dane thrillers (*cough* available now in all good bookstores *cough*), but it was leavened by the fact that I was a fan of the genre even though I hadn’t really written much in it.

To my earlier point; when I think about not writing for an IP if you’re not a fan of it, I’m looking back at my own personal experiences... I was once offered what would have been a lucrative gig on a videogame based on the adventures of a certain boy wizard, but I turned it down because I don’t care for that franchise. Sure, I’m professional enough that I could have turned in competent work, but I passed on it because I felt that a writer invested in the IP would do a much better job than I ever could. More recently, I had the chance to write a story in the setting of a huge, complex sci-fi board game with a deep lore that had stylistic similarities to other IPs I’ve written for... But to get up to speed on it from nothing would have taken a lot of time and effort, probably more than was required to actually write the story! So again, someone who was a fan of that IP was much better fit for the job than me.

I have read (and continue to read) a lot of tie-ins myself, and I suppose at the back of my mind I’m thinking of the ones that weren’t that great, where the author didn’t seem invested in the tone and texture of the IP they were writing. I want to do my best to ensure my readers don’t have that experience with anything I write.

 

[Christopher]

I have read (and continue to read) a lot of tie-ins myself, and I suppose at the back of my mind I’m thinking of the ones that weren’t that great, where the author didn’t seem invested in the tone and texture of the IP they were writing. I want to do my best to ensure my readers don’t have that experience with anything I write.

I read a fair number of novels back in the day by authors -- I won't name names -- who were acclaimed for their original SF or fantasy work but whose tie-in work was half-hearted and clearly just done for a buck. And that never seemed wise to me, because it seemed to me that one's tie-in work can be an advertisement for one's original work. At least some of the people who like your tie-in work might wonder, "Hey, what else has that person written?" and seek out your original stuff. So I've always felt that, even if you care more about your original writing and your tie-in work is just to pay the bills, it's still important to put your best effort into everything you do. I see that as being less about fandom and more just basic professionalism, not lowering your standards.

Granted, though, it certainly helps to stay invested in a tie-in property if you're a fan of it, if you enjoy working in that milieu. It's hard for me to write something I'm not invested in or don't enjoy. And I've never actually written for a tie-in franchise other than Trek or Marvel, or sought out potential tie-in work for something that didn't engage me. There was that one recent thing I didn't get, though, where I'd never heard of the thing being tied into, but its genre and focus were a near-ideal fit for my style and interests. So fandom isn't the only possible basis for investment in the work.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

No IP exists in a vacuum; everything's part of a genre, of a wider style or category of storytelling, and you can be invested in the overall genre if not in the specific work.

That's precisely my side of some perennial friendly sparring between me and the professor during the four semesters in which I took a Short Story Workshop class (yes, a post-baccalaureate at a junior college: it's cheap). She, coming from a "literary" background, kept insisting there's a difference between "literary fiction" and "genre fiction," while I asserted (and continue to assert) that all fiction is genre fiction, in that contemporary realism and historic realism are themselves genres. (The difference between good fiction and bad is that in good fiction, the genre serves the story [and is itself enriched by doing so], while in bad fiction, the story is the slave of the genre.)

I read a fair number of novels back in the day by authors -- I won't name names -- who were acclaimed for their original SF or fantasy work but whose tie-in work was half-hearted and clearly just done for a buck. And that never seemed wise to me, because it seemed to me that one's tie-in work can be an advertisement for one's original work.

Especially in the Bantam era, there were novels that were good science fiction, but bad Star Trek, because they were such a bad fit for the milieu, and/or the authors didn't feel the need to truly understand the characters they were writing (and those books would have been better novels if they'd been set in another milieu -- any other milieu). And then, too, there were novels that were slaves to not only the genre, but the franchise, and there was also a period in which the same plot, one which had already been done to death within the mere 79 episodes that existed at the time, got recycled again in literally every other novel.

And as to well-written tie-in fiction being "an advertisement for one's original work," that's how I became an ADF fan (and I have every one of his Humanx Commonwealth and Spellsinger books, and most of his standalone books as well. It didn't exactly hurt that HC shares ST's optimism for a future in which FTL travel is perfected, and Humanity has taken its place in a generally peaceful multi-species interstellar culture.)

