Love Old School Trek Classics? Let's Bantam Banter...

[T'Avri]

Recently I have been re-reading many of the classic Bantam and early Pocket Trek novels. While many of them are somewhat off in perspective and diverge heavily from canon, some of them are also gems from a different era. Anyone else have a soft spot for the classics?

For example, has anyone read Triangle or Killing Time recently? Both are really divergent in terms of the usual Spock/Kirk relationship. I don't think either of these could ever be printed today with the current state of the franchise as it is. Triangle especially is a weird menage-a-trois love and loss story, and probably one of the more offbeat and erotic Pocket novels.

And while I may be in the minority, I LOVED John Ford's How Much For Just The Planet. I know its totally the red-headed kre'nath of Trek fiction to some people... (props to anyone who immediately gets my subtle nod to AC Crispin) but again, its another kind of novel that would likely never be published today due to its irreverence and satyrical handling of TOS characters. That doesn't mean it isn't an exceptional novel, reminiscent of Trouble With Tribbles style humor, and worth a readthrough.

Sooo... What are your favorites? Which ones do you totally want to throw into the nearest black hole?

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I've only read one or two, since the modern continuity is my thing rather than classic Trek in all its manifestations, but I imagine I'll get round to reading more. I've not read any Bantam, but I've sampled some of the early Pocket Books:

Spock's World
My Enemy, My Ally and The Romulan Way
Uhura's Song
The Final Reflection
How Much For Just The Planet?

All were awesome. Especially How Much For Just The Planet?.

 

[T'Avri]

@Deranged Nasat:

Awesome! It so nice to hear someone say how incredible How Much For Just The Planet? is. I don't know why so many readers have mixed feelings about that particular book; maybe you have to be a nerd for Gilbert and Sullivan.. It is most likely because fans wanted a companion to The Final Reflection, which HMFJTP is definetly not.

I agree, all of those titles you listed are some of the finest in TOS fiction. If you liked Spock's World, you may also like A.C Crispin's Sarek as well. (It's a tear jerker, I'll warn you!) If you're looking for a wacky early read, Spock Must Die! is unique and fun. While totally unrealistic in many ways, it is comparable to TOS:The Enemy Within only with two Spocks instead. I may be biased, but IMO two Spock's are always better than one... even if he's got a beard.

 

[bbailey861]

The Bantam books have a soft spot in my heart. At one time, it was all we had, and back then, it was great.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

There was a time, when the Bantam releases were coming out fairly fast, that it seemed like 50% of them were quite good, and the other 50% were just bad variations on the "Enterprise pokes around in superbeing's pet primitive society, and gets slapped" theme.

And DN, I think you picked some of the best of the best of the early Pocket releases.

 

[T'Avri]

My greatest regret was unloading most of my early Bantam books long ago... I've been actively recollecting them in the past few years. Somehow my parents convinced me when I moved out on my own that I should sell them as proof of my maturity. Worst kahs-wan ordeal EVER. At least my sehlat didn't die for it.

Selling my Mandala Press FotoNovels was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done... well, selling my original Gold Key Archive comics was also a bad idea.. ugh, a lifetime of regret! So many regrets! #TrekAngst

-- Also, yes, I'd agree on the Bantam 50/50 split. Some were EPIC, some were horrid. Somehow even the crappier ones are special to me, though... VULCAN! comes to mind. Spock is a total sexist douche and the main Mary Sue character (HATE HATE HATE MARY SUE'S) is a complete bigot. But hey, its fantasy...

 

[DrCorby]

@Deranged Nasat:

I agree, all of those titles you listed are some of the finest in TOS fiction. If you liked Spock's World, you may also like A.C Crispin's Sarek as well. (It's a tear jerker, I'll warn you!)

Spock's World is one of my all-time favorites. But then, I'm a sucker for great world-building!

If you're looking for a wacky early read, Spock Must Die! is unique and fun. While totally unrealistic in many ways, it is comparable to TOS:The Enemy Within only with two Spocks instead. I may be biased, but IMO two Spock's are always better than one... even if he's got a beard.

Spock Must Die! (and his episode adaptations) led me to read Blish's Cities in Flight series and some of his short fiction, much of which I also enjoyed. It wasn't until years later that I realized that he'd dropped a few references to Cities in Flight events into some of his Star Trek writing. For years, I thought they were examples of local TV station syndication trims in the '70s that meant I'd never seen those scenes...

