After the success of Star Trek Lives! (1975), an early collection of various Star Trek notes, articles, and fanfiction, Bantam editor Fred Pohl decided to commission Star Trek fandom curators Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath to gather some of the best Star Trek fanfiction into a new book entitled Star Trek: The New Voyages (it was later followed by a sequel anthology in 1978). With only thirty days allotted to complete the book, Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath performed their own “mind-meld” of sorts and edited down eight short stories (sometimes without the author’s permission) and one Vulcan poem to round out the collection. This quirky, at times eclectic, anthology of fanfiction offers an abundance of never-before-explored Star Trek fiction. Many of these are shore leave stories that lead in unexpected directions with only vague hints of the early Star Trek “slash fiction.” Notably, each story is coupled with an introduction by a key member of the Star Trek cast (i.e. Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, William Shatner and so on), and the whole book features an introduction by Gene Roddenberry.
The first story is Claire Gabriel’s “Ni Var” (with an introduction by Leonard Nimoy), in which the Enterprise has been diverted from a period of rest and relaxation on Starbase Ten to head to Fornax II in order to transport a sealed tape containing a partial record of genetic research conducted by mad scientist Albar Exar, a native of Fornax I and one of the most renowned geneticists in the galaxy. He has been living on Fornax II with his Andorian wife, Shona, and child. En route back to Starbase Ten, the Enterprise is diverted to Iota Ceti VI to rescue a stranded Federation survey team in danger of being captured by natives. But along the way, Captain Kirk quickly is alerted to the fact that something terrible has happened to Spock on Fornax II (and Dr. Exar dies). As it turns out, Spock has been split in two –one human, one Vulcan. This story is reminiscent of the TOS episode “The Enemy Within,” in which a transporter malfunction causes Kirk to be split in two, as well as James Blish’s early Star Trek novel Spock Must Die! (1970), in which a duplicate Spock is created, however, unlike those two stories, “Ni Var” does not actually feature one evil and one noble Spock. Instead, both Spocks are simply mutually dependent upon one another, both halves of the same person. First published in Claire Gabriel’s fanzine “Quartet #1” and heavily edited for this anthology, the Vulcan phrase “Ni Var” is actually barely discussed in the story, but apparently, it was a more prevalent concept in early Star Trek literature. As Leonard Nimoy notes in his introduction to the story: “I am reliably informed that Ni Var is a Vulcan term dealing with the duality of things: two who are one, two diversities that are a unity, two halves that come together to make a whole.”
The second short story, “Intersection Point” by Juanita Couls (with an introduction by James Doohan), is a technobabble-filled story about a mysterious hull breach that befuddles Scotty in engineering as debris from the USS Halcyon crashes into the Enterprise’s engineering bay. Apparently, this has been caused by a rift in space leading to another dimension. In the ensuing chaos, a critical coupling from the Enterprise is lost into the other dimension and this threatens the ship’s very survival. The crew sends a redshirt named Jerry Dubois into the rift after it, but he quickly goes mad as the other dimension upturns his mind. With time running out, Spock is dispatched to the other dimension instead, and as he crosses the threshold, he miraculously retrieves the missing coupling which allows the Enterprise to continue onward. Once again, Spock saves the day! While inside the alternate dimension, I was interested to note that Spock witnesses a topsy turvy world where nothing seems to make sense and he becomes aware of the presence of strange beings who also express an urgency to depart from this place, as well.
The third story, “The Enchanted Pool” by Marcia Ericson (with an introduction by Nichelle Nichols), features Spock on the three-mooned world of Mevinna where he is set to recover a top-secret Starfleet weapon known as “Excalibur” which was lost from the USS Yorktown, but he encounters a forcefield protecting the weapon. Moments later, a musical nymph approaches him from the nearby pool. She claims to be his true love, Phyllida. She then entices him with a kiss and seduces him under a waterfall before she claims to suddenly transform back into Lt. Phyllida Gaines of the USS Yorktown. It all turns out to be mostly a silly ploy all along in order to seduce Spock. This goofy bit of erotic fanfiction was but one example of many stories of this kind in the early years of Trek fanzines.
The fourth story, “Visit to Weird Planet Revisited” by Ruth Berman (with an introduction by Majel Barrett Roddenberry), was based on an earlier bit of fanfiction called “Visit to Weird Planet.” It is a silly meta story in which the actors –William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley– are all suddenly transported from the transporter room set of Star Trek into an alternate reality a la The Twilight Zone or perhaps even the movie Galaxy Quest, wherein they face a real conflict with the Klingon Commander Kor (despite protesting that they are merely actors the whole time). In the end, they are suddenly transported back to the familiar television show set, much to the chagrin of Gene who is disappointed with the take.
