The EIGHTIES (TOS, by definition with maybe a smidge of TNG)

[Tallguy]

There is an Uhrura's Song thread that keeps getting derailed by other contemporary novels. So let's just celebrate the mish mash!

There was something about this era. For one thing there were obviously more books than movies coming out. For myself there was not knowing who (if anyone) was running anything so it was a question of what authors followed what other authors. The Final Reflection will come up eventually. If the subject ever came up most authors were following the early 2200's timeline from The Spaceflight Chronology and FASA games and I was firmly a late 2200's guy going by the Star Trek Maps, etc. (We won!)

Looking back it's interesting to realize what books I was reading as the were published and what books had been floating around for a few years.

We now re-join a conversation about Vonda M. McIntyre's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, already in progress.

The book opens up the day after Spock's funeral, David and Saavik have spent the night together. Carol has rebuffed Kirk's attempts at reconciliation. Enterprise proceeds to the meeting with the Grissom where Esteban tells Kirk that Genesis is off limits. David and Saavik transfer to Grissom. Carol, the Reliant survivors and unnecessary Enterprise crewmen are transferred to a another ship which takes them back to Earth while Enterprise takes the slow road home. Once back at Earth, Carol meets with the family members of Regula One. I think Sarek is involved as well. Once back at Earth, Morrow tells Sulu he won't be Captain of the Excelsior pending further investigation into Khan/Genesis. There is also Peter Preston's funeral and Scotty falling out with his sister and niece, who is also a member of Starfleet and who says she'll conduct in investigation into Scotty's actions during Reliant's initial attack to see if anything could have been done to prevent her brother's death. That's what I remember off the top of my head without pulling the book out of storage.

Pretty close. Sarek shows up in the same place as he did in the movie although he gets a dressing down from Kirk that amounts to "Oh, so NOW you care?" Enterprise never goes to Ceti Alpha (Alpha Ceti in the book). The trainees are transferred and the Enterprise is sent home. Scotty and his niece do NOT get along. He consideres her something of a hothead. (She points out that the last two times Kirk got near the Enterprise she came back without her captain.) Scotty also meets one of Peter's shipmates who ran during the attack and is now in hiding.

Earth is depicted as a very nice place but hardly post-scarcity. She also introduces the concept of transporter-free areas which is interesting.

Now I need to read these again.

 

[Christopher]

Enterprise never goes to Ceti Alpha (Alpha Ceti in the book).

And in real life, which is why McIntyre corrected it in the book.

 

[Tallguy]

And in real life, which is why McIntyre corrected it in the book.

Yes, I should have noted that. But as someone who had Wrath of Khan memorized even back in the day it's still hard to read without twitching.

I thought I remembered that she also has this tick where she capitalizes Vulcan and Alpha Ceti but not earth. But I just looked in TSFS and this isn't the case. Now I'm wondering what book I'm thinking of.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I pulled out the Wrath of Khan novelization and looked at Vonda N. McIntyre's entry on Memory Alpha and was surprised to learn that she lived in Seattle starting in the 1970s, which explains the details of the shuttle leaving the Sea-Tac Spaceport and the Cascade mountains, in their correct order, and Puget Sound region. I always wondered why she chose to have the shuttle lift off from Sea-Tac and not somewhere in San Francisco, where Kirk and co. lived and worked, and that explains it.

 

[Greg Cox]

Earth is depicted as a very nice place but hardly post-scarcity..

Which is was pretty standard back then. The whole notion that the Federation is a "post-scarcity" utopia, which many modern fans seem to regard as being fundamental to the franchise, really only took root in the TNG era. And even the whale movie's jokes about there being no money in the future were still a few years away when THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK came out and some of the early Pocket Books were being written.

I'm currently reading THE PANDORA PRINCIPLE from 1990, and, yes, Earth seems peaceful and prosperous enough but credit-strapped Academy students still fly economy for budget reasons, or hoard their credits to buy a fancy new coffee machine for their dorm room. Not exactly "post-scarcity."

