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    Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion
    Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion
    Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion
    Ebook1,822 pages18 hours

    Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion

    By Jeff Ayers

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Through four decades, five television series comprising over seven hundred episodes, ten feature films, and an animated series, fandom's thirst for more Star Trek stories has been unquenchable.

    From the earliest short-story adaptations by James Blish in the 1960s, followed by the first original Star Trek novels during the seventies, and on throughout the eighties, nineties, and into the twenty-first century, fiction has offered an unparalleled expansion of the rich Star Trek tapestry. But what is it that makes these books such a powerfully attractive creative outlet to some and a compelling way to experience the Star Trek mythos anew to others?

    Voyages of Imagination takes a look back on the first forty years of professionally published Star Trek fiction, revealing the personalities and sensibilities of many of the novels' imaginative contributors and offering an unprecedented glimpse into the creative processes, the growing pains, the risks, the innovations, the missteps, and the great strides taken in the books.

    Author Jeff Ayers has immersed himself in nearly six hundred books and interviewed more than three hundred authors and editors in order to compile this definitive guide to the history and evolution of an incomparable publishing phenomenon. Fully illustrated with the covers of every book included herein, Voyages of Imagination is indexed by title and author, features a comprehensive timeline, and is a must-have for every fan.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPocket Books/Star Trek
    Release dateDec 29, 2006
    ISBN9781416525486
    Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion
    Author

    Jeff Ayers

    Jeff Ayers is a longtime reviewer of thrillers for Library Journal, and has written columns on suspense novels, alternate history, and adventure fiction. His is also a freelance writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

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    • 4/5
      A thorough (as of publication) listing and critiquing of the Star Trek fiction. The book is massive because the body of work connected with the franchise is massive. Just the sort of reference book I love to browse and highlight!

    Book preview

    Voyages of Imagination - Jeff Ayers

    halftitle

    Copyright © 2006 by CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

    STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc.

    This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., under exclusive license from CBS Studios Inc.

    All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portons there of in any form whatsoever.

    For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

    ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-2548-6

    ISBN-10: 1-4165-2548-3

    POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

    Cover art by Mark Gerber

    Visit us on the World Wide Web:

    http://www.SimonSays.com/st

    http://www.startrek.com

    This book is dedicated to my wife, Terry.

    Having a book published has always been a dream of mine,

    but with her by my side, I live a dream every day.

    Acknowledgments

    F irst and foremost, though I dedicated the book to her, I have to say again that without my wonderful wife Terry’s love and support, I wouldn’t be whole. She is the bright flashlight in an otherwise dark episode of The X-Files.

    To Greg and Samantha: Thank you for letting your dad have some quiet time on the computer. They are starting to become Trek fans and it has been fun to introduce them to this wonderful universe.

    Rita Rosenkranz: Thank you for taking a chance on a frustrated librarian who thought that it would be cool to have a guide to all of the Star Trek books.

    Marco Palmieri: editor extraordinaire and super patient. Thanks for opening up your world to a fan and letting him play with your toys.

    Wilda Williams: Thank you for all of the opportunities you have given me. Without your guidance, I wouldn’t be published.

    John Marshall: Thank you for taking a chance with me, helping me build my résumé and having fun at the same time.

    Dan Brown: Congratulations on your success. Thank you for your correspondence and helping me launch my career.

    Tom Grime and Scott Rice for their continued support and encouragement.

    Gayle Lynds: Your encouragement and support have had a major role in trying to tame this writing bug.

    James Thayer: Your friendship and advice have been inspiring and have made me a better writer.

    Patrick Yearout: You have taught me so much and forced me to think.

    John DeAngeli: first reader and great friend.

    The Star Trek book group at Barnes & Noble in Lynnwood: Your excitement when I mentioned my little project and then when I actually landed the assignment reinforced the idea that more people might buy the book than just my mother. In addition, a huge thank you to Michelle for helping me transcribe some of my tapes.

    My mother, Donna, and my stepfather, Santo: Thanks for having me and trying to understand my obsession with that strange space show, and understanding why I had to write instead of talk to you. Santo, thank you for taking care of my mom. As Spock would say, Live Long and Prosper.

    Trying to find everyone to interview was a major challenge and major thanks are due to the following people who helped me track down others: Richard Arnold, Paula M. Block, Margaret Clark, Keith DeCandido, Kevin (Lifesaver) Dilmore, Dave Galanter, Elisa Kassin, Kevin Killiany, Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Victor Milan, Steve Roby, Amy Sisson, Geoff Trowbridge, Dayton (sorry I stole your book) Ward, Mary Wiecek, and David Wilson.

    Thank you to the Timeliners for a terrific new edition of the fiction timeline. And, major thanks to all of the authors who took the time to talk to me. Without all of your input, this project would have never even gotten started.

    Contents

    Overture: Star Trek Fiction Then and Now

    Part One: Star Trek Fiction Published by Bantam Books

    Part Two: Star Trek Fiction Published by Ballantine Books

    Part Three: Star Trek Fiction Published by Pocket Books

    Section 1: Star Trek Numbered Novels

    Section 2: Star Trek Unnumbered Novels

    Section 3: Star Trek: The Next Generation Numbered Novels

    Section 4: Star Trek: The Next Generation Unnumbered Novels

    Section 5: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Numbered Novels

    Section 6: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Unnumbered Novels

    Section 7: Star Trek: Voyager Numbered Novels

    Section 8: Star Trek: Voyager Unnumbered Novels

    Section 9: Star Trek: Enterprise Novels

    Section 10: Novelizations

    Section 11: Original Fiction Concepts

    Section 12: Miniseries

    Section 13: Anthologies

    Section 14: Other Star Trek Fiction

    Section 15: Young Adult Fiction

    The Star Trek Fiction Timeline

    Forward

    Index

    Overture:

    Star Trek Fiction: Then and Now

    It started with a television series on September 8, 1966. Forty years later, the Star Trek phenomenon includes four spin-off series, ten features films, an animated series, uncounted licensed products…and a publishing aspect nearly as old and enduring as the franchise itself.

    In 1967, long before the invention of DVDs and TiVo, Bantam Books acquired the rights to publish adaptations of Star Trek episodes. Noted science fiction author James Blish was approached to write short stories based on the episodes, working entirely from scripts.

    Around the same time, now-defunct publisher Whitman commissioned author Mack Reynolds to craft the first original Star Trek novel. Published in 1968, this young adult novel was entitled Mission to Horatius, and was Whitman’s only foray into Trek fiction.