The fifth story is “The Face on the Barroom Floor” by Eleanor Arnason and Ruth Berman (with an introduction by George Takei). It involves a visit to the planet “Krasni’s Folly,” an old western planet where people wear “neo-samurai” outfits. The planet also has another ship in orbit, a freighter called the Deneb Queen, which the Enterprise has escorted through rough ion storms in the outer part of the system to bring its colonists to Kasni’s Folly. Kirk departs on shore leave, but upon arrival, he gets into barroom brawl and is imprisoned before leading a jailbreak, while the Enterprise under the command of Spock receives a distress call from a malfunctioning starship called the Starfarer which is helmed by Kirk’s friend Antonio “Tonio” Perez. But Spock bends the rules to keep the Enterprise in orbit to track down Kirk. Somehow, Kirk goes running through the streets and narrowly manages to secure a communicator and he is beamed back to the ship (despite being phaser stunned while being pursued by his adversaries). Kirk is returned to his post as captain on the Enterprise and the ship speeds off to assist the Starfarer.
The sixth story, “The Hunting” by Doris Beetem (with an introduction by anthology editors Sandra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath), takes the Enterprise to the wilderness planet of Rhinegelt where Spock decides to leave on a hunting expedition during shore leave. Dr. McCoy joins Spock to keep an eye on him. As it turns out Spock left to undergo the “mok farr,” a Vulcan ritual where he can finally become an adult by performing a mind-meld with a wild beast, in this case with an “owltiger.” But something goes terribly awry and Spock suddenly loses his mind and assumes the feral animalistic mindset of the owltiger until Bones devises a plot using his “sonic screen projector” which wards off wild animals to re-awaken Spock from this zany nightmare. This is a pretty goofy story but entertaining nonetheless!
The seventh story, “The Winged Dreamers” by Jennifer Guttridge (with an introduction by DeForest Kelley) is yet another shore leave story that takes the crew to an idyllic paradise planet filled with lush greenery and all manner of insects, particularly butterflies (this story has echoes of the TOS episodes “Shore Leave” and “This Side of Paradise”). When the crew start experiencing hallucinations and mass insubordination, it is left to Dr. McCoy to save the day and, as it turns out, the intelligent being causing these hallucinations is actually a hive-mind of butterflies fluttering around the planet. This one is a bit long and drab in my opinion; the ‘shore leave on a paradise planet’ is a bit stale at this point.
The eighth and final story “The Mind-Sifter” by Shirley S. Maiewski (with an introduction by William Shatner) is an homage to the classic TOS episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” as Captain Kirk is accidentally transported backward in time to the 1950s after the Klingons have apparently kidnapped him and used the “mid-sifter” device on him (the device was first mentioned in the first Star Trek Klingon episode “Errand of Mercy“). Kirk’s thoughts stray to the Guardian of the Galaxy and his love for Edith Keeler (in doing so, the Klingons hope to learn the secret of the Guardian). But instead, Kirk finds himself ill in a 1950s hospital where he is being cared for by a woman named Nurse Jan Hamlin who quickly falls in love with him. Spock manages to make a telepathic connection with Kirk. Spock and Bones then manage to rescue Kirk with a little help from the lonely Guardian which has apparently developed a unique rapport with the Enterprise crew. And Spock performs a mind-meld to help “forget” aspects of this whole experience. Overall, this was a terrific Trek story, even though author Shirley Maiewski was reportedly disappointed with how her story was adapted here (not unlike her predecessor, Harlan Ellison, who was reportedly irate with edits to his story “The City on the Edge of Forever”). She later approached James Cawley, producer of the Star Trek Phase II/New Voyages internet show, and asked that he consider adapting her story with the proper respect she felt it deserved. Unfortunately, she died in 2004 but the story was filmed and released in 2014.
This anthology concludes with a unique Vulcan lover’s lament sonnet entitled “Omicron Ceti Three” (the planet from the episode “This Side of Paradise“). It is ostensibly written from the perspective of Spock to Leila Kalomi, the woman from “This Side of Paradise.” So is The New Voyages collection worth your time? In my view, this is a fascinating anthology that shines a light on what early Trek fans were imagining with respect to their favorite 23rd century characters. But as with most of the books in the “Star Trek Adventures” series, I would only recommend this to the true Trekkie completionist.
Marshak, Sandra and Myrna Culbreath. Star Trek: The New Voyages. Bantam Books, New York, NY, 1976.