I've never read any of the Tarzan books, but I get the feeling Pocket may have used that

[5billionof5billion]

It was the book Child of Two Worlds where the Klingons kidnapped a child name was Erzula from aliens who didn't have the technology to fight back and raised her to be a Klingon brat who doesn't have a definition about honoring biological parents when the mom was trying to get her back after her too long living among creatures who murdered her biological dad. I would've liked the book better if the Cyrpians would've had the ability to launch a powerful enough fleet to kick their butts for them and her mom had used that threat against her daughter to persuade spend as much time with the Cyprians as she did with the Klingons who have no definition about honoring biological parents since she was the one who went through the physical pain of bringing her into the world and the non of the animalistic Klingons did. Their dietary preferences suck as much as their definition of honor.
It started off okay with Spock and his mom having a discussion about whether or not he should embrace the tradition of making a wish and blowing out candles on his seventh birthday, but it didn't have an honorable ending.
God bless, Jason Irelan

 

[Idran]

I would've liked the book better if the Cyrpians would've had the ability to launch a powerful enough fleet to kick their butts for them

Then you really missed the entire point of the book.

How did you take the TNG episode "Suddenly Human", out of curiosity?

 

[Greg Cox]

I'll fess to devouring the original Tarzan novels as a kid. By coincidence, in fact, I was cleaning my office the other day and stumbled onto an old, dog-earred TARZAN hardcover that I inherited from my grandfather.

But I can't say I had Tarzan in mind when writing CHILD. I was actually inspired by another classic tale, which nobody seems to picked up on yet . . . .

(The real-life case of Elian Gonzalez was also very much on my mind when I wrote that book.)

 

[vegaslover62]

I would've liked the book better if the Cyrpians would've had the ability to launch a powerful enough fleet to kick their butts for them

Yeah. Sure. Everybody's got the technology, the money, and the spine to go to war with the Klingons for the sake of one girl who truthfully doesn't want to be rescued...

 

[The Wormhole]

I didn't think of Tarzan at all reading the book. I did see similarities with the aforementioned TNG episode Suddenly Human, but there are sufficient enough differences as well.

 

[Greg Cox]

You know, I know I must have seen "Suddenly Human" at some point, probably when it first aired, but I honestly have no memory of it . . ...

 

[The Wormhole]

^^Suddenly Human.

 

[5billionof5billion]

If Suddenly Human is the episode where Chad Allen's character attacked Picard with a knife, then with all due respect, the only point I see there is that he wasn't attacking any of his biological parents who brought him into the world. I get bored with Klingon stories myself as well as Romulan and Cardassian stories, and the only ones I can't imagine getting tired of are the Borg books and the Founder books where Odo's shapeshifting. Another thing I didn't like about the book is that after Spock gave into that brat's wish when there was nothing her mom could do to convince her to spend a few years with her and he was giving the cover story of taking her to the brig, he said "This way, mister," when there was nothing mister about her.
God bless, Jason Irelan

 

[The Wormhole]

he said "This way, mister," when there was nothing mister about her.

That's just Starfleet training. Spock did refer to Saavik as "Mr. Saavik" in TWOK.

 

[5billionof5billion]

And there was nothing mister about Saavik either, which made the scene suck.
The Klingons and Erzula have to be wrong in this case because it looks like they were doing the devil's bidding when one of the ships had the same name as the Klingon version of the devil.
God bless, Jason Irelan

 

[Greg Cox]

Sometimes a name is just a name . . . .

For the record, there was no intent to suggest that the Klingons were doing "the devil's bidding." Honestly, it just seemed like a good, intimidating name for a Klingon battle cruiser, that's all.

 

[borgboy]

The whole Mr thing is just that in the future Mr is a gender neutral form of address and no longer just means male. Language evolves, and it makes sense in the equality of Trek's future. Trek's society shouldn't be exactly the same as ours just with sci fi tech.

 

[Christopher]

For the record, there was no intent to suggest that the Klingons were doing "the devil's bidding." Honestly, it just seemed like a good, intimidating name for a Klingon battle cruiser, that's all.

