Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 edited by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath

(pb; 1977: fan fiction/science fiction story and poem anthology)

Overall review

New Voyages 2 is a good, mostly entertaining collection of fan fiction. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the first volume, but it was still a worthwhile read.

Stories

“Surprise!” – Nichelle Nichols: The Enterprise crew try to set up a surprise birthday party for James Kirk while he, to their frustration, roams around the ship. Fun, ultra-flirty and chatty tale─it’s overlong and wanders a bit, but still largely entertaining.

“Snake Pit!” – Connie Faddis: Christine Chapel─nurse/secondary doctor on the Enterprise─must, with a knife, fend off many snakes in a pit where she and downed-by-poison James Kirk try to avoid becoming weather-predictive sacrifices for a Vestalan tribe, the Hualan. Outstanding story, nice to see Chapel in an unusual-for-her situation, beyond her role as a healer.

“The Patient Parasites” – Russell Bates: Kirk, Sulu and McCoy match wits with a technology-thieving, difficult-to-defeat machine (Finder), whose deeper agenda is even more devastating. This teleplay is entertaining, flows well and is a standout read in this collection.

“In the Maze” – Jennifer Guttridge: Kirk recklessly disobeys Star Fleet orders and further risks getting himself, Spock, Bones and several other crewmen killed or worse when he illegally investigates an out-of-place technological building on a backwater planet. Well-written, entertaining tale that bringing to the fore Kirk’s underlying, sometimes-childish-and-selfish umbrage nature.

“Cave-In” – Jane Peyton: Back-and-forth-structured dialogue poem, did not read it. (Not into Star Trek-themed verseworks.)

                                                   

“Marginal Existence” – Connie Faddis: The crew of the Enterprise encounter sleeping aliens and hostile robots. Solid, pedestrian-for-the-series piece.

“The Procrustean Petard” – Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath: Several crew members of the Enterprise are gender-switched and trapped in planetary orbit with a ship full of Klingons, led by fan-favorite Kang. While it runs too long and is occasionally awkward, it is an often-entertaining read.

“The Sleeping God”: Kirk and co. come face-to-face with a galaxy-destroying mega-computer while transporting super-powered mutant (Singha the Sleeper). Good, chatty story.

“Elegy for Charlie” – Antonia Vallario: Another unread poem.

“Soliloquy” – Margarite B. Thompson: Another unread poem.

Star Trek: The New Voyages edited by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath

(pb; 1976: story anthology)

Overall review

Voyages is a fan-fiction anthology, published by Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and his company. As anthologies go, it is worthwhile purchase─mostly because of its first four tales. The rest of the works are not terrible, but they are typical, nothing to get excited about. Largely entertaining read, this, followed by another anthology, Star Trek: The New Voyages 2.

Stories

“Ni Var” – Claire Gabriel: Spock’s personality aspects─human and Vulcan─are divided into two physical-twin versions, a situation that affects the fate of the Enterprise as well.

This story strikes a good, Trek-true tone, with its characterization, events and pacing─its dilemma is character-based, personal yet universal. 

“Intersection Point” – Juanita Coulson: A strange, amorphous energy field─sentient?─attaches itself to the Enterprise, starting a short countdown-to-death for the entire crew. “Intersection” reads like an unaired episode of the show, gripping with its life-or-death situation, and its characters’ interactions, down to William Shatner’s over-the-top portrayal of James Kirk.

“The Enchanted Pool” – Marcia Ericson: On the planet of Mevinna, a nymph-like woman (Phyllida) attempts to distract Spock─sans crewmen─away from tracking down a Federation device hijacked by the Andorans. This is a delightful tale, with a mini-twist or two, and one of my favorite entries in this collection.

“Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited” – Ruth Berman: While shooting on the set of the show Star Trek, William Shatner, Forrest Kelley and Leonard Nimoy find themselves in another reality, where they have replaced their Trek characters, who are real people─and who have replaced the actors on the Trek set.

This is a funny, insider’s-view and spot-on alternate take on Trek ideas and characters, easily one of the best tales in this anthology.

“The Face on the Barroom Floor” – Eleanor Arnason and Ruth Berman: During shore leave on the planet Krasni, Kirk gets in a bar fight and goes to jail. A skeleton crew on the Enterprise, led by Spock, tries to find him so they can depart for an important mission.

This was an okay story. It feels padded out with clichés, nothing exciting nor anything that expands the Trek mythos.

“The Hunting” – Doris Beetem: McCoy accompanies Spock during a Vulcan ritual (mok farr: “time of remembrance”), where Vulcans mind meld with a wild animal in order to, among other things, expand their mindset. After Spock does this with an owltiger on the plant Rhinegelt, McCoy is stalked by the now-animalistic Vulcan.

“Hunting“ is another okay, padded-out story, this one loaded-with-Edgar-Rice-Burrough-esque adjectives during Spock’s mental transformation. Its cheesy end-line, uttered by McCoy, reads like something Kirk would say─not McCoy.

“The Winged Dreamers” – Jennifer Guttridge: Many of the Enterprise‘s crew members, while on shore leave, begin hallucinating and refuse to leave the paradisal planet they are visiting.

“Winged” is a solid work, with its well-written (if oft-used) Trek setup: nothing special, but not egregious either.

“Mind-Sifter” – Shirley S. Maiewski: Kirk disappears for two years while the crew of the Enterprise searches for him.

This is a chatty, okay story that would benefit from ruthless editing. It would also benefit from an editor trimming Maiewski’s overly emotional and also-chatty dialogue (especially in the case of Spock, who comes off like a trauma counselor instead of, well, Spock). Its plot is interesting, would’ve been great, had it not been hobbled by the above concerns.

“Sonnet from the Vulcan: Omicron Ceti Three” – Shirley Meech: Reads like a solid Vulcan sonnet. (Not a poetry fan.)