The Search for Spock by Vonda N. McIntyre

[marlboro]

I read this one about a year ago, but for some reason, I started thinking about it last night. Something occurred to me and I can't recall if it is addressed in the book.

Kirk loses his son while on a mission to save Spock. Shouldn't this be a huge thing between them? Maybe some survivors guilt on behalf of Spock, or some guilt from Kirk when he thinks of the price he had to pay to get his friend back? I don't know.

I think Sarek may have mentioned David when Kirk and company return to Vulcan, but I'm not sure if it was in this book. Maybe it was in The Fire and the Rose or some Saavik heavy book.

Was this subject tackled in this book, or in any other?

Feel free to post any general thoughts you may have on the novelization.


My opinion:

It feels like a good Saavik book that frequently gets interrupted by a not so great movie. The book actually made me like the movie less, because it made me realize that I only liked the movie because I liked the actors/characters. I think the novelizations of TSFS and TFF are better than the movies from which they are sourced.The novelverse has made Saavik one of my favorite characters.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

TFF is a ton better than the movie.

 

[Desert Kris]

I want to save something for my review/reflection for my read through of the 80's continuity novels, but it seemed like a very tragic book. As if the Star Trek universe suddenly becomes haunted, and the crew has to fight through that in order to bring Spock back. The movie is melancholy enough, without the book accentuating things even further.

You are right that maybe Kirk should feel the death of David a bit more. But when I say that the novel is tragic, it is in the sense that we follow Saavik throughout, and the importance of David as a character is how we experience him through Saavik's eyes. The loss of David is made out to be much more about what Saavik losses. Their relationship may simply be to make it more tragic, but it worked for me in a way.

The other part of the tragedy is that the book deals with the story as a pivot point for deciding whether to carry forward with new characters, or turn away and favor nostalgia by bringing back Spock. Saavik's potential feels like it is curtailed, as if she will never be free of the haunting, and the legacy of the older generation. I don't think it's an accident that it feels to you like Saavik's story keeps getting interrupted.

 

[KRAD]

I think The Search for Spock is a mediocre movie, but McIntyre's novelization is one of the best Trek novels ever written.

 

[Reanok]

This one of my favorite movie novelization by Vonda McIntyre's I really liked how Saavik and David's relationship was explored in this book.All the characters storyarcs were well written in this book.

 

[ClayinCA]

I didn't like the Scotty subplot with his sister and niece--the Scotty that McIntyre writes has never been recognizable as the "real" Scotty to me--but I did like the idea that post-Khan, all of them try to go back to something resembling a normal life and none of them can really do it.

It's been awhile since I read it, but doesn't the book offer some sort of explanation as to why Amanda isn't present at the fal tor pan?

 

[Desert Kris]

I didn't like the Scotty subplot with his sister and niece--the Scotty that McIntyre writes has never been recognizable as the "real" Scotty to me--but I did like the idea that post-Khan, all of them try to go back to something resembling a normal life and none of them can really do it.

It's been awhile since I read it, but doesn't the book offer some sort of explanation as to why Amanda isn't present at the fal tor pan?

McIntyre's characterization of Scotty throughout all her books is a curiousity, as she makes him out to be a very flawed character, seemingly less charismatic and likable than he is in the series and movies as played by James Doohan.

Amanda was kept away because she had learned just enough as an adept of Vulcan teachings that her proximity would pose a danger to the fal tor pan ceremony, broadly speaking. That's my recollection of it.

 

[Winterwind]

When I was a kid I devoured every Star Trek book I could get my hands on. There wasn't a Bantam or Pocket Books Star Trek story I didn't read up until the early 90s. After that, my tastes largely went to classic literature and non-fiction.

There's a house two doors down that has one of those book exchange boxes on their front lawn and someone in this neighbourhood is a Trek fan because old Pocket Books titles keep showing up.

My wife and I just did our yearly watch of ST:IV (one of my three favourite feel good movies) and when I saw the ST:IV novelisation I grabbed it, thinking I'd just enjoy a Trek novel the way I used to and I just can't make it through. I've made a half a dozen attempts and made it maybe 20 pages in and, to me, it's just so bad I can't even enjoy it from a nostalgic perspective.