    Meanwhile, Bantam continued the increasingly popular collected adaptations by Blish. Before he passed away in 1975, Blish had completed eleven Star Trek anthologies, as well as his original novelette, Spock Must Die! Writing these books made more money for Blish than any other books he had written during his lifetime. When he died, his wife, Judith, saw through the unfinished Star Trek 12 and adapted the remaining episodes for Mudd’s Angels.

    During its run, Bantam also published two original Star Trek short story anthologies and thirteen original novels, edited by science fiction luminary Frederik Pohl.

    Star Trek’s animated series debuted in 1973. Inspired by the success of the Bantam adaptations, publisher Ballantine Books acquired the license to publish books based on the cartoon, and tapped Alan Dean Foster to write novellas based on these new episodes, under the title Star Trek Logs. Adapting three episodes each, the books did so well that by the time Alan reached Log Seven, he had started incorporating original story concepts into the adaptations in order to stretch the remaining four episodes into individual novel-length stories so that Ballantine could publish three additional volumes.

    In 1979, Simon & Schuster’s mass-market publishing division, Pocket Books, became the official publisher of Star Trek books with the release of the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Editor David Hartwell successfully convinced his superiors that Pocket should publish original novels as well, and in 1981, eighteen months after the publication of the Motion Picture adaptation, Pocket published its first original Star Trek novel, Vonda N. McIntyre’s The Entropy Effect.

    The program did well for Pocket and then hit a roadblock with the publication of Killing Time, the twenty-fourth novel in the line, published in 1985. This marked the beginning of a period during which Gene Roddenberry’s personal assistant, Richard Arnold, became involved in Star Trek fiction review. All proposals and manuscripts went through Richard, who would review them and pass them on to Gene with his comments. In some cases, Gene would pass comments back to Richard, and Richard would sometimes send the comments on Gene’s behalf. This created some confusion over the next few years about whether the comments were coming from Richard or Gene, especially when the nature of those comments strongly discouraged Pocket and its authors from venturing beyond the scope of what was established on screen in any way. Under these constraints, innovative stories and depth of characterization seemed to decrease dramatically over what it had been before.

    When Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered in 1987, Pocket Books began a series of books for the new show. With the launch of the TNG book line, the frequency of Star Trek novels increased to one per month, alternating between the new series and the original. Richard and Gene looked at everything and it all went relatively smoothly until the novel, Music of the Spheres, was submitted for approval. Roddenberry took offense to some of the content, and the book, eventually retitled Probe, ended up being re-written by another author, though still published under the original author’s name.

    After Gene Roddenberry passed away in 1991, Richard Arnold lost his role in reviewing Star Trek books. Paula Block, already the studio’s direct editorial contact with Pocket in matters relating to the novels, became the primary authority on approvals. Slowly, the prior constraints and limitations placed on the fiction began to loosen, though it took several years more for the results to be felt.

    With the premiere of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1993, there were now three different series with four to six books coming out per year for each. In 1995, with the launch of Star Trek: Voyager, Pocket’s annual output of Star Trek fiction rose to twenty-four mass-market titles per year, plus the infrequent hardcover novel and a newly launched line of digest-size Young Adult adventures.

    In 1997, Pocket launched New Frontier, the first series of Star Trek novels focusing on an original ship and crew. The success of this launch paved the way for further innovations, as Pocket began in earnest to generate Star Trek fiction of increasingly greater scope and characterization, experimenting not only with content, but with structure and format. Multi-part stories became popular for a time, anthologies returned, and a line of monthly novellas published as eBooks was launched. Even as Pocket secured the book rights to the fifth Star Trek television series, Enterprise, new editorial directions were developed to produce authorized continuations of TV series that were ending, such as Deep Space Nine and Voyager, taking those sagas beyond where their final episodes left off. More original fiction concepts were conceived, such as Stargazer and I.K.S. Gorkon.

    In 2005, following years of declining ratings and box office receipts culminating in the cancellation of Enterprise, it was clear the Star Trek phenomenon no longer held its audience as it once had. In July of that year, citing reasons both editorial and economic, Pocket reduced the number of mass-market Star Trek paperbacks published per year from twenty-four to twelve. Despite the reduced publishing schedule, Pocket continued to innovate, launching two original Star Trek fiction concepts, Titan and Vanguard, that same year.

    In 2006, the year of Star Trek’s fortieth anniversary, Pocket marked the occasion with a special lineup of anniversary-themed projects for the latter half of the year, even as it continued to develop books for the years beyond.

    Part One

    Star Trek Fiction

    Published by Bantam Books

    1967–1981

    STAR TREK

    (Later retitled STAR TREK 1)

    JAMES BLISH

    JANUARY 1967               (136 PP)

    16-1

    A daptations of seven episodes from the first TV series:

    Charlie’s Law (retitled Charlie X for television)

    Dagger of the Mind

    The Unreal McCoy (retitled The Man Trap for television)

    Balance of Terror

    The Naked Time

    Miri

    The Conscience of the King

    STAR TREK 2

    JAMES BLISH

    FEBRUARY 1968               (122 PP)

    16-2

    A daptations of seven episodes from the first TV series:

    Arena

    A Taste of Armageddon

    Tomorrow is Yesterday

    Errand of Mercy

    Court Martial

    Operation: Annihilate!

    The City on the Edge of Forever

    Space Seed

    STAR TREK 3

    JAMES BLISH

    APRIL 1969               (118 PP)

    17-1

    A daptations of seven episodes from the first TV series:

    The Trouble with Tribbles

    The Last Gunfight (retitled Spectre of the Gun for television)

    The Doomsday Machine

    Assignment: Earth

    Mirror, Mirror

    Friday’s Child

    Amok Time

    STAR TREK 4

    JAMES BLISH

    APRIL 1971               (134 PP)

    17-2

    A daptations of six episodes from the first TV series:

    All Our Yesterdays

    The Devil in the Dark

    Journey to Babel

    The Menagerie

    "The Enterprise Incident"

    A Piece of the Action

    STAR TREK 5

    JAMES BLISH

    FEBRUARY 1972               (136 PP)

    18-1

    A daptations of seven episodes from the first TV series:

    Whom Gods Destroy

    The Tholian Web

    Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

    This Side of Paradise

    Turnabout Intruder

    Requiem for Methuselah

    The Way to Eden

    STAR TREK 6

    JAMES BLISH

    APRIL 1972               (149 PP)

    18-2

    A daptations of six episodes from the first TV series:

    The Savage Curtain

    The Lights of Zetar

    The Apple

    By Any Other Name

    The Cloud Minders

    The Mark of Gideon

    STAR TREK 7

    JAMES BLISH

    JULY 1972               (155 PP)

    19-1

    A daptations of six episodes from the first TV series:

    Who Mourns for Adonais?

