(no subject)

[skygiants]

I kind of want to play a drinking game with Diane Duane's Star Trek novels. Every time she mentions entropy: sip! Every time she references Hortas just because she thinks they're loltastic: sip! Every time she does a hilariously blatant crossover over with the Young Wizards books: drain the glass!

Which is to say, I finally read the two other Star Trek novels that genarti lent me this summer, The Wounded Sky and Spock's World.

The Wounded Sky . . . okay, it really is hilarious just HOW MUCH of a Young Wizards crossover it is. The crew teams up with an alien glass spider wizard physicist who explains that their physics work by defining something, and then changing that definition! Then they have a jaunt through Timeheart, end up in an alternate universe, and offer a brand-new alien consciousness The Choice. I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING. I honestly kept expecting Kit and Nita to show up with their manuals.

Also, I kind of shipped Scotty/Alien Glass Spider Physicist, and I don't think I'm wrong to do so.

Spock's World is less of a blatant crossover, but the word entropy still shows up often enough that you could get relatively tipsy if you chose to play my drinking game with the book. Premise: Vulcan is debating whether or not to secede from the Federation. Sarek gets called back to argue for secession, Kirk and McCoy and Spock to argue against, and Diane Duane basically takes the whole premise as an excuse to point out "HEY YOU KNOW PLANETS ARE COMPLEX PLACES AND NOT ALL VULCANS ARE THE SAME," which is a thing very much worth pointing out, and it's kind of adorable. She also intersperses the narrative with short-story snippets from along the course of Vulcan's development, most of which are full of TRAGEDY, except for the Sarek/Amanda one which is basically the book wavig its ship flag high. It's all a lot of fun, except for one thing . . . Not only was T'Pring the Evil Villainous Scheming Woman, she was an Evil Villainous Scheming Woman whose motivations made NO SENSE. NATURALLY she would be angry at Spock for spurning her, right? Except . . . she is the one who dumped him and happily married someone else, so . . . what? And OF COURSE the best way to ruin his life is by BREAKING UP SPOCK AND KIRK OH NOES with a massively successful one-woman campaign for Vulcan to secede from the Federation! And then she monologues about it. I really kept waiting for her to say, "My plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity."

But Becca, you may say, just last week you were gushing all over Gelis in the Niccolo books, whose life is essentially a one-woman campaign to make Niccolo miserable! Where is the difference here? To you, I answer: first of all, Gelis has a legitimate reason to hate on Nicholas, namely, the fact that he is in large part responsible for ruining her sister's life and then getting her killed. Second of all, Gelis quite sensibly confines her revenge to Nicholas, and not to an entire planet (although I am aware that this probably changes in the later books when their feud escalates to involving the economies of entire nations, but . . . um, if I remember right he started it! LOOK OVER THERE IT'S PRINCESS TUTU) Third of all, GELIS IS AWESOME, and the text acknowledges it, which does not happen with T'Pring - all her scheming, everything she does, is reduced to "a woman scorned." There certainly were several awesome lady characters that popped up over the course of the story, so it's not like it ruined the book for me, but . . . it did make me sort of depressed. Problematic portrayals of ladies: like Kate Beaton's pony, in a way.

Also, something that made me the opposite of depressed: receiving all those lovely snow cookies! Every time I look at my profile now I make a :DDDDDDDDD-face. Thank you guys so much! <3

Comments

[mawombat.livejournal.com]

Wow, I love those books (and also SAREK which is lovely in its linguistic, culture clash love affair description), but I never knew that about the Young Wizards connections. Spock's World is one of my favorites because of the deeply political discussion going on and also McCoy's logical speech. hee. I never cared much about the whole T'Pring thing because it seemed just like a way to get the discussion going about separatism and federalism.

Also, I was never so into the Niccolo books as I was into the Lymond books, but I must say I barely remember Gelis and I loved Niccolo because I totally could tell he was like me: ADHD. WOOO.

