So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[Kertrats47]

Currently working to get caught up on the Trek Lit Reviews website; lots of old Trek novels to write reviews for!

Right now, I'm reading Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart. Loving it, really hearing his unique voice come through in the writing.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Noticing the titles of the other two PRO youth novels. Robb Pearlman's opus in particular. And I realized that there was apparently a "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" situation:

We've had, as I recall, novel titles later turning up as the titles of episodes that had absolutely nothing to do with the novel that first bore the title. We've even had two ST novel titles turn up as the titles of new ST series: VM's Enterprise, and DC's Final Frontier.

But I think this may be the first time in ST history that a novel and an episode were in development at the same time, in the same series, with absolutely identical titles, and nothing in common but the cast: Pearlman's Supernova, and the 2-part finale of PRO's first season.

Evidently somebody wasn't paying attention.

And I'm now over halfway through Escape Route.

 

[Smiley]

Rising Son and Heir to the Jedi have been completed, and I rate both books as four stars (above average).

I am now starting a reread of Star Trek: Unity (fantastic book, a Trek classic!) and a first read of Greg Cox's X-Men Avengers Gamma Quest omnibus.

 

[Christopher]

But I think this may be the first time in ST history that a novel and an episode were in development at the same time, in the same series, with absolutely identical titles, and nothing in common but the cast: Pearlman's Supernova, and the 2-part finale of PRO's first season.

Evidently somebody wasn't paying attention.

To confuse matters further, the novel Supernova is based on the Prodigy computer game called Supernova, which also has nothing to do with the 2-parter of that name.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I remember hearing something to that general effect.

This has me thinking about the late Jim Healy, and his comedy sports talk radio show. One of the many comical soundbites loaded into his sound effects machine was Howard Cosell's "Who goofed? I've got to know!"

Speaking of the PRO Season 1 finale, I'm still wondering what kind of timey-wimey fallout is going to happen, if Gwyn succeeds.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Now re-reading Peter Morwood's Rules of Engagement, because of the harmonization of Okrand's and Ford's versions of the Klingon language.

I'd forgotten just how much of what not only Diane Duane's stuff (understandable, given that Morwood is her husband) but also John Ford's stuff he managed to incorporate.

Then again, I'd forgotten just about everything about the novel, other than that it involved Kirk and Klingons in a situation where Kirk was forbidden to take any action that could even remotely be construed as provocative. It's turning out to be a lot more fun than I'd remembered.

 

[Thrawn]

I just finished Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning and holy cow. I feel like my entire life as a sci-fi reader has been training me just so I can understand and appreciate everything she's doing here. Book removed my brain, rearranged it, and put it back different. Absolutely stunning.

 

[Greg Cox]

The Opener of the Way by Robert Bloch. A paperback collection of vintage horror stories from the thirties, all by Bloch.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Hmm. Robert Bloch certainly had a long career.

 

[Greg Cox]

Hmm. Robert Bloch certainly had a long career.

Yep. Stretching from WEIRD TALES to STAR TREK and beyond.

Looked it up. He sold his first story to Weird Tales in 1934, at the age of seventeen, and Tor published his final book, his autobiography, in 1993. His last novel came out in 1990.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bloch

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Just finished Night Bird Calling by Cathy Gohlke. So well-written.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Now almost exactly 2/3 of the way through Rules of Engagement. If there were a review thread, I'd give it at least an "Above Average." But I don't see one out there, and can't imagine there would be much point in starting a review thread on a largely (if unjustifiably) forgotten 3-decade-old novel.

 

[youngtrek]

Finished reading John Tenuto and Maria Jose Tenuto’s Star Trek II: The Making of the Classic Film. I really liked it. I believe there is already a separate review thread here, so I’ll post my longer review there.

— David Young

 

[Kertrats47]

Just started on The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko by Derek Tyler Attico. Only a couple of chapters in and I am *loving* it.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Finished Rules of Engagement. Next up is Ishmael.

 

[Greg Cox]

The first four issues of Titan's new CONAN comic. Nicely reminiscent of the Marvel Comics I read as a teen.

Demon-possessed Picts! Evil cultists! Carnage!

 

[Kertrats47]

Just published my review of one from the 90s: The Fearful Summons by Denny Martin Flinn. It was... not my favourite.

Currently, I've been getting into Marvel comics. Not sure why, but I've been enjoying the odd title here and there. Was never really my thing growing up, but I'm generally impressed with what I've been reading.

 

[Greg Cox]

Star Trek: Tests of Courage. A collection of a DC Comics miniseries, originally titled "The Tabukan Syndrome." By Howard Weinstein.

 

[Falconer]

I read The New Voyages (1976—Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath, ed.) short story anthology, and I would say it was quite enjoyable. Surprisingly, the authors are all women. A good majority of the stories are focused on Mr. Spock, but Kirk and McCoy are also prominent. The short story format really suits Star Trek, to me. Reading this anthology is like reading a lot of older pulp science fiction—zippy, daring, and imaginative.

Intros by Roddenberry and the cast are as you’d expect—celebratory, kind, too much of them, no real anecdotes or wisdom of note. Still, in sum, they provide an interesting snapshot of how the Star Trek phenomenon appeared to them at the time, and they lend the stories a degree of authentication.

I think Marshak and Culbreath did a good job curating the best of fanfic of the time. The stories are almost all lovable and memorable. Some of the authors complained that their stories were cut down, but I suspect these changes were probably for the best.

 

[Christopher]

I read The New Voyages (1976—Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath, ed.) short story anthology, and I would say it was quite enjoyable. Surprisingly, the authors are all women.

Not surprising at all if you know the history. The first generation of Trek fandom and fanfiction was dominated by women. Women were a massive part of the original TOS fanbase because of the near-Beatlemania level of excitement Leonard Nimoy generated in female viewers. Kirk had a lot of female fans as well, not just for his looks, but because he was a sensitive and compassionate man instead of the macho dudebro he's often misconstrued as today. Also, though we rightly recognize today that TOS is full of highly misogynistic and backward gender attitudes, most of the culture of the day was much worse, so TOS was downright feminist by comparison. Just including women in a starship crew at all was seen as highly progressive and aspirational, so women were strongly drawn to that aspect of it.

Certainly there were plenty of men in the fandom, but the actual writing of fanfiction in the '60s and '70s was overwhelmingly the work of women. The leading voices in fandom and the organizers of the earliest conventions were women, like Bjo Trimble, Joan Winston, Marshak & Culbreath, etc.