Poll TOS #9: Triangle by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath Review Thread

[tomswift2002]

Published by: Timescape/Pocket Books/Paperjacks
Published: March 1983 (Physical)/September 2000 (Digital)

Plot: Kirk and Spock become involved in a love triangle with a Free Agent of the Federation as the Totality swoops down on the galaxy to consume it.

Review: So it's been 8 years since I last read The Prometheus Designby Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath, and 20 years since I read The Price of the Phoenix by them as well (and I have yet to read The Fate of the Phoenix considering how much of a trainwreck and long-winded novel Price was). And now I am reading my Canadian copy of Triangle right now (not to be confused with Peter David's Triangle: Imzadi II).

So it's clear from numerous references in the first ten chapters of the book that Triangle is set maybe a year or two after Star Trek The Motion Picture I've recognized references (and when they reference the previous Trek episodes/novels, Marshak and Culbreath tend to do an information dump and try to reference six or seven things in one place!) to episodes like "Amok Time" (apparently Spock is going through Ponn Farr in this book with no mention of something having sped up his need to mate), "Plato's Stepchildren", and "All Our Yesterday's", as well as both the movie and novel of Star Trek The Motion Picture. And this I found really bizarre for an early-1980's book, but the authors even brought in the life support belts from The Animated Series (although they call them bio-belts and mention that they some how tap into the nervous system to give the wearer literal "eyes in the back of their head"!)

Of course when Kirk, Spock and McCoy meet Sola Thane, it seemed like the Marshak and Culbreath were trying to make a call back to The Animated Series episode "The Ambergis Element" where Kirk and Spock were attacked by those flying pteradactyls and other animals. That scene (I think it was Chapters 6 & 7) had a very Animated Series vibe. I mean, Spock calls for the Enterprise to beam them up, and yet no one responds (did someone smuggle those spore plants from This Side of Paradise on board without anyone's knowledge? Or did Uhura take an unexpected bathroom break just when Spock tried to call, and no one else could answer the call?) to beam the four up, so they need to fight off the creatures in order to reach Thane's crashed ship and then get it flying somehow up to the Enterprise!

Just looking at the cover, this is one of those early Pocket screwed up covers where they feature elements of TOS/TAS and TMP. In this case, we see the Enterprise of TOS/TAS front and center, with Kirk and Spock from TMP, in their TMP uniforms, in the bottom corner. It's also interesting that on my Timescape copy, I can see that Spock, or at least his uniform, is mirrored for some odd reason, since the delta on his shirt is on the right side of his uniform, when it should be on the left side. You can see it better on the first Heyne Verlag German language cover, where Heyne Verlag zoomed the cover waay out to show the full artwork as the artist painted it. The second cover by Heyne Verlag used parts of the original 1983 cover art, but they added the correct TMP era Enterprise.

Triangle (novel)

For other uses, see Triangle. Triangle is a Star Trek: The Original Series novel by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath. It was published in March 1983, the 9th book in the Pocket Books series of numbered TOS novels. This would be the second and final Pocket Books Star Trek release from Marshak...

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[tomswift2002]

Ok I know that Marshak and Culbreath were really into the slash scene, but this novel is getting ridiculous, since it’s reading more like a Harlequin romance novel than a Star Trek novel or any other non-Harlequin romance novel. And I’m getting lost on the backstory between Kirk and Sola Than. At first it felt like they both knew each other by reputation but had never met, but then around page 45 it seemed to change to where Kirk and Sola had known each other years earlier at like the Academy and had maybe date back then.

But so far, it’s been a Kirk/ Spock only novel with McCoy appearing the most outside those two and Uhura making a quick cameo and Dr. M’Benga is apparently aboard, but no sign of Dr. Chapel.

 

[tomswift2002]

I have to wonder if the authors had just seen one of the Animated Series episodes, because every time the book goes planetside, it feels like the authors were trying to cobble together animals and other settings from TAS into the story! They do get the TAS feel right when it comes to the animals, but some of the scenes I don’t think would have worked in a cartoon from the 1970’s network perspective.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I never know how to rate things that are so bad they're good

I, persoanlly, had great fun reading Marshak and Culbreath's books. Whether it's the kind of fun the authors intended or not is another matter.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Dunno if the "phoenix" books would qualify as "not the kind of fun the authors intended." I seem to recall lots of really confusing parts, and I don't mean confusing the way the whole "cat burglar" bit in Ford's How Much For Just the Planet is confusing.

