Star Trek: Enterprise The First Adventure by Vonda McIntyre

[Therin of Andor]

I wonder if it was filmed but because of Roddenberry’s little heist it no longer exists.

What heist?

The missing/clipped scenes of many episodes were well-catalogued and are now part of "The Roddenberry Vault". This one is not in them. Neither is it in Blish's novelization, IIRC. (EDIT: OK, it is in Blish that Rand is 24!)

 

[tomswift2002]

What heist?

The missing/clipped scenes of many episodes were well-catalogued and are now part of "The Roddenberry Vault". This one is not in them. Neither is it in Blish's novelization, IIRC.

As DarrenTR said it was in the final draft, whereas Blish seemed to be working with early drafts on a lot of his books. And with Roddenberry he did take the unused footage from Paramount and started selling clips of the footage in the 70’s. Even the Roddenberry Vault Blu Ray had scenes that were missing audio or video because it had been clipped out.

 

[Therin of Andor]

As DarrenTR said it was in the final draft...

I cannot imagine why a final draft includes Rand as only 24-years old. (Perhaps an early draft, before any casting had occurred?) Is it confirmed to be a final draft script?

 

[tomswift2002]

I cannot imagine why a final draft includes Rand as only 24-years old. (Perhaps an early draft, before any casting had occurred?) Is it confirmed to be a final draft script?

I was just checking my Desilu-copyright version of “Star Trek 1” by James Blish (6th printing) on page 105 Rand says she’s 24. It’s just after Rand drops the equipment and runs out into the hall.


http://www.orionpressfanzines.com/articles/miri.htm

And then here this script seems to be very similar. The dialogue is different. In the book Rand states she’s 24, but here she is more verbose “in my twenty-four year’s”.

 

[Therin of Andor]

In the book Rand states she’s 24, but here she is more verbose “in my twenty-four year’s”.

This is what I remember thinking was originally behind the weird subplot in the novel, "Enterprise: The First Adventure", when it first came out for the 20th anniversary of TOS, where Vonda McIntyre has Rand (and her brother) being on a vessel that had suffered a time slip and therefore they did not match their chronological ages/physical appearances. That she was going to explain why Ms Whitney looked much older than a 24 year-old yeoman in Season 1. Although, in reality, she did something else with their ages.

 

[Christopher]

This is what I remember thinking was originally behind the weird subplot in the novel, "Enterprise: The First Adventure", when it first came out for the 20th anniversary of TOS, where Vonda McIntyre has Rand (and her brother) being on a vessel that had suffered a time slip and therefore they did not match their chronological ages/physical appearances. That she was going to explain why Ms Whitney looked much older than a 24 year-old yeoman in Season 1. Although, in reality, she did something else with their ages.

Yeah, it was the opposite -- she was younger than she was supposed to be. In her version, Rand was trapped on a ship traveling at relativistic speeds for some time, so she was time-dilated and only a little time passed for her while two years passed outside. So even though her listed birthdate made her 18, she was physiologically only 16.

And Kirk was 29 in the book, which puts it maybe 4 1/2 to 5 years before "The Deadly Years" in season 2, which would mean that Rand would've been no more than 20 in season 1.

 

[mthompson1701]

I remember reading this book in the mid 90's. I liked the beginning of it, but felt like it jumped the shark about 1/3rd of the way in. I was disappointed that Gary Mitchell was written out for some no name navigator. I did read it all the way through, but it left me disappointed by the end. (I do have a copy in hardback that I found at the used bookstore, it's sitting on my shelf.)

 

[Damian]

I remember reading this book in the mid 90's. I liked the beginning of it, but felt like it jumped the shark about 1/3rd of the way in. I was disappointed that Gary Mitchell was written out for some no name navigator. I did read it all the way through, but it left me disappointed by the end. (I do have a copy in hardback that I found at the used bookstore, it's sitting on my shelf.)

