sovay | i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

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i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

There really is, apparently, an inevitable tendency of all Star Trek fiction toward slash. Yesterday I read Vonda McIntyre's novelization of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) because it was at the MIT Swapfest; I wouldn't call it one of the great reads of the ages, but it's full of material that doesn't appear in the film, from an entire backstory for Saavik to a throwaway scene during the rescue of Chekov where Gillian makes like she's been interrupted mid-threesome with Kirk and McCoy in order to explain what they're all doing in a hospital closet together, half-dressed in medical scrubs. (What, you didn't believe me?) There's also a whole thread of follow-up from the previous film, including a scene in the epilogue in which McCoy crashes the Vulcan embassy to talk to Spock, who hasn't been returning his calls—their relationship has been weird ever since Spock came back from the dead, not only because Spock is still reintegrating himself with his memories, but because the experience of carrying Spock's katra and then undergoing extended sessions of mind-work to disentangle the two of them (because the fal-tor-pan wasn't a one-shot solution) has left McCoy badly shaken. He's not convinced they're really, finally out of one another's heads, and even if he were sure about his own boundaries, he'd still feel awkward around Spock, because the process of sorting out which mental bits were whose brought into the open all sorts of things about himself that he'd frankly rather not have acknowledged, let alone had to share with Spock and a roomful of Vulcan therapists. He's not good at being objective about himself; the more he felt judged for his emotions, the more emotional he felt himself becoming in self-defense; and after the politely blank total brush-off that his tentative efforts to raise the subject met with ("It would be impossible . . . without a common frame of reference"), he's pretty sure that being soul-close to a cranky, illogical human just squicked Spock out. The fact that the half-Vulcan now makes a lot more sense to him isn't helping. They still haven't had a real conversation since The Wrath of Khan. So there he is in the sand garden of the Vulcan embassy, trying to explain how much it unsettles him to understand Spock without thinking about it, to know Spock must have the same understanding of him, the fear of losing himself in someone else again, and all I can think is, Traditionally, this conversation ends when one of you kisses the other. Which doesn't happen, of course. It's still canon. But seriously.

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That sounds pretty damn slashtastic, all right.

That sounds pretty damn slashtastic, all right.

I'd love to know whether the scenes have any basis in draft scripts—if so, it really is a reboot in the recent movie that none of the protagonists are sleeping together.

*koff* Uhura and Spock?

Uhura and Spock?

. . . Right. I keep forgetting that happened. It seemed like such a bad idea.

If it makes you feel better, Sulu and Spock were probably totally hooking up. *pats*

Yes. I read most of the novelizations as they were released, alongside the films (my mother and I saw Wrath of Khan first run because we didn't know about the Ceti eels; I was seven turning eight that year), and I was thus exactly the right age to find the supply closet thing in IV more hilarious than it probably is and the headspace stuff deeply confusing. Heh. Fond recollections.

and I was thus exactly the right age to find the supply closet thing in IV more hilarious than it probably is and the headspace stuff deeply confusing.

I'm thinking I'll have to read the rest of the novelizations, at least the ones she wrote. I'd like to know what other barely subtexts I'm missing.

Heh. Fond recollections.

I'm glad at least I'm not stirring up trauma!

Subext ahoy!

Subtext ahoy!

I'm not even sure it's bothering to be sub!

Oh wow, blast from the past! Back when I was about twelve, I read what I think is a standalone novel by Vonda McIntyre, mostly about Saavik. Is this the continuity where Spock adopted her, after finding her living as a feral child on an abandoned mining planet when she was the equivalent of seven or eight years old? There was a whole child-abusive economy where only prepubescent kids could gather a certain resource. I think. I'm not certain. Shades of Joan Aiken's obsession with child labor systems. It was probably cliche'd as hell, but I thought it was the most terrifying and visceral plot I'd ever read (at age twelve).

Anyhow, I loved Saavik, who I don't think gets much attention in the movies. Tons of flashbacks, of course. You watch her go from an antisocial, angry little kid to a sophisticated and idealistic (and still angry) adult. You never normally see a discussion of what it's like to be a young Vulcan. Also I loved it because of Spock trying his damndest to be a good daddy.