Published Star Trek fiction in those days was rare and treasured, and I gobbled it all up, even weird entries like Spock, Messiah! (They really loved messing with Spock!)

There was even a long book intro by David Gerrold, explaining that author Stephen Goldin (I think) was actually a were-koala. Humorous but a tad surreal. I remember nothing about the novel, but I remember that intro.

 

[EnriqueH]

I'm just getting back into reading Trek books after several years of not reading anything...Trek or otherwise.


I read TNG's "Romulan Stratagem" about a year and enjoyed it.

This year, I read "Spock Must Die!" by James Blish and I thought it was...hot and cold.

I thought there were some themes worthy of Trek, but I don't think Blish nailed the characters.

I know Blish wasn't at fault for Bones being replaced by Doc, but it was like a splash of cold water every time I read it.

Back in the 90s, I read Planet of Judgement and, while I don't remember it much at all, I *do* remember enjoying it.

 

[T'Avri]

I haven't read Planet of Judgment in years... I'll have to go back and check it out. I remember it was one of the more cerebral of the Bantam editions and the descriptions were quite stimulating.

As a TOS junkie, I don't usually read TNG novels as much. Recently, I did read TNG: Crossover for the first time, and I enjoyed it immensely. Of course Spock and McCoy were central characters so I was biased in choosing it, but whatever.. it was still a great read.

Has anyone read the Crucible series? I managed to get through the McCoy book and enjoyed it, I tolerated the Spock edition although about 2/3 of the way through up until the ending it royally PISSED ME OFF. (Seriously, how could the author think Spock would be motivated like that? It is totally counter to his revelations from V'Ger and beyond...it also negates all the incidences of his personal growth. I know he suffers a great loss, but it's like the author saw him as weak, broken and an escapist when he already learned from such mistakes and misconceptions... gah! I'm still harboring anger even after reading it months ago.)

The Kirk book was simply unbearable to me. It was repetitive and pedantic. Anyone else have this opinion?

 

[Markonian]

I read Uhura's Song and Dreadnought! years ago.
The former I enjoyed especially but I don't read TOS novels often, except for new ones, because it feels like it's taking ages to read them.

 

[Commishsleer]

I haven't read Planet of Judgment in years... I'll have to go back and check it out. I remember it was one of the more cerebral of the Bantam editions and the descriptions were quite stimulating.

As a TOS junkie, I don't usually read TNG novels as much. Recently, I did read TNG: Crossover for the first time, and I enjoyed it immensely. Of course Spock and McCoy were central characters so I was biased in choosing it, but whatever.. it was still a great read.

Has anyone read the Crucible series? I managed to get through the McCoy book and enjoyed it, I tolerated the Spock edition although about 2/3 of the way through up until the ending it royally PISSED ME OFF. (Seriously, how could the author think Spock would be motivated like that? It is totally counter to his revelations from V'Ger and beyond...it also negates all the incidences of his personal growth. I know he suffers a great loss, but it's like the author saw him as weak, broken and an escapist when he already learned from such mistakes and misconceptions... gah! I'm still harboring anger even after reading it months ago.)

The Kirk book was simply unbearable to me. It was repetitive and pedantic. Anyone else have this opinion?

I totally agree with you. I too harbour anger against the Crucible books. LOL. But its been a couple of years for me.

To me IMHO they were well written and researched but I didn't believe that Kirk and Spock would act that way. I suppose my main overall criticism was that Spock seemed to be pained (enough to 'ruin' his life) with this guilt about Kirk but Spock featured very little in Kirk's regard.
I felt their friendship was a bit more well matched in TOS and the TOS movies.

There's only one other TOS novel which I dislike more and like a few of the posters here I believe in the 50% hit and miss ratio for Bantam books.

 

[Christopher]

I think 50% hits is a generous assessment for Bantam. The only really good ones, for me, were Planet of Judgment and The Galactic Whirlpool. Spock Must Die! is also pretty memorable and intriguing, albeit rather flawed. Trek to Madworld and World Without End are decent, as are some of the New Voyages stories (more in the first volume than the second), but the rest range from mediocre to dreadful.