Yeah, I remember being disappointed with it even when I read it the first time as a nubie fan. I figured I'd give it another shot since there's been a lot of Star Trek released since then. Part of it is the lack of continuity with WNMHGB (even though I am aware of the reasons behind it to any one watches Star Trek on a regular basis it just doesn't fit that well). And the other part is the story. Kirk's first mission as captain of the Enterprise is....to escort a vaudevillian troupe around the Federation. I see some comments about an interview she gave some time ago that she didn't really have a firm outline when writing the book. Perhaps if she had it might have turned out differently. She's written some good books. It's a shame this book, the first 'giant' Star Trek novel about a big event in Star Trek history came out so substandard.

 

[KRAD]

While we're talking about E:TFA, I noticed recently that there isn't a Kindle version of the book available, much to my surprise. Many of the other giant novels are available in Kindle format, does anyone know why this one has been excluded?

My guess is that Simon & Schuster doesn't have an electronic version of the manuscript to digitize.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Down to the epilogue, re-reading it. I'd completely forgotten about Kirk's milk-run turning into a first contact, and only vaguely remembered that Klingons were involved (mainly, I remember how Cockspur's butchered Shakespeare was such a big hit with the Klingons, and probably led to the whole "in the original Klingon" gag in ST6:TUC). And it's still my favorite of her ST works.

I'm not normally one to speak ill of the dead, especially those who died of something as horrible as pancreatic cancer (two people I knew died of it, not all that long ago), but I really, really didn't care for The Entropy Effect. It seemed like Star Trek written by somebody who'd never actually seen Star Trek. Think about all the canonical time travel established before she wrote it: a short accidental time jump at the end of "The Naked Time," A long accidental time jump at the beginning of "Tomorrow is Yesterday," and an intentional one at the end. Accidental and intentional trips through the Guardian of Forever in "The City on the Edge of Forever." Implied intentional time jumps framing "Assignment: Earth." The Atavachron, in "All Our Yesterdays." The return of the Guardian, in "Yesteryear," with its odd paradox. Not once in all of that does anything set the universe on a headlong plunge towards an early heat-death. I can't figure out how, on the strength of that, she got the contracts for three film novelizations.

 

[Christopher]

(mainly, I remember how Cockspur's butchered Shakespeare was such a big hit with the Klingons, and probably led to the whole "in the original Klingon" gag in ST6:TUC).

I really doubt the writers of the movie were aware of the book. Besides, their take on Klingons + Shakespeare is the diametric opposite of McIntyre's. E:TFA portrays the Klingons basically as dumb, semi-literate hicks who've never heard of Shakespeare before and think Cockspur's inept, doggerel version is brilliant, while TUC portrays the Klingons' knowledge and appreciation of the Bard as genuine, and implies that Klingons appropriated Shakespeare's works long enough ago that Gorkon could've grown up reading them in Klingon and believed they were original to his culture (I never got the sense that he was joking, even if the scriptwriters were).

I'm not normally one to speak ill of the dead,

The work is not the author. Criticizing the one doesn't automatically entail criticizing the other. It's fine to say you didn't like someone's book, as long as you don't use that as an excuse to make it personal. (E.g. "I didn't enjoy the book at all" is okay, but "The author must've been on drugs" or "They obviously just did it for the paycheck and didn't put any effort into it" is not.)

I really, really didn't care for The Entropy Effect. It seemed like Star Trek written by somebody who'd never actually seen Star Trek. Think about all the canonical time travel established before she wrote it: a short accidental time jump at the end of "The Naked Time," A long accidental time jump at the beginning of "Tomorrow is Yesterday," and an intentional one at the end. Accidental and intentional trips through the Guardian of Forever in "The City on the Edge of Forever." Implied intentional time jumps framing "Assignment: Earth." The Atavachron, in "All Our Yesterdays." The return of the Guardian, in "Yesteryear," with its odd paradox. Not once in all of that does anything set the universe on a headlong plunge towards an early heat-death. I can't figure out how, on the strength of that, she got the contracts for three film novelizations.

