Yeah, I made the mistake of doing a round of my used books stores again and I went a little overboard. That Star Trek obsession will be the death of me. I spent HOURS paging through every single Star Trek book I found which blurb sounded even rmeotely interesting, before deciding if I should buy it or not. This is the result and I can't bring myself to regret any of them.
I'm not that big of a sci-fi fan in general. I didn't want action books filled with scientific concepts and intergalactic politics with curt lines of dialogue with no peeks into the characters,s heads. I'm a romance lover at heart; what I want is character-centric stories. And the characters I'm especially interested in are, need I say it? Kirk and Spock. So, those are all books that seemed to include a good amount of interaction between them, or at least that devoted a fair percentage of its space to character development or character insight.Here's a list of the books with the reasons each of them appealed to me:
-TRIANGLE, Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath. Kirk & Spock in love with the same woman. Can we say homoerotic conduit anyone? Plus, lots of interaction and in any chance, some ambiguity regarding how close they are. I've already noticed that the earliest novels were prone to that.
-PRICE OF THE PHOENIX, same authors. Kirk is dead, Spock must save him (somehow). Just the description of Spock's devastation when they brought back Kirk's body on the Enterprise...OMG! There is undoubtedly love there. Plus, I'd read somewhere that there were very good slashy lines in this one.
-MINDSHADOW, J.M. Dillard. Spock is attacked and loses his memory, possibly his personnality. I was intrigued by the angst potential of that. And from what I coudl gather, it has Kirk deeply worried about his friend - which I'm all in favor of. He. :)
-THE PROMETHEUS DESIGN, same again. Kirk must relinquish command and Spock takes his place, turning inexplicably harsh, dictatorial and unforgiving. LOTS of interaction (actually looks pretty much centered around them). I'm curious to see how that will affect their relationship when things are back to normal. Plus, will Spock still retain some instinct that stops him from harming Kirk?
-YESTERDAY'S SON, A.C. Crispin. Spock discovers he engendered a son in the past with Zarabeth, of All Our Yesterdays. Of course, that means I'll have to wait until I've watched that episode before reading the book). Lots of discussions about Spock's feelings, starting with Kirk near the beginning when he explains the situation.
-ENTERPRISE: THE FIRST MISSION, Vonda McIntyre. What did Spock and Kirk think of each other when they first meet? I want the chance to see the bases of their friendship being built, see what their bond would grow from. From the pages I glimpsed, this book offers a lot of insight into the personality and personal history of both men.
-KILLING TIME, Della Van Hise. OK, I'm cheating, I've already read that one. Twice. And it made me cry, thrice. It was the first ST novel I bought and it's why I started looking for more. Either I was lucky or my instincts were working top speed on that day, because this book was the slasher's dream - enough that apparently, the book was recalled and re-edited because the first version was TOO slashy. Mine is a French translation, but from what I gathered it was adapted from that first version because there are tons of mind-melds, lots of eye contact, Kirk and Spock share a telepathic link and keep referring to each other's "muscled body" or "warm hands"... OMG! I tell you, they stop just shy of kissing. And the fact they don't kiss doesn't detract from the slashiness because they're pretty blatantly described as soul mates, that belong together in any time and place in this universe. Beautiful and powerful. Plus, the time-traveling and time-altering plan that creates a new parallel dimension was a welcome reminder of the new movie.
-STAR TREK: THE NEW VOYAGES 2, edited by Sondra & Myrna (yeah, there IS a theme there). First line of first novella ("Surprise")went as follows: "Spock turned as the transporter effect released them, with some thought of how to hustle the Captain off to bed, not too obviously." *THUD* Need I say more?
-STAR TREK: THE NEW VOYAGES (1), same editors. Had good reviews, especially stories "Ni-Var" and "Mind-Sifter", which seem to have a good Kirk & Spock content. Foreword by Gene Roddenberry and introduction to each story by an original cast member, Nimoy & Shatner included.
-STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, (novelization), Gene Roddenberry. I haven't seen it yet but online I learned that it was the source of that much-used word thy'la. I peeked inside until I found that bottom note and I'm still grinning at how it so does NOT deny slash at all. You can twist it both ways, depending on your view on the matter. And I say that Kirk definitely worded this very carefully so it does not say he's not involved with Spock, all while appearing to do so. Clever, clever :). I also cheated and went to read the "simple feeling" scene and the one where Spock confessed to Kirk he heard his words all the way on Vulcan. Awww.
-STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK (novelization), Vonda McIntyre. Because I guessed that there should be a lot of Kirk-saying-how-much-he-misses-Spock, and seeing him ready to do anything to get him back. Plus, I want to read the buildup to the final scene "Jim. Your name...is Jim". Aww. (I know, if I keep readnig fanfic and watching that many youtube vids, I won't have any surprises left when I do watch the actual movies/episodes).
-THE VULCAN ACADEMY MURDERS, Jean Lorrah. Because I like detective/murder stories, and a series of murder on Vulcan seems like a very original twist - not to say "fascinating". ;-D Sounded fun
-COVENANT OF THE CROWN, Howard Weinstein. The foreword was by Gerrold, author of the captivating WORLD OF STAR TREK. You have the trinity (K/S/McC) on the cover, and early books are usually higher in slash content, or at least in introspective stuff. There seemed ot be good insight ito Kirk at the beginning.
-CHAIN OF ATTACK, Gene DeWeese. The Enterprise suddenly hurled thousands of light-years from home. I took that one for the plot alone, which gripped me for some reason. Lost and fighting to get back home appeals to me. :)
-THE ABODE OF LIFE, Lee Correy. Interesting blurb about saving a planet from destruction, and I liked the cover with Kirk and Spock alone, crouching with their phasers at the ready. Plus, I saw a conversation where they talk about Spock's sympathy and he calls Jim thy'la. *awwwwing*
-BLACK FIRE, Sonni Cooper. Spock is believed to be a traitor. What does Jim do? After watching Menagerie, I want to see another take on Wild!Spock.
-THE GALACTIC WHIRLPOOL, David Gerrold. Took that one for the author. I loved his voice in The World of Star Trek. Granted, given his comments on the K/S slash community there I doubt there are going to be any ambiguity between them in this book, but if the tone is as fun and the plot interesting (which it SHOULD be, this is the guy who wrote the show's most popular episode!), it should be entertaining.
-TIME FOR YESTERDAY, A.C. Crispin. Sequel to YESTERDAY'S SON, therefore should have good Spock content.
-DEMONS, J.M. Dillard. Seems to contain a lot of information about Spock, Sarek and Vulcan.
***Latest additions***
-THE IDIC EPIDEMIC, Jean Lorrah. Because I learned it was the sequel of Vulcan Academy Murders, therefore it shoudl be interesting too.
-FATE OF THE PHOENIX, Marshak & Culbreath again. Sequel to PRICE. Reviews aren't very good but since book 1 seem really slashy, I'm hoping this one will be too. Plus, I l*really* ike what I've read from those authors until now.
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