 

[UncleRogi]

I have to agree with the fifty/fifty rating. But at the same time, I enjoyed them all! It was only later readings that colored my opinion on some. Spock: Messiah! is still a guilty pleasure for me.

I still read The New Voyages volumes from time to time; just great stories.

And when I was younger, I enjoyed the Phoenix novels for the Omne character. But Ms Marshak and Ms Culbreath have quite a reputation among long time trek lit folk
Slash fiction at it's beginnings. Triangle was one of theirs.

 

[Klaus]

I liked them all despite their flaws to some extent because they were all the Trek we had, but I'd also agree on the 50-50 split.

I also haven't read any of them in decades... I never read Planet of Judgement, but I do have a copy I picked up used later on... I'll add it to the queue.

...and yes, I loved How Much For Just The Planet? too.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

Oh, yes, those classic Bantam novels! Had to believe it's been 30+ years ago since I picked those up. Planet of Judgment was the first one I got. Great insights into Spock and McCoy but a little bloody in spots compared to aired Trek. The line that will aways still in my mind is: Hevelin's body looked like a botched autospy.

Price of the Phoenix and its sequel were my favorites. This was before I knew anything about K/S and some slash elements that are hinted at. I thought it was a great follow up to the Spock/McCoy dilemma from "Tholian Web." A nice study into the problems of immortality, tho, a little too much debating about ethics and so forth that slowed the story down.

Spock, Messiah, Devil World, World Without End and Starless World were all on the dry side with little character development that I liked in the previous novels.

Galactic Whirlpool has a lot of fans but I found it hard to wade through with all the constant diversions into Specks and the story of Kirk surrendering the Enterprise. I did like the fact that the "Away Team" concept was used instead of the Captain always beaming into the thick of things.

Vulcan! had a lot of tension. It would never have made it in TNG stories. Tremain is very childish, Spock and McCoy seemed out of character. The Arachnians were interesting as was the peek into their subterranean city building. Mixed feelings on this one.

Death's Angel takes the spotlight off the main characters and puts way too much on Schaeffer and the alien ambassadors.

Spock Must Die! was also bland to me. The Spock situation smacked too much of the same problem that I had with "Whom Gods Destroy" and "turnabout Intruder." There are many personal questions that could be asked to determine who is the real deal.

Trek to Madworld was an enjoyable read but average to me.

In the early Pocket books, I liked Entropy Effect, and Covenant of the Crown for more character insights.
I didn't really care for Klingon Gambit, Black Fire or Abode of Life.

Prometheus Design had a great concept with the Helvans and aliens but I didn't care for all the pie-in-the-sky rhetotic the invade the authors' books. Their take on Vulcans and Vulcan command mode left me cold.

Triangle had a neat idea to follow up on new human concept from Roddenberry's STTMP novel. But the menage a trois situation coupled with the pon farr was really lame like any Mary Sue character.

The Pocket Books really started losing my interest from about "Trellisane Confrontation, Pawns and Symbols, Dwellers in the Crucible and onward with an occasional gem like Spock's World, Sarek, My Enemy, My Ally, and Uhura's Song.

For me Pocket's batting average is about 70-30 compared to Bantam's 20-80 when it comes to good stories.

 

[Commishsleer]

I think 50% hits is a generous assessment for Bantam. The only really good ones, for me, were Planet of Judgment and The Galactic Whirlpool. Spock Must Die! is also pretty memorable and intriguing, albeit rather flawed. Trek to Madworld and World Without End are decent, as are some of the New Voyages stories (more in the first volume than the second), but the rest range from mediocre to dreadful.

Well yes 50% might be too generous.
I've got to say I didn't really like Spock Must Die either.

My main complaint about the early novels and comics (even worse) was that the authors didn't seem to have even seen Star Trek - their characterisations were so wrong and out of some text book.
I loved Planet of Judgement even though it has a lot of things I don't usually like about in Star Trek novels (ie Other Characters) because amongst other things it got the main Star Trek characters right.

Complain as you might about the slashy overtones in Marshak and Culberth - at least they sort of got the characters right. :Puts helmet on to deflect flak LOL:

 

[T'Avri]

They were quite slashy now that I think of it... Yet, still I found them redeemable and enjoyable. Don't get me wrong, I will interject t'hy'la into any and every situation possible just to be an arse, but I have never been in for the slashy stuff. I know its a prevalent part if Trek culture at this point. From a sociological/ psychological perspective, the entire Spirk, Spones, etc fixation is ... fascinating.