 

[Christopher]

Especially in the Bantam era, there were novels that were good science fiction, but bad Star Trek, because they were such a bad fit for the milieu, and/or the authors didn't feel the need to truly understand the characters they were writing (and those books would have been better novels if they'd been set in another milieu -- any other milieu).

That's not what I'm talking about, though. It's hardly unheard of for an adaptation of a series to take a distinct, idiosyncratic take on the world and the characters that's still a good story in its own right -- for instance, Sherlock Holmes pastiches such as The Seven Per-Cent Solution and Elementary, or the Tim Burton version of Batman. The purpose of a story is not just to "fit." As I keep saying, it's misunderstanding fiction on a fundamental level to think that continuity is the only standard for judging it. A story can throw continuity out the window entirely and still be a great story. Fiction doesn't have to "fit," because it's all just made up.

Good grief, part of the fun of Trek fiction for me back in the '70s and '80s was that the various authors' takes on the universe didn't "fit" with each other, that they weren't just interchangeable installments in a uniform series, but that they reflected their authors' own distinct creative visions, the way they could take the same basics and imagine fascinatingly different ways of filling in the blanks. The most worthwhile ones were the ones that were the least generic, the most idiosyncratic, like Joe Haldeman's and David Gerrold's Bantam novels or John M. Ford and Diane Duane's Pocket novels. Those authors didn't just try to "fit" their vision to Trek continuity; they fit Trek to their own distinctive visions and voices.

No, what I'm talking about is not about anything as petty and superficial as whether a story "fits." I'm talking about whether a writer takes care in their work, whether they invest the effort in telling a story that's satisfying as a story, regardless of its relation to other stories. My point is that even if you care more about your original writing than your tie-in contracts, it's still self-defeating to do slapdash work in your tie-ins, because those are an opportunity to get new readers interested in your work as a whole. The ideal should be to put your best effort into whatever you write, regardless of what universe it's set in.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I don't mean they didn't fit with other novels. I don't even mean they didn't fit with canon. I mean they read like the authors were given a very rudimentary dramatis personae, and a one-paragraph condensation of the series format, without ever having seen an episode or read a script, and were possibly even just applying ST names to something they were already writing in a milieu of their own. If word processing technology were widely available, they might have just done a search-and-replace to make those substitutions, and gotten the same results.

And since you brought up Joe Haldeman, I will assert that he was one of two (albeit not the worst of the two) who kept using the already-over-used-in-canon "Kirk & co. stick their noses someplace where they don't belong, and promptly find themselves wrestling with forces beyond their understanding, let alone their control" cliche, as well as frequently showing a shocking ignorance of even the basics of ST.

Diane Duane and John Ford, by contrast, were simply examples (and damn good ones) of making the genre -- and the franchise -- serve the story, enriching genre, franchise, and story, in the process. And they did not contradict ideas established in prior work; rather, subsequent work contradicted their ideas (and did so by free choice, not that they had any reason to expect compliance, or any authority to demand it).

Of course, it didn't exactly help matters that in the Bantam era, (and well into the Pocket era, for that matter), the prevailing attitude was "if it's not dystopian, it's not real science fiction" (*cough* Heinlein *cough* Asimov *cough* Clarke *cough*), just as the prevailing attitude in music was "if it's tonal, then it can't possibly be new music" (even if the ink is barely dry on the manuscript score).

 

[Christopher]

I don't mean they didn't fit with other novels. I don't even mean they didn't fit with canon. I mean they read like the authors were given a very rudimentary dramatis personae, and a one-paragraph condensation of the series format, without ever having seen an episode or read a script, and were possibly even just applying ST names to something they were already writing in a milieu of their own. If word processing technology were widely available, they might have just done a search-and-replace to make those substitutions, and gotten the same results.

