skygiants: Ben Sisko with hands folded and goatee (diplomacy!)
[personal profile] skygiants
I don't actually remember why [personal profile] genarti decided I should read Doctor's Orders, Diane Duane's Star Trek McCoy-centric TOS novel, but it ended up on my shelf and so I did.

BECCA: all of Duane's TOS characters are always so pleasant and philosophical and well-intentioned and consistently competent
I don't know if I believe it but it is soothing to read
GEN: heee, right?
I am very fond of that part
also they all stop and think fondly about astrophysics in ways that I do not think fits what's actually onscreen but DO think fits what ought to be true of people in this career path so I'm good with it
BECCA: 'snappy banter,' says McCoy, thinking earnestly about how the crankiness is a useful persona that he puts on when it's convenient for the well-being of the rest of the crew
GEN: hahahahahahahaha
and for his own entertainment, but yes
BECCA: they DO stop and think fondly about astrophysics with GREAT FREQUENCY
and biology
and the value of gathering scientific data for the sake of gathering scientific data
way more than any character on TOS ever has

I mean it feels -- and it is -- very much the kind of fanfic in which the author firmly writes all their own ethics backwards into canon.

GEN: To me it's always felt like she's writing the attitudes of 70s/80s TOS fandom into TOS
like, "I know all of these super geeky writers who are really into space and whom I really like as people, THIS IS THE STAR TREK OF THEIR HEARTS"
BECCA: hah that is probably also true
I mean it also very much does feel like fanfic
'Chekhov's catchphrase!' says Checkhov, in his first appearance, and then wanders off to be competent somewhere offscreen
'Nurse Chapel's off taking her doctoral exams!' says a throwaway line, a/n: 'ok it's always been my headcanon that Nurse Chapel eventually moves up to MD'

The actual plot involves the Enterprise going to investigate a planet where three different intelligent species have independently evolved and trying to convince them to join the Federation; everyone frantically runs around taking soil samples and trying to get enough linguistics data to calibrate the universal translators, Kirk leaves McCoy in charge as a joke and then beams down and gets lost while having a philosophical discussion with an alien, some cranky Klingons show up and everyone rolls their eyes at them, there's one or two space battles but mostly, you know, it's philosophical discussions and harassed linguists complaining about verbs. As I said, it's a pleasantly soothing read! And significantly more invested in the actual day-to-day labor of the scientific and exploratory process than any episode of Star Trek ever has been or will be.

Date: 2016-06-29 01:02 pm (UTC)
sixbeforelunch: spock, no text (trek - spock 3)
From: [personal profile] sixbeforelunch
I just re-read this book. You have captured what I love about it. It's competency porn mixed with nerd love and a heavy helping of philosophy.

If you like Duane's metaphysics, you may also like The Wounded Sky, which is about a region of space without entropy, with digressions into the nature of God and the universe.

Date: 2016-06-29 10:40 pm (UTC)
rachelmanija: (Default)
From: [personal profile] rachelmanija
The Wounded Sky is wonderful. It's also quite fanficcy but in a good way, full of sense of wonder. The main relationship is a sort of platonic romance meeting of minds between Scotty and a giant transparent alien spider physicist. It has a bizarre but really beautiful climax.

Date: 2016-07-05 06:54 am (UTC)
rachelmanija: (Default)
From: [personal profile] rachelmanija
Yes. Isn't it great? I love how they all appear in their soul-forms.

Date: 2016-06-30 05:36 am (UTC)
thistleingrey: (Default)
From: [personal profile] thistleingrey
YES. That aspect was deeply weird and satisfying at once to me in college. My formerly local library had lost its copy of Wounded Sky and it was OOP at the time, so I read it only after My Enemy, My Ally, The Romulan Way, Spock's World, the three Door books, and the first four Wizards books, largely because college meant a different local public library--and the skies opened and I understood too much, briefly.

Actually, it was a great antidote to all of the writers I'd read who seemed to have much creepier overarching worldbuilding tendencies. Timeheart: awesomer than going back in time to sleep with one's mother (Heinlein), for example.

Date: 2016-06-30 09:03 pm (UTC)
rachelmanija: (Default)
From: [personal profile] rachelmanija
Timeheart is the only fictional afterlife I've ever hoped was true. All the other ones are accidentally creepy in some way.

Date: 2016-06-30 10:39 pm (UTC)
thistleingrey: (Default)
From: [personal profile] thistleingrey
I hadn't wanted to assert it that strongly, but yes, that's been my experience as well.

Date: 2016-06-29 02:54 pm (UTC)
genarti: ([st:tos] kirk's feeling captainy)
From: [personal profile] genarti
Pretty sure I decided you should read it because of the Sidekick Crankily In Charge, Never Wanted That, Crankily Finds His Own Idiosyncratic Solutions factor!

