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

[sovay]

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.

Comments

[gwynnega]

That sounds pretty damn slashtastic, all right.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

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.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Subext ahoy!

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

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.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

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.

[ckd]

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.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

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.

[helivoy.livejournal.com]

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.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

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.