    The Changeling

    The Paradise Syndrome

    Metamorphosis

    The Deadly Years

    Elaan of Troyius

    STAR TREK 8

    JAMES BLISH

    NOVEMBER 1972               (170 PP)

    19-2

    A daptations of six episodes from the first TV series:

    Spock’s Brain

    The Enemy Within

    Catspaw

    Where No Man Has Gone Before

    Wolf in the Fold

    For the World Is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky

    STAR TREK 9

    JAMES BLISH

    AUGUST 1973               (183 PP)

    20-1

    A daptations of six episodes from the first TV series:

    Return to Tomorrow

    The Ultimate Computer

    That Which Survives

    Obsession

    The Return of the Archons

    The Immunity Syndrome

    STAR TREK 10

    JAMES BLISH

    FEBRUARY 1974               (164 PP)

    20-2

    A daptations of six episodes from the first TV series:

    The Alternative Factor

    The Empath

    The Galileo Seven

    Is There in Truth No Beauty?

    A Private Little War

    The Omega Glory

    STAR TREK 11

    JAMES BLISH

    APRIL 1975               (188 PP)

    21-1

    A daptations of six episodes from the first TV series:

    What Are Little Girls Made Of?

    The Squire of Gothos

    Wink of an Eye

    Bread and Circuses

    Day of the Dove

    Plato’s Stepchildren

    STAR TREK 12

    JAMES BLISH AND J. A. LAWRENCE

    NOVEMBER 1977               (177 PP)

    21-2

    A daptations of five episodes from the first TV series:

    Patterns of Force

    The Gamesters of Triskelion

    And the Children Shall Lead

    The Corbomite Maneuver

    Shore Leave

    MUDD’S ANGELS

    J. A. LAWRENCE

    MAY 1978               (177 PP)

    22

    A daptations of two episodes from the first TV series, plus an original story:

    Mudd’s Women

    I, Mudd

    The Business As Usual, During Altercations

    The Federation finds competition and begins to lose out on new shipments of dilithium. The Enterprise investigates and discovers the miners are sending their deliveries to a new buyer.

    Judy Blish (Judith Ann Lawrence AKA J. A. Lawrence, wife of James Blish) remembered, "The first Jim and I ever heard of Star Trek was at a Milford Conference in the mid-1960s, when Harlan Ellison bounced in all enthusiasm with the news that finally someone who really appreciated science fiction was to produce a new series, and his plan was to invite all the pros to contribute scripts. That notion fizzled out because writing for the visual media is very different from writing for the reader and many very good writers just don’t have the knack. But they certainly did elicit some good stories from Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan himself, and many others who did have it. The next year the series was under way, and we certainly watched it when we could. But believe it or not, we didn’t always have television. With all the things Jim and I were doing, we just didn’t get around to it for years. I’m racking my brain to remember when we did and when we didn’t, since from 1965 to 1968 we lived in New York, Virginia, Brooklyn, and then England. I think we got a TV in England. Meanwhile Star Trek was a roaring success. At the time someone approached Jim—I never really knew whether it was the editor at Bantam or Harlan or an agent—and asked him to write a book series from the scripts. He was reluctant, as he had never done such a project and hadn’t followed all the episodes. However, as he realized that this series was creating a whole new audience for science fiction, he wanted to participate in that. It was a new venture for him. The studio supplied all the material they could, most importantly the final shooting scripts, and guidelines for the visual details. Occasionally the script was altered in the final shooting, and nobody told him, which caused a ruckus among fans who had seen the different version."

    Judy continued, "The hardest thing about it, and perhaps the most fun, was to try to explain why the story happened as it did with some logical explanation, since many of the scripts’ logic simply did not hold up when read. He (and then we) was always having to wrestle out an ingenious explanation for something that the producers had glided over. And yes, he did get a kick out of it, and out of the massive fan mail, though he was amazed. While the fans’ interest inspired him—there’s nothing like knowing someone is reading with interest what you write—I can’t say that he relied on the fans for information. He had to work from the scripts, then the book was published, and only then could the fans complain, which was too late. Fan response did make him pay more attention to certain kinds of detail, such as costume, which to one who is trying to make sense of the story were not all that vital, but which mattered very much in the presentation. With the later books, there was, obviously, much more input and argument from them, and he/we had to mind all our p’s and q’s."

    Judy started assisting with the books. "How I got involved was that somewhere around the seventh or eighth book, Jim was beginning to feel a breeze from the Angel’s wings and an urgency to attend to his own work. He didn’t have the energy to do both; he was not very well. Rather than abandon the project, my mother, a long-term professional writer in other fields, and I, who had begun selling my own science fiction (SF) stories, offered to write them, and he would do the quality control on our production. We tried it and it seemed to work okay. (In some of those later stories you can see the fine romantic hand of my mother who was strong on the mushy love stuff.) After Jim died, I told all this to then editor Frederik Pohl, who rather doubtfully allowed me to continue. But he found the result acceptable, [so Star Trek 12] has both our names on it. I made a great effort to see the shows I’d missed, and my agent in London arranged screenings at the BBC for me, where I audio-recorded the shows and took a lot of notes. Only the Mudd stories remained, and were supposed to be worked into a novel. Jim had tried, and I tried, but we simply could not come up with a way to combine them. The two actual scripts were fully self-contained stories, told in a strict chronological order that did not allow for interspersions, and it seemed to me that twisting them somehow into a longer story would not do anything to improve them. So instead I offered an original additional story to round out the sequence."

    Dorothy Fontana remembers the Blish books. The James Blish novelizations came about after the first year of the series. Unfortunately, the publishing house chose to jam a number of script stories into each book, thereby causing Mr. Blish—a wonderful writer—to have to cut the novelization of each story down to the barest main plot. Much of the subplot material from each story had to be left out. I know this was not his choice—and it was an unfortunate one, I believe—because his touch expanding the original stories was diluted. They were still good, but there could have been so much more.

