Sondra Marshak

This is one of those used-book-store finds that I picked up for completeness's sake and didn't expect much of. But it was great fun. The book is a 1976 collection of eight TOS stories written by fans. The quality is high on both the levels of story and sentence-level writing--I'd go so far as to say that most of these stories meet or exceed the quality of the Trek books written by professionals for the series in later years. Like much self-published fan fiction, these stories are the sorts show more that generally couldn't be told on the show--either because the budget couldn't handle the effects that would have been needed, or the show format wouldn't support the story, or the story deals too much with characterization and not enough with action for the typical TOS outing. I think this aspect enriches these stories, and allows them to avoid one of the major pitfalls of some of those professionally-written later books--that feel that it is "just another episode," that it's been done before, that it's nothing special. These stories are something special, precisely because they do what the show couldn't. Highly recommended for any TOS fans whose favorite bits of the show are the character development and interactions. show less

The first book in this duology was awful, but in an entertaining way. Its horrible writing was entertaining, and the overt slashiness even more so. (I love K/S, but these characters were pompous and so out of character that it could only be laughable.) And there were some interesting philosophical elements at play. So, I read the sequel, partly seeking entertainment and partly actually wanting to know how the story might carry on, what happened to Omne in the end.

Unfortunately, I did some show more Googling partway through, because I wanted to see what else the authors had written. I discovered that they're both staunch Objectivists, followers of Ayn Rand, and all of a sudden the books weren't much fun anymore. It's not just weird bad writing, it's that bizarre conviction that every character should be a pure elemental essence, and every conflict is a primal assessment between two unadulterated forces-as-people, and everyone just knows things by looking at each other, and everyone is a perfect specimen of something, and blah blah blah. No wonder the characters are so out of character; none of them were ever meant to be ultimate expressions of anything. Spock was never even implied to be "one of the best fighters in the galaxy," for instance, but of course he has to be because everyone here is THE BEST BAR NONE.

There were still some good elements, some sections where the writing actually got good. Some interesting stakes, and one long (literal) debate about the Prime Directive that worked really well. But it stopped being fun. show less

All the Star Trek books by Marshak and Culbreath I've read have been idea books--they take some philosophical concept and tease it out by putting the Triumvirate through their paces. The result is usually far from the Star Trek adventure formula, and, I think, better for it. I first read their The Price of the Phoenix at about thirteen or so and the exploration of power negotiation and the concept of the alpha male in that book absolutely boggled my poor adolescent brain. (I loved it.) The show more Prometheus Design also takes the issue of power (particularly what happens when one James Kirk is forced to confront individuals and situations which compel him to yield) as one of its ideas, though the bigger issues here are the seeming coupling of aggression and high-order thinking; the detriments of categorizing beings into "self" and "other"; and the tendency of intelligent life to use for their own purposes the lives of those they perceive to be "lesser." Recommended for those who like or can accept a Star Trek novel which does not strictly conform to the atmosphere of canon.

(An oddity of this book I've never seen in any other Star Trek novel: all of the references to canon are footnoted. This struck me as particularly odd since most of the references were to firmly established canon (i.e. the show or the film--there was only one film at the time the book was published) rather than ST novels, and they should have been quite easily recognizable to the kind of audience one would expect to read an ST novel. And furthermore, the references could all have been taken at face value; knowledge of the canonical event itself would not have been necessary to understand the reference in this story. I'd love to know what the authorial thinking/intent behind these footnotes was.) show less

There’s some interesting philosophical questions in this book but the moment to moment plot is weak. If you like it when Star Trek gets philosophical you’ll probably like this but if you are looking for a science fiction adventure this is not it.