It's true that the book's model of time travel differed from the usual Trek norm (for one thing, it posits that changing history gets harder the further back you go, which doesn't reconcile with how easy it was to wipe out the whole Federation by saving Edith Keeler), but it's not as if TOS itself was very consistent about its time-travel rules (there was no apparent risk to the timeline in "Assignment: Earth," and "All Our Yesterdays" had the bizarre thing about time travel making Spock act feral). And TEE was written at a time when continuity was not the obsession it is today; telling an interesting story in its own right was the most important thing. Lots of Bantam and early Pocket novels took considerable liberties with the rules of the Trek universe, like Joe Haldeman inventing whole new sets of landing-party procedure and equipment that actually made more sense than the show's version. Star Trek was seen more as a template to build on creatively than a holy dogma that could not be violated.

So yeah, I found it odd that the book's time travel theory was so idiosyncratic, but that was okay, because it's a striking and imaginative story, and a very emotionally intense one with a lot of character exploration. It took Trek literature to a higher level than it had achieved in the Bantam years. That's what actually matters.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I disagree with the idea that two Klingon/Shakespeare connections in roughly five years being pure coincidence is any less implausible than an intentional (if backhanded) nod to E:TFA. But neither do I insist upon my assertion that it was such a nod.

And my assertion that TEE read like ST by somebody who'd never actually seen an episode could be construed as speaking ill of the dead, or even as an outright ad hominem attack. Then again, a fair number of Bantam ST novels were written by people who reputedly actually had never seen a single episode.

Refresh my memory: do any of the DTI works make any reference to TEE?

 

[Christopher]

I disagree with the idea that two Klingon/Shakespeare connections in roughly five years being pure coincidence is any less implausible than an intentional (if backhanded) nod to E:TFA.

Coincidence is inevitable. It happens in fiction all the time. The first time I mailed in a spec script to TNG, they aired an episode built around a parallel idea ten days later. Practically every time afterward that I pitched to DS9 and VGR, one of my ideas happened to be coincidentally similar to something they were already doing or would do later (or in one case, an original feature film script the producer I pitched to had written). And there were TNG, DS9, VGR, and ENT novels that accidentally happened to have similar stories to episodes that came out around the same time, like Seven of Nine paralleling "Infinite Regress" or Surak's Soul accidentally overlapping with elements of "The Seventh" (but coming out late enough that they just barely had time to revise it to fit). So that kind of accidental convergence is routine and inescapable in a long-running series. Movie or TV producers having the time to pay any attention to media tie-in novels is enormously more rare. Heck, 98 percent or more of the viewing audience never reads the novels, and they have a lot more free time for recreational reading than movie and TV producers do. Not to mention that we know Nicholas Meyer wasn't a Trek fan, which makes it even less likely that he would've paid any attention to the tie-in books.

Refresh my memory: do any of the DTI works make any reference to TEE?

No; it doesn't fit into subsequent canon or novel continuity, in part because of its unusual time-travel physics. I consider it part of the loose '80s continuity, because elements of it were referenced in other novels from that continuity, including but not limited to the McIntyre movie novelizations. (For instance, the "Snarl" character shows up in Uhura's Song, and at least one other book references the Makropyrios academy.)

 

[Damian]

I'm not normally one to speak ill of the dead, especially those who died of something as horrible as pancreatic cancer

I do have to admit that crossed my mind when reviewing this novel. I sort of felt bad, esp. since this was supposed to be such a significant novel. But I agree with Christopher. Critiquing a work is not the same as critiquing a person.

I feel a bit bad about reviewing current author's works that post here as well to be honest. I know it's not logical, but they interact with us here and I can't help but feel like I'm slapping them in the head when I make a criticism.

Perhaps it's because her death was so recent makes some of us feel bad about saying bad things about E:TFA.

I really, really didn't care for The Entropy Effect.

So yeah, I found it odd that the book's time travel theory was so idiosyncratic, but that was okay, because it's a striking and imaginative story, and a very emotionally intense one with a lot of character exploration. It took Trek literature to a higher level than it had achieved in the Bantam years.

