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From the angle of individuals writing prose Trek tales, this makes a number of sense. The Romulans are inherently extra fascinating within the early ‘80s, just because their tradition is extra complicated than the Klingons at that time in franchise historical past. Though The Movement Image reintroduced the Klingons with ridged-foreheads and formidable armor in 1979, none of those new Klingons have been characters in 1983. Even in The Unique Collection, the habits of Klingons, culturally, was inconsistent.
The Romulans have been the alternative: In each TOS and TAS, they’re portrayed as evil Vulcans. So, their affiliation with Spock and the Vulcans immediately creates juicy story alternatives. In the meantime, the Klingons, previous to 1984, are considerably generic villains with cool ships. From a sure perspective, the Klingons weren’t actually made right into a fleshed-out tradition till Star Trek: The Subsequent Era. Even in The Seek for Spock, the Klingon Kruge (Christopher Llyod) looks like a prison and fewer just like the honorable warriors we noticed post-1987. The bigger level is evident: A extra practical adversary for the Federation in ‘83 was the Romulan Empire.
However, Romulans or not, what makes the Trek novels of 1983 fascinating, is once more, their general high quality and constant skill to really feel proper at residence within the basic TOS pantheon. This doesn’t imply these books are the finest Star Trek tales ever, however slightly, they really feel like a pure outgrowth of the fandom within the ‘70s as a result of they honor the bizarre combination of progressivism and regressive sexuality of TOS. In Mutiny on the Enterprise, the crew is beguiled by a pacifist alien lady, who all people principally falls in love with, which just about leads the ship to its destruction. Kirk thinks all kinds of sexist ideas about this individual, however, identical to in an precise episode of TOS, there’s a considerate introspective theme right here all about whether or not or not the Federation is mostly a peace-keeping pressure.
Triangle (March 1983) finds Spock’s pon farr getting triggered exterior of the seven-year-cycle, and a love triangle between him, Kirk, and a lady named Sola Thane. Written by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath, this novel pushes the romantic tensions between Kirk and Spock to the sides of slashfic however no more so than was already implied in The Unique Collection, or Roddenberry’s TMP e book.
The wonderful Yesterday’s Son, written by A.C Crispin, offers Spock a son, Zar, the lovechild of Spock and Zarabeth from the TOS episode “All Our Yesterdays.” Whereas it’s onerous to think about the barbarian Vulcan Zar in an episode of TOS, this sort of storyline — wherein a toddler exists retroactively because of a while journey motion — looks like a precursor to sure ‘90s Trek episodes just like the DS9 episode “Time’s Orphan,” wherein Molly O’Brien undergoes just about the identical factor. Plus, the notion of giving Spock a son who lives in a barbaric previous is simply too good to not put in a e book.
Though the duvet artwork from this time makes massive use of each the TMP and The Wrath of Khan period uniforms, most of those tales happen throughout the TOS five-year mission. Satirically, Diane Duane’s The Wounded Sky (printed December 1983), contains a fantastic cowl painted by legendary fantasy artist Boris Vallejo, wherein Kirk and Spock are rocking their TOS uniforms, though this story apparently takes place someday in 2275, which might put it after the occasions of The Movement Image.
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