Stop the presses, I found it! The Pandora Principle by Carolyn Clowes:

http://www.amazon.com/Pandora-Principle-Star-Trek-Book/dp/0671658158

I was wrong--Saavik was brought up to be a test subject for people developing a doomsday weapon. Which is just as pulp-fiction, but I took it very seriously as a child.

Stop the presses, I found it!

Awesome!

I was wrong--Saavik was brought up to be a test subject for people developing a doomsday weapon. Which is just as pulp-fiction, but I took it very seriously as a child.

You'll have to let me know how it holds up on re-read. Pulp is not necessarily a bad thing.

Is this the continuity where Spock adopted her, after finding her living as a feral child on an abandoned mining planet when she was the equivalent of seven or eight years old?

Yes; it doesn't look as though McIntyre wrote a full novel about her, but I believe she originated the story. The planet was Hellguard.

Hellguard! Yes, that was graven into my brain. And there was this ghastly government scientist like a Romulan version of Josef Mengele.

This made me so curious that I read up on the film plots on TV Tropes (where else?) and was bitterly disappointed to learn that Spock and Saavik are apparently hooking up in the third movie due to pon farr. Damn it, I liked them so much better as almost-father-and-daughter.

They're what? I didn't read the Hellguard piece, but Spock and Saavik read to me like quasi-father and daughter as well. Maybe it's the influence of the novelization, even without Hellguard per se. :/

I hope I'm wrong about this, but in The Search For Spock, the two of them (may be implied to) hook up offstage. I read this in a brief summary of the movie, though, I haven't seen the movie itself for years, so it could just be my misunderstanding. I hope it is.

They do, because Spock goes into heat when he's going through the accelerated growth process.

NOOOOOOOOOOO

I can't hear you! Lalalalala!

Yes... there was a deleted scene that showed Saavik with a kid who had resulted from the two or three matings on Genesis. Bad, since she was acting as sister of mercy (and presumably they have contraceptive and abortifacients in this society); but not as bad as the hapless Valeris of ST VI, who was mind-raped by Spock, who was her mentor as much as he was Saavik's.

The fact that the half-Vulcan now makes a lot more sense to him isn't helping.

Oh man... this is so, so, so real-life.

I dunno... I'm not sure kisses really help, even if that is the way the conversations traditionally end.

Oh man... this is so, so, so real-life.

I didn't say it wasn't a plausible way that people tie themselves in knots. Just that it was orders of magnitude slashier than I was expecting from an official novelization.

I dunno... I'm not sure kisses really help, even if that is the way the conversations traditionally end.

Well, it ends that way a lot in fiction . . .

I didn't say it wasn't a plausible way that people tie themselves in knots. Just that it was orders of magnitude slashier than I was expecting from an official novelization.

Don't forget that most of the people writing official novelizations had to love the text enough to know where the relationships were falling down in the film, so I'm not surprised that this showed up, after all, the editors were fannish too.

Most of the people I know who do tie-in novelizations or stand-alones in-universe are people who came to it though writing better quality fan fic, with more consistency and interaction that the norm.

Don't forget that most of the people writing official novelizations had to love the text enough to know where the relationships were falling down in the film, so I'm not surprised that this showed up, after all, the editors were fannish too.

Fair point. I confess to being disappointed some of McIntyre's scenes are not actually in the movie.

Have you read the novelization of the first movie? It has a note from Admiral Kirk explaining that he isn't into Spock because he likes women, and besides he's not stupid enough to get into a relationship with someone who only gets horny every seven years.

Ah yes, here it is:

(Editor's Note: The human concept of friend is most mearly duplicated in Vulcan thought by the term t'hy'la, which can also mean brother and lover. Spock's recollection (from which this chapter is drawn) is that it was a most difficult moment for him since he did indeed consider Kirk to have become his brother. However, because t'hy'la can be used to mean lover, and since Kirk's and Spock's friendship was unusually close, this has led to some speculation over whether they had actually indeed become lovers. At our request, Admiral Kirk supplied the following comment on this subject: "I was never aware of this lovers rumor, although I have been told that Spock encountered it several times. Apparently he had always dismissed it with his characteristic lifting of his right eyebrow which usually connoted some combination of surprise, disbelief, and/or annoyance. As for myself, although I have no moral or other objections to physical love in any of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms, I have always found my best gratification in that creature woman. Also, I would dislike being thought of as so foolish that I would select a love partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years.")

