Dave, I get the vague feeling that you don’t care for these books, but I’m not sure. Can you be more explict, please?
More seriously, the Phoenix novels aren’t the work of amateur psychologists. They’re the work of two women with a fetish for gay BDSM.
So I DID get the masturbation fantasies part right then! 
Ah. Slash. I was wondering what all the fuss was about.
Can I get a “hell yeah”? 
I read those books about the same time you did, apparently (I think I was actually just a little older than 12, but not much) and loved them–not so much for the psychosexual stuff, but for the “test the hero to the point of destruction” style that was so far removed from any of the other Trek books I’d seen so far. I like my heroes to go through hell, and these books did the trick for me.
I’m re-reading them now (just started today) after probably at least 15 years of not having read them, so it’ll be interesting to see what I pick up now that I missed back then.
Could you check out my Wiki article on it? I wrote it from memory. Never thought for a moment that Omne ass-raped Kirk though. There’s almost a tenderness about the way he treats Kirk after doing his best to get him to beg for mercy - a definite love-hate relationship between Omne and the man he both views as a representative of the hated Federation and, at the same time, almost the only man he has ever met whose personality is strong enough to match up to himself.
Incidentally, I also remember the Romulan Commander getting to play doctors and nurses with one of the Kirks - can’t remember if it was Jim or James - and he colours up slightly. Although the books (like a short by the same authoresses, “The Procrustean Petard”) reveal a few peculiar obsessions on the part of the writers, I didn’t think they were badly written. But this was when I was about 15 and there was not much other Trek fiction out there except “Spock Must Die!” (dire) and “Spock: Messiah!” (hardly an improvement).
The Crystalline Entity.
I just like saying Crystilline Entity, really. I know it was a lame villain. Especially when Lore was working for it. wtf was that all about anyway?
On Wikipedia, or elsewhere.
I didn’t think he did either. I thought Kirk was afraid of it for a moment. Remember, Omne has just made a great show of physically humiliating Kirk in a fashion men most fear. I remember Omne’s slow preparation for the torture, right in front of Kirk: discarding his gloves and his gunbelt, then doubling over hte belt and smacking his own hand with it…then deciding to use his bare hands. He was definitely enjoying the idea of touching Captain Studly with his bare hands.
Also remember Kirk’s final gambit against Omne in The Fate of the Phoenix. He makes Omne think he has hysterical amnesia and starts acting extremely submissive–even calling him “Sir.” Omne eats it up.
“Authoresses”? 
I shall dispatch a time pod to bring you into the 21st century, amigo. Ever read Marshak & Culbreath’s other two Trek novels? One has Kirk & Spock having to exchange roles; a Vulcan Starfleet admiral, Savaj, declares that Kirk is compromised, so Spock has to choose between taking over himself and letting Kirk be first officer, or letting Savaj take over and seeing Kirk frozen out entirely. Clearly, M & C had not a little interest in power dynamics.
Hell, there’s stuff to like in both of those. And Spock: Messiah has our favorite Vulcan rutting like a pig. Good stuff.
I bought that at the 2nd hand book shop beside the bus station (in my pre-car days, when I read a book and fell asleep ten minutes after the bus set off ) without realising how often Trek fans talk about how less than satisfying it is. I didn’t think it too bad
The collector from TNG, Kivas Fajo, was evil enough. Kidnapping Data, shooting his PA with the disruptor that burns you from inside out (after all the other tortures he put her through) so nasty that Data tries to murder him.
Another vote for Charlie X, who was obviously an early Q
James T. Kirk
I always liked it when Kirk had to overcome himself, his own frailties. Like in Day of the Dove when he has to put aside his hatred of the Klingons.
Then there is always Mark Lenard’s Roumulan Commander from Balance of Terror.
Here, here! I really grew sick of all their pseudomystical alpha-male crap.
It’s been years and years since I’ve read that one (I think I was in junior high) but I remember thinking it was okay at the time. Not great, but okay.
I think a lot of folks just don’t remember what a dearth of Trek fiction there was back in those days, pre-motion picture. I became a Trek fan in (I believe) 1977, maybe late '76, and back then all we had were the James Blish short-story adaptations of the episodes, the “Star Trek Log” series adapting the animated episodes, and some of the very early original novels (Spock Messiah and Spock Must Die were a couple of the first ones). Not a lot to choose from, so I ate up everything I could get my hands on. I suspect a lot of fans were in a similar place.