 

[tomswift2002]

I never know how to rate things that are so bad they're good

I, persoanlly, had great fun reading Marshak and Culbreath's books. Whether it's the kind of fun the authors intended or not is another matter.

That’s why I put the “It’s Green!”.

But with “Triangle”, in one way it’s reminding me of the DS9 “The Laertian Gamble” book where a number of chapters are only a page or two long (albeit “Triangle”‘s font is like an 8 font size), so the chapters are over pretty fast.

But the last half of the book I’m finding is missing any plot and it’s more just get the characters from point A to point B and we’ll just throw up what we think is cool. It seems more like Marshak and Culbreath were trying to reach either a word or page quota, but ran out of plot long before they should have run out of plot.

 

[tomswift2002]

So the last few chapters have really gotten bogged down to where I’ve been setting the book down. If there’s any plot left in these chapters, it’s very minuscule.

 

[tomswift2002]

I finished the last few chapters. I'm kind of left wondering what the point of the book was? Plus, for the last half of the book McCoy was just standing around to be a "Mary Sue" character and really had nothing to do (seems like the authors were pulling this from TMP where McCoy kept popping up on the bridge just to remind people he was there but he had nothing to do!). And then it felt like the authors realized that they were running out of pages and needed to get Sola Thane and Soljev off the stage and get all the toys back in the toybox and they really rushed the ending (although, I think I have an idea where the producers of Star Trek Into Darkness got the volcano idea---from this book, since the ending has Kirk, Spock, Sola Thane, Soljev and everyone else in a volcano that's like 7 seconds from exploding!)

 

[Christopher]

I finished the last few chapters. I'm kind of left wondering what the point of the book was? Plus, for the last half of the book McCoy was just standing around to be a "Mary Sue" character and really had nothing to do (seems like the authors were pulling this from TMP where McCoy kept popping up on the bridge just to remind people he was there but he had nothing to do!).

If McCoy didn't do anything, he was the opposite of a Mary Sue. Sola Thane was the Mary Sue in Triangle, one of the most extreme Mary Sues in all of professional Trek Lit -- an impossibly competent superwoman who outshines the male heroes, has them all fall in love with her, and even helps Spock through his second pon farr.

(although, I think I have an idea where the producers of Star Trek Into Darkness got the volcano idea---from this book, since the ending has Kirk, Spock, Sola Thane, Soljev and everyone else in a volcano that's like 7 seconds from exploding!)

There are many, many action stories out there that feature volcanoes on the verge of exploding, so there's absolutely no reason to assume that the makers of STID were aware of this particular one or interested in referencing it.

 

[I am not Herbert]

I finished the last few chapters. I'm kind of left wondering what the point of the book was?

Alas, you may be asking a question the authors never got around to asking themselves.

 

[Avro Arrow]

@tomswift2002 , just wanted to say that I really appreciate you starting these review threads for these older books, so thank you for that. However, they weren't getting picked up by the review thread aggregator, and we do try to have all our review threads picked up so that they can display on that page. So, I have made an executive decision to modify your thread titles in the hopes that they will get picked up, especially since both threads already have enough votes that the books will appear in the chart.

Now, I honestly don't know if your joke "it's green" poll response will allow the threads to be picked up or not. I've left it in there for now, and if it doesn't cause any issues, then I'll just leave it there. But if it does block anything, then I may have to remove it too. Sorry about that, but it is just a joke option rather than a legitimate review choice, so I hope you understand. But I will leave it there if it does still work.

Since I was editing the thread titles anyway, I fixed the typo on Myrna Culbreath's name in this one while I was there.

 

[I am not Herbert]

(although, I think I have an idea where the producers of Star Trek Into Darkness got the volcano idea---from this book, since the ending has Kirk, Spock, Sola Thane, Soljev and everyone else in a volcano that's like 7 seconds from exploding!)

Maybe, who knows? But here's hoping that if any ST movie producer decides to mine ST lit for ideas, they are a little more discerning in their choice of authors...