 

[Tallguy]

The whole notion that the Federation is a "post-scarcity" utopia, which many modern fans seem to regard as being fundamental to the franchise, really only took root in the TNG era.

Amen, brother!

Oh, I adored Pandora Principle. It was dedicated to McIntyre, wasn't it?

 

[Jedi Marso]

I was a teenager in the 80's and a huge Trek fan. I was deep into the FASA game, and read most of the novels that came out back then. Some were really good, some were really bad. But I read them.

I still remember reading The Entropy Effect and thinking 'wow- this lady (McIntyre) is really taking liberties with the characters, the 'verse, and the franchise!

 

[Greg Cox]

Amen, brother!

Oh, I adored Pandora Principle. It was dedicated to McIntyre, wasn't it?

It's dedicated to the author's mother, but Vonda is cited in the Acknowledgments "for Hellguard and the perfect heroine."

 

[Christopher]

I still remember reading The Entropy Effect and thinking 'wow- this lady (McIntyre) is really taking liberties with the characters, the 'verse, and the franchise!

That was the fun of the tie-ins back then. There was no "franchise" to speak of, just TOS/TAS and one movie. The larger universe beyond what we saw in that limited sample was so undefined that there was much more freedom for different authors to fill in that vast blank canvas with their own idiosyncratic interpretations. Instead of adapting themselves to fit Trek, they filtered Trek through their own creative visions and styles, and it was fascinating to see how differently they imagined it. Heck, that goes back to James Blish, who wrote his episode adaptations as if they took place in some version of his own Cities in Flight universe.

 

[Greg Cox]

I pulled out the Wrath of Khan novelization and looked at Vonda N. McIntyre's entry on Memory Alpha and was surprised to learn that she lived in Seattle starting in the 1970s, which explains the details of the shuttle leaving the Sea-Tac Spaceport and the Cascade mountains, in their correct order, and Puget Sound region. I always wondered why she chose to have the shuttle lift off from Sea-Tac and not somewhere in San Francisco, where Kirk and co. lived and worked, and that explains it.

Oh, yeah, Vonda was very much part of the Seattle SF community back in the day. One used to see her at parties and conventions and writers workshops and such. She was one of my writing instructors at Clarion West back in '84, along with Norman Spinrad (who wrote "The Doomsday Machine") and David Hartwell, who launched the whole STAR TREK book program at Pocket Books back in the day.

David was actually the guy who convinced me to move from Seattle to NYC to pursue a career in editing. The phrase "wasting your life in Seattle" may have been used.

(Not a dig against Seattle, to be clear, but more about the fact that I was bussing tables and washing dishes for a living while trying to survive as a starving writer.)

 

[Desert Kris]

I'm excited to see the books of the 80's coming up in conversation again! I remember seeing @Falconer's chosen list of books and thought it was neat that it overlapped with my own reading list (with some differences as well). I had been wondering how his reading journey progressed, I'm glad he's been posting his thoughts on the books he's been making his way through.

I feel a little glum that I unintentionally neglected my own review topic, and it sunk down a bit. I've actually still been reading, making progress. My last review was for The IDIC Epidemic and the movie trilogy novelizations. I've actually read through How Much For Just the Planet?, Time for Yesterday, Spock's World, and just recently started Memory Prime. They've continued to be great fun!

Time For Yesterday was really exciting for all the continuity details that pay off (it was a good book as a standalone, too). Someone mentioned the return of Snarl in Bloodthirst, as detail that I'd already forgotten, but I mentioned it in the review I posted.

Spock's World was really interesting for the hints about when it is set; there's been some debate about it, and I was surprised to get the impression that it could be interpreted as happening much further on the timeline than people think (It's strongly implied that Kirk and Spock remember the events of Strangers From the Sky, which suggests it's closer to TWoK than TMP). In the end, I didn't necessarily favor a pre-TWoK timeframe, though.

I've been having difficulty setting aside time to write reviews for the above books. I've been meaning to get back into it.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

David was actually the guy who convinced me to move from Seattle to NYC to pursue a career in editing. The phrase "wasting your life in Seattle" may have been used.