I know there were a lot of fanzines out there, but I was a kid living in a fairly podunk town and didn’t have access to any of the big cons or other sources of 'zines.
Wikipedia, yes.
Yes, but I think on a matter of principle, with no homoeroticism about it. He said something about it just being the jungle with no add-ons, hence not even a belt as a weapon.
Gosh, I’d forgotten that. I owned my own copy of Price and re-read it several times (as was my wont) but only read a borrowed copy of Fate and had to give it back, so it didn’t stick as well.
Colour me confused too. Other than missing a perfect opportunity to use the word “hacks”, was my statement false to facts?
No, I missed them.
Well, the mad Chag Gara’s mind using Spock’s body to rut like a pig while Spock’s psyche gibbers quietly to itself. If they did that to a female character, I suspect we’d say she was raped. I only really liked SMD at all because it was the first written Trek I’d ever seen (after years of dreaming in vain of Trek books in the early 70s), but Blish didn’t have quite the grip on the Trekverse that he thought, IMO. S:M had the odd redeeming feature, but I though Phoenix was much deeper, at least.
okay. I wasn’t sure at first, as you must be using a different user name over there. Your use of “authoresses” in both locales clinched it, though.
Do you also think Chandler and Joey were completely straight?
I was just bemused by the archaic use of the “ess” suffix. You don’t see that much any more. Even Jessica Alba calls herself an actor.
Yeah, “Malacandra” was taken so I decided to use a nickname I’m known by in meatspace.
I never watched Friends, which is a bit of a shame because some of the lines I saw quoted on a co-worker’s desk calendar were the kind of thing I’d have lapped up, and I speak as one who doesn’t have a whole boatload of time for American sitcoms as a rule (it doesn’t quite tick to the same rhythm as my clock). So, no basis for an opinion. Frodo and Sam, though, were die-straight in the book, although the film made it look (at The End of All Things) like Frodo would have been right there for some hairy-footed manlove with his bit-of-rough gardener.
Does anyone else?
I don’t know that I’d use it every time. But my use of it here was probably influenced by my use of it there; I often unconsciously quote myself. “Murderess”, not so much. No reason.
Stop reading my mind!
I don’t remember bringing up Frodo & Samwise, though I thought about it. But since I think they were utterly straight in the book (well, young Gamgee was; I don’t think Frodo was straight OR gay), and since I keep trying and trying to wipe that movie out of my mind, I decided to go with Chandler & Joey.
I’ve said this before, but there’s the bit where they’re sitting on the slopes of Mount Doom waiting for the rising lava to engulf them, and Sam is talking about how he’ll never get to go home and marry Rose like he never dared ask, and if the smouldering look Frodo gives him isn’t meant to mean “What am I, chopped liver?”, I’ll eat Ghan-buri-ghan’s sweaty loincloth.
I have given Anaamika my word that I will no longer go on anti-Peter Jackson/Return of the King rants, so I am going to pretend you’re talking about the look on Mr. Spock’s face when Kirk was bemoaning the inevitable death of Edith Keeler.
Yeah, that’s what that pointy-eared ponce was thinking, all right.
Nononono, have at it, please!
As to the whole gay hobbit thing, I don’t find myself at all attracted to the hobbits as so many females do, so I just ignore it. However, if I were to think about it, I would think that mutual love can be deep and abiding without bringing hot and sweaty sex into it, and that Samwise and Frodo did indeed love each other as deeply as they could and possibly never once thought about the physical aspect of it. After all, they’d been through trial-by-fire together, and that changes a person.
It seems too simple to reduce their relationship to “OMG, they’ve got teh GAY!”, even in the movie.
And Skald, even I agree there were serious flaws in the third movie. The whole thing of Sam and Frodo fighting really disturbed me. BUT - there were a great deal of stunningly beautiful things, too, so I am prepared to forgive. Theoden King alone moves me to tears every time I watch his speech. “Ride! Ride to ruin! Ride for Rohan!”
Anaamika, you KNOW I can deny you nothing that you ask for in rhyme.
However, that sentence did not rhyme.
S’alright. Sam would kill you if you tried anything, anyway.
I’m not sure I mentioned that scene when last I spoke ofthat movie, but…
BEST
DAMN
ARMY
ROUSING
SPEECH
EVER.
Of course, the problem with it is that it utterly undercuts movie-Aragorn’s later feeble attempt at being muscular & kingly in front of the Black Gate.