It's kind of weird. I can enjoy re-reading Weiss and Hickman's original Dragonlance novels (which are incredibly simplistic) but I can't enjoy re-reading old Pocket Books Star Trek.

 

[marlboro]

I didn't like the Scotty subplot with his sister and niece--the Scotty that McIntyre writes has never been recognizable as the "real" Scotty to me--but I did like the idea that post-Khan, all of them try to go back to something resembling a normal life and none of them can really do it.

Wasn't the plot about Scotty's family kind of left dangling at the end of the book?

Too often, imo, he was written as just a collection of stereotypes. Scotty dialog is pretty much guaranteed to contain a mention of his engines, booze, Scotland, or >shudder< haggis. I give credit to McIntyre for at least trying to do something with him.


It's kind of funny, but for such a popular character I cant think of very many of the older books that I'd call Scotty-centric. He's got important roles in Twilght's End and The Kobayashi Maru and...I'm drawing a blank.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I was lucky to read both TMP and ST III's novelisations before seeing those movies. In Australia, ST III was delayed by almost six months, which was agony, esp. since I saw a slideshow of pics from the then-unreleased movie at a Creation Con while visiting New York City in January 1984.

The first third of McIntyre's ST III is all-new material! And excellent!

I cant think of very many of the older books that I'd call Scotty-centric.

In #3 "The Klingon Gambit", Scotty runs a secret still with Engineer Heather McConel, but they are both out of character as part of the plot.
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Heather_McConel

 

[Christopher]

In #3 "The Klingon Gambit", Scotty runs a secret still with Engineer Heather McConel, but they are both out of character as part of the plot.

That's what I thought when the book first came out, that the leads' out-of-character behavior was the result of the alien influence in the story. But when the same author did Mutiny on the Enterprise later on, the characters still behaved the same way even though they weren't under alien influence that time. They just weren't very good books.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The other part of the tragedy is that the book deals with the story as a pivot point for deciding whether to carry forward with new characters, or turn away and favor nostalgia by bringing back Spock. Saavik's potential feels like it is curtailed, as if she will never be free of the haunting, and the legacy of the older generation.

I started to reply to this yesterday, then wanted to do more thinking about it.

For me, the movie era (1982-1986) is my native era of Star Trek, anchored by the films and cemented by the ongoing comic books, even though I recognize it's a very flawed era. It's what I grew up with. (Like Keith, I think Star Trek III isn't a particularly good film. The script is mechanical in the extreme, and Leonard Nimoy's pedestrian direction does it no favors.) Still, it's my era, and I have great fondness for it.

It's also the time when I read Walter Irwin and G.B. Love's Best of Trek books obsessively. Quite honestly, at that time, it was easier for me to get hold of those than it was the Pocket novels. The discussions on Star Trek II (volumes 6 and 7) and Star Trek III (volumes 8 through 10) were influential on my thinking when I was about ten.

I remember an article about a "fan on the street" survey. The writer went up to fans at a convention and asked them a number of questions. One of those questions was whether or not the main cast should be replaced over time by newer/younger characters (similar to M*A*S*H).

That may have been Harve Bennett's idea when he worked on Star Trek II -- Spock dies, we're introduced to a possible replacement, we meet Kirk's son -- but it was an idea quickly abandoned, as the next film undoes two of those three changes, and the film after that writes out the third. One of the movie era's great flaws is that, after cracking (though not entirely breaking) the status quo in Star Trek II, the next two films then seal up those cracks.

If that's what Bennett wanted to do -- reformat Star Trek with a replacement cast that can carry it for a long time -- biennial movies were the wrong format; when you only have two hours of content every 24-30 months and a large cast to fit in, there's only so much one can do. He would have needed something on a tighter timeframe, like television movies every six months or so. But Bennett's unwillingness to cut cast loose (like George Takei when he turned down Star Trek II) and his release schedule not only closed off the option of introducing a "next generation" but also cemented the idea of the "Big Seven" as opposed to the "Big Three" with familiar, semi-regular day players.