I mean, she clearly invented whatever rule it is that keeps McCoy in charge solely for that purpose, and has no intention of ever keeping continuity with it. But I still cherish in my heart a) the points where McCoy is like I DON'T WANT TO BE IN CHARGE, NOBODY WANTS ME IN CHARGE, I WANT TO BE IN THE INFIRMARY, YOU SHOULD BE IN CHARGE and Spock is like "believe me, I agree," and they're cranky at regulations together, and b) the whole scene where McCoy sees a furious Klingon commander about to fire on them and is like SON, WHAT THE HELL, YOU NEED TO EAT BETTER, YOUR NEXT PHYSICAL IS RIGHT NOW BY SKYPE. (Those scenes are basically the reason I shoved it at you, though I do enjoy Diane Duane cutting loose with self-indulgent linguistics and philosophy.)

Date: 2016-06-30 11:37 am (UTC)
nonethefewer: (Default)
From: [personal profile] nonethefewer
And shouting!

Date: 2016-06-29 03:40 pm (UTC)
lnhammer: the Chinese character for poetry, red on white background (Default)
From: [personal profile] lnhammer
I'm pretty sure it's a professional requirement for xenolinguists to complain about verbs.
Edited (bad copypasta) Date: 2016-06-29 03:41 pm (UTC)

Date: 2016-06-29 04:52 pm (UTC)
cofax7: climbing on an abbey wall  (Default)
From: [personal profile] cofax7
Man, I love Duane's version of the Trek!verse. So much better than any of the filmed ones, really...

Sigh.

Date: 2016-06-30 02:47 pm (UTC)
batyatoon: (the world is quiet here)
From: [personal profile] batyatoon
Yup. Doctor's Orders is actually my least favorite of DD's Trek novels, which is to say that I LIKE IT A LOT but I LIKE ALL THE OTHER ONES EVEN BETTER.

Date: 2016-06-29 05:52 pm (UTC)
sovay: (Cho Hakkai: intelligence)
From: [personal profile] sovay
but mostly, you know, it's philosophical discussions and harassed linguists complaining about verbs.

I read Duane's Spock's World (1988) during the period of my childhood when I had read more of the storified versions of TOS than seen actual episodes, so it always struck me as perfectly natural that Spock's parents had met while updating the universal translator. I still see no reason to disbelieve it.

Date: 2016-06-29 08:05 pm (UTC)
gogollescent: (Default)
From: [personal profile] gogollescent
Did you read the Duane one where it turns out Vulcans innately know all about the One and the Lone Power and will fight entropy to the last--

...I love it. Well, I don't love it, but I honor her persistence. Spock's World, tagline: my city now

Date: 2016-06-29 10:44 pm (UTC)
rachelmanija: (Default)
From: [personal profile] rachelmanija
I love that! And I also love how Kirk says, "…so the thing that has been driving everyone in the universe nuts since the beginning of time - the existence or nonexistence of God - is something all you Vulcans just happen to know the actual truth of from personal experience?!"

And Spock says, "Yes, but it drives us nuts too because there's still the Problem of Evil, why are we here, etc - knowing that God exists doesn't change any of the issues, it just makes them more immediate and personal."

But really, my favorite parts of that are the tragic snapshots of Vulcans history. All the glorious doom and transcendence and doom!

Date: 2016-06-30 05:38 am (UTC)
thistleingrey: (Default)
From: [personal profile] thistleingrey
Those tragic snapshots are the best. They may also have torn small holes in my ability to suspend disbelief in Duane's subsequent fiction; they fit the book well even so.

Date: 2016-06-29 11:25 pm (UTC)
opusculasedfera: stack of books, with a mug of tea on top (Default)
From: [personal profile] opusculasedfera
I love how TOS authors fully embrace that in a book you have no budget or special effects restraints so you can have Space Battles With A Thousand Ships and Glass Spider Aliens That Sing Exclusively and so on, but also they keep all the show procedure that was designed to keep set/FX costs down. So there's way more non-humanoid aliens, but they just sit around and talk about the engine as usual.

Also this book is so earnest, I just want to pinch its little cheeks. All Duane's TOS books are like that, even when people are supposedly being Cynical Politicians. It still works for me.

Date: 2016-06-30 01:14 am (UTC)
opusculasedfera: Avatar Korra throws her head back and laughs (delighted)
From: [personal profile] opusculasedfera
I genuinely love it.

I think it's sort of fifty-fifty on that? Because Starfleet can go hang itself is a very canon attitude, but also show!Kirk totally lies to aliens for their own good. He does, however, claim to be this even-handed, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he does it sometimes and this is one of those cases. Especially when he's having so much fun talking about philosophy.

Date: 2016-06-30 01:09 am (UTC)
vass: Jon Stewart reading a dictionary (books)
From: [personal profile] vass
Ooh. Have you read My Enemy My Ally? That's the one with the Romulan Commander's aunt, and all the worldbuilding about Romulan philosophy. I loved that one.

(The Romulan Commander is the one who appears in 'The Enterprise Incident', and puts the moves on Spock. It's also the episode where Kirk gets cosmetic surgery to look like a Romulan.)

Date: 2016-07-03 07:22 am (UTC)
starlady: Raven on a MacBook (Default)
From: [personal profile] starlady
One of her lesser efforts, but she just loves McCoy so much, and I enjoy her owning it.

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