It's been years since I read that particular novel. The main thing I remember is that it was a bit of an unusual story. I'll have to put it on my re-read list once I'm finished my last few Bantam novels.

Down to the epilogue, re-reading it. I'd completely forgotten about Kirk's milk-run turning into a first contact,

The first contact story was probably the best part of E: TFA. The aliens were pretty unusual so that part of the story wasn't half bad.

Then again, a fair number of Bantam ST novels were written by people who reputedly actually had never seen a single episode

Yeah, Joe Haldeman basically admitted as much in the acknowledgements for "World Without End". I found elements of that book to be very similar to "For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky", yet no mention was made of that episode (while "Errand of Mercy" was mentioned). I wonder if that was because he never saw "For the World…" The stories were similar enough at least in general terms that I would think if he had seen it, he would have written something in about it.

And the Phoenix novels were just plain bizarre (I thought Omne had some aspects that could have been more interesting...they hinted at some complexity to his character and his history but amazingly just left it hanging--instead making him into some generic sado-masochist).

I'm about to read the last of my Bantam novels, 2 of which I believe are not considered very good ("Deaths Angel" is one of them and I forget the name of the other). I guess it's good I know going in, but who knows, maybe I'll feel different.

 

[Christopher]

I feel a bit bad about reviewing current author's works that post here as well to be honest. I know it's not logical, but they interact with us here and I can't help but feel like I'm slapping them in the head when I make a criticism.

Criticism, when it's constructive and fair and is about assessing the flaws in a work rather than casting aspersions on the author/artist, is a valuable and necessary thing. Listening to criticism is how we learn to make our work better. We can't improve if we don't know what we're doing wrong, or if we refuse to listen when others tell us.

Yeah, Joe Haldeman basically admitted as much in the acknowledgements for "World Without End". I found elements of that book to be very similar to "For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky", yet no mention was made of that episode (while "Errand of Mercy" was mentioned). I wonder if that was because he never saw "For the World…" The stories were similar enough at least in general terms that I would think if he had seen it, he would have written something in about it.

According to Haldeman's interview in Voyages of the Imagination, he was a Trek fan in season 1 but missed the later two seasons because he was drafted into the military. He watched a lot of reruns and read the books about the show when he was hired to do his novels, but either he missed "For the World is Hollow" along the way (since seeing reruns would've been a piecemeal affair with no guarantee of completeness) or he was just less concerned with meticulous continuity than fans are today, as indeed was true of most creators back then.

Anyway, the editor of the Bantam Trek novels was Frederik Pohl, the accomplished SF author who had been the editor of Galaxy and If magazines and the creator of the Gateway series. He chose people to write the books based on their experience writing science fiction in general, more than their familiarity with Trek's particular flavor of science fiction. Marshak & Culbreath were the only Bantam authors whose bibliographies were exclusively Star Trek-oriented (although Charles A. Spano, Jr. of Spock: Messiah! had no prior writing credits at the time and only two subsequent original short stories to his name).

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And the Phoenix novels were just plain bizarre (I thought Omne had some aspects that could have been more interesting...they hinted at some complexity to his character and his history but amazingly just left it hanging--instead making him into some generic sado-masochist).

Yes. Very bizarre. And yet the authors could hardly be accused of having never seen the show: they were perhaps the biggest ST fans (and certainly the most stereotypically obsessive ones) of anybody who was writing ST novels at the time.

 

[Damian]

Criticism, when it's constructive and fair and is about assessing the flaws in a work rather than casting aspersions on the author/artist, is a valuable and necessary thing.

Yeah, I know. It's not logical.

