Well, I haven't yet read the Phoenix books.
Have read Triangle but don't remember it at all.
Post TMP novels
- Thread starter EnriqueH
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Have read Triangle but don't remember it at all.
Don’t read the Phoenix books! I’ve only read the first one (Price of the Phoenix) which was long-winded and wordy, and should’ve ended with the cover line “Captain Kirk is dead”!. Phoenix was DOA.
Yeah. I actually punished myself and read "Fate of the Phoenix". It was a meandering mess. I didn't like either book, but at least "Price of the Phoenix" was coherent, even if a poor plot.
But "Fate" was a mess. And I got to the point I was just reading it because I started and felt committed to finishing it (call it an OCD trait, I hate leaving a book unfinished). I really got to the point that I couldn't care less what happened to the characters anymore. I just wanted it to end.
In a way it's a shame. M&C do actually touch on a few things that "could" be interesting if developed the right way. Planets wanting to leave the Federation for instance. Even Omne, the villain, has some potential but he ended up just being a sado-masochist basically. But they encounter a version of Omne from his past that seemed more complex. The problem is they didn't develop that further and just left it hang, like may other things.
They started with some foundational items that could have been at least interesting but they just let them die on the vine in favor of other things that weren't so good and it ended up being a poor book as a result.
Yeah. Fate and Prometheus both tried to engage with big philosophical ideas in ways that hadn't really been done in Trek novels before, but all they did was raise the questions and then drop them. Fate in particular was, I believe, the first Trek tie-in that challenged the morality of the Prime Directive. But then it failed to follow through.
I actually read it first, because it took me several years to find "Price..."
I think I had already read "Star Trek Lives!", so Ms Marshak had already introduced me to what had been happening in the K/S fanzines. A whole new world to a TMP newbie. I had not seen "The Enterprise Incident", either, but had read the Blish adaptation. Which helped.
I was not long out of teachers' college, and our Literature course had exposed us to a lot of "symbolism", such as the water symbolism in Frank Herbert's "Dune" (ugh!, including a big essay!). Picking up "Fate of the Phoenix" at least was a much slimmer book than "Dune", and no essay due, but it made me very aware that Marshak and Culbreath had probably recently done a university literature or writing course.
Are you aware the duology was originally... a hardcover fanfic?
Check out https://fanlore.org/wiki/Never_Mourn_Black_Omne
Fanlore also includes a photo of the pair (from a 1977 photo printed in the third "Space-Con" program book):
https://fanlore.org/wiki/Myrna_Culbreath
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