    Frederik Pohl, editor of the Bantam Star Trek line starting in 1972, remembered, After all the scripts had been done, he sort of retired on the proceeds. Then he developed cancer of the throat and other problems. Judith finished the remainder of his work.

    SPOCK MUST DIE!

    JAMES BLISH

    FEBRUARY 1970               (118 PP)

    24-1

    T he second original Star Trek novel, and the first published by Bantam. The Klingons declare war and it appears that the Organians are not holding up their end of the accord. Captain Kirk decides to send Spock to Organia to discover their whereabouts. A transporter accident renders Spock into two Spocks, each indistinguishable from the other. Like the episode, The Enemy Within, one of the Spocks is evil, but which one? The evil Spock has clearly learned from Kirk’s accident! To make things worse, when the Enterprise finally arrives at Organia, it appears to be utterly lifeless.

    According to Judy Blish, "The novel came about, I think, because they asked for a novel, and [Jim] tried to think of something surprising, even shocking—at that time, Spock had not picked up the habit of dying—and he had been completely taken by surprise at the fan response to Spock. He, like the studio, had expected the hero figure of Kirk to be the idol, and when Spock gathered a huge following—and a lot of female admirers—Jim was thunderstruck. I too thought Spock more interesting, and after some discussion, Jim began to work it out in his mind, and began to think more about who he was, and so he became the pivotal character.

    SF master Frederik Pohl edited the Bantam Star Trek novels. He commented, "I acquired the line in 1972. James Blish had told me once that the biggest checks he had ever seen came from those Trek novelizations. A number of Trek fans wanted to do their own stories and that’s why we did New Voyages. The truth is, I didn’t really pay much attention to Star Trek."

    STAR TREK: THE NEW VOYAGES

    SONDRA MARSHAK AND MYRNA CULBREATH, EDITORS

    MARCH 1976               (237 PP)

    24-2

    A n anthology of eight original short stories and one poem:

    Ni Var by Claire Gabriel (with an introduction by Leonard Nimoy)

    A dying scientist makes Spock two separate beings: one entirely Vulcan, the other fully human.

    Intersection Point by Juanita Coulson (with an introduction by James Doohan)

    A strange hull breach causes problems for Scotty and the crew.

    The Enchanted Pool by Marcia Eric-son (with an introduction by Nichelle Nichols)

    Spock meets the love of his life, but all is not as it seems.

    Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited by Ruth Berman (with an introduction by Majel Barrett Roddenberry)

    The actors who play Kirk, Spock, and McCoy find themselves in an alternate universe where their fictional counterparts are real.

    The Face on the Barroom Floor by Eleanor Arnason and Ruth Berman (with an introduction by George Takei)

    While on shore leave, Kirk disappears and the Enterprise crew receives orders to abandon the search.

    The Hunting by Doris Beetem (with an introduction by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath)

    Spock takes McCoy on a unique hunting expedition.

    The Winged Dreamers by Jennifer Guttridge (with an introduction by DeForest Kelley)

    In paradise, shore leave turns to mutiny.

    Mind Sifter by Shirley S. Maiewski (with an introduction by William Shatner)

    A mentally unstable Captain Kirk winds up in a twentieth-century asylum.

    Sonnet from the Vulcan: Omicron Ceti Three by Shirley Meech

    A love poem from Spock to Leila Kalomi.

    Sondra and Myrna answered questions jointly. "We owe a debt to Gene Roddenberry, who not only brought us together but also gave a boost to each of our writing careers that ultimately led us to merge them. Sondra had earned her Master’s degree in history, with straight-A honors. She was married to a professor, had a young son, and was planning to go on for her Ph.D. to teach at the university level and write culture-changing nonfiction. Then she decided that she was going into the wrong business. Sondra’s first real love had always been fiction. She had made a couple of abortive attempts to watch parts of Star Trek episodes in reruns, on the recommendation of friends, but had happened to see a couple of episodes with things like some female apparition saying, ‘My touch is death…’ or Kang seeming to blame all evil on some whirling blob in space. Star Trek was well into reruns before Sondra gave it one last shot and tuned in to the episode ‘Bread and Circuses.’ She saw the powerful relationship between Kirk and Spock and the focus on moral and philosophical issues. She was hooked. Some who know Sondra have said that the show would never have been canceled if she had tuned in sooner. Could be. Here was a vision of humankind as it could be and should be, not the plaything of invisible forces, but able to go to the stars, master fate, master themselves, bond with each other or with an alien—as more than a brother. And virtually every other value that she had wanted to teach and write about. When she did understand the impact of Star Trek, Sondra realized that as a professor she would reach a few thousand students in her lifetime. But Star Trek was reaching tens of millions a day. She decided to change professions.

    "Myrna had come to Star Trek somewhat earlier but had her hands full with the reading crisis and with editing The Fire Bringer—also aimed at changing the world, and to which Gene was a devoted reader. She did steal time to write a Star Trek script, ‘Triangle.’ But at about that time, the show was canceled. It was a different early version, which [we] later reinvented into [our] novel Triangle."

    When asked about how they write together, they commented, We’ve described it as virtually a Vulcan mind-meld. For the most part we can’t remember who did what, although we know each other’s strengths, and rely on them in each other. We’ve been known to write a novel, start to finish, in two weeks.

    Sondra and Myrna continued, "Star Trek: The New Voyages became the first anthology of original Star Trek fiction. It may well be the first time that the fan fiction of any phenomenon was professionally published. The New Voyages became an immediate mass-market best seller. After Bantam editor Fred Pohl chose Marshak and Culbreath’s Star Trek: The New Voyages, it occurred to him that it would be a nice bonus for fans if Marshak and Culbreath’s relationships with Gene Roddenberry and members of the original Star Trek cast could make possible an introduction to the first New Voyages by creator Gene Roddenberry, and to each story by the members of the original cast. Myrna and Sondra did ask for those introductions, Gene and everyone they asked graciously agreed. It became the first and last book of Star Trek fiction with such introductions. (At a late stage, as they had already asked for nearly all the introductions, Bantam cut the story they had earmarked for Walter Koenig (Mr. Chekov) for space reasons and there was nothing they could do. Afterwards Walter told us that he, too, would have agreed.)"

    They explained that none of it could be done without Paramount’s consent. While Paramount was aware of the myriad of Star Trek fanzines, it would have to approve professional publication of any licensed fiction.