One more time: I am not talking about continuity or accuracy or whether they "did the research." All of that is beside my point. I'm talking about the intrinsic quality of the story. What makes a story good isn't about whether it checks the right boxes on a trivia quiz; it's about the richness of the characters and ideas, the sincerity of the emotions, the believability and depth of the conflicts, the beauty of the prose. That is what matters to telling a good story. Getting the facts and continuity right is just the surface layer. It's the easy part. I'm talking about the fundamentals of storytelling, about what makes a story enjoyable and meaningful no matter what continuity it's in. I'm saying some writers who put a lot of care into those fundamentals in their original work put a lot less care into them in their tie-in work, even if they get the superficial details of continuity right. And I find that unprofessional and self-defeating.

And since you brought up Joe Haldeman, I will assert that he was one of two (albeit not the worst of the two) who kept using the already-over-used-in-canon "Kirk & co. stick their noses someplace where they don't belong, and promptly find themselves wrestling with forces beyond their understanding, let alone their control" cliche, as well as frequently showing a shocking ignorance of even the basics of ST.

See, this is where we're judging from totally different standards. No, Haldeman's continuity may not have been perfect, but he was hardly alone in that; as I said, historically, that's been far more the norm than the exception for media tie-ins, especially back then before home video and the Internet. But Planet of Judgment is still one of my three favorite Bantam novels, because it's an engaging and well-written story that feels substantial. Indeed, my three favorite Bantams -- the others being The Galactic Whirlpool and Spock Must Die! -- are all quite idiosyncratic in their takes on Trek continuity, and that's part of what I like about them, because it makes them stand out as creative and distinctive works of fiction, while many of the others feel more generic and interchangeable.

Diane Duane and John Ford, by contrast, were simply examples (and damn good ones) of making the genre -- and the franchise -- serve the story, enriching genre, franchise, and story, in the process. And they did not contradict ideas established in prior work; rather, subsequent work contradicted their ideas (and did so by free choice, not that they had any reason to expect compliance, or any authority to demand it).

You're still not getting that it's not about "contradiction." Back then, canon was 79 episodes (101 if you counted TAS) and a couple of movies, with a vast, poorly-defined universe beyond them. The reason Ford's and Duane's books made such an impact is not merely because they were (roughly) consistent with that limited canon -- a very low bar back then -- but because they went beyond it and filled in the emptiness with original creativity in their own distinctive styles and voices. They didn't just tell generic, interchangeable Trek stories. Ford told a John M. Ford-style story set in the Trek universe. Duane told Diane Duane-style stories set in the Trek universe. Haldeman told Joe Haldeman-style stories that happened to be in the Trek universe. They made them their own, and that was what made them stand out from the pack.

And that is exactly what I've always aspired to in my own tie-in work -- to tell Christopher L. Bennett-style stories in the Trek universe, or the Marvel universe, or whatever. To let my readers know that this is the kind of storytelling they can find in my original work. To go beyond mere consistency with canon and add something worthwhile of my own, something I put the same care into that I'd put into my original fiction.

Of course, it didn't exactly help matters that in the Bantam era, (and well into the Pocket era, for that matter), the prevailing attitude was "if it's not dystopian, it's not real science fiction" (*cough* Heinlein *cough* Asimov *cough* Clarke *cough*)

You think Clarke is dystopian? Seriously? Sure, he did some apocalyptic stories here and there, but a lot of his books portrayed more optimistic, Trekkish futures, e.g. Rendezvous with Rama, Imperial Earth, and The Fountains of Paradise. Clarke's positive futures were a major influence on my own optimistic SF.

 

[DrBeverly]

Which is why I offered the wider context that the people who raise that question, in my experience, usually do presume that prior fandom is required. When they say "do you have to be a fan," they aren't thinking about learning to be a fan; they're talking about already being a fan beforehand. And to that, we agree, the answer is no.

The answers in this thread have been really interesting, so thank you all for your input in all this.

I just wanted to clarify that I didn't mean to imply that I thought prior fandom is a requirement, or that the better tie-in fiction is written by those who are fans. In fact, my assumption would normally have been no, that you don't have to be a fan at all in order to write good Star Trek fiction. It's mainly that I'd been struck by the fact that it seems like a significant number of the more prolific current tie-in writers *are* fans (like yourself), whereas I didn't get that impression so much about many of the previous generation of writers (those in the 90s, for example). But that view may be skewed by the fact that the internet has made it so much easier to visibly be a fan, on message boards such as this and on Twitter.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

You think Clarke is dystopian?