[slutbamwalla.livejournal.com]

In one of her Next Gen books, she had a dolphin scientist (not a scientist studying dolphins but a scientist who IS a dolphin), which as I understand it, is also reminiscent of something from the YW books. I have never read them, so I don't know for sure.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you missed it or just didn't mention it, but besides "Planets are complicated" and "Not all Vulcans are the same," the message I got from Spock's World was "No emotions? Pull the other one, it has bells on."

Overtly, because of the discussion about translation and how what they should be saying is "control of emotions," and then subtly with T'Pring--because she was angry at Spock, for being successful and a legend despite her rejecting him, and for being such a model of awesome that Stonn ended up killing himself out of jealousy. There's a reason she gets locked up so that she can reestablish her logic--she'd done the Vulcan equivalent of "lost it."

But I think T'Pring's plot is the least important part of the book--it's about Vulcan's history, explaining how it is they Got That Way, and then about Jim, Bones, and Spock (and I like that this is how they get called by the narrator) dealing with Vulcans.

[aberration]

NATURALLY she would be angry at Spock for spurning her, right?

... whut. The thing I liked about the craziness that was "Amok Time" was that even though T'Pring basically made him kill Kirk, Spock was all, "that's some impressive logic" about it and left it at that. She was allowed to not be interested in Spock and even manipulate him to a point that it results in Kirk's death, and still not really be cast as at the bad guy. That kind of retelling comes off as... really weak, and I mean, if you're outdoing TOS in terms of problematic gender tropes? Really?

[cursor-mundi.livejournal.com]

When I read Spock's World, lo these many eons ago, I was very young...and actually appreciated that there was a woman as the, well, bad guy--because all of the stuff that my mother, the library, all those Concerned Librarians et al. were handing me was so relentlessly "raaaarrrr, weemens are TEH AWESOMES!!1!" that I was like, "pish, then why are the girls at school bullying me and beating me up?" I found it more in-line with real life to have a woman doing Bad Things and causing Troubles...though not because she was a woman, but because it showed me that it was ok if I screwed up, too, as I knew I would! (As a tween, the entire world looks at you and revolves around you--and I was so scared of screwing up! Because, clearly, I could cause a planet to attempt to withdraw from the union. /wry self reflection)

As an adult, I'm right there with you with the "WTF? Don't be hatin' and retconning that impressive piece of logic and agency, which are T'Pring's only tools against a system that decided her reproductive and romantic fate at the age of seven."

Is it Spock's World that has Kirk lurking in a bar in old Ireland, and getting the call and having to step outside into the rain to beam up? I have no idea why I loved that scene so, but I did (and do), and would like more of Kirk going, "dammit! but this beer is chilled...oh, fuck it" and rolling out with Spock to save the galaxy once again.

And LOL, spider-crystal! I remember her, and was always like, "I think this spider-crystal is cool but I am very concerned someone will speak loudly and she will go *poof* and shatter all over the engineering bay. That would suck.'

[nextian.livejournal.com]

God damn it Becca I don't have all morning to stare at Kate Beaton's comics! What have you wrought??

dafnap sent me some Trek novels a while back, and I read "How Much For Just The Planet" despite severe encoding issues, but man, now I wish I'd just ponied up for the Duane books. I've heard nothing but good things and a few somewhat ridiculous things. When will I be famous enough to get paid to publish crossovers between Star Trek and my original fiction? Because let me tell you if that rule extends to my friends' original fiction, there is some clockwork robot Kirk that needs to happen

[the_croupier]

...Crossovers just make me like her even more. XD

Except, I never did get around to reading her ST books, and now I think I should.

[tiltingheartand]

OH HEY

So it's probably been sitting there for a week or so by now because I am really bad at checking my mail, but HEY I GOT YOUR LETTER ♥♥♥

I actually did a ridiculous dance at my mailbox. :D