    "Given that Paramount had all of Star Trek to protect, they would have to be convinced that new original fiction would be impeccably professional and consistent with aired Star Trek, and that it would not cut off any future Star Trek potential. Moreover, Paramount executives had to be convinced that such fiction would find a major market, and not embarrass them. All of that amounted to moving a mountain. We figured that job was just about Fred Pohl’s size. He had called to buy Star Trek Lives!—the book on the Star Trek phenomenon that later became a bible in the Star Trek offices at Paramount. Sondra had started the query package for Star Trek Lives! with talented co-author and science fiction writer Jacqueline Lichtenberg. Later Sondra brought in Joan Winston, a television executive who had helped organize and get major publicity for the first Star Trek convention. That was before Sondra met Myrna. After Star Trek Lives! was in the pipeline, we suggested to Fred Pohl that it was a shame—and a huge missed marketing opportunity—that no new, original Star Trek fiction was being published. (Science fiction writer James Blish had been commissioned to adapt the already-aired TV episodes as short stories, and somewhere a short novel by Blish had slipped in—then nothing.) We suggested to Pohl that with the right editing, the best of the fan fiction could be made professionally publishable. Fred hadn’t thought anyone would do it professionally enough, but now he knew that they could. Get him a manuscript, more or less instantly—what else was new? When Fred phoned to buy Star Trek Lives! he had said, ‘When I passed up your Star Trek phenomenon book a while ago, I said that the Star Trek phenomenon was dead, there’ll never be another Star Trek book. Guess what? I was wrong. I need your book and I need it in less than 30 days. Can you do it?’ Who’s going to tell him ‘No’? Only a few chapters and an outline had been written for the query package for Star Trek Lives! Even those chapters were extensively rewritten and the outline morphed into a largely new shape. The Star Trek Lives! manuscript got to Fred on time. It did well. But it was not fiction…. New Voyages was to become the true mass-marketing breakthrough. It has been widely credited with helping fuel the growing fan phenomenon that led to increasingly massive Star Trek conventions and eventually to the revival of Star Trek in movies, then in ongoing new formats."

    They finished, "We again hustled to get Fred the manuscript for Star Trek: The New Voyages in the short required time, before he left on a planned trip to Russia. We have vivid memories—and the occasional flashback—to those days of the birth of new Star Trek fiction: We were collecting, editing, and sometimes, at the authors’ requests, extensively cutting or partly rewriting some stories or long novellas for fan authors who threw up their hands and said that they couldn’t do it, please do it for them. While there was exciting raw material, fanzines had different editing standards and no great limitations on length. Everything we would send to Fred to show Paramount had to pay off on our promise that it could be extremely professional, marketable, meet space requirements, and leave Fred some options for final choices. Probably that editing or rewriting process was foredoomed to be an example of ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’ While the fan authors wanted us to do it, it’s hard for any writers to let anyone touch a hair on a story’s head. Eventually our judgment was vindicated when Star Trek: The New Voyages became one of the most beloved books of Star Trek fiction."

    SPOCK, MESSIAH!

    THEODORE R. COGSWELL AND

    CHARLES A. SPANO, JR.

    SEPTEMBER 1976               (182 PP)

    27

    T o investigate a planet with limited technology and have the capability to blend in with the populace, members of the crew have a device surgically implanted that enables the user to successfully mind-link with an inhabitant. The procedure is thoroughly researched and the natives of the planet are specifically screened for compatibility with their Starfleet hosts. An act of sabotage links Spock with a madman who believes he is the planet’s messiah, making Spock act irrational and believe he is their savior.

    Theodore Cogswell passed away in 1987. He only wrote fewer than forty stories over the length of his career. Charles Spano was an avid science fiction reader as he grew up in the 1950s. According to Charles, "I read every Tom Swift printed (and still have them, the Tom Swift, Jr. series), and every analog (back then it was astounding SF) Fantasy & ScienceFiction magazine I could get my hands on. I went through every single science fiction book in the youth section of my public library and watched every SF movie I could when it was shown on TV. There used to be a used book store in the town where I went to college and for one dollar I could get ten books, so I burned through a whole five dollars about once a month and brought home grocery bags filled with Heinleins, Asimovs, Andersons, Pohl, Harrisons, you name it. Now when Star Trek actually dared to take some of those ideas seriously and turn them into visualizations, I was easy prey. Star Trek wasn’t the first TV SF show—I watched Fireball XL-5, World of Giants, Tom Corbett, SpaceCadet, Twilight Zone, but Star Trek handled the SF concepts the way John Campbell would have approved, and Heinlein did put the story in front of the gadgets and ray guns. I remember being in college and making sure to be home on Friday nights so I could audio tape the shows (yes, audio!). I sat on the floor with a mike up to the speaker of the TV and held my family at bay with a broom and scotch tape so they would be quiet. I think I actually missed the first two or three shows, but after that I was hooked on seeing things I read about actually being portrayed on TV."

    As much as he enjoyed reading sciencefiction stories, he wanted to write them as well. "I wrote many unpublished and unpublishable things—not Star Trek—but I wanted to get into the SF world, and because the future is the touchstone of optimism and the belief that bad as things may be, or could be, there is the chance that in the future things will be better."

    How did Charles end up writing Spock, Messiah! with Theodore? "It came about as I attempted to write on my own and collected many lovely letters from editors. I read a small article in our local newspaper that Theodore Cogswell was going to speak about something. I had read much about SF writers willing to help younger writers and, of course, the famous Clarion writer’s workshops originated near Scranton, so hoping he would be kind and generous like all established SF writers, I called him and asked if I could visit and show him my stuff. Not to be put off by the gruff persona he affected (Ted, if you’re reading, you didn’t fool me!) he gave me great help. One day, he called me and asked if I would coauthor a Star Trek novel which Fred Pohl had asked him to do. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the light barrier is an absolute. Overall I thought the collaboration was enjoyable. The changes and criticisms Ted made improved the story. This began in 1975 and the idea of Spock, Messiah! was mine as was the majority of the first draft. The first Arab oil embargo was recent history and militant Islam was making its first stirrings. However, the idea that a fanatical desert leader could arise to threaten a civilization was (is) a staple throughout history. Of course, there was always the ‘get Spock’ school of Star Trek fandom which was beginning to grow about then too. Ted outlined a general plan in accord with Fred Pohl’s one injunction: ‘Get them off that damned ship.’ Thus, a quest was born. Somebody had to be the object of the quest and it had to have sufficient urgency for one and all. The idea of the dop was Ted’s and the beshwa itinerants were mine. I knew the Star Trek pattern and some of the technical things. Ted helped (ordered, actually and painfully, when I saw those red Xs through my lovely words, ah well) bring the story back to the questing when I wandered off for a chapter or two on irrelevancies. To more directly answer the question, Spock, Messiah! was born more because we needed a sufficiently dangerous place where they could not use their technology, which immediately brought to mind a semi-primitive world, and a mind tough enough to take out Spock could only be a fanatic of the first order."