(Not a dig against Seattle, to be clear, but more about the fact that I was bussing tables and washing dishes for a living while trying to survive as a starving writer.)

Well, given the state of Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region in the 70s to mid 80s, ("Will the last person leaving Seattle - Turn out the lights") you were pretty wise enough to move.

 

[Greg Cox]

Well, given the state of Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region in the 70s to mid 80s, ("Will the last person leaving Seattle - Turn out the lights") you were pretty wise enough to move.

Well, David first urged me to do so in '84, but I didn't work up the nerve to make the big movie until '87.

But, yes, this was back before grunge, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Amazon. Boeing was still the major industry, which didn't do me much good if I wanted to make a living as a writer. At one point, I was working as a phlebotomist at a skid-row plasma center, draining blood from winos to pay the bills . . . .

 

[Falconer]

I'm excited to see the books of the 80's coming up in conversation again! I remember seeing @Falconer's chosen list of books and thought it was neat that it overlapped with my own reading list (with some differences as well). I had been wondering how his reading journey progressed, I'm glad he's been posting his thoughts on the books he's been making his way through.

Yes sir! After reading The Entropy Effect, I had a bit of a detour, as I was prepping and running and reviewing a FASA module EACH WEEK (this was during the height of COVID). And I still managed to read The Final Reflection at that time — it’s basically required reading for FASA Trek. I didn’t get back on track with reading the novels till a few months ago, and I’m pretty gung-ho at present.

Funnily, the title of this thread which I’ve apparently inspired is slightly untimely, since I’ve taken a little detour from the 80s novels and am reading The New Voyages. But I will get back to Ishmael soon!

My collecting/reading plan of attack
Yesterday’s Son
The Wounded Sky + My Enemy, My Ally
The Vulcan Academy Murders
The Tears of the Singers
Uhura’s Song

 

[Desert Kris]

Yes sir! After reading The Entropy Effect, I had a bit of a detour, as I was prepping and running and reviewing a FASA module EACH WEEK (this was during the height of COVID). And I still managed to read The Final Reflection at that time — it’s basically required reading for FASA Trek. I didn’t get back on track with reading the novels till a few months ago, and I’m pretty gung-ho at present.

Funnily, the title of this thread which I’ve apparently inspired is slightly untimely, since I’ve taken a little detour from the 80s novels and am reading The New Voyages. But I will get back to Ishmael soon!

My collecting/reading plan of attack
Yesterday’s Son
The Wounded Sky + My Enemy, My Ally
The Vulcan Academy Murders
The Tears of the Singers
Uhura’s Song

Thank you for satisfying my curiosity! I'm glad you've been able to read some of the books on you list, despite the busy schedule. Hopefully you and your players had a good time? Did you post your reviews somewhere online?

I love the idea you took advantage of the synergy of The Final Reflection dwelling in both domains, FASA RPG and TOS 80s novels. Did you have the Klingons suppliment that was also written by John Ford? I got hold of that and the Spaceflight Chronology as reference books for the 80s novels. It's funny to think that I bought the Klingons suppliment for my reading project rather than the RPG (although I would never ruled out the possibility of running an RPG in a version of TOS 80s novels' alternative realities if it ever made sense to do so).

 

[Victoria]

WARNING: This post will be full of sweeping generalisations!

My feeling is that the novels came in phases.

The earliest Bantam books were all over the place. The characterisation was wildly variable, there's a lot of stuff that wasn't accurate (and much that was later contradicted but that's obviously not a "fault" as such). The stories could be bizarre and some of the writing was downright poor.

The numbered novels still had some of these problems. There are a number of stories in which the author's personal...interests? prejudices? take precedence over the onscreen characterisation. Although all the programmes and, therefore, the books are products of their time, I felt many of the 1980s books (and the early 1990s too) were just written as though very little had changed in the future. (I seem to remember someone wearing legwarmers...) There was no sense that attitudes to things like acquisition or "getting to the top" could (and hopefully would) have changed. However, the writing was generally readable and more consistent in quality and there are a lot of good ideas and fun reading. You can forgive "canon errors" if the story is good! Many of my favourites come from this time.