Not in the slightest. I was mentioning Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke (punctuated by coughs) very specifically as examples of science fiction writers of impeccable reputation who wrote notable works (essentially everything I've read of their work) that WEREN'T the SLIGHTEST BIT dystopian (and which, in so doing, demonstrated that the whole "real science fiction must be dystopian" notion is nothing but the same sort of elitist equine scat as the "new music can't be tonal, or even modal" notion.

And I don't argue that Haldeman's Planet of Judgment wasn't an excellent story, and an excellent work of science fiction, and the best, by far, of the first four ST novels (first five, if you count Horatius). Not that being the best of the first four was exactly a high bar, given that two of the others were Spock: Messiah and The Price of the Phoenix. At any rate, Judgment might have been better if it hadn't been written as a ST novel.

And of course Diane Duane and John Ford expanded on canon. What else could I have meant when I said they made the genre (and the franchise) serve the story, in a way that enriched genre, franchise, and story, rather than making the story the slave of the genre?

 

[Christopher]

At any rate, Judgment might have been better if it hadn't been written as a ST novel.

Which still has nothing whatsoever to do with the point I was trying to make. I'm not talking about stories that would be good if they weren't Trek. On the contrary. I'm talking about writers who did good work in their original fiction, but who (in my opinion) lowered their standards and did mediocre work in their tie-in fiction. I'm saying that Planet of Judgment is a book that avoided that. I've seen Haldeman say, pretty much in as many words, that he didn't try as hard with his Trek novels, that he saw them as just something he churned out for the paycheck, but PoJ still managed to be an imaginative and engaging story despite that. I'm talking about a number of '90s Trek novels that did not achieve that, that were mediocre in the quality of their prose, plotting, and characterization even though they were by authors whose original SF work was acclaimed and award-winning.

What I'm saying is that that's self-defeating for a writer, because most tie-in readers will only know you from your tie-in work. It's your introduction to a potential new audience. And if you do slapdash work, that audience will come away thinking you're a weak writer and won't be interested in seeking out your original fiction. That's what I realized when I read those weaker novels in the '90s, and it's why I resolved that I'd always try to put the same care into all my work regardless of whether it was original or tie-in. My original writing is naturally closer to my heart and more central to my career goals, but my tie-ins are advertisements for my original writing, so it's important to do them well too. Plus it's just a matter of professional pride to maintain my standards in all my work (insofar as tight deadlines permit).


Anyway, I disagree profoundly with your assessment of Planet of Judgment's Trekiness. It was one of the only Bantam novels that really engaged with Trek continuity and characters in any meaningful way, delving into the cast's psychologies and histories and giving us our first look at McCoy's divorce backstory. The mere fact that Haldeman even knew of McCoy's backstory shows that he did do his Trek homework better than most, and was invested in making use of it. Most of the other Bantam novels just told stories that had the TOS characters in them, but Haldeman told a story that was about who Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were as people, and that is a real Trek story, on a far more meaningful level than, say, whether the landing party procedure was accurate. Indeed, I think Haldeman's version of landing party procedures was much smarter and better than what the show offered, no doubt the result of his real-life military background. What you see as errors, I see as conscious poetic license that enriched the work.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I will note that Haldeman's other Bantam ST opus wasn't as good as Judgment (but was better than some others). I will also note that I'd completely forgotten that it was Haldeman, in Judgment, that fleshed out McCoy's backstory in a way that, so far as I am aware, has never been contradicted (at least not outright), whether by canon or by non-canon. Thank you for reminding me of that.

I will also note that I consider David Gerrold's opus, The Galactic Whirlpool, to be one of the greatest highlights of the Bantam era. Of course, anybody who has read Gerrold's "making-of" book on "The Trouble with Tribbles" will recognize that Whirlpool is a descendant of one of his early spec outlines; I'm delighted that it finally got fleshed out as a ST novel (my understanding is that there's another published non-ST descendant of that same outline, that supposedly evolved in different directions, but I've never actually seen a copy).

 

[Christopher]

I will also note that I'd completely forgotten that it was Haldeman, in Judgment, that fleshed out McCoy's backstory in a way that, so far as I am aware, has never been contradicted (at least not outright), whether by canon or by non-canon.