Also, Fek'lhr is not the devil. Kang clearly stated in "Day of the Dove" that Klingons have no devil. Fek'lhr is merely the guardian of the gates of Gre'thor, the realm of the dishonored dead. He's more Cerberus than Hades (although Hades wasn't the Devil either -- in fact, he was one of the least ill-behaved Greek gods).

And then there's the interesting point made by the current TV series Lucifer (and perhaps by the Neil Gaiman comic it's based on, though I'm not sure) -- why do we assume the Devil is the source of evil when his job is to be the one who punishes evildoers?

The whole Mr thing is just that in the future Mr is a gender neutral form of address and no longer just means male. Language evolves, and it makes sense in the equality of Trek's future. Trek's society shouldn't be exactly the same as ours just with sci fi tech.

Except it's dated and sexist to assume that "gender neutrality" means asking women to subsume their identity within a masculine default. That's not neutral at all. It's like the outmoded idea that it's okay to use "man" as a catchall term for "human" because it somehow implicitly or etymologically includes both sexes -- "man, embracing woman," as the old innuendo goes. It's really just advocating the idea that maleness is the natural default. I mean, why is "neutrality" achieved by calling women "Mister" instead of calling men "Miss"? Anything allegedly neutral is always in favor of the male. Like how we now consider it normal for women to wear pants -- which have become a "neutral" garment -- but it's still considered transvestism for men to wear skirts or dresses. It's a double standard, and that is by definition not neutral.

 

[borgboy]

Whether it's a good thing or not, it does still seem that Mr is a used as a gender neutral term. I doubt Saavik is overly concerned about the gender history of human terms of address. Mr probably was considered gender neutral on Earth long before she ever was referred to as Mr Saavik.

 

[Christopher]

Whether it's a good thing or not, it does still seem that Mr is a used as a gender neutral term. I doubt Saavik is overly concerned about the gender history of human terms of address. Mr probably was considered gender neutral on Earth long before she ever was referred to as Mr Saavik.

I'm not talking about the imaginary characters' attitudes, since those were the inventions of the real people who wrote the movie and thus arbitrarily conform to the writers' assumptions. I'm talking about the belief of the movie's all-male writers in the '80s that they were somehow being "gender-neutral" by imposing a masculine label on women, the obnoxious double standard that it was fine for men to retain their own gender identity but women had to suppress theirs in order to be treated as equal. It's a notion that didn't catch on and makes the movie feel sexist and outdated today, rather than predictive of an egalitarian future.

 

[borgboy]

Given that Trek is a pseudo military organization I saw Mr as a gender neutral form of address as something along the lines of using "sir" when referring to a female superior officer.
I do consider myself a pretty radical feminist, but the Mr thing never bothered me. There are people in Star Fleet who wouldn't be strictly male or female by our standards anyways, and Miss/Mrs is problematic due to it being hinged on marital status.
Ms is perfectly fine.

 

[Christopher]

Given that Trek is a pseudo military organization I saw Mr as a gender neutral form of address as something along the lines of using "sir" when referring to a female superior officer.

Again, though, the assumption that treating male as the default is in any way "neutral" is inherently sexist. You don't seem to be getting that. Favoring one side is the opposite of neutrality. Imagine that men were asked to accept being called "ma'am" or "Miss" or to wear uniforms with skirts, and you'd see from their reactions how very much not neutral it is. It's easy to pretend it's neutral when you're not the one who has to change.

 

[Greg Cox]

Hey, if it was good enough for Nicholas Meyer . . .

(Seriously, that was a couple of books ago, so I have no memory of what my reasoning was when I wrote that line.)

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, well, Meyer's view of the future was always seriously retro. And what was seen as progressive decades ago is often seen as regressive in the present -- like, say, including female officers in a starship crew yet limiting them to the roles of switchboard operator, nurse, and secretary.

 

[The Wormhole]

Imagine that men were asked to accept being called "ma'am" or "Miss" or to wear uniforms with skirts,

That sort of did happen in TNG.