But anyways, back to the topic...The early novels and comics weren't held to the same rigid franchise rules that are in place now. In some ways this lack of homogeny is somewhat good... It makes the older works more unique. I think some of the newer novels suffer because they are to in line with our expectations and the same formula gets stale.

I live for canon and continuity but when it comes to the early works, I let errors slide a bit.

...and I liked Triangle even though it was like 50 shades Star Trek edition. Except the end. She should have just fell in the hole and freakin' died instead of making me read about it for 20 pages. The sexual situations in Triangle were oddly less awkward than in Spock: Crucible and that's saying something. :\ (maybe that's just my anger talking...)

If you want to think of awkward, read Pandora Principle immediately followed by Vulcan's Heart.... it makes it all sorts of Games of Thrones-y and somewhat unpalatable.

 

[Therin of Andor]

My best memories of the Bantam books have to do with the quest to find them! Hard as it seems to believe, back in the early 80s there was no definitive list (until "A Star Trek Catalog") that gave all of the titles, and every time I found a new (to me) novel, the ad inside would ask "Have you also read...?" and name another title I'd not heard of, and then had to find.

I actually read "Fate of the Phoenix" before "Price of the Phoenix" because I simply couldn't find "Price" - at any price! Even then, I ended up with the Corgi UK edition for a long time, whose cover featured an alien not even in the story(?):


Price of the Phoenix UK by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

"The Galactic Whirlpool" was previewed in "Starlog", then the night it arrived, there were limited copies and as I picked it up in the bookshop all the power went out. We were told to put down our intended purchases and leave the store. I went back just on closing time and the blackout had just ended. Whew!

I'd never heard of "World Without End" - what a cool surprise to see it in a newsagent, in a suburb I rarely went to. Made that trip to the doctor very memorable. Too bad it featured yet another strange world without end.

I was thrilled when my local SF shop suddenly got in new stock of the elusive "Trek to Madworld", but I was disappointed it was about yet another strange (but similar) world and a mad alien.

A second hand bookshop in the city centre got in a very clean first edition of "Spock Must Die!" and I splurged and replaced my tattered copy. Ditto a very nice first edition of (just) "Star Trek" by James Blish, to replace my "Star Trek 1" reprint. (Although I did like the Tuttle & Bailey colour insert in the reprint, advertising the TAS collectible cels!)

A friend made this Si-s-s-s (click) costume, from "Death's Angel", then left for England - and I still have the papier-mache head in a suitcase. (The hands and gloves were used in a local TV commercial for pool chemicals - and eventually the rubber perished.):


Si-s-s-s (click) by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

 

[Desert Kris]

This is a timely thread! I've ben wanting to explore the worldbuilding of the ST novels' 80's continuity, and I started it off with The Wounded Sky; I'm almost done with it. It was a bit of a rough start, but it's really taken off for me.

What's curious about it is the visual it promotes is a lot like how I imagined the 80's novels would look anyways: a nebulously undefined era were the characters are in their classic boldly color gold, blue and red colors, but the Enterprise has her movie look.

In another sense, this particular book kind of belongs to it's own internal continuity, it's own version of ST. Given the way the story is going, where they really are building a universe, I almost want to think that they are essentially creating the universe that will contain the "proper" version of ST (just a fun thought, should be interesting to see where it really goes).

One of the more intriguing curiosities are these references to the various humanities, including some that haven't been discovered; almost as if they are suggesting the Klingons, Romulans and Vulcans are branchings of humanity. Not sure what to make of it.

 

[Christopher]

One of the more intriguing curiosities are these references to the various humanities, including some that haven't been discovered; almost as if they are suggesting the Klingons, Romulans and Vulcans are branchings of humanity. Not sure what to make of it.

I don't think Duane's intention was to claim that those species were actual members or offshoots of genus Homo. After all, she applied the term "humanities" to nonhominid forms like Sulamid and Denebians as well. She was using "humanity" more in a conceptual and ethical sense than a biological one -- humanity in the sense of personhood, of beings who possess the mental qualities and moral rights that we today consider the particular purview of human beings. Basically Duane posited that in the future we would extend our definition of "human" as we extended human rights and recognition to other species.