Heh.

Have you read the novelization of the first movie?

This is the first novelization I've read. There were Star Trek books in the house when I was growing up, but they were mostly the short-story versions of the television scripts or novels like A.C. Crispin's Time for Yesterday or Diane Duane's Spock's World. Also The Vulcan Academy Murders. You may notice a theme.

Also, I would dislike being thought of as so foolish that I would select a love partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years.

Heh. I wouldn't consider it a dealbreaker, but that's kind of adorable.

Oh hay, I read The Vulcan Academy Murders and it was a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

I read The Vulcan Academy Murders and it was a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

Oh, I read it. I read whatever was in the house and wasn't nailed down (and some things that were). We mostly had Star Trek novels about Vulcan, I read about Vulcan. Time for Yesterday is where I discovered Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Miniver Cheevy," which I love. Also I like Diane Duane; I grew up on So You Want to Be a Wizard? (1983) and its initial sequels. I'd have read her other tie-ins if we'd owned them.

My only experience with goatee!evil!doubles is in Duane's Dark Mirror which is Next Gen and involves evil!Picard-and-Troi. I'm looking forward to that episode of the original series.

I'm looking forward to that episode of the original series.

Leonard Nimoy with a goatee looks very much like a friend of mine from Brandeis, Vulcan ears excepted.

Diane Duane's Spock's World.

Goodness. Twenty-three years ago, I was given a hardback of that as a birthday present. I still think fondly of it.

I've never quite forgiven the powers that be of Star Trek for not latching onto both the Rihannsu and Duane's version of Vulcan and establishing them as canon.

I never read McIntyre's novelizations, but I thoroughly enjoyed her two original Star Trek novels, The Entropy Effect (1981) and Enterprise: The First Adventure (1986); both are well worth the time if you're trekking out.

both are well worth the time if you're trekking out.

So noted. Thanks!

Star Trek fanfic was the originator of slash. Tie-in novels are authorized fanfic, after all -- so the lingering effect is not surprising.

As for pon farr, this is not the only time that Vulcanians can have sex -- they would be long extinct if it were. It's just the time that they must mate or, if thwarted, forego their much-vaunted discipline and revert into violence.

Star Trek fanfic was the originator of slash.

This I knew. I just wasn't sure how it interacted with canon.

It's just the time that they must mate or, if thwarted, forego their much-vaunted discipline and revert into violence.

This conversation is really making me want to re-read Spock's World. Unfortunately, I think it's in a box.

Well, canon is whatever Paramount decides to do (which changed considerably with the reboot), the rest is AU -- alternative universe -- which includes slash as well as hetero pairings that did not occur in the canonical universe.

Official tie-ins, like the concubines they are, can hint and be (mc)coy, as long as they don't explicitly violate canon.

Vulcanians are the usual quasi-arbitrary bits and pieces of Hollywood TV worldbuilding. I have a theory about why they're conceived so threadbarely, which I've long wanted to expand into an essay.

canon is whatever Paramount decides to do (which changed considerably with the reboot)

I know. Speaking of Vulcan. Sigh.

I have a theory about why they're conceived so threadbarely, which I've long wanted to expand into an essay.

Take this as an opportunity!

There really is, apparently, an inevitable tendency of all Star Trek fiction toward slash.

Fascinating.

I've never read this particular novel. Thanks for sharing.

I've never read this particular novel. Thanks for sharing.

The movie is very fun!

The movie is very fun!

I've fond memories of the movie. I think it was actually the first Star Trek movie I saw in a theatre. The novelisation sounds interesting, although I suppose I'm glad the thing with Gillian, Kirk, and McCoy in the closet wasn't in the film cos I saw it with my parents and my Da would have freaked out.*

*He still would, actually, but in a movie theatre with an eleven-year-old child he would've reacted much worse, I expect.

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i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

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