    The publication was relatively straightforward. "We wrote the book on contract, cleaned it up, sent it out, Pohl asked for a few minor changes, and we got galleys a month or two later. After we proofed them and made some minor changes, Spock, Messiah! was published in September 1976, validating the Bantam theory that there was a hunger for original Star Trek novels. I am very proud to have had a small part in expanding the Star Trek and SF universe to the level of acceptance it has today."

    THE PRICE OF THE PHOENIX

    SONDRA MARSHAK AND MYRNA CULBREATH

    JULY 1977               (182 PP)

    29

    T he body of Captain Kirk beams back to the ship in a body bag. While the crew deals with the shocking loss, Spock confronts Omne, the being responsible for Kirk’s death. To Spock’s horror, Omne resurrects Kirk, plus an identical duplicate. Now to save his friend and liberate the double, Spock must sell his own soul.

    Sondra and Myrna remarked, "When Fred Pohl negotiated with Paramount for our proposal for new Star Trek fiction, the process led to the right to do a package of six Star Trek novels. Those six novels were meant to be by leading, established science fiction writers. All but one of the six were by already well-known science fiction writers. That one, chosen and edited by Fred Pohl and personally approved by Gene Roddenberry, was our first novel, The Price of the Phoenix. We told Fred that we had a Star Trek novel and asked him to look at it for future consideration. We thought that it was ruled out by the ground rules for the six, intended for ‘brand name’ sci-fi writers (like Joe Haldeman, for example). We were not then known for science fiction or even fiction. We were honored and very gratified when Fred chose The Price of the Phoenix as one of those first six."

    They continued, "We made our villain, Omne, ‘the man who hated death’ mainly because we hated death. An appalling waste. Often, an unendurable loss. We asked the question: What price would someone pay if he or she had lost someone he could not lose? What if he could have that person back, but at a price? Say that Kirk is brought back to the Enterprise in a body bag. And then Spock discovers that an identical Kirk is alive. Omne contends that that Kirk is Omne’s property. For sale. At a price. What price? ‘Merely the usual. Your honor. Your sword. Your flag. Your soul.’ The price of the phoenix. Black Omne was way ahead of us. He had invented immortality—and the Kirk he created was really identical—to the last molecule and memory."

    Sandra and Myrna went on, "When that first of six novels came out, and fans did not respond or buy well, that could have been a significant problem for Star Trek fiction. What if too many fans decided that Star Trek fiction was not ‘real’ Star Trek? The Price of the Phoenix was next—and would have to turn the tide—or not. Fred had edited it himself. We suggested to Fred that Bantam might want to take out advertising to let fans know that our novel was different. He said, ‘It’s not necessary. Your names are a seal of quality on Star Trek fiction.’ We believed he meant it, but we took it with a grain of salt. Then we learned that he had put money and his reputation where his mouth was. He went out with a massive first printing of a quarter of a million copies. That was gutsy. He was vindicated. Price hit the best-seller lists. It soon went into a second printing. All of our books have had many printings, new covers, boxed sets, foreign editions in many languages, hardbacks in some foreign editions, and so on. Some time later, Fred’s assistant—and then an editor herself—the wonderful Sydny Weinberg, was walking us to the elevator. She said, ‘I really wanted to know a lot more about the Commander (our female Romulan Commander in Price), more about the Commander and Spock, the Commander and James, James in the Romulan Empire. I just didn’t want the book to end.’ ‘Oh,’ we said, ‘We didn’t exactly stop there. There’s another 150 pages or so of it floating around somewhere in our filing cabinet.’ The elevator came but Sydny ignored it. ‘You mean you’ve got the sequel to Price floating around in your filing cabinet? You’re to get it out the minute you get home and mail it to me immediately! Do you promise me?’ We did, and we sent it to her. It became The Fate of the Phoenix. But not without considerable difficulty."

    They had a story to tell: "Once when we were having lunch with Bill [Shatner] and Leonard [Nimoy], Bill had read our then forthcoming novel The Price of the Phoenix in manuscript. Bill told Leonard, ‘I don’t know why Paramount is still looking for a script. Their novel, The Price of the Phoenix, should be the script for the Star Trek movie. It would give us a chance to play things no two actors have ever played before.’ It was not to be, and we did not put Price forward for that purpose. We considered that it was Gene’s movie to write, and that probably, despite ongoing conflicts, it would ultimately be Gene’s. But what Bill envisioned if Price were the script would have been fascinating."

    PLANET OF JUDGMENT

    JOE HALDEMAN

    AUGUST 1977               (151 PP)

    31

    T he crew discovers a planet that should not exist. Even more baffling, all of their equipment malfunctions when landing on the strange world. With transporters not available, and a shuttle rescue impossible, how do you recover the stranded men and women on a planet where an alien intelligence is holding them for a higher purpose?

    Joe became a Trek fan when he saw the original pilot at the World Science Fiction Convention before the series started. Drafted in the summer of 1967, he missed the last two seasons. As for writing a Trek novel, Joe said, "When James Blish died, I was in correspondence with [editor] Frederik Pohl…. I apologized for being ghoulish, but said, ‘Now that Jim is dead, who’s going to be writing the Trek books?’ Fred replied, ‘You are.’ "

    Joe doesn’t remember where the idea for Planet of Judgment originated. He said, "I’d immersed myself in all of the ‘about Trek’ books—at the time, that was mostly mimeographed fan stuff from Bjo Trimble and friends—and watched the repeats every day for several months, so I just started typing whatever came into my mind, doing a treatment of twenty-some pages. At that time, Paramount required a lo-o-ong outline like this before they’d approve a book. It was way too much hassle, and once I’d finished the first book I had no desire to write another. I’d done it just to see what it would be like to write a book where all the main characters were already known to the readers. Having done it once, I didn’t have to do it again.

