I just
finished reading "Vulcan!", an old Star Trek novel from Bantam. Bantam
had the license to publish books before The Motion Picture came out.
Like many early Star Trek novels, Vulcan! is significantly off in its
characterizations (though it's hard to blame them since they only had
the television show to go from) and the story just seems off. I guess
I've read too many Star Trek Pocket Books and expect Kirk to be a major
character and the heroes to be more heroic and decisive.
In Vulcan! we have a story that's fairly focused on Spock and a
visiting human scientist who loathes Vulcans. The book purports to
explore the Vulcan psyche though it's really more about her neurosis
and her antagonism towards Spock. McCoy falls in love with her, Spock
is at times petty, Kirk is a totally ineffective whiner when a Romulan
ship shows up. Too jarring for me.
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I find that
it's more a typical book for the era. Almost an Ensign Mary Sue story
where the author injects herself into the universe to live out some
romantic fantasy. I'm not saying that Kathleen Sky (the author of
Vulcan!) is like that, but it does kind of read that way. Still, that's
better than the worst pair of Star Trek novels that I've ever read,
"The Price of the Phoenix" and "The Fate of the Phoenix", both by
Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath.
Those two books left a bitter taste in my mouth. And both are more or
less the same theme: a hurt/comfort story where really bad things
happen to Captain Kirk and Mr Spock helps him recover from the physical
and emotional damage (yes, there's a hint of K/S Slash too which I
didn't like either). Books like these are why I really appreciate that
Pocket Books does the novels now, even with some of those same authors.
Better editorial control.
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