But I can honestly say it's been years since a Star Trek novel was printed that I thought was below average. And I consider myself a tough critic despite my feelings about it. For instance I don't rate many books as excellent. For me that is almost a flawless book. The Destiny trilogy is one that I'd rate as excellent. And of course "Chain of Attack" by Gene DeWeese is a personal favorite that I cite a lot as a personal favorite--perhaps that's not a common favorite cited by fans but it's one that I really enjoyed and actually read in 2 days, rare for me, usually takes me at least 2 weeks to read a book. I actually really enjoyed the DS9 novel "Rising Son" for some reason as well. I didn't think I was going to like that one but there was something about it I really enjoyed. Maybe because it featured almost all original characters except for Jake, and the author did a really good job IMO fleshing out the characters. But I do rate a lot of current books 'above average', which I consider books that were entertaining but with just a few imperfections.

but either he missed "For the World is Hollow" along the way (since seeing reruns would've been a piecemeal affair with no guarantee of completeness) or he was just less concerned with meticulous continuity than fans are today, as indeed was true of most creators back then.

Yeah, possible. I just kept thinking of the Fabrini and how similar the situations were. I was waiting for one of those 'reminds me of the time we helped the Fabrini world shop' moments that never came.

Marshak & Culbreath were the only Bantam authors whose bibliographies were exclusively Star Trek-oriented

And yet the authors could hardly be accused of having never seen the show: they were perhaps the biggest ST fans

Kind of ironic, the biggest Star Trek fans among the Bantam writers wrote 2 of the worse Bantam novels, at least IMO. And their slash fiction elements in Price of the Phoenix definitely put the 1st edition of "Killing Time" to shame. They did tone some of the K/S slash elements in Fate at least (I wonder if they were told to tone it down a bit because Price was pretty over the top)--but I found Fate of the Phoenix very hard to read. It actually took me months to get through it. I didn't like either one but Price seemed to have a more coherent narrative. WIth Fate I was just like WTF? And I got to the point I didn't even care anymore. I remember they wrote at least one Pocketbook novel as well, though I can recall nothing from it.

 

[Christopher]

Kind of ironic, the biggest Star Trek fans among the Bantam writers wrote 2 of the worse Bantam novels, at least IMO.

Fandom does not equal skill. Watching a lot of sports doesn't make you an athlete. Eating a lot doesn't make you a master chef. They're opposite ends of the process.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Fandom does not equal skill. Watching a lot of sports doesn't make you an athlete. Eating a lot doesn't make you a master chef. They're opposite ends of the process.

Of course, the converse does not follow: a chef who doesn't eat good food, and a writer who doesn't read much (or who reads nothing but the worst trash), is not likely to develop much skill. Not sure about athletes who don't watch sports.

 

[Christopher]

Of course, the converse does not follow: a chef who doesn't eat good food, and a writer who doesn't read much (or who reads nothing but the worst trash), is not likely to develop much skill.

But we're not talking about the converse. The point is, just being a Trek fan doesn't make you a good writer.

What you're talking about is just the starting point. It's what creates your interest in developing the skill. It's not training in itself. I was an avid consumer of science fiction for maybe 15 years before I started trying to write it professionally, and the first things I wrote were pretty bad. What made me good enough was the subsequent 7 years of actually working at it, writing stories and learning from my rejections and striving to raise my game, learning the craft and the technique and the difference between what I personally liked and what lived up to professional standards. It takes hard work, a lot of hard work, to become skilled, and fandom is not work, it's recreation. It's only when you stop settling for being just a fan and start to approach it as a profession that you even have a chance to become any good at it.

And I never would've become a good Trek writer if the only thing I was a fan of was Star Trek. Trek itself is a distillation of decades' worth of earlier science fiction concepts and traditions, plus other outside influences like Horatio Hornblower, Shakespeare, etc. It takes wide experience to be good at doing one thing, to learn a broad enough range of influences and inspirations to let you add something meaningful to a series rather than just rehashing what it's already done. The fact that Marshak & Culbreath had no writing experience beyond Trek is probably part of what made their writing so clumsy and self-indulgent.

So I repeat: There is absolutely nothing ironic about M&C being both the biggest Trek fans and the weakest writers. Irony is when something is unexpected, and it is invalid to expect fandom to correlate with professional competence.