    "The advance of $7,500 was fair for the time, but after I finished the first one I’d made $100,000 for my second actual SF novel, Mindbridge, and so I had no financial motivation."

    STAR TREK: THE NEW VOYAGES 2

    SONDRA MARSHAK AND

    MYRNA CULBREATH, EDITORS

    JANUARY 1978               (252 PP)

    32

    A n anthology of eight original short stories and two poems:

    Surprise by Nichelle Nichols, Sondra Marshak, and Myrna Culbreath

    The crew has difficulty planning a birthday party for the captain.

    Snake Pit! by Connie Faddis

    Nurse Chapel must enter the pit to save the captain’s life.

    The Patient Parasites by Russell Bates

    The crew encounters an unusual energy being. Written as a screenplay.

    In The Maze by Jennifer Guttridge

    The crew become pawns in an experiment.

    Cave-In by Jane Peyton

    A free-form story involving Spock.

    Marginal Existence by Connie Faddis

    A mission awakens the presumed dead.

    Procrustean Petard by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath

    A mysterious lure changes the sex of the crew.

    The Sleeping God by Jesco von Puttkamer

    While transporting Singa, a powerful mutant, the ship is captured by a planetary computer.

    Elegy For Charlie by Antonia Vallario

    A poem for the tragically lost Charlie Evans.

    Soliloquy by Marguerite B. Thompson

    A poem about the sheer sadness of Vulcan love.

    Sondra and Myrna commented, "Both of us for some years were featured speakers at major Star Trek conventions and have heard from many fans we met there, or in our fan mail, how our particular Star Trek fiction changed lives, even saved lives. Most dramatically, some told how that fiction pulled them back—from suicide. Star Trek touched many people enough that they felt compelled to write it—and did write it, even when it could not be published. We knew that Star Trek: The New Voyages could unleash that phenomenon. New Voyages was the first professional publication for the fan writers, and for some, the only one. For others it became the start of other professional publications. For Star Trek: The New Voyages 2, we took up the fight for NASA. Nichelle Nichols had become a friend who visited at Sondra’s home. As things developed, Nichelle was under a NASA contract to help recruit women and minorities as astronauts. We left from Sondra’s home with Nichelle to go to NASA in Huntsville, Alabama. We learned there that NASA—as its reward for landing man on the moon—had been cut off at the knees. Scientists who had helped put footprints on the moon had been reduced to selling burgers. We were outraged. We told shell-shocked scientists at NASA, who believed most Americans knew of their plight, and didn’t care, that it was not true. If Americans knew they would care. That was when we decided to back NASA with an outreach to Star Trek fans and to the public, starting with New Voyages 2. We persuaded the head of Advanced Long Range Planning for NASA, Jesco von Puttkamer—an authentic German baron who had written science fiction stories in his youth before coming here to join NASA—to write a Star Trek novella and an introduction for the second New Voyages. Along with our own introduction, it was aimed at getting fans to write and support NASA, bringing the dream of Star Trek to the aid of the real space program. Later, perhaps partly because of this, Jesco became a technical advisor to the first Star Trek movie."

    VULCAN!

    KATHLEEN SKY

    SEPTEMBER 1978               (175 PP)

    33

    T he crew heads to the planet Arachne IV to establish if the natives are sentient. A brilliant scientist who specializes in alien species arrives on board and immediately demands to return home. Not knowing she would be working with a Vulcan, she would rather die than start now.

    Kathleen was never really a Trek fan. "My interest in the show was as a writer. I did up a script outline for the show and my agent sent it to Gene Roddenberry. He liked the outline and said it would make a great episode for the next season. The only problem was that there was no next season. The show was canceled and my outline was put in my files of lost causes. A few years later, Bantam Books asked me if I would like to write a Star Trek book. My script outline became the book, Vulcan!"

    THE STARLESS WORLD

    GORDON EKLUND

    NOVEMBER 1978               (152 PP)

    34

    T he U.S.S. Rickover vanished in the area years ago. When a shuttlecraft from the missing ship appears on the Enterprise’s sensors, Kirk must investigate. The single passenger aboard appears to be stark raving insane, claiming to be Jesus Christ. Kirk recognizes the lunatic as Thomas Clayton, his roommate during his first two years at the academy. When the Enterprise orbits a mysterious planet, Clayton escapes confinement and makes it to the bridge to begin praying to Ay-nab. What mysteries await the crew?

    Gordon’s first comment was, "God, what do I remember of my Star Trek novel writing days? I was never really a fan of the show. I only saw occasional episodes of the first two seasons when I was at somebody else’s home and it happened to be on. I didn’t have a TV of my own. By the third season I had acquired a 13-inch black-and-white set but everyone agrees that was the weakest year. Before writing the books, I think I may have seen other episodes on rerun. Though let me be clear: I always liked what I saw. In actually writing the books I depended on my occasionally indistinct memories of what I’d seen—no video back then—and Bjo Trimble’s Star Trek (and thank God for the existence of) Concordance."

    Gordon continued, "I wrote the books because they paid well and I was trying to be a full-time writer at the time with bills and family and all of that. In fact, they paid better (in advances) than anything else I’d written up to then. The neat thing about the Star Trek universe for me was that it had room for just about anything you might want to write, though Paramount reps at the time still kept close tabs on all ideas and held power of final approval on all series books as they were written and before they were published."

    Gordon concluded, I think this is my favorite of the two books and the one that engaged me the deepest.

    TREK TO MADWORLD

    STEPHEN GOLDIN

    JANUARY 1979               (177 PP)

    35

    C aptain Kirk and the crew race to the planet Epsilon Delta 4 to rescue over 700 colonists who are dying of radiation poisoning. Unfortunately, the Enterprise is pulled into a strange void, and the crew finds itself trapped with a Klingon vessel and a Romulan ship. An impish being named Enowil arrives on the Enterprise bridge and asks for assistance from the three ships. The reward for help could change the power in the quadrant, but helping could commit all of the colonists to a lingering death.

    Stephen became a fan of Star Trek when he saw the very first aired episode, The Man Trap. He had sold short stories in the 1960s and started writing novels in the early 1970s. Stephen said, "I had just signed a contract to write a ten-book series based on some work by Doc Smith. Fred Pohl, who’d bought my first two short stories, was looking for dependable writers to do Star Trek. He wrote to me asking if I’d like to do a Star Trek book, and I said yes. My storyline was approved with no problem whatsoever."