By the end of the 1990s, the books were more consistent all round. Solid writing, a better match between the screen characters and the book characters but I'm not going to go there...yet...

 

[Falconer]

Thank you for satisfying my curiosity! I'm glad you've been able to read some of the books on you list, despite the busy schedule. Hopefully you and your players had a good time? Did you post your reviews somewhere online?

Yes, see this thread. You can most easily find all the podcast episodes here. We’ve only got 21 episodes up, and I’d like to get more out there, but, well, lives…

We talk about The Final Reflection in the first twenty minutes of the episode on “The Natural Order,” and I think a bit more in “Termination: 1456.”

Did you have the Klingons suppliment that was also written by John Ford?

Yeah, though to be honest, I didn’t read it. FASA, in general, created a mountain of Star Trek lore, and I personally found it unnecessary and even unidiomatic—I mean, it didn’t feel like Star Trek and it was not conducive to a RPG. I had enough to do to prep a module each week, and it was all I could do to get the players to watch a TOS episode ahead of each game and to get together and play. Players really only care about their own exploits, anyway.

Although Ford is credited on the supplement, I don’t think he had a direct hand in the writing, but is mainly credited for his ideas which he created for TFR. I think it was definitely the right call to read TFR (and have all the players do so), as it’s by far the best way to immerse yourself in the Klingon culture he created. The modules themselves are pretty fun.

 

[Jedi Marso]

The Final Reflection will, for all time, be my favorite Star Trek novel in any era.

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Back in the summer between my Junior and Senior year in high school c. 1988, a friend of my mother decided to open a used bookstore. Her husband and daughter built, painted, and installed the shelves, while my mom loaned me out to go through all the boxes of donated books, organize them, create categories (History, Romance, Horror, Sci-Fi, etc.) for them and put them out on the shelves. In the end, she couldn't afford to pay me much for the work, but she said I could take any series of books that I wanted as payment. I had three choices - an almost complete run of numbered TOS novels, with a few of the newer TNG thrown in as well, an almost complete collection of Dr. Who adaptations, or an almost complete collection of Doc Savage reprints. I chose Doc Savage. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret my decision, simply because of how many more Star Trek and Dr. Who books have been printed in the intervening years, my shelves would be overflowing. At least with Doc Savage, the reprint run ended soon after that and I was able to pick up the missing reprints at my local used bookstores. I kept those books for years until unemployment forced me to downsize. I've been able to read most of the numbered TOS novels through my local library and now online through various apps. And yes, The Final Reflection and the Rihannsu novels are my 'go to' books of this era.

 

[Tallguy]

The Final Reflection will, for all time, be my favorite Star Trek novel in any era.

Not that it's One vs. Another, but I've come to like Spock's World more. Or at least I've come to like Final Reflection less. It ultimately boils down to

Spoiler: Final Reflection Spoiler

Crazy Admiral / White Supremacist (!) Wants a War.

Everything about the book is so wonderful except for that sadly tiresome core. (It hadn't been beaten COMPLETELY to death back then, I suppose.) I would have liked to have seen more of the Shadowy Power Behind the Throne guy.

Also the ages of Spock and McCoy are entirely out of whack, IIRC. The "modern" part of the book takes place ten years after Errand of Mercy and the end of the story is 30 years before that (40 years before the start of the book). Bones is supposedly in diapers during the book and Spock is a boy. There's no timeline I know of that puts Bones in his thirties during season 1 of TOS. There's more wiggle room with Spock but I still think he's too old. Considering that the book features Carter Winston then I can certainly take TAS and Yesteryear into account.

But I'm sure I'll read it again in the coming months. It's still an astonishing book.

Spock's World might not be my favorite Star Trek story but the worlds of the Enterprise and Vulcan feel as real to me as anyplace else I've read about them or seen them. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the only thing that even comes close.

Let me go get a chocolate ice cream soda and I'll write about How Much for Just the Planet.