Star Trek III begins at the crossroads "for deciding whether to carry forward with new characters, or turn away and favor nostalgia by bringing back Spock." And when it ends, the franchise has turned irrevocably away -- at least until a new television series built a new crew from the ground up.

To bring this back to the novels, one of the things I liked about McIntyre's novelization of this (and Star Trek II) was the sense that Starfleet was more than just the Enterprise. I have always been intrigued by Mandala Flynn's story mentioned in passing in the two books (she's commanding a ship that's testing transwarp drive and exploring the Andromeda Galaxy), and I have wanted that story since the 1980s. McIntyre's Star Trek universe feels "big," and what happens with Kirk and the Enterprise only scratches the surface.

 

[Leto_II]

My wife and I just did our yearly watch of ST:IV (one of my three favourite feel good movies) and when I saw the ST:IV novelisation I grabbed it, thinking I'd just enjoy a Trek novel the way I used to and I just can't make it through. I've made a half a dozen attempts and made it maybe 20 pages in and, to me, it's just so bad I can't even enjoy it from a nostalgic perspective.

Also, McIntyre’s TVH novelization was among the first in the Pocket Books run to be heavily fucked-with by Richard Arnold during the writing process, from what I understand. That could explain a great deal here. She never wrote another Star Trek book after that.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Also, McIntyre’s TVH novelization was among the first in the Pocket Books run to be heavily fucked-with by Richard Arnold during the writing process, from what I understand. That could explain a great deal here. She never wrote another Star Trek book after that.

McIntyre was working on the manuscript for the novelization, and the Star Trek office at Paramount demanded a detailed outline. They had never asked for a detailed outline before, and she only had so much time before her deadline. Her reply was, roughly, "I can either stop what I'm doing and write a detailed outline or I can finish the book by the deadline, but I cannot do both." She completed the manuscript. There was no detailed outline.

 

[Greg Cox]

McIntyre was working on the manuscript for the novelization, and the Star Trek office at Paramount demanded a detailed outline. They had never asked for a detailed outline before, and she only had so much time before her deadline. Her reply was, roughly, "I can either stop what I'm doing and write a detailed outline or I can finish the book by the deadline, but I cannot do both." She completed the manuscript. There was no detailed outline.

That's a very odd request. It's standard to submit an outline for a original novel but for a novelization? Isn't the movie script basically the outline? Granted, McIntyre tended to flesh things out much more than is usual these days, but the plot of the novelization is going to be the plot of the movie.

I have never been asked to submit an outline for a movie novelization.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

That's a very odd request. It's standard to submit an outline for a original novel but for a novelization? Isn't the movie script basically the outline? Granted, McIntyre tended to flesh things out much more than is usual these days, but the plot of the novelization is going to be the plot of the movie.

Ah, my memory played me slightly false. There were, apparently, no problems with the writing of the Star Trek IV novelization. McIntyre recounts how it was Enterprise: The First Adventure for which, after she wrote a brief outline and began writing the book to hit the deadline, Paramount wanted the detailed outline.

 

[Greg Cox]

Ah, my memory played me slightly false. There were, apparently, no problems with the writing of the Star Trek IV novelization. McIntyre recounts how it was Enterprise: The First Adventure for which, after she wrote a brief outline and began writing the book to hit the deadline, Paramount wanted the detailed outline.

Okay, that makes more sense.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

My foggy memory -- I was remembering a nearly decade-old anecdote and getting the books confused.

 

[Greg Cox]

My foggy memory -- I was remembering a nearly decade-old anecdote and getting the books confused.

Hey, studios can get control-freaky sometimes, so it wasn't completely implausible.

 

[David cgc]

...but also cemented the idea of the "Big Seven" as opposed to the "Big Three" with familiar, semi-regular day players.

That's something I've been thinking about a lot recently, with the whole discussion on the DSC bridge crew, and whether it's right, proper, necessary, or obligatory for the main cast and the bridge crew on a Star Trek show to be a single-circle venn diagram. I hadn't really pinned down TSFS as the moment where the core cast of seven was solidly nailed down, that Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov were part of the gang, but Chapel, Rand, and Kyle (never mind the other, even less-featured recurring characters) weren't, but it makes sense, given that TWOK could've led in any number of other directions.