    Reflecting on writing the book, he said, "This was one of the hardest books I had to write, for a fundamental reason: By definition, a novel is a tale of someone or something undergoing change, and in Trek, none of the major characters nor the basic universe [were] permitted to change. I had to do it the way they did on the series, by introducing guest stars who were allowed to change. But I still felt somewhat hamstrung."

    When Stephen received the assignment, he tracked down the previously published novels. He said, There were very few, and they were very serious. Then I looked at people’s favorite episodes, like Tribbles, Shore Leave, and I, Mudd"—all light-hearted and comical. I decided to do the first comical Star Trek book. And since I was (and am) a big fan of Willie Wonka, I used that as the basic idea to take off from."

    While Trek to Madworld appears to be Goldin’s only Star Trek novel, he actually wrote another. Stephen remembers, "In the mid-80s my wife (Mary Mason) and I submitted a ‘classic’ Trek story to the Pocket Books editor at the time, David Stern. It concerned a political change in the Federation government (which had always been based on Gene Roddenberry’s 1960s liberalism) to one that, today, would be called ‘neo-con’ with strong anti-alien prejudices rising to the surface. Kirk would naturally be upset with this, and would end up leading a mutiny that restored the good guys to power once again. David Stern liked the idea, but faced an interesting quandary. Another of his writers, Diane Carey, had come up with a similar idea—and David himself had also wanted to write a book along those lines. His solution was to do it as a three-part book; Mary and I would write the first book, Diane the second, and David the third. All three books were to be written simultaneously (which I foresaw as a big problem, and I turned out to be right)."

    Elaborating further, Stephen said, "Pocket Books paid for Mary and me and Diane and her husband to fly to New York for a several-day plot meeting. We talked a lot of things over, and then went to our respective homes to work on the project. The job of being first is the hardest, because you have to point things in the right direction and set things up properly for the other writers to take care of in their portions. We kept asking Diane and David what they needed us to do, and got very little feedback. Paramount [handed] down the dictum (relayed through David) that there is no prejudice in the Star Trek universe. This was certainly news to me. As I said to David (who, like me, is Jewish), How many times have we heard McCoy say something like, ‘Spock, you pointy-eared Vulcan, your damn logic will kill us all’? Now let’s change a few words there: ‘Spock, you hook-nosed Jew, your damn stinginess will kill us all.’ And McCoy is a professional man, a college-educated doctor who should be above such things. Even if you try to rationalize it as good-natured banter, there has to be an underlying sense of racial inequity to make it work. David took a big gulp and didn’t dispute me, but he [enforced] Paramount’s dictum anyway.

    The book obviously never saw the light of day. He said, Despite minimal input from our partners in this venture, Mary and I did an exceedingly rough draft that would need to be smoothed out to bring it into line with what the others were doing. We sent copies to Diane and David, and waited. Eventually we got word that Pocket Books was unhappy and canceled the project—but they paid us for it anyway. I don’t know what happened to Diane’s or David’s books.

    Asked about this Federation Trilogy that never materialized, Dave Stern said, It didn’t happen because of deadline issues.

    Stephen has since written a four-book fantasy epic called the Parsina Saga, and has written two science fiction novels with Mary Mason about female space mercenary Jade Darcy. They are both currently working on the third book in the series.

    WORLD WITHOUT END

    JOE HALDEMAN

    FEBRUARY 1979               (150 PP)

    36

    C aptain Kirk and crew discover a hollow, inhabited asteroid. Upon beaming down to this artificial world, the crew is taken captive and discovers that the inhabitants don’t believe the out universe exists. Meanwhile, out in space, Spock pinpoints the wreckage of an ancient Klingon vessel on the surface of the asteroid.

    Having no desire to write another Trek novel, Joe was forced to because the publisher refused to let him buy out of the contract. He said, "The end result was that I really enjoyed writing Planet of Judgment, and finished it in three months. Writing World Without End was like pulling your own teeth, and it took nine months. (Oddly enough, I’ve met people who liked the second book better. I certainly worked harder on it!) Afterward, I was fed up…and left the Star Trek enterprise at about warp factor five, and have never picked up one of the books since I handed in World Without End."

    THE FATE OF THE PHOENIX

    SONDRA MARSHAK AND MYRNA CULBREATH

    MAY 1979               (262 PP)

    37

    K irk and crew thought they defeated Omne, but they were wrong. Kirk’s doppelganger, James, travels with the Romulan Commander and finds he is falling in love with his captor. Soon, evidence reveals that Omne is alive, but he’s now two separate beings, one called Omne and one called the Other, who wears a duplicate body of Spock.

    Myrna and Sondra commented, "If immortality is an option, the four who survived the night of the Phoenix—Jim Kirk, James, Spock, the Commander—and the galaxy will have to cope with it, and with Omne, the first immortal who died at the hands of Jim Kirk. If James was not to die, and Jim Kirk was to have the life that had always been his, the friendships that were his, then James needed a life and a fight that was his size. What if he found one in the Romulan Empire, at the side of the Romulan Commander? What if he could only go there as her Princeling? And what if Omne, the man who invented immortality with finality, had not died? What if Omne proved to be more complex than merely a villain? What if Kirk had to fight a reborn Omne—now with the mind and powers of Spock to augment his own? What if they clashed with each other across the galaxy, over ‘the political and the personal’—including the meaning of the Prime Directive and the fate of the future? Could Spock protect Kirk when Omne could come to Kirk as Spock, himself?"

    They talked about the origins of their sequel. "Gene Roddenberry…took it upon himself to [review] The Price of the Phoenix. Price was apparently the only Star Trek novel that Gene ever personally [reviewed]. As pressure mounted toward producing the movie, he delegated [subsequent reviews] to someone in his office.

    "The Fate of the Phoenix…was quite provocative on many levels. But the review comments were very simple and impossible: James must die. The first Star Trek movie was then in planning. There could not be a second, identical, real Kirk left alive in the Star Trek universe. No way. James must die. Or the novel would not be published. We said, ‘Then the novel will not be published.’ We refused to kill James. The irresistible force meets the immovable object. Our editors at Bantam backed us, and were basically frantic, wanting the book but unable to budge the resistance. It was a shootout at the OK Corral. Finally, we made a trip out to Paramount to see if something could be worked out. Without giving away too much, for those who may not yet have read Fate, we found a way out by getting agreement to an alternative ending that we had written earlier for our private version. James did not die. James just wound up in an unreachable location—with perhaps the last person in the

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