No, it has been contradicted. Haldeman said McCoy's wife was named Honey (it's pretty clearly treated as a given name rather than a nickname), while Vonda McIntyre established her name as Jocelyn. And later novels differ from PoJ on how and why the divorce happened, who got custody, etc. Also, Haldeman used Joanna as the daughter's name as usual, but Gold Key's comics named her Barbara.

Of course, it's all imaginary anyway, so whether a story gets contradicted has nothing to do with whether it's good. PoJ still stands out as one of the few Bantam novels that really tried to explore the characters and expand the universe.

I will also note that I consider David Gerrold's opus, The Galactic Whirlpool, to be one of the greatest highlights of the Bantam era. Of course, anybody who has read Gerrold's "making-of" book on "The Trouble with Tribbles" will recognize that Whirlpool is a descendant of one of his early spec outlines; I'm delighted that it finally got fleshed out as a ST novel (my understanding is that there's another published non-ST descendant of that same outline, that supposedly evolved in different directions, but I've never actually seen a copy).

Ohh, it has several descendants. Gerrold initially tried writing the premise, Yesterday's Children, as a novel under that title, but he found it veering off in a completely different direction and told that story instead, incongruously keeping the title that no longer had anything to do with the story. Years later, about the same time as Whirlpool, he released a new edition that added numerous chapters after the original ending and inverted the outcome (in a way that I found inferior to the original, though fortunately everything before that point is identical so you can just stop there and get the original version). This was originally released under the same title (that's the edition I have) but was later reissued as Starhunt.

Years later, after Gerrold's bad experience on the original ST:TNG staff, he reworked the Starhunt premise and characters into a TV series pitch, Voyage of the Star Wolf, that was basically how he would've done TNG given free rein. He didn't get it made as a TV series, so he eventually reworked its pilot script into a novel of that name, and later released two sequels, one novelizing two further Star Wolf scripts, another adapting Gerrold's rejected TNG script "Blood and Fire."

So counting The Galactic Whirlpool, there are about six distinct books that descended from that original proposal, in three different universes.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Completely forgot about the "Honey," too. But I will note that a person can have more than one given name (I am James Harlyn Hayden Lampert, and I use both middle initials; that's "Harlyn," with a "Y," not "Harlan" as in Ellison, or "Harland" as in Col. Sanders), and that many people go by a middle name, rather than the first name (I know one personally), or by a different name depending on who's addressing them (one of my mother's childhood friends went by a diminutive of her middle name within their group, to avoid confusion with another friend with the same first name, but went by her first name everywhere else, and ST even has that with Gary Mitchell: everybody but Kirk calls him "Mitch"). So I'm not terribly concerned about that.

And as to Gold Key, well, their version of ST is not exactly the most respected (they were much better at handling properties rooted in animated cartoon short subjects; for a time, I followed Uncle Scrooge, Super Goof, and The Pink Panther).

 

[plynch]

Read ALL of those. Thanks for the memories.

 

[Tuskin38]

Are there any of your own stories you’d like to rewrite?

If you were given the chance to do your own take on a Star Trek episode of movie, what would you choose to rewrite?

 

[Greg Cox]

Are there any of your own stories you’d like to rewrite?

I kinda wish the term "Augment" had been introduced before I wrote my EUGENICS WARS novels. Would have been nice to have a convenient (and canonical) label for "genetically-engineered superhumans."

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Although "Augment" does smack just a bit of calling someone of less-than-typical intelligence a "retard." Or applying that slur to someone who is of greater-than-typical intelligence, who happens to be socially awkward, easily distracted, and bored in school.

**********

And Mr. Bennett, thank you very much for inspiring me to re-read Planet of Judgment. I'd completely forgotten that most of my pleasant memories of the early Bantam era (like the scene of a groggy McCoy muttering mangled med-school mnemonics* involving fat-assed Germans eating hops) came from that particular opus. Or that the simile of "looking like a botched autopsy" (which I frequently use to describe a plate of food that I've finished with) also originated here.
_____
*if I'd been able to find a synonym for "groggy" that began with "M," I'd have carried the alliteration one word further.